We celebrated Wednesday’s rain in the backyard! We splashed around, made waterfalls, and ate mandarins. We were also very excited to see many blueberry buds on one of our bushes. I hope we will have plenty enough to share with the birds! Then, we went inside for some hot cocoa and soup! Three cheers for good rain gear!
via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/kwRnTT
via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/kiVBV1
This past weekend, we celebrated Chloe’s 2nd bday with another Music Together bday circle led by Teacher Jessica (from whom we’ve been taking MT classes since Dylan was little!!!)! Chloe had a great time with a bunch of her toddler room buddies, including her “bestie” Willa (her BFF according to the gals taking care of them!), little Aisha (Jada and Evie’s baby sister), Kayla (teacher Lauren’s daughter), Nadine and little Evan (who just started a couple of months ago).
We started at 10:30 so we could try to stick to the preschool’s napping schedule for this age set, but Chloe didn’t nap at all! She partied until just after Rachel, K. and Taliana left (around 5:30pm!) and then, when she finally fell asleep, she didn’t get up until 6 the next morning!
Tom has been taking her to music class lately (while I’m at dance with Cameron), so she hung out with him for most of the music making! At first, she seemed pretty confused–what were teacher Jessica and all of the MT instruments doing in our house??
She finally got comfy enough to venture off Tom’s lap when the instruments came out! Look at that little piku!
Cameron had a blast, too. Many of Chloe’s buddies have older siblings about Cameron’s age, so many of her own buddies were there, too, including her best bud, Jada.
Now, the bigger kids were a bit self-conscious about participating in music with bayyy-bies, but Julie, Dylan and Taliana did participate some and they all enjoyed hanging out with each other, too! They also helped label the foods on the table–Julie made a “miled” salsa label while Taliana wrote a cursive “medium” label; Julie and Dylan made labels for the almond butter and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (Tom also made homemade Mexican rice–which got kudos from Willa’s mom — and beans as well as a delicious chili)! They’re so helpful!
She was such a big girl. She ate all by herself!
We made 3 dozen cookies and cream cupcakes and 11 vanilla agave cupcakes for cake time (batter was one cupcake short!). We had LOTS of volunteers to help Chloe blow out the candles!
It’s hard to believe that another year has passed! Chloe is quite an independent li’l gal with a great sense of humor (sometimes she just cracks herself up at bedtime!!) and a great ability to say what she needs or wants! It’s also hard to believe that Tom and I actually pulled this party off! We had to stay up all night to clean the house and prep the food, but we did it (we gave each other lots of high fives!).
While Dylan started a new and awesome art class at the Tannery Arts Center, Cameron started a couple of new dance classes–one is a morning “pre-school” session at the International Academy of Dance and the other is a pre-ballet class at the local Community Center. She’s been enjoying both (we’re now in week 2) and we were allowed to video tape during the first pre-ballet class session. Here, she got to “choreograph” her own dance! She is generally reserved in both classes, but she likes to practice at home and it was sweet to see her be so free in her own dance!
This past week, the Monterey Bay Aquarium offered free admission to locals, so we took advantage and headed over. We also met up with Cameron’s buddy Jada and her family.
It was extremely crowded, but as you can see by this big beaming smile, we still had fun. The trick to having an enjoyable visit on a horribly crowded day is to not have any expectation at all of seeing everything! Luckily, Jada’s family seemed pretty mellow and content to also take in whatever was reasonable and manageable.
We’ve got ourselves a third no-napnick! This one remained pretty darn jolly for not napping at all! And, she ate a pile of pasta while we were there which maybe just kept re-energizing her. I don’t know.
We focused our time on watching the penguin feeding, seeing the injured albatross, hanging out in Splash Zone (mostly for the littlest ones’ benefit) and seeing the otters!
Doesn’t sound like much for a 3-hour span of time! It was definitely nice to be able to spend time with Jada’s family as Cameron so often wants to have play dates with Jada.
Dylan had yet another field trip this past week, this time to Natural Bridges. We got lucky with the weather — we finally got to see some much-needed rain and more was scheduled for the rest of the week, but we got a break on Wednesday! Good thing, too, as this field trip was, of course, all outdoors.
We only saw maybe 3 or 4 Monarch butterflies (still too early to see much of them), but, since we were there at low tide, we saw lots at the tidepools.
Dylan, ever the charmer, got plenty of personal attention from the young docents!
As always, I learned something new. This time, we found a new path to the far side of the tidepools which passed by a lovely private beach!
Natural Bridges used to have 3 bridges out there! When I was a student at UCSC, there were 2 bridges left. I think I was back in Santa Cruz (post-grad school) when the second bridge eroded away, but I can’t remember for sure….Still, it is a beautiful sight with just the one left standing (for now!).
I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I didn’t go on these field trips with Dylan — who would he hang out with? Would he get left behind (he’s still slower-moving than most!)? But, I don’t care to “find out”…going on these field trips is like having a little one-on-one date!
Last week was field trip week for both Dylan and Cameron so I had a lot of fun! First was Dylan’s class field trip to downtown Santa Cruz. We visited the Library, the Fire Station and the Museum of Art and History.
I love going on these field trips, not only because I get to know the kids better and I get to hang out with my own kid, but I also get to learn a bunch of stuff…even if I think I’ve been somewhere, kids get special treatment and insider info that most folks don’t bother to offer up for grown-up visitors!
I actually missed about half of the library program because I’d forgotten my camera in the car and I went to go get it. From what I gathered, though, they read some stories about the Gold Rush and racism against the Chinese. After story time, they got to browse books and color.
Going to the fire station was probably my favorite part. We got to check out the trucks and the pole as well as the living quarters. We learned that they mix the water from the hoses with a foam that allows the water to soak in much faster! We learned about their daily schedule and saw their big tv room with 3 or so rows of large recliners that none of the first years (probationary firefighters) even get to sit in! We also learne that there is currently only one female firefighter on the crew, she is one of their rescue swimmers and she’s been there for about 7 years now.
It was also very sweet to hear the dispatcher welcome the students over the PA system! At first, everyone thought there was an emergency!
The last part of the trip was eating lunch in the courtyard near the MAH and then checking out their main exhibit areas–one on local Santa Cruz history and the other a gallery featuring the work of 3 artists. One of the exhibits happened to be a critique of factory farming.
The following day, Chloe and I accompanied Cameron on her field trip to the Seymour Marine Center. It was a cold and windy day, but a beautiful and enjoyable one nonetheless! I love seeing this girl so happy.
This one loved posing behind this little picture facade! She kept going back and then she got all territorial whenever any other kid went back there! She also kept requesting that I take her picture, so I have lots of variations of this, but I’ll limit them to a few selections here!
For some reason, the kids like to bonk themselves on the head while they chant, “hey, who hit me? You!” and then they point to someone else! Well, Chloe picked up on this right away (as she does with everything that Cameron engages her in).
It is actually neat how the bigger kids include the littler ones, generally speaking, and the littler ones just join right in so seamlessly! Chloe really thinks she’s one of the big kids!
Here’s Chloe picking up rocks…an “interest” she’s picked up from both Cameron and Dylan. They’ll pick up gravel and declare it a special treasure! I like that they like nature, but it is not always fun to encounter piles of common rocks everywhere in our house!
So grateful that work is currently still flexible enough to allow me to join the kiddies on their trips! It was a fun week!
We spent the long MLK weekend up in Lake Tahoe. There wasn’t much snow to be found, but there was enough for the kids to make snowballs (lots of them!) and enough to make snowshoeing a happy and fun memory! They also did a little bit of sledding just outside the rental house.
We had a very comfortable rental and there was just enough snow outside on the deck that we could suit up the kids and let ’em at it knowing they were safe (being enclosed) while us grown-ups enjoyed the warmth of the indoors!
As much as we liked being in the house, though, we did take the kids out for a couple of snowshoe treks at nearby Sugar Pine Point State Park.
Tom and I also got to go on 2 back-to-back runs together as Bozsi (Heather’s mom) kindly watched the kids for us! Such a nice treat!
We also wanted to hook up with Jenny’s family (who also were there that weekend, but on South Shore) but we ended up in the wrong meeting place at the last minute and decided it would be too stressful to try to rush our way to meet them for tubing, especially since the kids hadn’t eaten well. That was a bummer, but overall, the trip was fantastic.
The temps stayed in the mid-40’s to low 50’s during the day, so the weather was very manageable for all of the kids. I remember when it was so cold, Dylan was just miserable in this very same snowsuit Chloe is wearing here! The nice weather made this trip a very positive experience for Chloe (and for all the kids, actually)! She made snowballs and even tried snowshoeing and sledding!
We were lucky enough to find a geocache, too! The description of it said it would not be possible to find under snow cover, but there was very little snow out and we were able to pry away enough snow to allow us to get to the goodies! On our second snow shoe trip out, Taliana traded one of her rubber band bracelets for a Lego guy.
The house’s back deck was awesome. The kids made tons and tons of snowballs and kept telling Assaf and Tom that they “dropped” something and could one of them go get it. Once a dad could be seen down below, they aimed for the bald spot (I kid you not!).
The dads were such good sports!
I am always so grateful for our friendship with H. She is always there to help out with the kids, always making sure they’re taken care of and able to participate when I can’t help them out (usually because I’ve got Chloe in-hand!)!
Conditions were icy and dicy out there on the sled run beside the rental house so I was especially appreciative of her efforts to take both Dylan and Cameron with her!
And, of course, there was lots of indoor fun to be had as well!
The kids entertained themselves by setting up a “clubhouse” in the heated closet downstairs; they build with Duplos and MagnaTiles and we played board games–Sleeping Queens, Wits and Wagers, and Alhambra. The latter 2 are new faves for Dylan while the former is already a fave (and he got his own copy of the game from HAKT this past Christmas). Since our return from Tahoe, we’ve played a game of Alhambra together and he did great. I’m so happy he loves games!
As for our 2 runs together, Tom and I ran along the Highway–not the most pleasant experience, especially when we had to be particularly attuned to oncoming cars and to slippery ice patches–but the lake was still beautiful. The higher elevation was also initially difficult to run in…and it was below 30F the first morning we ran together! I doubled up on long-sleeved shirts! Frankly, I was miserable, but I was determined to run to a view.
We ended up running to Homewood–an even 3 miles away–before turning back.
Tom clearly could have gone faster than me, but he was very patient and always happily slowed down for me! I guess the run wasn’t that bad because we repeated the experience the next day!! It was tough to get out there in the cold, but it also felt great to breathe in some fresh Tahoe air and to get some glimpses of the lake when all was said and done! It was also nice to be able to run with Tom–a rare treat, for sure!
We celebrated Dre and Chris’s bdays the second weekend of January.
Chloe still thinks every birthday is her’s. That she got to help blow out candles didn’t help!
When we arrived at Cindy’s house, Chloe was asleep, so she snuggled up with Lola until she was fully awake. So sweet.
As always, the cousins had fun together. Dylan just started playing Minecraft (though he doesn’t do it much at all!), so his cousins gave him an earful on their own worlds!! The girls spent a lot of time downstairs with us, hanging out with the aunties. It was a school night, so we had to leave fairly “early”. This meant, we got the kids home around 9pm and lights out sometime between 9:30 and 10pm! But, it was hard for all of us to pull away and say bye! Always so much more to do and say!
