Mari is 5!

Mari's 5th birthday arrived! We'd told her that it couldn't happen, that she's have to stay 4 longer. However, Mari said that God called and that she'd told Grandma, "Mari HAS to turn 5!" So that was that!

We spent the morning at swim class, then at Chrissy Field. It was a beautiful and crisp day. We found many shells and remnants of "unfortunate deaths" (e.g. crab, mussel and hermit crabs). They were used to decorate sand castles. I ended up with sand everywhere after an attempt to eat Mari and Kaia's noses. We went home when hunger called, worked a bit, then Grandma came to pick them up.

Mari's dinner choice was broccoli, chicken, and noodles with red sauce (the sauce she didn't end up eating). And she made a delicious fruit smoothie for dessert, blowing out one candle 5x for 5 wishes! Grandma, Papa, Don, Monique and Luca all joined us. She received really nice birthday calls and wishes from her godparents and Alessandra! Her smile was sweet and showed how much it all meant to her.

Our school year is in full swing! Our weeks are busy and filled with interesting classes and time spent with friends. There is so much that Kaia and Mari have to be proud of! Mari and Kaia love singing and are both enjoying chorus. Alternate Wednesdays are spent at Huddart Park in Woodside, learning wilderness skills and spending the day among the trees, deer, and friends. Art class has honed drawing skills and inspired making bold attempts at new animal drawings. Thursdays we spend in Belmont at Thinkering. Kaia spends his day at the cottage: astronomy and Team Challenge in the morning, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in the afternoon. Mari has a group of 5 girls that we spend the day with, dancing, dressing up, reading books, cooking, doing art projects and whatever else they are dream up. Fridays, Kris comes for a few hours; he is really a wonderful part of our week, allowing me to get some planning done and the kids to play games, go to the beach, hike around the neighborhood and make haunted houses. There are so many details I'd like to capture... more soon!

Bird Banding in Milpitas

Kaia's 1st blog:

Yesterday we visited the SF Bay Bird Observatory at the Coyote Creek Field Station in Milpitas. It's where they collect birds and record data like how old the birds are, how much they weigh, and whether it's a female or a male. They also put bracelet bands on the bird's leg to keep track of it.

While we were there, we saw 5 birds who had been caught in the nets, bagged and then banded. One bird got caught in the net while we were there, and we watched Josh take it out. It had already been banded 2 years earlier.

Here are the names of some of the birds that we saw:

Downey woodpecker

Bush tit (the smallest one)

Orange house finch

Common yellow throat (warbler)

Great horned owl! (It flew over us after we woke it up!)

Mockingbird

I liked when we were in the shadowy part of the watershed where all the trees were low and together in one part and then sunny and open in another part. My favorite bird was the woodpecker. Mari's favorite bird was the scrub jay; she found two jay feathers. I found an owl feather.

Tahoe's Wildflowers

Mari's 1st blog:

I was in Tahoe and I saw a bunch of beautiful flowers. They were wild-flowers! I was walking around Spooner Lake and we counted all the different kinds that we saw. There were red, pink, yellow, green and purple flowers. The petals were pretty small, like smaller than a dime.

I picked one bouquet for my Grandma and one bouquet for Monique. There were about eleven different flowers in my bouquets, and we counted over 37 kinds total. I also found mossy branches. I saw lots of ant holes too. Monique, Kaia & I found 40 ant holes!

Some of the flowers from our hike were:

Applegate's paintbrush

Wild Rose

Snow Plant

Cobweb Thistle

Slender Woodland Star

Western Peony

Sonne's Desert Parsley

Jessica's Stickseed

Porterella

Brewer's Lupine

Monkshood

Showy Polemonium

Wandering Daisy

Alpine Paintbrush

Wooly Mule Ears

Pussypaws

Washington Weekend

We spent the weekend in Washington, first visiting Dusty and Margaret in Lacey's Panarama City, then spending the nights in Kent with Annie and Jim, Millie, Mick and McGee. We had a wonderful visit.

Margaret and Dusty took us to their pool after a delicious lunch where they showed us the exercises that they do three times per week. The kids (and Justin too) reeked some havoc with the lifeguard - breaking rules from hot tub use to running, jumping, diving - and probably exceeding some (unwritten) rule about excited sound levels! I thought it was something that she chided me for not keeping my family in line!

We also saw their 'dining room restaurant' where the kids voices were again calling lots of attention - it's unusual given that most folks are older who live in Panarama City. Kaia turned to me at dinner and asked, "Mama, why is everyone here old?" It's a different concept to have a community that is constructed like theirs.

It was wonderful to catch up with Dusty and Margaret, to get some great hugs too. They love the kids so much and it showed. I loved when Kaia and Dusty went back and forth with a joke fest. Mari and Margaret made paper cranes together, and Kaia too. The kids ran through the backyards as far as they could go, climbing the trees, tracking mud everywhere, collecting leaves and berries, and generally moving everywhere at speeds that broke the sound barrier!

Annie and Jim's was relaxing and peaceful - went to Seahurst as well as had walks around the neighborhood, and around their lake. They took us to the eagle's nest where the mama is brooding in a tree by the river. Kent felt cool and wintry, with delicious scenery to soak in. The bare trees with budding ends showing the eminence of Spring filled my eyes. Kaia and Mari ran and ran, collected clam shells and rocks, built dams in the river, tried to convince me to let them get into the water (in 40 degree weather with no backup clothes), and generally had an amazing time. They've both already mentioned our next trip up there. And their trips when they're 8 or 9 are planned too! :)

Cafe School

Part of every week, we spend time doing work in a cafe. Tuesday mornings, Kaia and I spend two hours at the Readers' Cafe at Fort Mason while Mari is in her art class. It's my favorite; we're surrounded by books, they serve Blue Bottle coffee, and one of the employees loves Kaia and will often treat him to a hot chocolate (because "he's the most polite child I've ever met!"). We always sit at the same table on the cusp of the bookstore. It is some of the most pleasurable time for me - one-on-one, always a nice chunk of time, well-paced. On Kaia's birthday, we sang to him as I brought over his lemon bomboloni with a candle burning on it!

Mari and I spend time at different cafes on Mondays and Wednesdays each week while Kaia is singing. Usually, we walk up Gough St. to Tartine - which we learned the first time is not related to the Tartine on 18th Street. However, they've gotten to know us so it's pleasant enough. They have recently gotten connected with the French International School down the street; the students' art hangs on their walls. We don't like the vampire one much, but the grizzly bear studies are very captivating! Lately, Mar's been craving the See Saw cafe on Octavia where they've got a play room set up. She played with the dollhouse in there today for the entire time. Then rolled on the faux bear skin rug for awhile (once the other babies had cleared out)! She usually doesn't want food or drink, unlike Kaia who is a creature of habit. And when she is hungry, it's on the way out the door these days :).

Today, we actually spent most of our afternoon in two cafes. The Peets in Marin housed us while we waited on our car which was (supposedly) being worked on... won't go into how the temp gauge is still not installed after the second request to do it and a specific trip for that explicit reason! Then we rushed to chorus, made it by the skin of our teeth, and spent the next hour at See Saw. I think the focused time is great. And with internet access in almost all of them, it really allows us to get done what never seems to easily get done at home.

Feeling like Spring is here!

We let loose our butterflies today! The sun was shining; they felt it on their wings and took off. Kaia took one onto his hand and it spread out its wings and sat there for awhile. They flew high up into the holly tree and were gone. Kaia felt sad at first. "First you pop Yoda (Mr. Shap balloon creation), now the butterflies have to go free."

The tulips have shot out of the ground too. All of the bulbs are showing themselves. It's been raining for quite awhile now so the sun will finally dry out the yard a bit for everything to grow. The kids have started some seeds indoors: sunflowers, parley, snap peas, bee balm, cucumber, chard... We are itching to get them in the ground and see the garden take shape. (I'm also planning to - finally - build some kind of structure out there to play in!)

Karelian Pies

Today we spent a few hours baking Karelian pies for country day tomorrow! Delicious little morsels which are very filling to take to our Finland celebration. The kids were into it and we listened to the Sound of Music as we spread the creamy rice filling onto the paper thin dough rounds, and pinched them up into cute hand-sized pies. The egg butter which is served on top is amazing!

Mari pulled her presentation together on the forests of Finland - she did a poster board with the three primary tree species: birch, spruce and Scots pine. Scots pine is her favorite because it reminds her of Scotty! She drew birch bark, a spruce tree and several pines. She sees the forests for the trees ;).

Kaia has really got the rhythm of his presentations. It's amazing how comfortable he is doing them after only three times! I feel convinced that the public speaking ease will continue into adulthood and will have to be a positive.

They are both so hard-working: play as well as school. I am amazed to be in their company. Such a fortunate woman am I.

Summer Camp!?

Okay, I'm still not used to how quickly the time goes! I remember when years felt like forever! My birthday was always halfway through the year, then summer, then Thanksgiving and Christmas...and it all felt like twenty years in today's time. Now it's March, I've got to get on with setting up stuff for summer (like camp), and the school year feels like it's almost done. I'm just getting the rhythm down! At this rate, Kaia is going to be out of high school in a blink, Mari's going to be in college in another two, and I'm going to still think second grade is on its way. Breathe :)....

Finlandia

Trying to work on our country day stuff! Not always an easy task... Always so much to cover and only a few weeks time. Kaia is interested in the lakes of Finland. It seems like a beautiful and interesting place. Female president, social programs, 100% literacy... Mari's opting out of a presentation this month.

A Day in Glen Canyon

We spent most of the day hiking in Glen Canyon today (3/17/11). Kaia got away with a bit of rock climbing and when I asked him to use "a more conservative judgment" about height of rocks, he let me know, "It feels like you are telling me not to do everything that I'd like to do"!

Mari and he hid, slipped through the mud, got sun kissed cheeks, trail blazed through tree rooted paths, climbed, caught lady bugs galore, and got very dirty! Heavenly day.

Diego Rivera mural

Today we went to the Diego Rivera mural at City College SF which he painted on Treasure Island in 1940. The guide was great and gave a comprehensive explanation of the work - it was a tour of North America, really. It's titled Pan American Unity. As far as our Mexico study is concerned, it put everything into context, past and present, north and south. Worth the visit!

Outside the theater which houses the mural is a replica of an Olmec head - prominent in the presentation that Kaia recently did. This city is amazing.

Black Diamond Mines

Photo from our extremely rainy adventure to the coal and sandstone mine in Antioch! The storm was enough to keep anyone inside, but we were glad to have braved it. The old Atlas mine is a true glimpse into history. (And we saw a rattlesnake that they keep in the visitor center!)

Monarchs at Natural Bridges

This day was beautiful. The monarchs were still fluttering about among the Eucalyptus trees. We spent some glorious time by the pond, smelling 'buttons', floating leaves, and climbing a precarious fallen tree - precarious in that it ended in the water! And then walked in to see the graceful butterflies. Kaia and Mari sketched in their notebooks in the quiet peace of this place. Then we ran off to Blue Balls park to play and eat burritos with JRAT!

Elephant Seals at Ano Nuevo

The elephant seals at Ano Nuevo were incredible! We went with other homeschoolers and were within feet of these enormous creatures. And what a sight... we saw everything: weiners, mamas, bulls; mating, fighting, sleeping, lounging in pools, chases and everything else. The day was unusually sunny, especially for the coast. And we were lucky in more ways

than that: the wildlife was out for us to observe and wonder at! Coyote, garter snake, raptors, rabbits, and of course the stars - the seals.

Skeletons were out at the ranger post to compare head size. The grizzly bear's head is much smaller than the elephant seal's. I also held all the kids up to the life size wooden cutouts of the seals and none of them were even as long as a pup! We ate our picnic lunch while the kids ran and hid in the bushes, making new trails, and worrying us when they were too far to hear our calls. They had a blast.