Picnic in "Park Grandma"
Friday, September 18, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Nick's first day in Room 2!
Nick started another year of preschool this morning!
He is going MWF mornings again. This year he is in Room 2, with Mrs. Shallcross - just like Julianna!
His buddy Sean is in the same class, as well as Nicolas and Tomas, friends from Room 7.
He had a good day. No troubles saying goodbye to mom, and lots of playing with friends!
The teachers gave each child a ball of white play dough to take home. They said to squish it when they got home, and if it changed color, it was good luck! It meant they would have a good year in Room 2!
He is going MWF mornings again. This year he is in Room 2, with Mrs. Shallcross - just like Julianna!
His buddy Sean is in the same class, as well as Nicolas and Tomas, friends from Room 7.
He had a good day. No troubles saying goodbye to mom, and lots of playing with friends!
The teachers gave each child a ball of white play dough to take home. They said to squish it when they got home, and if it changed color, it was good luck! It meant they would have a good year in Room 2!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
summer flashback: Great Wolf Lodge!
What a fun time we had at Great Wolf Lodge!
Our room was right next door to Ryan & Sarah and the kids. Each room had a special "cabin" in the room for the kids. Ours had three bunks in it, with murals on the walls, and a TV. They were in heaven!
The star attraction at Great Wolf Lodge is the huge indoor water park. There are other things to do there, like an arcade, a spa, and an interactive scavenger hunt/mystery thing, but other than dinner in the little sit-down restaurant and breakfast at the buffet, the hours of our stay were completely filled up with water play!
There are several pools, of varying depths. There are a couple of play structures that kids can climb on, shoot water at each other, and slide down. There is a big wave pool where everyone can ride on innertubes or just swim in the waves. There is a pool filled with basketball hoops and a pool where you try to walk across floating lily pads. There are a few big water slide rides, where you wait in line, scream your way down to the ending splash, and get in line again!
The cousins had such a fun visit there, and the best part was that they all got to share the experience!
Watch a video of the kids in the lilypad pool:
Our room was right next door to Ryan & Sarah and the kids. Each room had a special "cabin" in the room for the kids. Ours had three bunks in it, with murals on the walls, and a TV. They were in heaven!
The star attraction at Great Wolf Lodge is the huge indoor water park. There are other things to do there, like an arcade, a spa, and an interactive scavenger hunt/mystery thing, but other than dinner in the little sit-down restaurant and breakfast at the buffet, the hours of our stay were completely filled up with water play!
There are several pools, of varying depths. There are a couple of play structures that kids can climb on, shoot water at each other, and slide down. There is a big wave pool where everyone can ride on innertubes or just swim in the waves. There is a pool filled with basketball hoops and a pool where you try to walk across floating lily pads. There are a few big water slide rides, where you wait in line, scream your way down to the ending splash, and get in line again!
The cousins had such a fun visit there, and the best part was that they all got to share the experience!
Watch a video of the kids in the lilypad pool:
First Soccer Games!
Nick and Julianna had their first week of soccer!
On Saturday we had the games. Nick's team ("Optimus Prime" - a Transformer) played first. Eric is the referee for Nick's team, and he did a great job! I really enjoyed watching him running around and managing the game.
Nick was timid about playing, especially at first. He stayed on the outskirts of the mob of boys around the ball - I was impressed, though, that he kept up with the mob and ran around the field so that he was with the action, just sort of on the edge of it! He did get his foot on the ball a few times!
He said it was fun and he is excited about playing again next week!
Julianna's game was a little later that day. Her team, the "Purple Pixie Fish," played the "Red Hot Chili Peppers." Two of her friends from Kindergarten were on the Chili Peppers team. This game was played on a much larger field than Nick's! They sure had to run a lot! Julianna's face was bright red and covered with beads of sweat from all the running! She was so tired. She stayed in the whole game, though, and played more than one position. She also got her feet on the ball a few times, and is excited about the season! I think she is going to improve a lot during the next couple of months. It will be neat to see.
As for Katie, she decided she wanted to play volleyball again, so I signed her up and that will start in a couple of weeks. She also wanted to find a tap class, so she tried one Saturday morning (before all of the soccer) at one of our former dance studios (the first one). It's hard to find tap classes around here, since many studios don't teach it at all and others only teach it in combination classes. Then they go over-time in ballet and squeeze in five minutes of tap at the end of class - very frustrating. Our first dance studio does have separate ballet and tap classes starting at age 6 1/2. Katie did 45 minutes of tap, and it's a pretty challenging class for her, with a strict teacher. She wants to go back again, so we'll be seeing how that goes! I think she's got too many activities already, so I'm not signing her up for ballet at this time.
On Saturday we had the games. Nick's team ("Optimus Prime" - a Transformer) played first. Eric is the referee for Nick's team, and he did a great job! I really enjoyed watching him running around and managing the game.
Nick was timid about playing, especially at first. He stayed on the outskirts of the mob of boys around the ball - I was impressed, though, that he kept up with the mob and ran around the field so that he was with the action, just sort of on the edge of it! He did get his foot on the ball a few times!
He said it was fun and he is excited about playing again next week!
Julianna's game was a little later that day. Her team, the "Purple Pixie Fish," played the "Red Hot Chili Peppers." Two of her friends from Kindergarten were on the Chili Peppers team. This game was played on a much larger field than Nick's! They sure had to run a lot! Julianna's face was bright red and covered with beads of sweat from all the running! She was so tired. She stayed in the whole game, though, and played more than one position. She also got her feet on the ball a few times, and is excited about the season! I think she is going to improve a lot during the next couple of months. It will be neat to see.
As for Katie, she decided she wanted to play volleyball again, so I signed her up and that will start in a couple of weeks. She also wanted to find a tap class, so she tried one Saturday morning (before all of the soccer) at one of our former dance studios (the first one). It's hard to find tap classes around here, since many studios don't teach it at all and others only teach it in combination classes. Then they go over-time in ballet and squeeze in five minutes of tap at the end of class - very frustrating. Our first dance studio does have separate ballet and tap classes starting at age 6 1/2. Katie did 45 minutes of tap, and it's a pretty challenging class for her, with a strict teacher. She wants to go back again, so we'll be seeing how that goes! I think she's got too many activities already, so I'm not signing her up for ballet at this time.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Nick and Mommy's day
We had a lot of fun with letters today.
(I also find the cat very amusing)
Edited to Add:
Okay, here is a longer video of the same thing. Nick thinks he is hilarious! He has watched this eleventy-seven times, and he just laughs and laughs at himself.
What I should do is film Nick watching the video! Katie and I both think that watching him watch it is funnier than the actual video!
Friday, September 4, 2009
living under the smoke
This Friday night sure feels different than the last Friday night. Last week, the mountain above La Canada was burning, there were visible flames and the smell of smoke in our house, and friends in La Canada were leaving their homes to sleep where they could breathe. Today, the air quality has improved to moderate, the fire and smoke have moved east of here, and friends are home safe.
Last Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, the smell of smoke was unbelievably strong. The huge pyrocumulus cloud over the mountain was towering above us, with its base of gray-brown-orange and its top of fluffy bright white. It was mesmerizing. It was eerie and ominous. It was strangely beautiful.
The smell of smoke was so overpowering that I woke up Sunday morning nauseous and headache-y. The temperature outside was over 100 degrees, so we had the central air running all day. That filtered the air so that we could tolerate it. We could not stand to be outside. The AQMD listed the air quality as "hazardous."
Tuesday was a little different. The smell of smoke was not as strong as it had been. I could not see a pyrocumulus cloud, just grey cloud cover. Except it was not cloud cover, it was the smoke formation. It was on top of us, so that I couldn't see it looking up into it. It stayed that way all of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Finally on Friday (this morning), we woke up to blue sky over our house! And we could see the smoke cloud again, over to the east a bit.
A photo I took on Friday - again I missed it when it was big
On Wednesday morning I heard on NPR that the fire crews had done some work at the top of Lake Ave. Our old neighborhood! Nick and I took a drive up there to see what was going on, since we couldn't see the mountains from South Pasadena through the smoke cover. The fire crews had bulldozed a fire line straight up the mountain from the top of Lake Ave. It was 20-30 feet wide, and very striking. (Of course the photo is very hazy from the smoke!)
The fire was still on the north side of the ridge, and evacuations had not been ordered for the area, so our old neighborhood looked fine. We drove a bit farther east to do some errands, observing the smoke plume along the way.
I stole the following images off of the internet (taken with good cameras!):
Last Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, the smell of smoke was unbelievably strong. The huge pyrocumulus cloud over the mountain was towering above us, with its base of gray-brown-orange and its top of fluffy bright white. It was mesmerizing. It was eerie and ominous. It was strangely beautiful.
The smell of smoke was so overpowering that I woke up Sunday morning nauseous and headache-y. The temperature outside was over 100 degrees, so we had the central air running all day. That filtered the air so that we could tolerate it. We could not stand to be outside. The AQMD listed the air quality as "hazardous."
A photo I snapped from Nick's room of a medium-sized pyrocumulus cloud on Monday
Tuesday was a little different. The smell of smoke was not as strong as it had been. I could not see a pyrocumulus cloud, just grey cloud cover. Except it was not cloud cover, it was the smoke formation. It was on top of us, so that I couldn't see it looking up into it. It stayed that way all of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Finally on Friday (this morning), we woke up to blue sky over our house! And we could see the smoke cloud again, over to the east a bit.
A photo I took on Friday - again I missed it when it was big
On Wednesday morning I heard on NPR that the fire crews had done some work at the top of Lake Ave. Our old neighborhood! Nick and I took a drive up there to see what was going on, since we couldn't see the mountains from South Pasadena through the smoke cover. The fire crews had bulldozed a fire line straight up the mountain from the top of Lake Ave. It was 20-30 feet wide, and very striking. (Of course the photo is very hazy from the smoke!)
The fire was still on the north side of the ridge, and evacuations had not been ordered for the area, so our old neighborhood looked fine. We drove a bit farther east to do some errands, observing the smoke plume along the way.
The smoke cloud from East Pasadena (Sierra Madre Blvd.) - you can get a sense of how it extended due south, right over South Pasadena
The smoke cloud from Arcadia (even farther east)
I stole the following images off of the internet (taken with good cameras!):
This was the view from the South Pasadena water tower last weekend
A picture taken from south of downtown Los Angeles. Normally, the San Gabriel Mountains would be the backdrop of this photo!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
The First Day of School
The girls had their first day of school today! Both were very excited! It was a half day, so tomorrow will be Julianna's first full day of school, 8 am - 3 pm, eating lunch at school.
It seemed to go well, and then both girls had playdates for lunch and part of the afternoon. A nice way to start things off!
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And now, as promised, a few photos from summer. Soon after our arrival in Oregon, we met Sarah and the boys at Tanner Creek Park in West Linn. Unfortunately, Katie had a bit of swimmer's ear or something and needed to stay at Grandma and Granddad's.
It seemed to go well, and then both girls had playdates for lunch and part of the afternoon. A nice way to start things off!
_______________
And now, as promised, a few photos from summer. Soon after our arrival in Oregon, we met Sarah and the boys at Tanner Creek Park in West Linn. Unfortunately, Katie had a bit of swimmer's ear or something and needed to stay at Grandma and Granddad's.
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