Some exciting firsts

With the start of a new school year comes new teachers, new classrooms, new ways of doing things; all quite thrilling.

Often, the new school year brings other exciting changes, as well!

This school year, we started having AYSO soccer in our lives.
**All Your Saturdays Occupied**
But I have written about that already.

We also now have a Junior Girl Scout in our midst! Here's the debut of the new uniform:


A second violin has come into our family! Julianna is taking the group class at Holy Family. So far, she is positively giddy about making music! I know you can just hear Julianna's happy giggles...

However, in this photo she is very serious and concentrating. Isn't it cute?

Still Here!

Wow, I was doing pretty well there for a couple of weeks and then I really fell off the radar, didn't I?

I've got some cute soccer pictures to show you from Opening Day... we're enjoying watching the kids improve, but not so much enjoying watching Nick get over the novelty of soccer practice and decide he's no longer interested in participating in certain drills. Blerg.

It seems like he still loves the games, though. And Julianna likes it all, especially when she plays Goalie.

Julianna's team in the Opening Day parade



Nick's team, in orange, was playing a red team this day. They are hard to tell apart in the pictures! (Not taken by me, but by another family with an awesome camera :-) )

I've got lots more great pictures to share, but they are stuck in the camera! Our computer is completely full and Eric won't let me upload any pictures or video right now until he makes some adjustments. I take forever to move items from "To Do" to "Done," but Eric might be even worse. Hopefully I'll get to put those pictures on the computer soon, because a lot of them are from our wonderful visit with Ryan, Sarah, Lucas, Cole, and Jacob! We had just the best time ever with them. We were all so sad when they left! So many tears! I cannot wait to tell more about Disneyland, the aquarium, etc., and the time we all spent just hanging out here together. Such a gift!!!

summer memory

aaaaah, summer...



Picnic in "Park Grandma"

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!

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:

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.

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!

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."

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!

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.

farewell summer

school starts tomorrow, and I am none too pleased to be saying goodbye to summer.

This summer was just so great! A nice mix of structured activities and free, unscheduled time.

I'm going to have "First Day of School" pictures to post here tomorrow, I guess, so what I'm going to do is post a picture of something from TODAY and then also a picture from the summer (aaaaaah). I plan to do that tomorrow, too, and then we'll see where it goes from there!


Here's what has been looming over us for the past three days so far:

(I stole this picture off the internet. It's a picture of La Canada taken from the Colorado Street Bridge. That's the Rose Bowl just to the left of the bushes.)


It's very ominous and imposing. The smell of smoke is overwhelming. Throats are hurting and eyes are stinging. The fire continues to grow and move. It seems to be moving away from us (the smell has lessened here) but they say the fire will not be contained until Sept. 8.


And here's a picture from the summer to make us feel happy!

summer

The day after school got out, we drove up to San Jose for Katie's "Wicked" birthday. As part of that visit, we started off summer with a visit to Mission Santa Clara. Katie was already thinking ahead to 4th grade, which will include a big Mission project, and was interested in seeing some missions in person.


Back in Southern California, the girls each did a week-long half-day camp with Holy Family's first grade teacher. Julianna's camp focused on getting ready for first grade, while Katie's camp focused on making sock monkeys (as well as clothes and a pet for the sock monkey). The kids also had friends over to swim and play, making June a fun kickoff to summer!

One day while Katie was at the camp, Julianna, Nick and I drove down to Irvine to visit my friend Susan and her cute kids. They are ages 4.5 and 3. The kids all had a ball together, and mine keep talking about visiting them again. I'm looking forward to doing just that, since I absolutely loved spending time with Susan!






The girls also did a week of Girl Scout day camp (and will do another week in August), which had a "Time Travelers" theme. Each day was a different era: pioneer, Egypt, '60's, renaissance, and ancient Greece. Both girls had a great time. At pickup on the first day, Katie said, "we did so many amazing, unbelievable, awesome things that I can't believe it was only one day!"

Meanwhile, Nick had an outing with some of his friends at our closest Audubon Center. Here are a couple of cute photos of him with his buddy Sean:




The Fourth of July is a big day in South Pasadena. Donna joined us for the fun. We started off the day by walking down to watch the parade, and later on co-hosted a party with our neighbors. We had lots of kids swimming in our pool and jump in the bounce house in the neighbors' back yard. After lots of food and playing, we all gathered together and watched the city fireworks show right over head! I think everyone had a great time!

Here we are starting out our day:


I didn't manage any party pictures, but here are a few from the parade. I took quite a few of the parade, including several vintage cars, but I just thought this teeny garbage truck was so funny that I had to share it here!

end of school

I really can't believe that another school year has come to a close! This year brought some big changes in our routine, because Julianna started Kindergarten at Holy Family and Nick started preschool! Julianna went from preschool 3 mornings a week to Kindergarten 5 mornings a week, for four hours instead of 2-and-a-half. Academically, Kindergarten was not challenging for our early reader, but socially she really enjoyed herself this year. Best of all, with afternoons free she was able to spend many, many afternoons having playdates with Alyssa!

Nick being in preschool three mornings a week meant that for the first time in my career as a mom, I had a few hours to myself! Going into it, I envisioned myself finally being able to go shopping for a new wardrobe (shoes, too!)... And maybe buying some things for the house... Shopping errands have just been too hard since I have always had at least one precious child with me every single minute of every single day. BUT, it turned out that there was no budget for shopping of any kind, so I didn't do ANY of that this year. Instead, I spent all of my alone time volunteering at Holy Family or going to the gym, both of which I did really enjoy. I got to the gym about twice a week, which was certainly new for me. At the end of the school year, I guess I would have to conclude that apparently I need to work out more than that...

Our schedule for next year remains the same, except for a few minor differences. Julianna will be in first grade, so she will be at school all day now. Nick and I will have lots of one-on-one time! I am now allowing Nick to give up naps, the daily routine for the two of us will be quite different. Nick and his friends will now have the same preschool schedule, which will allow us to do more outings and playdates with them, thank goodness! Lastly, I will be the Room Parent for first grade, which will probably keep me quite busy!


The first end-of-the-year event was Julianna's Kindergarten Graduation. The Kindergarten gets out of school over a week before the rest of the school! The Kindergarteners prepared several songs and the teacher said nice things about each child as they came up to get their diploma and medal. Katie and other older siblings got to come out of class for the ceremony.

Here is Julianna on the morning of her last day of Kindergarten: (click here for her first day)


Here are Kindergarten graduates Alyssa and Julianna:


The following week, Katie and Nick had their last day of school.

Here is Katie, done with third grade! (click here for her first day)


And here is Nick, who brought Monkey with him on his last day in Room Seven: (click here for his first day)


Nick and his friends did lots of playing on their last day,


as well as dancing with scarves.


Then, just like every other day during the year, they ran around on the grass for a while after their mommies picked them up! It was a tradition for the Room Seven boys this year!