the second happiest place on earth

the champ

2012-01-21T20:06:00.000-08:00

This year's dance competitions started today and I guess everyone was in the mood to get back into the swing of things because the turnout for this event, both in terms of dancers and audience, was huge. Since Kate is seven, she's in the beginner competition class now and she was very excited to compete in both of her new dance outfits.

As the piper took a water break before we were about to get started, Kate posed for a picture.

I was happy for Kate but nervous about her having to move up to beginner because she'd be competing against much older and more experienced kids, and specifically about competing against Erin.

There were nine beginners today and they danced before the judge in groups of three at a time. Thankfully, Erin and Kate were in separate groups for the first four dances.

I thought Kate did really well, and I thought the other seven beginners were also really good and I knew it was going to be a tough day.

During the last beginner dance they regrouped and Kate and Erin danced on stage at the same time.

And many hours after we started, all the results were in and the awards were given. Erin had her best day ever, winning a fourth place, a second, and three first places. That made her the overall top dancer in the beginner class, and along with her medals for the day she won a large crystal trophy. She was absolutely surprised and overjoyed.

Erin's first place sword dance:

Kate took sixth place in one dance (only the top 1-6 out of the 9 beginners were announced for each dance), and she found it difficult being the younger, less awarded sister of the champion. But I was really proud of her, and her teachers were proud of her too. She really did her best and in her best dance she beat out 3 other beginners, all older and more experienced than her.

Erin and Kate along with all the other dancers from their dance school (which comprised about half of the dancers there today).

And the proud champ with her winnings from the day.

seasoned performer

2012-01-13T20:43:00.000-08:00

Erin's had two music performances so far. At the end of the each semester at her music school they hold several recitals over several evenings, grouping kids by ability level mostly I suppose. Erin's first recital was just before Christmas, where she and her teacher performed a short duet. She was one of about 15 performers that night, playing a variety of instruments, and she did a great job, not seeming nervous at all.

The performance we were most looking forward to though was the winter concert, her first concert, with the school band. Rehearsals always occur while i'm at work so I'd never heard the band play before. John, Grandma, and the twins were all there. The twins have several friends who were there to watch because they have older siblings in one of the bands as well. Erin is in beginning band which is mostly fourth graders, following that performance was the intermediates which are mostly fifth graders.

She sits next to her good friend, Anna.

Band is really popular and it's quite a big group. The concert was about what you'd expect from a fourth grade band--clearly missed notes here and there, a persistently squeaky clarinet, but it was music, and according to Erin, none of these kids played had experience with their instruments before September except her--she began private lessons in June. The band played a variety of simple, recognizable songs over about 40 minutes. All the kids seemed to be taking the performance very seriously.

On some of the songs the entire band played together, on others the band director announced the "soloists" who would stand and play as a smaller group, which seemed to be about 1/3 to 1/2 of the kids on a given song. Erin was one of the altos selected to play during one or two of those songs. All the kids who were interested in having a "solo" stayed late after practice last week to audition for the parts, and Erin mentioned that she auditioned but didn't know the results.

Then the director stood and said, "And now we'll have a real solo by Erin, playing 'Jingle Bells'."

Um.....WHAT??? Erin didn't tell us ANYTHING about her having a solo. That was my first thought, followed by, "How well does she know Jingle Bells?"

So Erin stood and played while the director played a keyboard off to the side.

Yeah, she missed a couple of notes, yeah, her tempo needs a little help, but overall I think she did great particularly because of all the practicing I've heard her do in the past many weeks and months, I never heard her play Jingle Bells.

She got some enthusiastic applause and lots of compliments at school today from kids and parents alike.

dancing again?

2011-12-31T20:45:00.000-08:00

I know, how many dancing-related posts can I put in one blog? What can I say, the girls still love it, it's something they do that takes a lot of time and thus a lot of mine, at performances I always have my camera because those outfits are so darn photo-worthy.

There are no competitions at this time of year, but there are plenty of extra performances. Kate and Erin didn't even sign up for all of them because some conflicted with my work schedule, but the St. Andrew's performance and this evening outdoor performance right before Christmas were the biggest ones and they were really looking forward to both of them. On a campy stage downtown the kids danced a shorter version of their extravaganza show that they did in November. The stage is located right in the center of a large downtown park where there are Christmas events every night and they had a really large audience for the show.

I worried about them being too cold in their outfits but they got to stay in a relatively warm tent before going on stage and again back in the tent in between dances. Since the lighting was far less than ideal for action shots I didn't get any good photos of the dancing, but you've all seen plenty before.

After the show the emcee and one of the dance teachers posed with the night's dance group. Erin and Kate are both seated in the front row.

Competition season 2012 will be underway very shortly, with Kate and Erin signed up for their first one in January. Now that Kate is a beginner, she'll be competing against Erin. Several other siblings we know have to do the same. I hope that little wrinkle won't cause either of them to enjoy dancing any less than they do now.

it wouldn't be christmas

2011-12-31T20:36:00.001-08:00

Grandma was going to be heading up to the Seattle area to spend xmas with Sue's family, but before she left she kindly scheduled a cookie making and decorating day with the girls. It turned into quite a task with 3 varieties of cookies, including the absolutely mandatory and legendary "green tree" cookies. This are the one Christmas food tradition in John's family, and even a very large batch doesn't last much more than a day around here.

After many trees and some other cookies were done Grandma got out a project I hadn't seen before. She melted marshmallows and poured them over Kix cereal, then they stuffed the mix into butter-coated paper cones, which they could then remove and roll in sprinkles to decorate.

The result, very cute and definitely tasty, much like a rice krispies treat. We'll have to do this one again.

at st. andrew's

2011-12-31T20:20:00.000-08:00

A few days before Christmas a very large Scottish church holds a big Christmas concert every year. The girls missed this performance last year because of our Hawaii trip, but they were eager to participate this time. The church is gigantic and was absolutely packed full while a large pipe band, Scottish string orchestra, and the dancers from our dance school performed. There was also some singing and reading of Scottish folk tales. The whole event lasted more than 2 hours. John skipped it, Allison joined me in the audience, though it went on for so long that she lost interest about half-way through.

After the pipe band entered, the dancers came in and took their place down the very long center aisle of the church.

Kate and Erin were right near each other, Kate has her new red and black national outfit.

Despite Allison's boredom, it was actually a really good performance overall, I mean, if you're into this kind of thing, which has definitely grown on me. The crowd was really appreciative and afterwards we saw some friends who had been in the audience. At the tea reception following, several audience members stopped Erin and Kate to compliment them on their dancing.

christmas crafts

2011-12-31T20:10:00.000-08:00

Before Christmas we attended a large girl scout event for the whole county, held in a gigantic building at the fairgrounds. The place was filled with booths staffed by various troops and they were either selling holiday crafts they'd made, or hosting a booth where you could make your own crafts.

We learned from others that the making crafts booths were the most fun so we spent most of our time there. This is exactly the sort of event I'd love to avoid in the future. It was so loud in there, with hundreds of people, no where to sit, and we had to stay right together the whole time because the place was such a zoo and without any obvious landmarks, so I thought I'd lose any one of them in no time. Their troops had been there earlier in the day but we had German school and couldn't go until the afternoon, which meant I had to take them myself.

Despite my being not so impressed, the girls were happy with the crafts they made and had a great time overall and want to come back next year, when they suggested their troops run a booth, so that they can be there ALL day long instead of only a few hours.

thanksgiving

2011-12-31T19:50:00.001-08:00

I promised myself I'd blog about Thanksgiving before Christmas, but I didn't make it. I think I've learned my lesson, I should quit promising myself to blog on a deadline. Who needs the extra disappointment? Just as I started the blog to be able to share photos with family without having to worry about the size of email attachments, I now often feel kind of silly writing about what we do since our families are on facebook and I tend to briefly write about a lot of what we're doing at the time we're doing it.

John invited his entire extended family to Thanksgiving this year, thinking we'd be moved into our new house by then. It was a fair assumption, given that by November we will have owned the house for more than a year, and we know it's a big project, but c'mon. Fourteen months?

Anyway, back to Thanksgiving. Plan B: dinner at Grandma's house. Everyone was here: Sue's family from Washington, Terri's family from Oregon, Laura from Colorado (below), Sydney from New York.

We had two large turkeys.

And thanks to Laura and her idea to have her and Allison, future professional innovative baker in training, make pies the day before, we had many desserts.

And we had a lot of togetherness. I think our girls really like being in the middle age-wise. They are the oldest of the young cousins and they like spending time with Sue's younger 3 girls frm Washington, but they also like getting attention from their 5 big cousins, whom they look up to quite a bit.

The usual gathering in Grandma's yard for photos. We were last all together a year ago in Hawaii for Christmas. We were a big, loud group and I'm sure Grandma won't object to dinner being at our new house next year.

sheep can dance too

2011-11-20T15:52:00.001-08:00

Last week the girls' dance school held their annual fundraising dance show to raise money for workshops and special instructors and also kind of wrap-up the competition-packed year and celebrate together. The instructors come up with the theme of the show and the choreography and place the dancers where they think they'd fit best.

The show was in a large church with a big stage but poor lighting. The lighting plus the fact that both sets of batteries I brought for my best camera were apparently old meant that I didn't get any good photos, but I do have some (mostly pretty dark) videos.

The theme of the show was a group of dancers who travel to Scotland to tour around and compete in the Highland Dance Championships in Cowal. Kate played a sheep in the show, participating in several numbers as one of the more common animals one sees as they travel Scotland. This dance number was about a sheep herder trying to corral her sheep. I found this pretty funny.

Erin's videos were just really too dark, but here is both Kate and Erin doing the Fling as the last number in the show. Since Kate will be competing as a Beginner in 2012, I got her a more official and nicer Highland outfit because the one she had didn't have the right kind of kilt. As a primary the judges let those things slide, I'm told, but not beyond that. She got to wear this outfit for the first time here. She is left and Erin is third from left.

The girls enjoyed lots of homemade goodies brought by many of the parents as part of the fundraiser and Grandma got to come see them dance for the first time. It was a fun show, and I won a great framed photograph in the raffle which will look great somewhere in the new house.

second generation band geek

2011-11-20T15:40:00.001-08:00

The girls' school has a 4th/5th grade beginning band and intermediate band which rehearses after school once a week. Since last year Erin knew she wanted to join the band and considered what instrument she'd play. She chose the alto saxophone and I enrolled her in lessons at the beginning of summer, figuring she'd have to "try out" even for beginning band and they'd want kids who had some clue about what they were doing.

When the school year and band started I found out, true to its name, NO ONE in beginning band had any experience with how to play anything. The experienced students are in intermediate band but Erin fell into this grey area where she really wasn't experienced enough to join that band. So Erin stayed in beginning was kind of bored for the first few classes while her fellow saxophonists struggled with just assembling the instrument and playing one note.

Erin's private lessons continue as she is doing well despite the fact that I know she doesn't practice enough. The pace of school band has picked up and they will have their first concert recital in January.

Meanwhile Erin is really enjoying the social aspects of being in band, which is what I'd been telling her about. She and her "band friends" get together for a play date after practice each week. "And that's where it starts," John says.
Erin plays "Mark Time"

three scouts

2011-11-20T15:27:00.001-08:00

Along with Erin, a Junior now in her fourth year in scouts, the twins joined Brownies and are part of a large troop at their new school. Kate loves it so far, but Allison, who I really thought would enjoy the working on various projects that earn badges more than Kate would, is so far is questionably interested. I had to agree to be a co-leader in Erin's troop in order for them to accept her (the troop was getting too big) and I really, really dislike being a girl scout leader. Thankfully I'm one of 6 leaders of that troop so the responsibilites are spread around.

In the twins' troop I am not a leader but parents are expected to help out, and because I have two in the troop I am expected to help out twice as much as any other parent. Thus, I am doing just about as much for their troop as I am for Erin's. My personal girl scout project is finding out a way for me to quit, while letting them stay in. I wonder if there is a badge for that.

the elephant in the room

2011-11-20T14:55:00.001-08:00

Our other house.

How's it going? Spectacular, if this were June. Since it's November it's not so great because we thought we'd be living there by now.Here's some of what it looks like.
This is the kitchen/living room area.

And this section of the house has had some good progress, the pantry and half bathroom and family room are also on this side all have drywall and paint as well. The problem is the other half, where all the bedrooms and full bathrooms are. This is the downstairs, near the front door:

And this is upstairs and a look through a wall into the master bathroom.

From the backyard

This shows the Mason-Dixon Line, as John calls it, where the stucco work had to stop.

The only part of the job (that John didn't do) that has gone well, finished on time, and impressed us was the landscaping, which will be finished when the stucco work and exterior painting is finished. Notice the nice walkways and new lawn which has corresponding new sprinklers. They also removed the 10-12 foot tall bushes that blocked of the entire front of the house from the street, which the neighbors probably appreciated for many years, but now that the place is looking better, they had to go.

That isn't the final exterior color by the way. The shingles came in that grey color and once the exterior is done it will all be painted a deep brown.
Don't ask us when we'll get to actually live in the house because we don't know. John is busy there nearly every day but we've had some surprises along the way. More on those later.

halloween 2011

2011-11-20T14:15:00.001-08:00

As usual, Halloween didn't mean just one activity.A friend at school told us about a business window painting contest for the downtown businesses near our new house for kids in the 4th and 5th grade. I signed Erin up and her designated window was at an Italian Resturant. I already had the right type of paint and many colors of it, so Erin drew out a sketch and on the start date I brought her there to get to work. Parental help was forbidden, which was fine with me. She planned out and did everything.

It was clear that we were new to this contest. Other parents set up tarps to shade the painting area for the kids. I wondered why they were doing this since it was warm, but not hot outside. As Erin painted I began to see the reasoning. As the paint dried in the direct sun it kind of crackled, and when she went to paint a second color for details on top of the dry first one, paint would flake off, which Erin did her best to touch-up and repair, but that never looked very good.

As she painted I walked around to scope out the competition. Other kids uses a marker to carefully draw out their often VERY elaborate scenes, taking the whole first day just on this step in some cases. I had no idea that this project would be taken so seriously. Erin just free hand painted some really simple designs, referring to her original sketch rarely. We had 3 days to complete the painting and she was nearly finished after the first, then touched up some areas on the last day.The result wasn't really great, I have to say, but she had fun.

Later on the girls got to go to Grandma's house and decorate some Halloween cookes. Grandma had an impressive array of decorating options for them and the goal quickly became stacking as much sweets as possible on to each cookie, making them impossible to eat without first dissembling them.

At school the Friday before Halloween the kids dressed up for a parade. Their mascot tiger came out for a little rally along with the parents who organized the morning.

Some teachers dressed up as Angry Birds.

Kate wanted to be a Scottish Dancer for the parade. Since she recently got a new dance outfit, I let her wear her very old one, which I got very used and very cheap.

Allison with a boy in her class who I thought had the coolest costume. I thought it was a Swamp Thing, he corrected me to let me know he was a Navy Seal.

Finally Halloween and trick-or-treat came, and not wanting to leave any ground uncovered, the girls started out gathering candy with friends near school, and then came back home to work our neighborhood. -

allisonisms

2011-10-13T11:35:00.000-07:00

All previously posted on Facebook:

Allison is singing this over and over. I asked where she heard this and she said she made up yhe second half....
Happy Birthday to you,
You're a hundred and two,
You still go to preschool and you want your mom,
But you're mom is at work,
She fired a jerk,
Then hired a monkey who ate your homework.

Allison had a substitute today...Ms. Vogel. She told me she corrected her pronunciation of her name (in German you pronounce it Fogel) and then kept calling her "Ms. Bird" and laughing all day, which is what Vogel translates to. Somehow I think I owe the poor lady a beer.

As Erin and I approached the twins they started shouting, "Code red! Code red!"
Erin: What? Code red is what the teachers are supposed to say if a bad guy gets into the school.
Allison: that's also what you say when mamma is coming and we don't want her to hear the bad words in the song we just made up.

Me: "Your blonde hair is really pretty."
Allison: "You have pretty blonde hair too, until it turns grey, which is going to happen really soon I think."

Allison: "When daddy dies I want his big car."
Kate: "I want his convertible."
Me: "Hey, that's really not a nice way to talk about daddy."
Allison: "Okay, I take it back. I'll be too busy with my [car that bakes pies while you drive] invention anyway."
Kate: "I still want the convertible."

Erin: "Allison, what are you going to be when you grow up?"
Allison: "i'm going to make that car that bakes pies while you drive, remember?"
Erin: "Oh yeah. Kate, what are you going to be?"
Kate: "I don't know."
Allison: "Well I know! I need an assistant with all of my pie-car work so you're going to help me."

While driving by the high school:
Allison: "Hey, it's after 5:00, what are those kids still outside for?"
Me: "Maybe they had sports practice after school, or band or newspaper or something."
Allison: "But there is no after-school care there."
Me: "Right. High school kids are big enough to go home alone and do their homework."
Allison: "And when they're done they can eat a snack and download inappropriate things on the computer."

pumpkin park

2011-10-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

While mom and Peter visited us for the weekend, we thought we'd do something ver fall-like. Who needs giant trees with colorful leaves when we have bright, sunny fall days near 80 degrees and gigantic pumpkin parks to play in?

There were cow rides and pony rides.

All sorts of animal friends to visit with.

A corn maze to wander through.

Hayrides, a rock band that threw candy out to kids in the audience, hay bales stacked up to play on, and, oh yeah, and pumpkins to select and bring home.

end of the season

2011-10-12T19:02:00.000-07:00

At the end of September Erin's last dance competition of the year took place. We didn't enter Kate to dance because, having turned 7, she'd need to dance in the Beginner class and she doesn't know enough of the dances to really compete there yet.

Erin competed against 7 other, sometimes much bigger Beginners.

I still think the judging at these things is strange. The one dance I noticed some obvious mistakes was the dance Erin ranked highest in. But all day she was confident and it turned out to be her best competition yet. She took her very first FIRST place, two second places, and two fourth places.

At this rate we're going to need a special dance award display case, just for her and Kate.

birthday bikes

2011-10-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

The girls have been requesting new bikes for many months since the ones they have were outgrown a long while ago. Kate and Allison's bikes had 12-inch wheels and Erin's had 16-inch wheels, which were great sizes for them nearly four years ago. Part of our hesitation about getting new ones were that the twins were still using training wheels, but in the spring each of them left the trainers behind for good. By that time I thought we might as well wait until the fall. At first I thought we should pass Erin's bike down, but sometimes the twins rode it and even that one looked too small for them.
As their birthdays approached we surprised them one afternoon by taking them all bike shopping. We didn't have much luck at the first shop but at the second we hit the jackpot. The twins' new bikes have 20-inch wheels and Erin now has a 24, which should last them all several more years. By the time they outgrow these I have a feeling they'll start hinting to us about cars.

the big time

2011-09-05T21:07:00.000-07:00

This was another dance competition weekend for us, which is always very exciting, but there was an especially large among of anticipation for this competition because of the location--at the Western Regional Championships in Pleasanton. This is the largest competition venue I can imagine the girls entering unless we want to do some major traveling someday.

Three years ago I decided to take the girls to these Highland Games for a day because I'd heard that they were the biggest in our region and one of the largest Highland Games festivals in North America. Many thousands of people attend over the two days and there are bands and dancers from all over.

During our second visit to these games the girls and I were watching some of the Highland dancing when Erin announced, "I want to do that." I didn't take her very seriously but over the next many months she kept telling me that she wanted to learn Scottish dancing. We came again last year and watched quite a bit of dancing, just a few weeks or so after the girls began dancing too. Now here she is again, finally able to compete on that big stage herself.

I registered Erin to compete here several weeks ago but I'd been telling Kate for some time that I thought she could begin competing next year, if she wanted to. A few weeks later however, Kate let me know that she really wanted to compete in Pleasanton too, so at nearly the last possible minute I signed her up.

Erin competes as a Beginner, which starts at age 7 and can go up to adults. This competition occurred a week before Kate's 7th birthday, so she got to compete as a Primary, for 4-6 year-olds.

All dressed and ready to start:

The Beginners always dance first. In Erin's past competitions there were eight Beginners. Here there were twice that many but luckily they divided them into ages 9 and under and ages 10 and older. Erin was really only being judged against 6 others.

Kate sat with her teacher for a while and watched very intently.

And then it was time for the Primary's first dance, The Fling, which was the longest and most complicated of their three dances.

Following the other Beginner's dances and those of the higher classes, the Primaries did their last two dances and then the awards ceremony began with the Primary class first, where there were seven dancers. Kate took 3rd place and 2nd place in the last two dances, but in the Fling she got FIRST place!

Kate's first place Fling (she hesitates a little near the end and makes a mistake, but still was far better than the others):

The Beginners today could do four dances, and in those Erin earned a 6th, 4th, 3rd, and a 2nd place. Her best dance today was the Seann Truibhas (you'll hear it pronounced at the beginning of the video, as the announcer calls up another class to get ready). This is a bad video. I put one camera on a tripod and get it going while I take still photos with another camera. I was having all kinds of problems with the still photos so I didn't notice when Erin danced off to the side and I didn't follow her with the video camera very well.

I was really, really happy with the way Erin placed. Among her competition was the super star from her school and in her age group, Elizabeth. Elizabeth (deservedly) took first place in all 4 beginner dances and she was so good that she was declared the overall beginner class winner, which included those dancers from the older beginner group. The fact that Erin was next best in one dance was great. Erin took overall 3rd place.

In a couple of dances Elizabeth was right next to Erin. Here they are doing the Fling, you can see the difference in technique. Erin took 4th on this one.

Here are the big winners. proudly holding their medals for the day:

And one last bit of good news: with this weekend's wins Elizabeth immediately moves up to the Novice class, which means Erin won't be competing against her again anytime soon ;)

abridged

2011-08-30T19:52:00.000-07:00

As the last activity with her brownie troop from her old school, Erin bridged to a junior girl scout this weekend. The girls had a small ceremony with a current juniors troop from the local middle school comprised of girls who just graduated from our (old) elementary school.

>

Then the troop co-leaders handed out some wings emblems that will be placed on their new juniors vests.

Then all the girls took a walk across a large pedestrian bridge and when they reached the other side all the brownies were given their new juniors green vests to wear as they walked back across.

The ceremony was followed by a potluck picnic and social at a nearby park, and sad goodbyes from us to this troop, after three years together. Erin joins a junior troop at her new school, who completed their bridging ceremony earlier in the summer. Kate and Allison begin brownies at the new school as well.

new year, new school

2011-08-30T19:13:00.001-07:00

School started nearly two weeks ago and I haven't posted anything about it sooner because I felt like I didn't have any good pictures to show here. I've even brought my camera to school on two or three other days, attempting to get photos of the girls in line for class or coming out of class or something, but what I took didn't turn out well and most opportunities were missed because as I stood waiting for the moment I wanted to capture someone always came up to me and started a conversation. Ah well.

The new school is in the neighborhood of our new house. It's about the same size as their old school and has a similar-ish academic reputation, generally, meaning both schools have "really good" test scores. Their old school tests higher, but then only two other schools in the state ever manage to test as high as their old school and there's more to life than that. This school has a great reputation also, academically and otherwise. But this school doesn't sevral things that the kids are used to: grade combo classes, classes grouped into villages, or team teaching. Kate and Allison are in totally separate classes and can see each other at recess and lunch, but that's about it.

The girls picked their first day of school outfits, but they didn't choose anything particularly special, or new to wear. Allison wasn't looking forward to this next adventure. Kate wasn't either, though it wasn't so outwardly apparent. Of all of them, I would have expected Erin to be the most upset because she is really getting gypped in this move. The 4/5 classes at the old school get all kinds of special privileges. They are in their own section of the school, they do more extensive, even overnight field trips, they visit Washington DC during spring break in 5th grade, they have various mentoring and leadership opportunities with the younger kids.
4/5 grade here doesn't stand out so much.

Unlike their last school, everyone lives nearby and biking or walking to school is common. Their old school didn't even have bike racks. They've asked repeatedly to be able to bike to school once we move. I think that's a great idea.

My observations are that the parents are VERY organized about...everything. And they are serious about fundraising for their school. And everyone knows everyone, as I discovered at the parent social after the kids were off to class that first day, which meant everyone knew right away that they didn't know me. Many of them set out to change that right away. This was all an entirely different experience for me.

I've met a lot of nice parents so far, and many of them are neighbors on our street or our cross-street or the next block or two over. They not only know the street where our house is, they know OUR house.
"Oh yes, the construction across from Jill, next to Marion."
Those families don't even have kids at the school, by the way, but they know them anyway.
"We live not even two minutes away, you'll have to have the girls come by to play when you move."
I don't know how many times I've heard that, again, totally different from the experience at our old school and our old neighborhood.

The lower grades get out a half hour earlier than the upper two grades, so I picked up K&A and we discussed their first day while we waited for Erin. They took a school tour and seemed to know their way around just fine already. They each liked their teacher, and I asked them, "You see, this will be a great school for you, won't it?"

"NO!!!" they answered in unison.

how's that orthodontia working out for ya?

2011-08-25T12:37:00.000-07:00

Erin hasn't had braces yet. So far the work has been with upper and lower jaw expanders and headgear to shrink the overbite.

Before (on crazy hair day at school last fall):

A few weeks ago. And not that you can see in either photo but her four bottom adult teeth which were crowded, overlapping, and crooked are now totally straight. It's been seven months since she started.

nevermind the music, just dance

2011-08-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

We stayed at the outer banks as long as we could but we had to be home in time for Erin to do her next dance competition at a small Highland Games not too far from home. So we got home on friday evening and the next morning Erin and I were there.

This was Erin's second competition and I have a lot to learn about this all of this, though I'm learning more and more as we go along. One thing I'm learning is the same thing I'm learning about what goes on at some other activities my kids have been doing, like softball for example. There is a level of precision and professionalism and attention to detail that I just assume in everything, but almost always reality falls short of that.

This was a serious competition with no trophies given for merely participation. The kids have worked very hard, winners are determined, the dancers in the top skill level are competing for prize money. It seems kinda important to get the details right.

In girls softball the umpires are trained and paid but you just wouldn't know it when you watch them work. In Highland dancing I saw some very strange judging by a paid professional during Erin's first competition and though I think the judging was better this time, there was a big problem with the music. Commonly they have a live piper play the music at competitions but at this one they used recorded music.

The beginner group was first, dancing the Fling. When the music started I thought, "Hmmm, that sounds weird. I've never heard Fling music like that before," but dismissed it as my own ignorance. After all, I don't even sit in on the girls' lessons, but I know it isn't the same as the practice music we have at home, on a specific CD the teachers directed me to get as being standard Highland dance music.

The music here was sorta kinda similar, but really kinda not. None of the beginners were able to step off at the right time when it started. The judge ordered the music stopped and restarted. They did a little better the next time, though she also signaled them, which normally wouldn't be done and wouldn't be necessary. Erin looked a little off while doing this first dance and then she became lost and missed several parts. The other kids looked kind of off too.

Erin was furious as she joined me off stage.

"WHAT was that music?!?"
"I screwed up the WHOLE THING!"
We talked a while and I told her I noticed the music was strange also and it seemed to be throwing off a lot of people but if she just listened for the beat and did the she knew that she'd be fine.

The next dance was the Sword and though the music was still strange, she did better this time.

And the music apparently was an issue for most everyone. I was watching some of the Premiers (the dancers at the very highest skill level) and some of them were being clearly thrown way off by the music too, something I've never seen before since those dancers have been dancing for YEARS. Among the six Intermediate dancers (the class right below Premier, still a couple of classes above beginner), four of them were disqualified during one dance for being so out of step with the music. The judge let all six redo that dance. This was all entirely unheard of.

I walked over to Erin's teacher and asked her what's going on and she was positively furious that they weren't using standard recordings. As kids were making huge mistakes and the judge ordered songs restarted throughout the morning she was visibly very annoyed. I thought she was annoyed at the kids for their mistakes, but as it turns out, Erin's teacher explained that she was annoyed at the organizers for having screwed up.

Erin danced in all five possible beginner dances. At her last competition she only did four because she didn't feel that she knew the fifth one, the Flora, well enough yet. I guess the whole music problem caused someone to finally change the CD because when it came time for the Flora a conventional recording was finally used.

Erin's timing here is a little better than the girl next to her:

And later the eight beginners were lined up together to receive their awards. Erin got a fifth place medal for one dance, a fourth place for another, and for the Flora, the newest dance for her, she took second place!
She explained her much better performance in the dance she's had the least practice with by saying it was the only dance that used the right music. In that she was absolutely correct.

As much as these events are clearly stressing me out, Erin enjoys them. Competition #3 is coming on labor day weekend.

diversions

2011-08-14T08:33:00.000-07:00

One day we drove down to the southern tip of Hatteras Island, where we were staying, and took a ferry to the neighboring island of Ocracoke, the island famous for the pirates who hid out there a few hundred years ago, most notably Blackbeard. Blackbeard was also killed there.

The ferry ride was scenic and nicely breezy and fun for everyone.

On the island we didn't seek out any historical places. It was blazing hot and we kept our walking around to a relative minimum. Someone gave us a tip to check out a little arts and crafts place that was really off the beaten path. We drive down these very narrow dirt side roads to find it, but it was worth it. I think everyone in our group ended up buying some things here.

Then we visited some places not off the beaten path and found some things for the kids.

Not many visitors come there from the west.

The best part of the visit, apart from the Ferry rides, was probably the large ice cream cones and shady large porch at the ice cream shop that afternoon.

On another day, after Mom and Peter had left for home, the rest of us went to visit the lighthouse on Hatteras Island, notable because it's the tallest lighthouse in north america. I wanted to get a picture before the girls and John and Jeff and I climbed to the top, amid many warnings that if we thought it was hot and humid outside, just wait until we experienced climbing 12 floors of stairs in that little building.

No one was much in the mood for pictures.

But the climb inside really wasn't nearly as bad as the rangers warned us it would be, and the view from the top was fantastic!

Back at the bottom the girls were a little more willing to at least look at the camera while Jeff took a photo.

Though it's kind of a pain to get there (2 flights plus a 3-hour drive from Norfolk, VA), the beaches and ocean at the outer banks are really nice and the warm ocean is a great change from what we know at home. I'm sure that we'll be back.

outer banks beach bums

2011-08-13T19:50:00.000-07:00

We spent a week at John's family's beach house on the outer banks of north carolina, the first visit there for me and the girls. After a much less than great travel experience getting there, everyone got down to the business of enjoying the beach right away.

The weather was a bit of a shock at first, bringing me flashbacks of summers in Chicago. I woke up at 6:00 on our first morning after arriving at the house late the previous night, and I figured I'd sneak out to the nearby grocery store to get some drinks and cereal and things I know my family likes. When I stepped outside, even at that early hour, I was just blasted. You just have to get used being sticky all of the time.

Our first day was overcast all morning, not that it seemed to lessen the heat and humidity at all. Having the ocean to cool us off was great.

Uncle Jeff spent time on the beach fishing, though he didn't catch much and when he did he always threw it back. Still, he seemed to enjoy it. The girls loved collecting the plentiful shells.
]

We were all having a fun first morning, and then the wind picked up a little bit and another family on the beach, a good 30-40 yards away, started waving at me and shouting something as they packed up to leave. I couldn't hear them very well so they just pointed behind me, towards the sky. I turned away from the ocean and saw these huge black clouds coming towards us, rapidly:

John and I gathered our things and the kids and started the short walk back to the house. At the top of the small dune separating the homes from the beach, I took another photo. The house on the left side in the photo is the Fergy house.

It was about lunch time anyway. So we came in and ate and what turned out to be a not really impressive storm rolled through, sprinkling a little off and on. But the worst of it passed quickly and after a little while we went back outside.

A view from the balcony:

Just as in Hawaii, Allison by far spent the most time playing in the waves. She loved it.

Kate almost always had a shovel in hand.

Erin tried the waves off and on, and Kate did a few times too, but Allison was always all smiles.

Sometimes Jeff had a fishing assistant. Allison thought she'd try her goggles in the ocean. About 5 minutes later they were lost.

Later that afternoon the sun came out, and Oma and Opa arrived from Pennsylvania.

After dinner that night Grandma showed the girls how to attract and feed the pretty gulls from our balcony.

The next day Mom and Peter arrived from the Raleigh area.

And much of the week was spent like this. Get up, eat breakfast, go to the beach, come in for lunch, come in for dinner. Lots of hard work involved.

Allison and Kate watched some big boys boogie boarding. Though they didn't have boogie boards they had fun placing their boards on the beach and tried to remain standing as the surf came in.

Dad brought a bean bag tossing game along and everyone played at various times, though no one was able to beat him.

There was always a lot of digging and building going on. Castles and moats and ditches and these little seats in the sand which Jeff and John tried to surround with tall enough walls to keep the water out. When the water rushed in and took down the walls and flooded the seat, the girls laughed hysterically.

state affair

2011-07-26T10:55:00.000-07:00

My band was going to be performing at the state fair so I decided to plan a whole weekend for us there. Incentives given to the band like free tickets for us and our families and free priority parking made it seem more worthwhile. The girls hadn't ever been to the fair, I haven't been in many years, and there is a water park inside which is right up John's alley and something I thought the girls were finally good enough swimmers to try out.

We were also overdue for a visit with Susan and her girls, and since they live nearby they met us there each day. On the first day they all started out with a giant ride on the slide.

And we spent a lot of time at the animal exhibits. Both Susan's oldest daughter and Erin want to be veterinarians. There were all kinds of farm animals and many staff members from UCDavis vet school there to visit with.

Allison and Erin got some cow milking lessons.

Growing a garden in a wheel barrow.

Apart from the livestock, there were all kinds of other animals to visit also. Exotic animals and fishes and chinchillas, rabbits, birds.
Handling the turtles and watching the sturgeons swim in huge tanks.

Fair food.

It was a hot, hot day. There are plenty of things to see in air conditioned buildings or open shaded covered areas, but during the hottest part of the day the kids wanted to go on some rides out on the black asphalt where any shade is really scarce.

In between all of this fun I had to leave twice to go play a gig with the band. By the time I finished our last set and packed up my instrument it was about 8:30pm, and the kids were exhausted.

The next day we got to the park again when it opened and checked out a couple of exhibits that we missed the previous day before going to the water park, which opened an hour later than the general fair.

I reserved some lounge chairs in the shade while John and the girls started having fun on some small slides and the lazy river.

All the girls can swim pretty well but K&A were slightly too short to go on any big water slides. There was a fun wave pool they liked though. Erin was tall enough for everything so when Susan's daughters arrived they took her on some big, fast attractions with them. She's always loved roller coasters and the bigger and faster the better. Like John, she now is a fan of big waterslides too.

last hurrah

2011-07-26T10:42:00.000-07:00

Uncle Jeff sold his house so we had one last swim weekend there after he'd moved out nearly all of his belongings but before the new owners took possession (they're going to knock it down and build something else, by the way).

The girls are going to miss his pool, that's for sure. Cousins Brian and Jake and Brayden came to swim with us and so did some friends of ours with their son and daughter. Even Jeff's daughter Sydney was in town. Jeff hadn't moved his grill yet so John cooked some burgers and hot dogs and it became a nice, final swim party.

The crew of potential lifeguards:

It was fun to take the pool cleaner's hose and use it as a water gun.

We bought this boat last summer, or maybe the summer before that. The kids had fun floating in it, and then later, jumping into it from the side, which tore out the bottom. Then it was fun to jump in from the side through the open boat. By the end of the day the poor old cheap boat was definitely "done", but that was good timing. Sadly, we won't have a pool to use it in anymore.

the house where trees come to die

2011-07-09T22:59:00.001-07:00

Recent events have caused me to reflect, and it's come to my attention that we have a tree concentration camp here. We might be single-handedly responsible for global warming. Does Al Gore know about us? Please don't give him our phone number.

We had a couple of lovely birch trees in our front lawn when we bought this house 10 years ago, and a few years later they died, very suddenly and completely, so that one day John just went outside and pushed them over. With the addition to our house years after that, those trees would have needed to be removed anyway and we have planted a new one out front in their place, but still. Two suddenly dead previously fine-looking trees.

But the curse on our trees was just getting started. Then another tree died in the corner of our yard, near the play structure that John built, and then the one next to it died too. That was a couple of years ago. Around that time, our beloved, huge, prolific apple tree started looking funny. And the apple crop that year was extremely wormy and many of the apples were inedible. And over the last two years it's become more and more obvious that our apple tree was going too. This really was a great tree. Pretty and just perfect apples for pies and applesauce. John took a sick-looking branch to a fancy nursery at one point and was told the tree is too far gone to help.

Yesterday, Allison rushed into the house from the backyard shouting, "The WHOLE apple tree just fell over!" Well, what's left of it anyway. A good half of it no longer had leaves.

And there it was, our formerly beautiful, shady apple tree.

It clearly had termite damage, though our house had no signs of termites two years ago at our big remodel. Maybe the termites moved in
after it had become very sick. Maybe they caused it. We don't know.

So John got out his power saw and wasted no time in cutting it up, and it was very sad to see it go.

And then he looked over a new problem we've been discussing, another dead tree in our backyard.

None of this does much to make our backyard look attractive for potential buyers in the near future. Our formerly fully-landscaped backyard is now nearly devoid of shade and empty.

And we have four HUGE, mature redwoods on our property in our new house. If this bad tree karma follows us there we are going to be in for some serious trouble.

fab fourth

2011-07-09T22:43:00.001-07:00

I thought we needed to do something different this year. Last year we were in Sacramento for the fourth and had a great time. Every previous year we've joined in on the morning (admittedly fairly lame) community festival in our town, which two years ago they girls proclaimed as boring and wanted to leave pretty soon after it got going.

This year I thought we'd find out what goes on in what will soon be our new town and it turns out there were a few options.

So in the morning we joined a community parade that got going much later than advertised, and wasn't very interesting. Okay, noted, there's going to be a bit of a learning curve here.

Then we went on to the next activity, which is some music and food and activities at a park. This turned out to be a pretty good time. The music was much better than I expected.

The girls loved the red, white, or blue shaved ice and BBQ lunch. They got their faces painted and guessed how many red, white, and blue jelly bellies were in a huge jar, and we met up with some friends and all the kids played barefoot in a nearby creek for a while.

Before we left the girls tried out the dunk tank game, and their recent softball skills served them well.

We spent the later afternoon at Uncle Jeff's for swimming, and then met up with cousins Jake and Brayden in a park close to us to watch the great firework show from our local high school.

Happy Birthday, America!

summer so far

2011-07-09T22:19:00.000-07:00

Summer has been busy. The question everyone asks is how our house is coming along and whether we'll be moved in by the time school starts. That was the original goal when we bought it, but here are a few photos from about two weeks ago. I think we're a teeeeeeny bit behind schedule.

Back of the house:

This will be the kitchen:

Taken towards the kitchen from the living room.

It's got a lot of that open, airy feeling. The new windows are in, but no need to open one in order to determine the weather outside.

The girls are in German summer camp, as they've done for the past couple of years. "What do they do in German camp?" various people have asked us over the past couple of weeks, "Prepare to invade the French camp," John answers.

"I know they're just a bunch of little kids and camp is only four weeks long, but, c'mon. It's the French. I hear the kids there make white flags at arts & crafts every day."

The girls are also back in swim lessons. The fabulous swim school I found for them last year closed so we enrolled in another recommended by a friend. They are in a class all by themselves, in more ways than one. Their teacher is a college student-aged young man who was very impressed with their swimming at the first lesson and is now teaching them news strokes. Currently they are working on the butterfly.

They've been enjoying swim days at Uncle Jeff's house also. They can jump in and swim anywhere now and they never seem to get bored or tired.

When Uncle Randy was in town for business recently he came over and helped Erin and Kate with diving. Kate caught on much faster (see video below), though Erin did get one good dive in, which I luckily got a picture of, at right.

penguins no more

2011-06-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

Countdown to the end of the school year was pretty busy, as usual. There were all sorts of extra things going on at school for the kids and any foolish volunteer parents.

The librarian asked for parents to come in and help her on one particular day. I showed up and observed about 10 moms repairing bindings and taping together ripped pages and relabeling books with their shelving numbers and such. The librarian looked up at me and said, very enthusiastically, "Hi, can you please take all the books on this whole half of the library and move them one shelf over to the left? Yeah, thanks so much."
I cut my library volunteering plan WAY short that day.

Later there was a potluck brunch for all the school volunteers put together by the teachers, which was nice. And second-to-last week of school I attended a field trip to the zoo with Kate's class. She was happy to have Jake and Tiffany in her group with me.

My troops visiting "Penguin Island", which kept them laughing constantly. The penguin is their school mascot, and Penguin Island is the name of one of the playgrounds at school. They lingered here for quite a while.

We had a great day at the zoo. I carried their lunches in a pack with me and we were able to wander the zoo and stop when we wanted and where we wanted for a lunch break. We met up with classmates here and there and saw Allison with her group a couple of times as well.

On the second-to-last day of school I attended a field trip to a technology museum with Erin's class and my group consisted of 6 girls. We watched a really spectacular Imax movie and the kids had fun with the various hands-on displays, but I hardly had a chance to observe or try out anything myself. The 6 of them never wanted to do the exact same thing at the same time and keeping track of my particular 6 girls with blue shirts and (except for Erin) black hair among SO many others was fairly exhausting.

Then came the very last day of school, which fell on one of my usual volunteering days. The first graders in the twins' village made these silhouettes with a little poem about themselves on each, and they took turns reading their poem to the class.

Later on the whole school gathered for a sing-along outside, with one teacher playing piano, one on guitar, and Erin's teacher and Allison's teacher leading the singing as usual.

And then some tying up loose ends in the classes and packing for home every single thing possible, and then the many goodbyes began. Erin's been at the school for four years and it wasn't the usual waving as you walk past knowing that you'll see these people again after the usual short six-week summer break.

Though I think I was really in denial about it at first, our kids being minorities in school created a whole bunch of strange situations. Though doing so was optional, for the fall we've enrolled them at the school near the new house which is ethnically much more "diverse".

The school principal has an open meeting with parents once a month, called the Parent-Principal exchange. They always took place in the morning shortly after school starts and I've attended several. There is typically between 5 and 15 parents there, more at the beginning of the school year and then it kind of drops off. At one meeting when Erin was in first grade, there were 5 other parents there, all Caucasian, which is an extraordinarily strange coincidence given that there are only about 20 white kids out of 525+ kids in the whole school. Our principal is Caucasian too. Surprised, we all kind of looked around at each other, and after a general question or two everyone launched into all the problems their kids have faced by being white and that became the whole discussion for the next 45 minutes. At the time, I didn't have much to say because I was still in my denial phase and there was nothing specific going on with Erin that I knew of, or at least acknowledged. By the next school year when the twins were there too and I was on campus much more often, I snapped out of it and a few months later we were house shopping.

We hope that their social life will improve and there will be more than 1 or 2 kids that they'll get to see outside of school. People I know whose kids go to the other school tell me how great and social and close-knit everyone is. I've visited the classrooms there, had a meeting with the principal, and talked to lots of people about the new school to help me make this transfer decision.

I'm convinced that overall this is the right thing to do, but I still felt pretty bad on that last school day. We literally won the lottery to get Erin into their old school and only 1 in 8 families get a spot. It has such a fabulous curriculum and atmosphere and philosophy and there is a whole laundry list of unique things that I really like and that drew me to apply for this school in the first place, which we won't have at the new school. It's been hard to think about all that the kids will be certainly leaving in hopes of something else I hope they'll gain. I hope I'm right.

The new school's mascot is the tigers. For a long while I think we're going to feel like penguins inside of tiger suits.

kid quotes

2011-06-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

These were all posted on facebook, but I'm putting them here because I plan to save the content of the blog for my children to be horrified by on a regular basis someday:

One of those Geico commercials with the caveman came on TV.
Allison (laughing): Look at that guy with all the hair! He looks like Jerry Brown!
Me (laughing): who?
Allison: Jerry Brown!
John (laughing): And who's Jerry Brown?
Allison: You know, that new guy, the Governmentor!

The girls got one of those magic 8-balls with their prize tickets at chuck e cheese last night. Now they are using it to decide EVERYTHING.
Kate: "Should I brush my hair before school?"
Whew. The answer was yes

Kate pronounced kids' softball superior to professional hockey because softball games have a designated "snack mom".

Allison: "I want to have a house where everything is pink, outside and inside--even the beer bottles."

Kate, while asking about jails, after we mentioned that even some big kids go to jail:
"I bet they have to do a lot of worksheets there. All math."

Erin to cousin Andrew: where do you work?
Andrew: at a non-profit.
Erin: what's a non-profit?
Andrew: it's a business that, ah, doesn't make money.
Erin: Oh, you mean a newspaper?

Crossing a toll bridge:
Kate: what was that for?
Me: the MAN is tryin' to keep us down!
Allison: yeah...AGAIN!
John: that's right.
...Kate: is the MAN taking our money and wasting it?
John: yes. They gotta pay that guy to stand there and take our money, for example.
Allison: I really don't get why they do that.
John: either do we.

Allison: "I didn't call Kate dumb. I said 'd-o-m' as in, the end of 'freedom' ".

John to kids, "what should mama get for Christmas?" Allison: "Just 100% cash."

spring pile-up

2011-06-04T18:44:00.000-07:00

School's almost out, which means my calendar is overflowing with things to do. Everything seems to happen in May and early June.
The twins finished their softball season and I really came to like this new league. The coaching was a lot better and the league overall is better organized.

The girls really enjoyed themselves this season, as if you couldn't tell.

They received trophies and the t-shirts in the brightest possible color after their last game, and then the team went out for a pizza party.

I caught most of their game but missed the party because Erin and I had to be somewhere else. Weekends rarely have only one item per day going on anymore. I joined a band comprised of many of my friends from my college band, as well as many from the UC Berkeley Cal Band and Stanford Band. We had a gig to play at a festival in another town, so Erin and I headed there.

The girls had open house at school recently, where we have time to visit each of their classes and view a lot of their work, mainly larger in-class projects that they've spent many weeks on. Erin showed us her animal research report that she and a partner completed.

There was lots of pointing out examples of her work for John, who hadn't seen it before. I, on the other hand, have seen everything already. I've either prepped the materials, worked with the kids in class on these projects, put them on display in the classroom, or sometimes all three. So I always hung back and took pictures while the kids explained these projects to John.

Erin's Sandwich book report, which she chose to do as a hamburger. Each layer of the sandwich has a different component of the book report attached to it.

Erin with her fabulous teacher, Mrs. Feldman.

The routine in Kate and Allison's classes went much the same. And the toughest part about open house is that it only lasts an hour, and we have 3 classes to visit in that time, so we really couldn't linger and chat like most other families.

Kate and Mrs. Drake

Allison and Mrs. Smithwick

The girls have been with these teachers for two years and they're each really terrific. It's sad to know the girls will be leaving these teachers in particular. Big changes are coming in the fall.

We've also had a school book fair and a K/1 sing-a-long performance (John attended and a short video may follow). Before school is out the girls have one more field trip each (and I'm chaperoning), a field day, a read-in day, and Erin has a big speech presentation. Her speech was supposed to be given last week but she was terribly sick for several days and missed school. And that WASN'T on my calendar.

beehive surprise

2011-05-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

John's been doing quite a bit of work at our new house. A few weeks ago he was taking out the walls in the master bathroom, and discovered this:

An old, HUGE abandoned beehive in the wall. Sweet. How fun that must have been to live with. I'm convinced that the previous occupants were either both blind and deaf or drunk, or perhaps all three. Not only did they not see or pay attention to the obvious disrepair all around them, but they apparently couldn't hear the insane amount of noise that thousands of bees in their wall would have created.

Last week John mentioned the beehive once again and I asked him why he hadn't removed it yet. I figured it was long gone by then.
"I didn't want to destroy it in case the kids at school want to see it," he answered.

Oh, okay, good thought I guess. I better find a way to write to someone at school and ask them without sounding like a crazy person.

I didn't have our science teacher's email address so I wrote to the twins' teachers and asked them to forward it along, admitting that this was perhaps the strangest email I'd ever written. I got a very quick answer back from the science teacher, "YES! I'd love to have it, we're talking about insects right now. Fantastic!"

So John removed the hive as carefully as he could, but managed to only keep about half of it intact. Still, that was enough to fill a good part of a huge plastic storage container, and I brought it to school. The science teacher was thrilled.

This morning John said, "I have a bunch of badly termite-chewed scrap lumber we removed too. Do you think..."

Um, sure. Load it up, I can bring that in this week.

hooray number 103

2011-05-14T21:17:00.000-07:00

On saturday Erin had her first official competition as a Highland Dancer, which is something she's wanted to do since about week three of dance lessons last summer. She's been asking when and where she can begin competing for many months. She's registered with the american highland dance association and has her regulation dancer's photo card and her regulation dress highland kilt outfit and finally seemed all set.

We picked a very local small-ish competition hosted by her own dance school as her first contest, which unfortunately conflicted with her sisters' softball game, so John and Kate and Allison couldn't be there. But Uncle Brad and her cousin Jacob and his mom Cindy came to watch and cheer her on.

It was a cool, overcast day that threatened to rain off an on, so we even had some Scottish weather for the event. First, some warm-ups after everyone signed in.

Erin's class partner since day one, Andrew, the only male dancer in the school and in this competition, was set to compete also. Erin and Andrew are registered beginners, which is the lowest class of dancer you can be if you are seven years old or older. Besides the two of them, I wondered how many more beginners we'd have today and as it turns out, there were six more.

I didn't recognize a couple of the girls so they must be from out of the area, but the rest of them I did know, I just didn't know they are beginners because they are older than Erin and Andrew, have been dancing for much longer, and are in more advanced classes at the school. As soon as I saw who Erin would be competing against I knew this was going to be a rough contest.
Erin didn't seem to mind. She competed in four dances overall and I thought she did really well. The lone judge was flown in from Denver for the day for this event.

Her last dance is one of the "national" dances and requires a different outfit.

Video of her last dance, "The Lilt" (the dancers had to wait for the piper to tune up, this was after a break)

Afterwards she posed with her teacher, who told me she thought Erin did really well.

Here are all the beginners lined up ready to hear how they placed at the end of the whole competition. The adult second from right is an experienced Irish dancer, who started doing Scottish as well a few months ago, so she's a "beginner"? Um, yeah, sure. The tall dancer in the middle is eleven and has been dancing for 2-3 years, and the girl second from the left is Andrew's older sister, Elizabeth. She's nine and has been dancing about 3 years also. She's GOOD...really good. Everyone knows that. She does both Irish and Scottish dancing and seems to be a natural at both. I thought for sure she'd be competing in a higher class, but nope. My heart kind of sank when I saw that Erin would be up against these three dancers in particular.

I watched Erin and the other beginner class dancers as objectively as I could and I thought Erin fell somewhere in the middle of the pack. She wasn't the best, but she sure wasn't the worst either. For each dance the top six dancers were given medals. After the top six was announced for the first two dances, Erin hadn't won anything, and I was kind of stunned. She was better than some of the others, I know she was. Obviously I'm missing something here...then for the third dance, Andrew was announced as the second place winner, but his sister didn't place in the top six at all. Huh? Andrew is a great, sweet kid and very bright, but he's really not a great dancer. Erin is certainly better than he is, Elizabeth is a whole world better than he is.
Andrew and Elizabeth's parents were seated right next to me.
"What the...?!? That isn't right!" said their mother after she heard the results. Their father's jaw just kind of fell open in confusion.
Erin didn't place at all in the third dance either.
Then the last dance for the beginners, and Erin was announced in place #6 which earned her a medal, Andrew got #4 there if memory serves.

The results of the third dance notwithstanding, Elizabeth placed first in the other dances, making her the winning overall beginning dancer, no surprise there, she really was the best and the recipient of a big trophy.

And finally all the competitors from all the different competition levels from Erin's school posed together.

I was definitely more stressed over the whole event and more disappointed in the judging than Erin was and I'm certain that I sweated much more than she did, though I didn't mention any of that to her. We both congratulated Elizabeth and Andrew, who we've come to know quite well.
Erin did great, I'm really proud of her, I only told her only that.
She's now put this day behind her and is looking forward to the next competition, out of our local area and about 2 hours away in the beginning of June.

Most importantly, I want Erin to have a good time, but I also wouldn't mind seeing a different judge there.

easter saturday

2011-04-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

Easter itself seems to involve enough stuff to do but no weekend is uneventful around here and the day before Easter, Erin and Kate volunteered to be in a local Easter parade with some of the other Highland dancers.

They first posed for some pictures with a local pipe and drum band that they would be following in the parade, and then they were off.

It was a really short parade route of about a half mile and they stopped at about mid-way to perform a dance for the crowd.

Then they came around the block and back to the beginning and did the route a second time. John and Allison passed out candies on one side of the street to kids along the parade route, and I passed out candy on the other side. And Erin and Kate got to practice their "parade wave" while walking down the street in between dances.

Later than afternoon the twins had a softball game and they had a great time. Kate made another out while playing first base again. Allison had a couple of great hits and here are some of the better pictures I managed this time:

scavenger hunt

2011-04-24T21:25:00.001-07:00

On friday the girls colored a ton of eggs and this morning a finding they baskets they headed out to the backyard to find all kinds of plastic eggs filled with different candies. I got started turning those colored eggs into deviled eggs while they were hunting,

Later, with two desserts and the eggs finished, we headed up to Grandma's where "EB" had a whole scavenger hunt set up. Each of the girls got a decoder chart:

And after a location was revealed by the code the girls raced off to that place and there each of them had another clue to solved.

Extra goodies were hidden away along with the new clues and some more colored eggs. I think they visited 5 locations at Grandma's house in all, and by the end they had a truly impressive haul.

Jeff's dog enjoyed the easter hunt also. He found a couple of eggs before the girls did he and decided they were delicious.

And we finally got to sit down and enjoy the true meaning of easter--ham.

the easter miracle

2011-04-24T21:03:00.001-07:00

We had a truly remarkable easter miracle on this fine easter sunday!
Here's the back story:
Late last summer I stocked up on extra summer clothes for the girls: bathing suits and cover ups and swim shirts and sandals. All these things were purchased (on clearance!) in preparation for our december trip to Hawaii, at which time finding good kids' beach clothes would be a lot tougher. The girls always wanted flip-flop sandals but I always preferred getting them a pair that doesn't slide off and has a better sole, so that they could wear them to school on hot days and to amusement parks and such where a lot of walking is involved.

But I happened to see some flip-flops which looked better-made than most and on sale very cheap. I bought them and asked the girls to only wear them to their swim lessons so that they would still be in decent enough shape by the time december came around. It turns out that they wore them a little more than just to swim lessons--they often liked wearing them around the house for some reason.

One day about two weeks before our Hawaii trip I saw one of Erin's flip-flops on her floor and I asked her to put her shoes and some other things away. After a couple of minutes she told me she couldn't find the other sandal so I told her to look under her bed and under her dresser and in her closet, but still nothing. So I began looking with her all over her room and I couldn't find the missing sandal either.

For the next two weeks I looked everywhere, and I mean, really, everywhere around the house for that sandal. I was tremendously frustrated and I wasn't going buy another pair. The other shoe was at home, certainly, somewhere. Erin thought the other sandal could be in the backyard, which I thought seemed strange since one was in her room, but we looked there too. And John looked.

So our Hawaii trip came and went and Erin wore her other sandals while we were there, and we still saw no sign of the missing sandal when we returned. I figured we'd never see it again until we packed up to move.

Then today while the kids hunted for easter eggs in the backyard, Erin found the missing sandal:

And now I know what exactly to do if we ever lose something at home again. Note to self: It's much easier to spread out some candy-filled eggs and have the kids find what you are looking for rather than spend two weeks turning the house upside down.

divide and conquer

2011-04-03T20:35:00.000-07:00

For the past two weeks we've had tons of rain so the twins' first two softball games were cancelled, but finally we had a sunny saturday and the girls would finally get to play. Unfortunately for me, Erin had an activity scheduled in another town at about the same time so John and I had to split up and I didn't get to see their first game. I wouldn't get to take any pictures of their first game either, and that is equally upsetting. Instead, I gave a camera to John and since I have a friend on the opposing team who is much more skilled at taking sports photos than I am, I did end up with some really great photos. The girls have had several practices with their team and they were raring to go.

Things are a bit different in this league. The softball fields for the 6 year-old division is smaller and they don't keep track of "outs", or even make a runner who is tagged out leave the field.

According to John, the twins played pretty well. They each did okay at hitting and fielding, and Allison in particular ran the bases just as hard and fast as she could.

Here is Allison batting:

And here is Kate playing first base, and successfully making an out at first.

It sounds like the game was tons of fun and I'm sorry I missed it, but there is always next week, if it doesn't rain anyway. Meanwhile, Erin wanted to dance in a small local Scottish fair along with a few others from the dance school. I recently ordered Erin her own official Highland dance competition outfit (used...wow those things are expensive) and here she is before the performance along with her teacher, who would also be dancing.

This was a small fair and a small stage compared to the huge Highland games we have taken the kids to each year, but it was good for Erin to have some extra performance practice because next month is her first real competition. A local pipe band provided the music for the dancers.

And there were 6 dancers altogether, including two of the three instructors at the school. Erin was by far the youngest, and the only beginner. She danced one number on her own.

And after the others danced individually or in pairs they did a final dance together.

Afterwards the dancers posed together for some pictures and they also posed with the band since one of the drummers is the father of one of the dancers.

I know there are another couple of games that Erin and I will likely miss because of upcoming dancing events, and I guess for now I should just be glad that between John and I we can manage to get everyone where they want to be. Don't ask me what we're going to do when the day comes when all three of them have different activities at the same time.

skiing with Jonny

2011-03-20T17:37:00.001-07:00

Jonny Moseley (US Olympian 1998, 2002: Gold Medal in Moguls) grew up skiing at Squaw Valley. He skied on all of their youth and racing teams and after he won his gold medal, they named a popular ski run after him. He now is some kind of mountain host for Squaw and one day while we were there the public was invited to "Ski with Jonny". Our friends the Hsiens saw the signs for this opportunity first and told us about it. Diana was determined to participate and I agreed to go also, but when the time came she backed out and John joined me.

I wondered how this would work. It was a busy saturday, would 1000 people show up to ski with him? Here he is with the striped jacket at the designated meeting place. There wasn't 1000 people, but there was probably 50.

He talked for a minute and took some photos with people and told us which lift to take and where to meet next. He said we'd start off skiing some intermediate terrain and gradually build up the difficulty and anyone who could keep up could follow along.

John and I took the first lift and got to the next meeting place, where we ran into another Olympian, Peekaboo Street (blue coat, white helmet). I know that was her because her name was embroidered on her jacket. I don't think Jonny knew she was there, he seemed surprised, they talked about doing a challenge together sometime during her visit, and Jonny's group skied off.

We went down an intermediate run first and it was impossible not to be astounded by how amazingly FAST this guy skis. I mean, there's fast, like some people think I ski, and fast like I see other people skiing on any given day, and then there is Olympian fast. I've never seen anything like it.

After the next run John decided not to continue on this little tour and he waved me on ahead. About 30 others felt the same way.

And we were left with a core group of about 18 or so and we headed to advanced terrain. I was skiing as fast as I possibly could to keep up with him, and I never did. I was always 20-30 seconds behind him at best, which maybe doesn't sound like much, but when you're flying you cover a lot of ground in that amount of time.

I was skiing with a really, really, good group of people and NO ONE could ski at his pace. Mercifully, Jonny always started the run and stopped at about half way down. There he chatted with people and waited for us to catch him, then kept going.

And he not only skied but went over boulders and did flying flips and twirls and "helicopters" and grabbed his skis in mid-air and landed perfectly again. I don't have photos of any of that, I could never predict when he would decide to do these things and I was too awe-struck to work a camera in those instances anyway.

We skied with him for 2 hours, and I was one of only two women who stuck out the entire time. We ended the tour by going up KT-22 and going to the famous run which is named after him. It's a steep, loooooooong run covered in moguls, and I tried to take a video of him, but as always, he was gone in a flash.

final ski weekend

2011-03-20T16:26:00.000-07:00

Sunny days in the mountains and a long weekend at school, made longer by us having the kids ditch an extra day, became a great last ski trip since we have softball saturdays starting up.

We met friends up there are stayed in the village at Squaw Valley so that we could walk to everything we needed.

We skied with the Hsiens during the first two mornings while their kids and our kids were in ski school. In the afternoons we had the girls ski with us but their boys are beginners so after picking up their youngest at lunch each day they left the slopes.

I took a lot of photos of the kids skiing, as usual. But I thought I'd try a video of my own skiing, taken while heading down a hill. It's strange trying to keep up a reasonable speed while holding both poles in one hand and my camera out in front of me. It's not a natural position so it affected my balance, but I did the best I could. So John starts, then Yung (quite a fast, good skier) goes next, and while Diana does some wardrobe adjustment, I took off.

The twins told us that their ski instructor had taken them on an advanced run, which they proclaimed not too difficult at all. and they were anxious to show us how well they could handle one. We told us which lift to take and once up there we had a few advanced runs to choose from.

And they definitely could ski these places, though on some of the very long advanced runs they got pretty tired at times. I think an occasional shorter advanced runs but mainly staying on intermediates in where they should be.

By the end of the weekend, their instructor promoted Kate and Allison to a Level 5 skier (out of 9).

Erin, meanwhile, was promoted to Level 6, and her carving is getting pretty darn good.

Very proud and confident in herself, she started asking me to take her up the KT-22 lift. I think this was the first lift into advanced terrain at Squaw. The story I've heard is that when the owner bought the property he and his wife skied down this terrain and it took 22 kick turns to reach the bottom, and when the lift was built they named it after that. Anyways, it's famous, and high, and as many large warning signs at the bottom explain, there is no easy way down.

I know the territory up there but how difficult it is can depend a lot on the conditions, so after checking it out with John I decided that Erin could handle it. I took her to the lift and there were no other children in the vicinity. Because of that I was gathering a ton of odd, semi-horrified looks from many of the other skiers.
Here she is at the top:

And coming down. These videos never do the kids justice, the slope was steeper than it looks here:

She did really, really great and we even went up a second time. Cheers all around. Quite an accomplishment for an 8 year-old.

weekend dancing

2011-03-06T18:48:00.000-08:00

Erin begins competing as a Highland dancer in May. I've registered her with the international governing body of Highland Dancers (who knew there was such a thing) so she's eligible to compete. Before May, there are a couple of local opportunities to dance in small shows and I've signed Erin up to do those to get her some additional practice.

This weekend there was a fair for parents at a mall nearby, where tables and booths were set up by various preschools and private schools, dance studios, music schools, summer camps, tutoring, gymnastics places and swim schools. All kinds of things parents might be interested in knowing more about or enrolling their children in. Our highland dance school had a table and some of the dancers were asked to perform as well. This was one of those opportunities for Erin to get some extra performance practice but Kate and Allison were asked to dance as well to help recruit other young girls.

Waiting to begin:

Erin and an older girl set up and dance "The Sword":

My girls did a set like the one they did in their first big performance last november:

Erin and some older girls dance "The Fling", also a dance Erin did in the show last fall:

Erin danced in four dances in all, the most of any of the girls there. Overall she did well. The Sword is complicated and switches tempo to one much faster half way through, but she did great. I think she started a turn too early in The Fling this time, but recovered. I'm always impressed with her sense of rhythm. I was surprised and impressed to see her dancing along with girls who are so much older and more experienced.

All of the girls had a great time and Erin especially loved it and can't wait until the next performance.

metal mouth

2011-03-02T21:47:00.000-08:00

Erin entered the inevitable world of orthodontics a couple of months ago. Her dentist warned me several years ago to "start saving your money", as if I couldn't see the obvious.

When she was a baby I really, really hoped that she had been fortunate enough to inherit John's side of the family's genes for good jaw alignment and an uncrowded, teeth-proportional-to-the-size-of-head, orthodontic-free dental future. I know, I dream big. She inherited my genes instead.

When we went for an orthodontic consult a few months ago, the doctor sat me down and spelled out for me the plan for the first stage of work, which will take 2 years. Erin got upper and lower expanders a few weeks later and now about 6 weeks following that, it was time for headgear as well.

Boy, this brings back memories. Mercifully, I couldn't find any pictures of myself wearing this thing, but I had it from age 10 - 15 and they haven't changed a bit since then. Picture Erin with longer, blonder, straighter hair, and that was me.

I know it's not such a big deal. She's in good company in sporting this new hardware:

So far she doesn't mind wearing it, but it's only been a day. It's still rather novel. Unlike me, she doesn't have to wear it to school. She just has to wear it as much as possible outside of school. And there are benefits to starting younger. Whereas I had mine for years, she'll be able to correct the same problem in less than a year, potentially. Just in time for Allison to get one.

that oregon time of year

2011-03-02T21:22:00.000-08:00

We have an 8-hour drive to our rented ski house each year, but it's a fun little trip. There is some great scenery along the way and because I thought we might hit some bad weather to slow us down this time, I suggested we leave extra early. We were on the road at 7am and since we didn't see any bad weather at all, we were first to arrive at the house, with enough daylight left for the kids to enjoy playing in the abundance of fresh snow for a couple of hours before dark.

My kids really like snow. I could barely convince them to come in the house for just long enough to put on their snow pants and boots. They just wanted to lay in it, and they did. Tasting the snow is always fun too.

Even a plain old snow shovel is novel and fun.

Over the next few days there was lots of time after skiing to play with cousins outside, build snowmen, have snowball fights.

And snuggle up at night and watch movies together.

And we also had time for some ice skating one evening. We live walking distance from an ice rink at home, but Kate and Allison had never been skating. Erin went once, at this same rink in Oregon a couple of years ago. Since I really can't skate I took photos while Terri and Randy tried to get the girls going.

They all fell a lot and had soggy pants but enjoyed themselves.
"Skating is HARD!" Kate exclaimed, "Skiing is SO much easier!"
No argument there.

oregon trails

2011-03-02T20:39:00.000-08:00

Our annual ski trip to Oregon was last week and as usual, we had a great time. I had the girls go to ski school for the first two days, which meant I had some time to ski with and attempt to keep up with my super-skiing nephews.

I don't know why we have such crazy luck but every February the snow at Mt. Bachelor seems perfect. We always seem to arrive just after a multi-day big storm, and that was the case again this year. It also snowed off and on every day we were there so every day brought several more inches of fresh powder. It was faaaaantastic!

I had my camera with me every day but it was so cold and windy on our first ski day that I didn't take any pictures, since working the camera means taking my gloves off. I couldn't stand the thought of that on saturday. But on sunday it was just ever so slightly warmer and the gloves came off every now and again. Tim and Andrew and I spent most of the day on the back side of the mountain, where there are the longest runs, deepest powder, and lots of trees to weave your way through, if you like that sort of thing. Which we do.

Tim:

Andrew:

The guys were constantly jumping too and I tried to get pictures of that, but the darned delay in focusing and taking the picture resulted in mostly nothing. Sometimes they were just a blurry, jumping flying skier going by me.

It was a great first couple of days.

On the third ski day the twins and John decided to stay at the ski house and play in the snow. Tim and Laura had to get back to college, and so Terri and Andrew and Erin and I went out and enjoyed the only clear day during our trip. Finally some real visibility and being able to appreciate the view from up there.

Erin skied well. She handles any intermediate run very well, but she is still cautious and doesn't ski very quickly.

She even did a couple of advanced runs with me. Here she is on one with large moguls:

A moment to get that ski back on and she finished it and asked to try it again:

Then on our last ski day the plan was for us to ski with all of the kids, but another storm was moving in and the wind was picking up and visibility was disappearing.

So we decided to head over to the west side of mountain where the lifts don't go as high and would probably be more sheltered and thus have milder conditions. Luckily, that's exactly what we found. It turns out that the lifts we had just taken were then closed because of the wind, but on the west side of the mountain we had fun skiing on some easier runs and on some side paths through some trees.

Though I didn't think it would be possible when we saw how bad the conditions were on the other side of the mountain, we actually skied until past 2:00 on our last day and had a lot of fun.

all warmed up

2011-02-12T21:08:00.000-08:00

Ah, softball. Our ski season is barely underway but our thoughts have had to turn to softball as well already. As much as Erin loves playing, there wouldn't be time in her week to do both softball (3 days per week) and Highland dancing. Erin wants to start competing in Highland dancing this spring, so...that's where she wants to put her time for now.

The twins want to play softball again and I thought I'd sign them up to play in a new league--the league in the town where we'll be moving in hopes of their getting on a team with girls who go to the new school they'll be attending this fall. This league groups the girls by school. It was a brilliant plan.

Registration was done late last year and I got an email from our coach this week. The girls will be the only ones from their (new) school on the team, all others attend a private school right nearby. As it turns out, there are no other girls from their new school playing in their entire division, so at the moment it feels like we'll be driving extra far for practices and games for almost nothing.

Anyway, unlike their old league, this one holds an optional pre-season practice day for all the girls in all divisions to warm-up their skills, or start learning them for the first time. There was a huge turn-out this morning. Everyone stretched out and then divided up by division, and then divided further into groups of about 10.
"Get a partner and let's play catch! If you need a partner come see me!" were the first instructions. Having a twin comes in handy sometimes.

Next they worked on fielding grounders on the pavement. I don't think any of the other 8 girls in our practice group had played before so our group coach quickly started having Kate and Allison demonstrate for the others.

Next we moved to batting and fielding. Allison showed the others how to swing properly, and as one girl hit the others got the balls and threw them back to the coach.

And that's kinda where the trouble started. Kate and Allison were ALL OVER fielding those balls. They were alert and ready and in position while the other girls looked pretty nervous about getting hit with the ball and a little bewildered in general.

When a ball was hit and the twins took off after it before the other girls even moved. Then they sometimes pushed each other, fighting over who got the ball and threw it back. The other girls just stayed out of the way. Even when a ball went directly toward one of the others, K or A dashed off and fielded it before it reached them. But it's not like they played so amazingly well or anything. Actually, they were pretty rusty in general, but they at least understood what they should be doing and they weren't shy about it, and that put them many steps ahead of the others in the group.

One little kindergartner didn't know what to make of these competitive girls running in front of her and she started crying. I pulled the twins aside and asked them to let the other girls get some of the balls but they could not understand why in the world I was disappointed.
"But you are SUPPOSED to run after the ball!"
"You are SUPPOSED to get it quickly and throw it to first base!"
"The other girls are just STANDING there!"

I really didn't have time to explain any further, and they went right back, and nothing really changed. I don't think the other parents were thrilled.
"They're a little, oh, I don't know..." one dad observed, "...aggressive."
Um, yeah.
But I have to mention that earlier in the day I got a question that totally threw me off guard. This was a question I haven't been asked since I don't know when. A dad asked me, "which one is yours?"

You see, around school, no one EVER asks me "which one is yours?" Quite the contrary, people I've never seen and never met know my name and all my girls' names and come up to me and mention the girls doing this or that and meanwhile I have no idea who they are or who their child is. This happens on a regular basis because, well, it's just that obvious who my kids are. It was nice being able to blend in a little better.

It's going to be an interesting season.

empathy

2011-01-30T09:44:00.000-08:00

Empathy, in the form of a two-sided card, by Allison:

"I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings. I'm never going to do that again."

rats!

2011-01-24T22:20:00.001-08:00

Kate's been asking for a pet for almost as long as she's been able to talk. In recent years she's suggested a large number of possibilities, from dogs and cats to goats and birds and fish and guinea pigs and most recently, turtles, which is what she asked Santa for last month.

Each suggestion was met with a quick list from me about why such and such wouldn't make a good addition to our family. And I had good reasons, not that she would agree, but I also felt bad that she didn't have a pet.

A discussion with a friend about pet rats a few days ago got me thinking though, and I realized that they could be just the thing for us, that is, if the girls even liked rats, which up until they I didn't know. A visit to a special pet store with a large number of fancy rats answered that question, and now we have a couple of black and white rats, Spot and Scabbers, named by the girls.

And Kate is in rat heaven.

ahh...winter

2011-01-24T21:58:00.000-08:00

I just love ski/hockey season. In the past few years our first ski trip has been to Oregon each February and we're going again this year but I really wanted to get in at least one day of skiing before going there. I thought of heading to mountain after we returned from Hawaii and the kids still had a few days of winter break left, but then Kate had an ear infection and that idea got scrapped. MLK weekend presented another opportunity.

It was a quick trip. We were gone a total of about 30 hours, but it was worth it. Having rented the kids' skis near home, we hit the slopes first thing in the morning and stayed until closing time. It didn't take long at all for everyone to shake the rust off and get their ski legs back.

We skied together all day and had a great time.

And there was a noticeable change in Kate from last year. Last year she skied very cautiously and speed made her nervous. This trip she went much faster and decided she liked terrain parks too.

She actually caught air on several jumps and landed a couple of them well, but of course I didn't have my camera at the ready. This time I managed to get the video going just in the nick of time, and managed to capture this fine landing:

We can't wait to hit Mr. Bachelor next month. Two thumbs up for ski season!

new old digs

2011-01-04T22:14:00.000-08:00

I've been asked several times to post some photos of our new house but I didn't get around to taking any photos before the demo started. And those of us who have seen the place know that the rest of you really aren't missing much. But fortunately my brother took a bunch of pictures a while ago when he visited with John, so here are some of his photos. They're taken from the most artsy and flattering angles possible and they're not just fun to look at, they're educational. Think of them, every single one, as examples of what never to do in your own homes. And I've also learned that there are some things that even a pro can't make look pretty.

First a look at the front of the house. It's charming. John especially likes how none of the windows in the front are the same size or at the same height. The house had 3 previous additions. One was to take the breezeway in between the garage and the house and enclose it, making it into a dining room. Things will look very different when we're done.

The lot is 1/3 acre, here is the backyard. The other two additions can be seen here. One is the small second story (master bedroom and bath) and the room at the far left in the photos, built out into the backyard.

Several redwoods on the property and in the neighborhood.

Thirsty?

At least our TV needs are taken care of.

Yes, we'll be replacing all the windows.

And the ex-window.

Inside that added room on the lower story. It was divided into two rooms: an office and a workshop. We'll be getting rid of that dividing wall and making it a big family room.

You enter that room from the backyard. We'll be changing that by pushing out the living room wall far enough to include entrance to the family room too.

You don't even need a roof inspection to know that this all has to go.

Inside the master bedroom:

View from there into the backyard.

John is really going to miss this wallpaper.

Lovely bathroom that we'll convert into a jack and jill style, or jill and jill style, between the girls' rooms.

There is an issue or two with the existing electrical.

Another bathroom which will be fully gutted.

It will be a shame to see this fine flooring go.

View from the dining area into the kitchen. We're moving the kitchen.

Laundry area in the garage. We'll be pushing the garage out further toward the street and making this area inside the house and adding on a half bathroom as well.

This fireplace is in a bad location, it's already gone.

Not even the autographed wallpaper will be saved.
]
Living room. That wall to the left is the one that will be pushed out further. The new kitchen will be where John is.

I know this place seems to have no redeeming value but we think the value is in the home's potential. We can see it pretty clearly and the place will be great, eventually. Brad didn't take photos of the neighborhood, but believe me it's on a great street. Really. We can fix up this house, we can't fix up our current neighborhood.

un-tanned

2011-01-01T13:01:00.001-08:00

Some things I just don't get. There are complicated things that I don't get, which I don't mind so much that I don't get, because I figure that I could get those things if I ever took the time to learn them. Then there are things that everyone else seems to get that I don't get, and tanning is one of those things. More specifically, I don't get why people like going tanning and why people think tanning looks good.

When I returned to work the day after we returned home from Hawaii, several people at work made remarks about my lack of post-Hawaii expected tan, and they all seemed kinda disappointed. While we were in Hawaii some family members were sitting around discussing our laughable whiteness. It was pretty clear that we were, collectively, the palest people there and among the pale I was apparently the palest.

The thing is, I don't mind. I'm always caught somewhat off guard when someone notes how un-tanned I am. It's kind of like being told your zipper is down, only there is no way to pull it back up again and you don't particularly care that it's down in the first place. Some people tell me this like maybe I wasn't aware that I'm pale and I should do what I can to rectify the situation immediately.

I think having naturally darker skin looks fine but pale skin looks fine too. And when you are obviously genetically fair-skinned, with blonde or red hair hair and freckles, I think pale skin looks perfectly normal. Skin that is artificially darkened usually doesn't look good. When I think of tan, I think of this:

And this:

And also this:

Not so much looking "leathery" as much as looking like a basted roast turkey that is ready for carving. Sexy! I don't see the value in that.

People say "a healthy tan" which is a complete oxymoron. I suppose they think there is healthy smoking too.

I consider it a great vacation success that John and I and the girls all managed to be outside all day every day having fun but with the use of SPF 50 swim shirts and waterproof lotion, and hats sometimes, none of us got any sunburn. Or tan.

end of year extras

2010-12-31T12:25:00.000-08:00

I think I managed to blog about the significant events in our family this year. By "significant events", I mean those occasions where I thought about them enough to bring my camera along.

Sometimes I just didn't get enough good photos to post here, or in sitting down to write I realized that I just didn't have much to say. So there are some things we did and some photos I took that I didn't mention yet, and here are a few of those. Mainly, I just liked these particular photos from 2010 for some reason and thought that they were worthy of sharing.
A visit to a miniature train museum:

A tour of the Jelly Belly Factory. Those Ronald Reagan pictures were made entirely of beans. I considered buying one for my friend Trish, who I know would find a place of honor to display them in her home. Sadly, they weren't for sale.

A visit to a renovated small children's park and zoo while Oma and Opa were visiting.

And a surprising, extra-strange thing I noticed when looking through the photos from that day. See the woman with the baby in the background behind Kate? I know her, I've known her for years, yet for the life of me I do not think I noticed her that day and I don't think she noticed us either.

Erin talking with her girl scout leader at their end of year meeting last June:

I take a lot of pictures of the girls on rides, but I don't know why. They almost always turn out terribly, but here is a cute one from a small ride at a street fair we attended over the summer.

Kate and her buddy Jake at school, looking like they're out to make trouble for someone, and they often do.

Relaxing at Uncle Jeff's after swimming.

Kate trying to dodge my camera.

Playing with cousin Tim at home. Another great look for Allison.

And finally, making Christmas cookies with grandma and Uncle Jeff the weekend before we went to Hawaii. Always a favorite activity.

And with that I feel ready to move on to the new year.

hawaii 2.0

2010-12-28T20:22:00.000-08:00

We spent the first week of the kids' winter break with John's entire extended family in Kona, on the big island of Hawaii. We stayed at Kona Village, the same place we visited in 2006. John's mom and dad used to visit there at least every other year. I think Dora said this was her 11th stay there. She and Jim visited the other islands too over the years, but nothing they found compared to Kona. John and Jeff and Sue have each been there a number of times as well. I suppose it's the unofficial fergy-19's Hawaiian destination.

It's an amazing place. Each couple or family stays in an individual Hale. There are some along the beaches, some back in the forest, some near the ponds on the property. There are no locks on the doors.

The twins stayed with us in one Hale,

Erin stayed with Grandma in another. The older cousins had Hales for themselves, Sue and Derik and their 3 little girls were in a large one with two rooms.

Everyone eats breakfast and lunch outside on patios adjacent to the beach with a gigantic buffet,

and dinner is outside where we have a choice of two different patio areas also adjacent to the Kona village beach. Life is pretty rough.

We arrived at lunch time on sunday the 19th and as soon as we finished eating the girls wanted to go swimming. The kids' pool area has a large shallow wading pool with a waterfall and a deeper large swimming pool next to it.

Quite a change in attitude from their last trip to the pools there:

This entire side of the big island is covered in black lava rock and that rock was used everywhere in Kona village, from the pools to the ponds to the patios. I don't think there is any other type of plentiful stone to be found.

Cousin Lucy joined the girls in the "turtle pool", the wading pool in the kids' area.

As the kids swam we ordered the first of many pina coladas and everyone was in the Hawaiian spirit.

Right outside our Hale, on our way to dinner the first evening. The weather was nicely warm but intermittently cloudy.

As we sat at dinner we felt occasional rain drops, every now and then, which went on that way for about an hour. Then suddenly it was definitely sprinkling, and then raining hard. We were ushered into a small indoor dining room to finish dinner.

I was really caught off guard by the rain. The weather forecast said mostly sunny for that day and the entire next week, I had last looked at it just a couple of hours before dinner. But 5 minutes after it started raining the forecast changed to hard rain and thunderstorms for the next 3 days. I thought our vacation would turn into a disaster. There is literally nothing to do indoors. Kona Village is set up for exclusively outdoor living. They have very little indoor spaces of any kind and what they have isn't large enough to accommodate everyone at meals. There aren't any indoor activities. The Hales are small and have no TVs, radios, etc.

Fortunately for us, the forecast for rain was about as accurate as the forecast for sun. It did rain for a couple of hours that first evening, and it lightly sprinkled again for about an hour during our luau, but other than that we enjoyed mostly sunny skies.

Kona Village's main beach area:

Always beautiful scenery as you walk along the paths weaving around and through the property.

And we had a great time catching up with the whole family and seeing the big cousins and small cousins spend time together.

Dora with all 8 granddaughters:

Kona Village's beach is well-known for the sea turtles who frequent the waters in the area and also climb up on the beach in the afternoon to rest and snooze for the night. It was never very hard to find some sleepy turtles.

Several more posts on our trip to come...

the luau

2010-12-28T20:07:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the biggest event of the week was the big Luau on wednesday evening. Kona village hosts this Luau every week. In preparation for the big event, kids were invited to come make their own grass skirts in the morning. Erin helped Grandma make a skirt when we were here in 2006,

now we had a crew of five young cousins taking part.

I like the look on Allison's face as she studies the instructor's technique.

Skirts completed, kids were then invited to learn a hukilau hula dance. Lucy and my girls tried to learn, Lucy's younger sister Anne Marie (2) sat that part out.

Then that evening we gathered at the Luau and watched them unearth the pig that had been roasting in the ground for the past several hours.

And the kids who practiced the Hula that day got to come on stage and dance for the dinner crowd. Erin decided that the grass skirt-making and hula practice was okay, but going up on stage would be embarrassing, so she skipped it. The twins and Lucy got a kick out of the show and I tried to get a good video but this inconsiderate hula stage mom kept blocking out Kate.

relaxing this much is hard work

2010-12-28T19:46:00.000-08:00

One of the things I thought the girls would really enjoy is snorkeling. There is a great reef with tons of varied fish to see right off the resort's beaches and water sports equipment is available to any guest. John got some gear and decided to let the kids try it out in one of the pools first.

Allison got the hang of it right away, she was a natural. She and John snorkeled together I think 3 or 4 different times. She loved it.

Kate did just as well and enjoyed snorkeling around the pool quite a bit, but wasn't enthusiastic about trying it in the ocean.

Erin was a completely different story. After John got Kate and Allison going in the pool he sat and worked with Erin for nearly an hour, but she couldn't get the mouthpiece in and around her teeth correctly so that she could actually breathe with it. Her unconventional jaw shape and overbite were the problems, and she really tried, but couldn't make it work. Not surprisingly, orthodontics for her is already scheduled to begin as soon as we returned home.

Apart from new water sports, the girls made their own seashell necklaces, and enjoyed a Hawaiian BBQ complete with singing Hawaiian cowboys.

Terri and Randy took Erin kayaking:

Did I mention that Allison likes snorkeling?

And the girls swam nearly all day, every day. They put on their swimsuits first thing in the morning, attending breakfast each day all suited up and got into the water soon after eating. It was nearly always about 82F and the water was always warm too. Anytime was swimming time. We had to practically drag them out for meals each day.

Lawn games:

Visiting one of Kona's smaller beaches with black sand. Allison was ready to snorkel once again, Kate found the whole idea too much work.

Since Erin couldn't snorkel she just wore fins and a vest and her goggles and held her breath to look under and see the plentiful fish.

Cousins Laura, Tim, and Sydney joined us and Allison asked to be buried.

And then some fine black sand castle construction.

Another scene on the property, walking back from the black sand beach to the kiddie pool area.

There was a lot of climbing on each other's shoulders, especially on John's shoulders, and the size of the climber didn't seem to matter.

On Christmas Eve John got the idea to have the kids try surfing. What a great idea, the resort had a number of boards right there for anyone to use. The kids never went out far and the resort's beach doesn't have much for waves since the beach lies in a little cove. Still, it was surfing and Kate LOVED it.

Erin and Allison were successful too, but neither kept up with it the way Kate did.

Twin surfing:

On Christmas day we went back to the beach and all Kate wanted to do was surf, and she did, off an on, for probably 2 hours.

More kayaking for Erin, with cousin Laura this time.

christmas in kona

2010-12-28T19:42:00.000-08:00

Our last full day in Kona was Christmas day. Santa managed to find the girls in Hawaii, thanks in part to a letter Allison wrote to him to inform him of our travel plans. After some small gifts were opened, the girls put on their bathing suits as usual and we had a nice breakfast followed by...more swimming and playing on the beach.

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve Santa made a surprise visit to the beach, landing there in a boat as an employee played "Santa Claus is comin' to Town" on her ukulele.

Then, jingle bells in hand and bare-footed, Santa came up the beach to greet the Kona guests and take photos with all of the kids, and hand out goodie bags.

On Christmas evening as we gathered for dinner by the beach we got a group photo,

and watched the last of many beautiful Hawaiian sunsets as we ate a big meal accompanied by a bigger dessert buffet. It was certainly a vacation to remember, and I hope the girls do.

and the shows go on...

2010-12-14T21:32:00.000-08:00

This fall has been a season of theatrics. First the twins' play, then the big dance show, and finally Erin's play, with each event accompanied by months of rehearsals.

Erin's play proved to be a big time commitment for me as well because when I volunteered (as I always do) to help with the backdrop and showed up at the planning meeting, I discovered that we had to create the entire set from scratch in about 10 days, and no one else who volunteered for the backdrop work had any experience with making them in the past. Nor did they feel especially comfortable with drawing or painting anything. All eyes quickly turned to me to create the set over the Thanksgiving break.

I didn't mind all the work it took so much as I worried about how the final result would look and if the teachers would think it fit the story well enough. This was a brand new play written by Erin's teacher and I didn't really know the details. I had previously made copies of the different speaking parts for her to hand out to the kids so I remembered vague categories of characters, which I kept verifying with Erin. "So, part of the story is in the mountains, right?" "And there's something about a tropical island?" And from that I created a not very complicated nor professional-looking backdrop, but it was the best I could do in the time that I had with my amateurish art ability.

And the central portion with the title and continents pictured below. When a couple of helpers and I put everything up, it seemed satisfactory. The teachers liked it and were grateful to have it done.

This play had a number of major speaking roles for which the kids had to audition if they were interested in the parts. Erin really wanted a speaking part and tried out, but didn't get one. Her role of the toucan in the rainforest wasn't very interesting, she kept saying.

I thought the story was very cute and the songs were very clever. The beginning of the play and the intro song along with the song about the continents (one of my favorites) is in the clip (it's long). I took a video from the back of the theater, but I got a copy of the video made from the front row by another parent:

Toward the end of the play was the rainforest song, featuring Erin as the proud toucan.

The school kids and the genies travel to all the continents, the mountains, the pacific islands, the rainforest, and explore the oceans in search of what the genies "lost". At the end of the play the kids discover that learning about geography is pretty interesting after all and that, say the genies, is what they were searching for.

It was really one of the better plays I've seen at their school, among so many plays that I thought were really, really clever and funny. The amount of dialog those kids with the main parts had to learn was really impressive, and they pulled it off very well.

And my backdrop was carefully taken down and wrapped up for storage, saved for re-use in case they decide to do this play again in a few years.

specifics

2010-12-14T20:13:00.000-08:00

Allison wanted to be sure that Santa was simultaneously aware of our pending trip, and cognizant of our limited luggage space.

(name of our town deleted for posting).

extravaganza in wonderland

2010-11-27T16:00:00.001-08:00

That was the title of the girls' first dance show, an exhibit of Scottish highland dance from their dance school, and featuring a local pipe and drum band and local Irish dancers as well. It was more than a dance recital, there was a story that ran through all the numbers, kind of like a play. The story was about Alice, who is recruited by a white rabbit to help save Wonderland from the wicked Irish queen and her desire to eliminate Scottish dance and music from the land.

A few pictures from the final dress rehearsal. The group of five at the right are the newest dancers in the school and would be in a dance together.

Alice during one of her dances, and the pipe band.

Then the number featuring the girls, along with another girl in the back center who is about the same age and the twins, and Andrew, the King, the only male dancer in the school, from Erin's class. The idea was that the Scottish King and some villagers find a piper and dance to their music in secret, trying to avoid being discovered by the Irish Queen. If you watch the clip, listen to her comments at the end.

This was a fairly simple dance but I always worried about how Allison would do during the show because she always had the hardest time with the steps and timing. Erin always caught on to all the dances she's been introduced to so well and, along with Andrew, had been moved up to a more advanced class a couple of months ago. But in the show it was Allison who did fine and Erin who messed up. Oh well. Kate is at the left, Allison at far right, Erin in front. My great camera didn't compensate well for the lighting and it's hard to see anyone's faces.

At the end of the play the Irish Queen realizes that Scottish music and dance isn't so bad after all, and the Irish Dancers and Scottish dancers all come together for a group dance, the Fling. Erin is in the red/white kilt at front.

It's a much longer dance and more complicated than the one my girls did earlier in the show, and the instructors didn't think the twins were ready for it yet. Erin did it perfectly, and with much better timing than the two girls immediately to the right, who have each been dancing much longer than she has:

It was a great first show and a good turnout for the audience. Erin is definitely hooked and wants to start competition dancing next year. And the twins have renewed enthusiasm and are looking forward to their next show.

it's so hot in november

2010-11-27T13:36:00.000-08:00

The twins had their school play a few days ago, for which their classes have been practicing for about two months. The title was "Anasi and the Moss Covered Rock", a story about a sneaky spider in the African forest who finds a large rock covered in moss which looks out of place in the jungle. He discovers that if he says the phrase, "Oh my, what a strange moss covered rock" out loud then he falls asleep for an hour.

He decides to use this knowledge to lure other groups of animals in the vicinity of the rock so that they'll say the magic phrase, then when they fall asleep he runs back to their dens to steal any food they've been storing.Since the play involves 60 kids, the Anansi role became a group of 4 spiders who hatch this plot together.

Allison played a monkey, who aren't tricked by Anansi and friends but do see what goes on from the trees and try to warn the spiders to stop tricking the other animals.

Here is Allison and the other monkeys singing their song in the story, "What's that smell?" As in, what's that smell, I smell trouble. John told Allison he thought the mystery smell was the other stinky monkeys.

And the spiders trick one set of animals after another until they encounter some bush deer, of which Kate was one.

The bush deer watch the whole ordeal from the bushes and decide to trick the spiders right back by letting themselves get lured to the mystery rock but they won't say the magic phrase.

Instead they say, "Isn't that a weird moss covered rock," or "Isn't that a strange grass covered stone," and drive the spiders nuts until the spiders just tell the correct phrase, and the spiders fall asleep. Then the bush deer gather up all the stolen food and give it back to the other animals.

I'm at school every week and I've caught bits and pieces of rehearsals, and I helped with the backdrop, but I never did learn the ending of the play ahead of time. I had no idea that the bush deer were the big heroes in the story and I made a big deal about that to Kate, which I think she appreciated.

late halloween

2010-11-15T20:30:00.000-08:00

I'm having technical difficulties. I've been battling with my new camera for months. First, I didn't RTFM. I thought I could figure it out on my own and that didn't work out so well so I did finally sit down and RTFM but my camera hasn't worked any better.

I made two phone calls to Canon's technical support center and got some good advice, I thought. I was all "wow, so THAT'S what I've been doing wrong" and immediately incorporated their advice and felt relieved, only to have the same problems. I can take mostly okay pictures outside, in good light, if no one is moving very much, which is a great set of restrictions for shooting pictures of kids. But I get even worse results--terrible, really, more often than not when taken inside or outside in lower light. There are so many occasions where every photo I took is just a blurry mess and now those moments are gone, and I have less I feel like sharing here. Actually when it comes to photos lately there isn't much I've felt like doing besides throwing my camera against a brick wall.

My third phone call to technical support resulted in suggestion that I send my camera to Virginia for Canon to work on for several weeks. Great. But back to life at home...

The girls each knew exactly what they wanted to be for Halloween and so when we walked into my friend's costume store they each found what they wanted, tried it on, and we were done in like 10 minutes. A new record. Kate is Cinderella, Allison a candy corn witch, and Erin is Hermione Granger, Harry Potter's female sidekick.

The first Halloween event was a parade at school one day. The kids lined up by villages and did a parade around the playground, which I took many photos of, including some of the kids with their teachers, but those "action" shots didn't turn out at all.

On Halloween weekend mom and Peter stopped by since they were in LA on other business, and as usual mom got the girls busy making desserts.

We also had some pumpkin carving to do.

Then on Halloween itself Uncle Brad came by and visited for a while in the afternoon.

After dinner and as the darkness began to creep in the girls took some final photos with Grandma Jan before she and Peter left for the airport and we set out trick-or-treating.

last october break

2010-10-17T14:11:00.000-07:00

For the kids' fall break this year we decided to go to Disneyland, mostly because the kids have been asking to go back to Disneyland ever since we ended our last trip two years ago. This is also the kids' last school "fall break" since they'll be transferring to a school next year which has a longer summer break, but no break in fall.

We went to California Adventure first and our day started out nice enough. There wasn't much of a crowd and we got into the rides and attractions quickly.

But the forecast called for rain for the next two days so I was prepared with our rain jackets but I was worried that this could really be a disaster for our trip. Soon after we arrived in the park the skies got very dark...

...and then the rain started. We headed into an indoor ride, one of Erin's favorites (I think she rode this one four times last visit)--the Tower of Terror, where you are in a Twilight Zone-themed haunted hotel elevator that malfunctions and drops repeatedly. Allison and Kate were tall enough for it and though we knew it got dark inside sometimes, everyone seemed okay with trying it. Erin loved it, no surprise there, Allison said unconvincingly that it was "pretty fun" but Kate was terrified and isn't pictured here in front of the ride because she was still calming down I think. Oops.

Luckily she pretty quickly forgot about how terrible that was because there was plenty of interesting things to distract her. The rain came intermittently. When it stopped we'd dash onto a ride or two outside (we could always practically walk onto anything), and when it started again we'd duck into a covered ride or show or something else.

During one downpour we went into an animation studio building where you can see exhibits about how animation is created and how voice-overs are added. When we entered the girls were pleasantly surprised to see Goofy and Jessie from Toy Story and the girls danced and played with them. Soon Cinderella and Pluto and Woody from Toy Story came in too and they all stayed and played with the few children there for a long time. I mentioned to an employee that I had no idea so many characters would be here, since we've never been in there before. She answered, "There usually isn't but it's raining and we don't have anywhere else to send them."

The next day the rains continued and we started off with breakfast in Goofy's Kitchen in the Disneyland Hotel. Our table was visited by more characters than I can list here and at one point several of them got some kids together and danced with them. Allison only watched, but Kate got into it.

And we headed to Disneyland and some more rides in the rain.

Again the we found the park nearly empty and we could just walk onto just about anything. Our jackets kept us dry and I was really realizing that Disneyland in the rain is far from a disaster.
But by the time we had lunch the rain stopped, the ground dried and the jackets came off.

And we didn't see any more rain for the rest of the week. The park was still relatively empty so the girls got to join in with a pirate band in the New Orleans area, and everyone gave a big thumbs up for the Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster.

Because we had no lines to wait in we had so much more time to explore things we haven't tried before, like the giant river boat ride.

That evening, now that I was confident they could be worn without getting soaked, the girls picked out some official Minnie Mouse ears.

The next day we came back to Disneyland to see a couple of the attractions that we missed the day before.

Then we went over to California Adventure because there were two big shows that we wanted to be sure to see. The rain was definitely history and we had beautiful sunny weather and a warm day, so naturally the girls were interested in spending their first dry day by running through the fountains and getting wet.

It was so warm that by the afternoon the girls wanted to cool down with some ice cream.

That evening Trish and Hugh (who live about 10 minutes away) joined us for dinner in the park and a fantastic new outdoor water and lights show in the evening called "World of Color".

The next day, our last one before heading home, we again went to Disneyland.

We had breakfast with Minnie Mouse and her friends.

Then more rides.

And a trip to what I still remember as Tom Sawyer's Island (which was closed in the rain) and which has now been renamed "Pirate Island". I like the old name better.

Trish and Hugh left work early on this friday to join us in Disneyland in the later afternoon and we hoped to ride Space Mountain again, which was all re-done in a Halloween theme. The girls and John and I already rode it earlier in the week.

By this point it hadn't rained in two days and there was a special Halloween event going on the park starting at 6pm that night, so Disneyland suddenly became very, very, very crowded. We were two hours from the time the park closed and the wait for Space Mountain was 80 minutes. Erin and Hugh and Trish and I decided to get in line while John and the twins went elsewhere. The time passed relatively easily as the obscenely long line moved along, and when we were just less than 5 minutes and about 40 feet from getting on the ride, it suddenly malfunctioned, stopped, and we were told we'd all have to exit the building and we were given special passes to return to it at the front of the line on another day, which didn't do any of us any good at all.

"This is HORRIBLE! This is just SO HORRIBLE!" Erin kept saying over and over. Well, yeah, it did really suck, mostly because I wanted Trish and Hugh to see how they changed the ride for Halloween. And it's a really fun ride in general. But of all the things we saw and did, this was really the only low point in the entire last 5 days, I reminded Erin.

The next morning we reluctantly left the Disneyland Hotel.

But we'll be back, and if we're lucky, it will be raining during our next visit.

ein deutscher in amerika

2010-10-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

Oma was born and raised in Germany and I've been to Germany twice with her to visit her family and do some sight-seeing. On both of my trips I spent a lot of time with her various cousins' families. One of her cousins, Tobias, is a university student who knows a fair amount of English and is interested in America. On my latest trip to Germany earlier this year Tobias and his family took me on several sight-seeing day trips, and I invited him to visit us if he had the chance to let me return the favor.

Tobias has been to the US twice before. He visited a friend in NYC a couple of years ago, and before that he visited Oma and Opa's house in rural PA. I explained to him that where I live is a totally different America than either of those places, and unlike NYC he's unlikely to see muscular guys named Vinnie with greasy hair and Bronx accents, so he was intrigued. He booked his trip to see us during the last weeks before his fall semester began. He left a very cold, rainy Germany and found unseasonably warm, sunny weather here, and he was thrilled.

The day after he arrived I took him to SF, but before getting there I thought we'd stop at a beach for a bit. We watched some surfers and he picked up some sand dollars shells (he'd never seen them before) and he was also unfamiliar with kelp, which was lying here and there around the beach. We also found a dead, decapitated sea lion--a shark victim I suppose. We certainly have beautiful wildlife to enjoy at every turn.

Then we headed to the GG bridge to take in the views and walk along the bridge.

Next we headed to the wharf area, where we caught a ferry boat to Angel Island. Once there we rented bikes and went riding around and visited the old asian immigrant holding station which is now a museum.

When we returned to the wharf we walked around a while and we came upon perhaps the most important SF tourist attraction next to the GG bridge--the Bushman. If you are unfortunate enough not to have stopped to watch him in action, watch this video taken by my brother a few years ago.

We walked by the Bushman from behind him, and as soon as I saw him I pulled Tobias over to the side of street and told him we have to watch him for a few minutes because he's going to get money by scaring tourists. I think Tobias thought I was completely nuts. As we watched he scared the daylights after several groups of people and we laughed so hard that we were nearly crying. It's worth enduring the touristy wharf area once and a while just to see the Bushman at work.

The following day, on the advice of a friend, Tobias and I took a student-led walking tour of a nearby university with a famously beautiful campus.

And we also hiked in a redwood forest and visited a winery with great views of the valley.

Tobias was interested in how cherished the redwoods seem to be. The winery even built their amphitheater around them rather than cut them down.

Over the weekend all 6 of us took a train ride from the mountains, through the forest, and down to the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.

And Tobias was delighted again to find himself back on a beach. He and the girls went wading for a while and collected shells, then we all went on the boardwalk for some rides.

Tobias rode the famous Big Dipper coaster twice, and loved it.

We talked over Skype 2 days before he arrived. I asked him if there was anything specific he wanted to see here and his answer was "your German school and your kids' regular school." Tobias is studying to be a teacher and thought it would be interesting to see "a typical american elementary school".

One problem there is that there really isn't anything typical about our elementary school, and the next problem was I didn't think the teachers would exactly go for it. But when I emailed the girls' teachers the next day with a kind of "I know this is a totally strange question, but..." kind of note, I was surprised to read that all of them welcomed him in their classes, and Allison's teacher came up with the idea of having Tobias speak to Kate and Allison's whole village about Germany and Oktoberfest, since the kids have been talking about the fall harvest season lately.

The next day I was volunteering at the school as usual and Allison's teacher elaborated on her email, "It's great to expose the kids to holidays of other cultures but all we ever get are offers to share Indian and Chinese holidays year, after year...after year. We NEVER get to hear from anyone from Europe. He just HAS to speak to the kids!"

Yeah, well, he was already on his way here and I couldn't ask him about this until he arrived. Oktoberfest is a Bavarian thing and Tobias isn't Bavarian. I know that Oma gets annoyed when people generalize the Bavarian culture to the whole country and everyone in it and I wasn't sure if Tobias felt similarly and would be receptive to this request. On the drive to my house from the airport that evening, I conveyed the teacher's idea, and he was actually very flattered to be asked to speak to the kids and he was very excited.

Over the next week I helped him assemble some photos to show the kids with maps of Europe and Germany and photos of Oktoberfest and fall harvest crops there. I operated the computer while Tobias talked, and we also found a video of some traditional dancing and a video about the history of the event too.

After the presentation the teachers gave the kids Oktoberfest word search puzzles that we found online and printed. The presentation went really, really well. Tobias really seemed to enjoy himself and he spent the rest of the time in their classes helping kids with art projects, and observing lessons and taking notes. He thought the school and the teachers were fantastic.

He also spent a day observing at the local German-American school--the private school where the girls and I take a class on saturday mornings. During the week they have a full K through 12 bilingual program and Tobias could possibly work as a student teacher there for a few months later in his college career. He spoke to several of the faculty there and said he made many good contacts who he plans stay in touch with.

In between all this sight-seeing and school-seeing Tobias had fun with the girls, speaking to them in German and reading to them and playing games.

And I made sure to introduce him to important american cultural items. First, there was food.
Some of the things he tried for the first time and really enjoyed:
ginger ale, corn dogs, saltwater taffy, american beer, california wine, sausage links with breakfast, fluffy pancakes, cinnamon toast, chicken parmesan, cornbread.
Some of the things he's only eaten once before, while visiting Oma and Opa in PA several years ago and he had again here:
tacos, donuts, corn on the cob, steak.

His favorite fruit is strawberries but he said you can only get them for about 2 months in Germany. So while driving back from ocean kayaking one day, we stopped at a large fruit stand adjacent to a farm and bought a TON of them. I made John's mom's famous strawberry pie and we had plenty left over for him to enjoy for many days.

We started watching a movie on TV one night but he couldn't understand the accents well (american actors trying to be british). So I started looking through our DVD's for a comedy (his favorite). I had "16 Candles" in mind but we don't have it, so I chose John's favorite comedy, "Better Off Dead". Tobias laughed and loved it. How could you not?

And so, culturally significant, historic, and magnificent local sights seen and heard and tasted, Tobias' last day here was spent per his request, at the beach.

Tobias reluctantly left us after two weeks. I tried to give him his fill of sun, sand, strawberries, and mexican food and some sense of why this is such a nice place to live. I think he agrees and I'm sure he'll be back, though I hope I can get back to Germany first.

eight is great

2010-10-11T19:43:00.000-07:00

Somehow, very strangely, apparently eight years have passed since the day Erin was born. I'm not exactly sure how this occured in what seems a whole lot less than eight years. I think I was just getting comfortable with her being 7 and now the twins are talking about their seventh birthday.

Erin has read and loved all seven Harry Potter novels, and after she finished each book, she watched the corresponding movies, and the last movie is due out shortly. She is all jazzed about seeing that final movie and she wanted a Harry Potter birthday party at our house. I thought this was a good idea but since I guessed that many of her friends haven't read the books, I convinced her to widen the scope of the party theme to include magic in general.

This made for a pretty simple party to plan and execute. First up, lunch, because I took lots of math in school and I know that K + P = H, (where K= kids, P=pizza, H= happy).
And some fruit and munchies served in plastic magician hats.

Next up, magician for hire. I didn't know any magicians so I chose one who came highly recommended (on Yelp). He had the kids laughing and engaged, but his magic tricks were fairly cheesy and John and I weren't overly impressed.

At one point he brought Erin up and dressed her a bit like Harry Potter before she assisted him.

And he got some other kids in the act too.

Nevermind that his secrets were often pretty obvious, the kids had fun.

After the show I brought out a couple of boxes of cheap magic tricks for the kids to try out themselves, and they had fun with those and/or playing in the backyard together until it was time for cake.
This fantastic castle cake was made by a friend:

After the cake John turned on a Tivo'd collection of Pixar short films, because he remembered the first film was about a magician, and the kids laughed and explored their goodie bags of magic tricks and tips, magic wand, and halloween Mad Libs until their parents picked them up.

cousin tim's in town

2010-09-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

My girls are very fortunate to have lots of cousins. Including all those on my mom's side of the family in New Jersey, they have more cousins than I can count. But all of their first cousins are here in the west. Some are really local and some live a little further away, but we always manage to see everyone at least once a year. Sometimes, between our ski trips in Oregon and their visits here, the girls see their Pacific Northwest cousins two or three times a year. Time spent with cousins is among the girls' favorite things, especially with any of the five older ones.

Our nephew Tim studies mechanical engineering in Oregon and was looking for some work to do in the last few weeks before school starts, so John and Jeff thought they could keep him busy down here. John had some LCD testing work in mind for him, Jeff talked about his dog walking, car washing, furniture moving, and weed-pulling needs. But fortunately for Tim I think John's idea won out.

Tim arrived last weekend and on labor day we all decided to go for a little drive/hike/picnic in the hills. The state park we chose in known for fun rocks to climb, and Uncle Jeff lead the way.

We found a big open cave which is popular for bouldering, with mats on the ground and climbing shoes and chalk. But Tim decided to show the girls how it's done without any of those silly safety measures.

The park was fun, though a little nerve-wracking as the girls scrambled quickly around large rocks with a huge steep drop-offs on nearby edges. And of course the girls were running and climbing in all different directions at once, so John, Jeff, and Tim mostly followed on one at a time while I wandered around taking pictures.

We had lunch on the rocks and then hiked down back towards the cars and then back up another trail to take us to a waterfall. The trail takes you to a platform at the top of an unexpectedly high waterfall, though it's about the height of the dry season now and the it probably isn't as nearly as impressive as it would be in spring. Still, it was a beautiful view up there.

By the time got back to the car again the girls were covered in a fine layer of dirt head to toe, sweaty, and tired.
"Those are some filthy kids," Uncle Jeff noticed.
"Yes, I might give them a bath as soon as we get home," I answered.
"How about bring them to my house and throw them in the pool instead!"

The only thing more fun than climbing and hiking with their big cousin is swimming with him.

games again

2010-09-08T18:12:00.000-07:00

Day two of labor day weekend. Still crushed by the Aggies' terrible loss the afternoon before, John didn't have the strength to attend the large annual Highland Games with the rest of us. Sure, he made an excuse about having to work or something like that, but I knew the real deal. But the girls and I managed to get over our disappointment enough to follow through with our weekend plans.

Outside the front entrance we were in the presence of someone dressed up like and wanting us to believe that they were royalty. Clearly this wasn't a real queen because it was a very warm day. If she were royalty she'd demand to wear something more suited to the weather.

But the girls thought the little skit and costumes were interesting.

But as soon as we got inside the gates the first thing they wanted to do was watch the Highland dancing, especially because their dance teacher told us that the younger kids would be dancing during the first two hours that day. And the girls know one of the young dancers from their school. She is wearing the light purple in the photo where they are facing backwards.

The girls were so excited to see Elizabeth up there, and they really appreciated the dancing by all the kids now that they are familiar with many of the steps. Erin was particularly engrossed. She loves her dance class and she takes it pretty seriously and she is very enthusiastic. She has progressed well over the summer and has just been moved to a more advanced class, and her teachers want her to be part of a local Scottish performance planned for November near home.

The twins, meanwhile, wax and wane about whether or not they want to continue dancing, and either way is fine with me. After watching the performances though I think they came away with a little more interest.

Altogether we watched the dancing for over an hour and I almost had to drag them away because there was so much more to see and we only had a few hours to be there.

Nearby were the clan tents, so we wandered around there for a while and the girls posed with the chief member for their clan, as they did last year.

Then we watched the clan representatives line up to enter the Highland Games arena, but we didn't follow them in.

Instead, we looked at some animals and some sheep dog trials and spent a lot of time playing games in the children's area.

Kate was Haggis Toss champ, racking up far more tickets than her sisters or any of the other kids while we were there, and she lined up again and again to play.

The hours at the games passed quickly and as usual and we never did manage to see everything we would have liked. But we'll be back next year, and Erin may very well be up on that dance stage next time.