Via Nova Camping

Last weekend was the annual preschool camping trip. This has been one of our favorite camping trips over the past three years, and it just keeps getting better. This year we camped at a group site in nearby Tilden. I loved watching the kids play and run freely in the open field. And being spitting distance to the Little Farm. We forgot the camera, but between Zach's fancy new phone and other parents we got a nice little set of pictures.

Nona Camp - Lawerence Hall of Science

with Park and Ivy, grandkids of one of Nona's Grams

GRID Picnic Pinata

Friday Adventure: MOCHA

One of our Friday Adventures this summer was taking the bus to MOCHA with friends. Molly liked the art, Clara liked the play area, we all liked the bus.

Cherry Picking

On Memorial Day weekend we enjoyed a fantastic trip out to Brentwood to pick cherries with our neighbors/friends. They led the way to a delectable treat - cherries cherries everywhere! Clara clearly enjoyed them and by the end of the afternoon had pretty much learned not to eat the pits. Molly enjoyed picking them, pitting them, and talking about them but did not eat a single one ("I don't like fruits with pits").

At the Races

We enjoyed Family Day at the race track in Albany. Pony rides, bouncy house/adventure course, DJ, balloons, oh, and some horse races, too.

Leftover LA (on the way home)

The rest stop was closed on the drive back, so we stopped at a gas station with a big empty field next to it. The field wasn't so great for running around in (the grass - maybe wheat? - was really hard and pokey), but it was nice for getting out a little and checking out the grasses.

Leftover LA (out and about)

Found some pictures leftover from our trip to LA...

Clara, Sofi, & Molly about to brave the kids "drop".
Molly & Clara on the airplane ride (Molly enjoyed getting it to go up and down, Clara just wanted to spin the steering wheel. They were a good match).
Clara + fruit at Nana's elementary school.
Sofi & the girls on their way to the farmer's market (and at the end of the bike lane).

Pizza (May 2010)

Molly's Library Card

Now that she's 5, Molly reminded us, she can have her own library card.

Dress Up at Nona's

Molly found the dress up clothes at Nona's. Here she is as a chef, presenting the menu for the evening, and as a jockey, psyching herself up for the next race (note that the jockey costume is the actual costume that Nona made for me for Halloween one year when I was a kid!).

Ballet Recital

Our experiment with a ballet class has been a "success": Molly's thrilled with the class and even more thrilled that they had a real recital. Here are the girls all in their matching ballet uniforms, with a little "flair" to indicate that they are "water" for the story being narrated by their teacher. Apparently Molly has decided that it's okay for ballerinas to smile.

Molly was also excited that Nana, Pa, Nona, and Uncle Seth could all make it to the show.

Clara's Photo Shoot

On a walk to the park Clara asked Nona to take pictures of her in various poses. The walk took a long time but it looks like they had a lot of fun!

Davis (early May)

more pictures from our bike & train trip to visit Haven in Davis (early May).

Photos: Molly & Clara on the train; Molly on the train; Clara eats her way to Davis; Molly & Zach waiting for the train; Molly & Clara with Freija, ready for a bike ride.

Molly on the Playground

Molly went with her preschool class to visit the local kindergarten. After joining the class for a story, they played on the playground...

Snails

A few months ago Clara was playing with play-dough at school and announced that she had made some snails! She proceeded to teach her classmates how to make snails, and convinced her teacher to mount them and hang them on the wall. A few days (or weeks?) later she told her teachers it was time to take the snails home.

Or so the story goes.

Later, Molly enjoyed showing me another snail.

Double Day - Other things

And here are some pictures of other things we did to get ready for, and to celebrate Double Day. For fun I went to the girls' classes to talk about Double Day. The big topic at school this spring was "All about Me" - learning about their bodies and them selves in different ways. Clara's class has been having parents come in and talk about the kid, read a story, or do some activity. So for her class we actually made a model of a goat for the kids to try milking, since that's something unique about Clara (and something Clara loves). For Molly's class we had fun learning about (or starting to learn about) the concept of "Double".

Double day - Temescal

And here are more pictures of us playing at Lake Temescal on Double Day... including pictures of the duck that tried to eat our dinner!

Double Day Sisters

Here the girls are, ready to go to school on Double Day (May 13th, 2010), as matching as they can get.

Clara & Simone

Clara's buddy Simone came over to play (back in May). They're buddies from daycare - even though Simone is about 6 months older than Clara they've always had a great time together, as you can see. Too bad for us, Simone is moving to Canada this summer.