The Key Goodbye

A few weeks ago, Nona found an old key to the Takoma Park house. She stashed it in her purse, and mostly forgot about it, until today when we were at the beach. We decided to say thank you the the Cockerille Ave house, and send the key out into the Pacific. Clara helped. It was surprisingly satisfying!

it's out there somewhere...

Molly's Meal

A few weeks ago Molly made this "meal". It includes broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, a napkin, & a table cloth. Now we just have to get her to eat some of that food for real! :)

Clara (November 2010)

Did I mention that I just inherited an android phone from my mother in law? And that I'm just as addicted as I suspected (feared? hoped?) I would be? Well lucky me - I found this absolutely adorable picture of Clara on the memory card. Looks like she was trying on hats with Nana last Thanksgiving. What fun!

Sisters

Molly wanted to make sure I had a picture of them on my "new" phone so we took this one last night. Thanks again to Nana for helping me enter the world is smart phones!

Uncle Nouri

Uncle Nour-i-ph is visiting and everyone is so happy to have him here! Soon we'll all be fighting for his attention. :)

Clara bikes to school

Clara's been almost unstoppable on her bike since she learned to go on two wheels. Every day she begs to bike to school and back. On Wednesday, we were lucky enough to have Nana & Pa visiting on their way back home. They had just gone on a 3 week trip in their Airstream Trailer, including a stay at Burning Man. So, they were well equipped with Nana's spectacular new trike, so she could join Clara on her morning ride to school. Pa borrowed my Radish. Here they are, ready to go!

Park(ing) Day

On Friday, Clara and I visited two sites for International Park(ing) Day - a day where people in cities around the world take over one or more parking spaces to make temporary "pop-up" "parklets". We took the bus to one here in Berkeley, and then zipped down to one by Zach's office and enjoyed eating lunch with him.

Coastal Cleanup

On Saturday we participated in the Coastal Cleanup Day. Molly was enthusiastic about helping the bay for a little while, then decided she'd rather throw things in the water. Clara did some trash pick up, too, but even more quickly became more interested in trying to convince us to let her go in the water, or just sitting and playing on a log and eating snacks. Zach got a lot of cleanup done.

On a side note, a nice Chinese lady we met on the bus told us that Molly's t-shirt says something like "beautiful girl".

Molly the Soccer Fairy

Molly played her first soccer game on Sunday. She's still very enthusiastic about being on the team and even kicked the ball at least one time! The nice thing is that the team and the coach put a lot of emphasis on making sure each kid plays at their comfort level.
Go Molly!
Go Silver Serpents!

Invisible Permanent Tattoos

After dinner tonight Molly & Clara gave Opa some invisible face painting and invisible permanent tattoos. They came out really nicely, don't you think?

Bathtime

Goodbye Goats

For a little over a year we went every Saturday morning to milk a goat living about a mile away in the back yard of a lovely family. It was a fun experience to get to know another family, get to know the two goats, and get to really understand where milk (and cheese!) come from. Molly even got pretty good at milking by the end!

This summer the family decided to stop the goat-share/coop, mostly because they found that their new baby was not able to tolerate even goat milk! Next week Prima (the one we milked) will be "retired" to The Little Farm, and Xochi (who they were never able to successfully breed) will be slaughtered. Thanks to the Bolts for letting us enjoy their goats, and thanks to Molly & Clara for all your hard work going to milk the goats!

(these are pictures from May when Nona joined us one morning)

Friends

Clara and her buddy Sylvie.

$100 Sneeze

Yesterday, we paid $100 for Clara to sneeze. Well, actually, that was our co-pay for the trip to the Emergency Room on a Sunday evening after all other methods of trying to get the thing out of Clara's nose didn't work.

Yup. Clara stuck something up her nose. And it didn't come out easily.

Apparently, on the drive home from the Ethiopian restaurant last night she took part of the wet wipe, folded it neatly into a tiny square, and put it up her nose. Then promptly panicked because she couldn't get it out. The lovely advice nurse on the phone walked us through trying to get Clara to blow it out (she sucked it in further) and trying to get Zach to blow it out by blowing into Clara's mouth (she screamed and kicked). She said we could try waiting until the morning, but only if we thought Clara wouldn't put her fingers in after it and push it up further. I didn't think Clara could keep her fingers out of her nose, so I opted for the ER.

After an uneventful hour in the waiting room with a very subdued Clara, we were taken back and Clara was sat up on an exam table. The doctor peered up her nose and saw... snot. So he got a swab and started swabbing the snot away, which made Clara do a few little sneezes. The doctor tickled some more, and with one giant sneeze the neatly folded wet wipe (now covered in a lovely layer of snot) came flying out. It was surprisingly large!

And not so surprisingly, Clara literally skipped out of the hospital. After we paid the $100 co-pay. I guess we should be grateful that we didn't have to pay the full cost of the visit, though!

Soccer Girrrl

And on Sunday, Molly joined her first Soccer team. She had no interest in soccer until recently, when suddenly she really very strongly wanted to be part of a team ("A real soccer team"). And in competing ("I want to play in real soccer games!"). Which is great. Except that sign-ups for all the local leagues was in May. I contacted the two most popular ones and they were full. But when I saw how disappointed Molly was that she couldn't play until the spring, I contacted all the other teams that were a reasonable distance. One responded, and we went to our first practice on Sunday. I had no idea what to expect, but it was great. The coach is very mellow and their number one goal is for the kids to have fun.

Molly was ecstatic when we went shopping for cleats & shin guards on Saturday. She was a little tentative as we waited for practice to get started. But once it was underway, she was clearly having a great time. Now she just wants the uniform already!

Clara Bikes!

And on Thursday, Clara took off pedaling with no training wheels. Nona and Opa were lucky enough to witness the event. By the weekend, she was unstoppable on her bike and went all the way to the grocery store with Zach. This is Clara using the ramp outside Molly's classroom to master starting, turning, and zooming while we waited for Molly's class to be dismissed.

Clara the Dinosaur!

On Wednesday Clara started her last year of preschool. They call that class the Dinosaurs, and they spend most of the day upstairs, separate from the younger kids. She's thrilled. And I am thrilled to find out that one of Molly's previous teachers, who had left to take care of her newborn twins, is back to be Clara's teacher! What a way to end her preschool time.

Here she is hamming it up for the camera on her way for her own first day of school: