Happy Birthday Opa!

We celebrated Opa's 3x4x7th birthday with flowers, ethiopian food, and lots of silliness. Here's to another trip around the sun, with lots of love!

Happy 14th, Molly!

Molly is now a fully celebrated 14 year old! We had a birthday-eve family dinner at home (with takeout from Spoon, her favorite Korean place, and a pile of donuts for a cake), a bit more celebration on the actual day, and her friend party last night (hanging out with her friends at the Oakland Museum of California's Friday Nights event).

Here she is on the eve of her birthday modeling the sweater that I finished just in time! (The sweater was her request: please something with lots of cables!). What a kid!

2019 Sparklers!

Happy 2019!

We rang in the new year with our traditional table, candles, small gifts, and banter about what we usually do or don't do. Here's some pictures (for the record, Molly did make a "dime cake" and Zach got the dime!):

Happy Birthday, Clara!

You're 11 now -- a lovely palendromic number to go with your amazing self!

I've been a bit of a slacker on the photos this year, so hopefully this pre-birthday gift giving photo will do for now. : )

You've started middle school and are settling in to new routines and new independence. Over the past year you finished your first year on the gymnastics team, working hard to develop those skills.

Here's wishing you another great turn around the sun with tons of love!

First Day of School

The kids are back in school today. Clara started middle school, so they are both at the same school again for one year.

Clara seems to be thrilled/scared/excited/anxious, as appropriate. Molly seems to be over it (but probably a bit nervous on the inside?), also as appropriate.

They biked off for "zero period" which is the brutally early music class. Can't wait to hear how it goes!

Birthdays

We were on the east coast for Mary's birthday. Just the second since she died. Definitely different than the first one. This one we were on the move—from New York, to Northern Virginia/DC area. In a way, it was an echo of part of her life. She met Dieter in New York, and ended up in the DC area with him. And we were even going to stay with Ann and Warren, two of their long-time friends. 

I was less surprised to find myself extra emotional this year. And just as happy to remember the amazing person she was. 

By the time my birthday rolled around a few days later, we were down in Ocracoke. 

County Fire

It is once again fire season in California and this time we've already been impacted. The dramatic County Fire, which started on June 30th, burned through our property in the Capay Valley on July 1st. The fire started near our property, but for the first day the wind blew in the other direction. We happened to be up at the property with some friends that day, and soon decided to evacuate back home. 

When the winds shifted on the second day, the fire jumped the containment lines and came through our property. Remarkably, only one yurt was destroyed and a pop-up tent was damaged. The firefighters bulldozed fire lines and sprayed fire retardant and water. They were able to completely protect the barn, our yurt, our water tank, the bathroom shed, another shed, and the bee hives. 

On July 4th we went up with Eugene and Mark to evaluate the situation. The fire was still burning just north of our property, but there was very little left on our property to burn.

The oaks on the lower part of the property were mostly browned on the bottom. The trees and shrubs on the upper part of the property, where it was primarily chaparral, were completely burned. The grasses throughout were burned. And dead trees and logs burned to white ash. In the end, it's all probably the best for the vegetation, which is adapted to being burned. I hear we can expect a beautiful wildflower season next spring! And this should open up the "back 40"--a portion of the property that we were never able to access because of the thick chaparral.