Rain Hike

It's raining at last in California! And the kids are on winter break. For today's activity, I took them on a rain hike. They weren't thrilled at first, but they enjoyed it overall, and were reminded of important lessons about keeping water out of your boots and keeping your pants dry. 

We went to Redwood Regional Park and had a beautiful, quiet stroll up the Stream Trail. Then I took them up to the Serpentine Prairie for a peek into the fog (and a look at a fence I was involved with designing many years ago). 

Nutcracker, at last!

For the past several years, I've been meaning to take the kids to the Nutcracker. But I kept missing the dates, or the shows would be sold out, or something would come up. But this year we went at last! Nona joined us, and the girls got some pictures with the dancers afterwards:

Romeo and Juliet

Molly rocked the role of Romeo (first half)! Huge props to Ms. Castle for her amazing work leading these kids on this adventure.

Clara, a portrait

One of the parents at the kids' school is a professional portrait photographer, and every year she shoots portraits of her kids' classmates. Every year I hope Molly or Clara is in one of their classes, and this year Clara is! Which means we now have this evocative portrait of our eight-year-old Clara.

The photographer is Smeeta Mahanti. Check out her work!
http://www.smeetamahanti.com/

We are at the cafe

:it's me ,Clara

<< sent from a tiny computer >>

Two Claras

Clara had made a friend named Clara at family camp last year who lives in LA, and our Clara asked if they could get together with her while we were in town. They had a great time.

Franklin Canyon

Clara and I finished up our trip to Los Angeles with a hike in Franklin Canyon with some friends from high school, including Chris who is a great photographer: https://brooksy.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumKey=pw5nfx