Tahoe fun

We headed to Tahoe later than usual on Friday because of the school activities we attended.  Once we were there we were treated to beautiful weather.

The kids had two days of fun skiing and we ate dinner out in the village on Saturday night.

No videos of Serafina skiing this time, but you can here her cheering Leo on in this one.  

Sierra School Potluck

Friday night, Leo's school had a family potluck.  I brought chocolate chip cookies, of course.  There was tons of food and we got to eat in his classroom chatting with other parents.

After everyone ate, we were treated to a performance by the middle and elementary school kids.

Leo recited a Robert Frost poem as part of the show.

And then the whole group sang a final song.

It was a nice time.  Serafina attended her school's Snowball Dance.  My friend Kristi took her since Tom took her daughter last year.

Roller Rink

It was raining outside and Tom and Grandpa Skip were settling in for an afternoon of football, so the kids and I invited some friends to the roller rink.  

Sunny was fresh off an indoor soccer game, but she still wanted to do some skating.  

 Leo had never been on roller skates and it's been a long time since he ice skated, but he was excited to give it a go.

First he started off with this strange toe push technique. 

 Then he tried what could best be described as "skate walking".

It didn't take long for him to get the hang of it and figure out how to flow a little smoother.  

Don't get me wrong, he was still herky-jerky and flailing about, and he fell more times than I could count, but he loved it.  He had a huge smile on his face and never got upset when he bit the dust.  When I would roll by him he would shout "I'm having so much fun" or "I love this".

 Sunny wasn't having too much fun in the beginning.  In fact, she was doing a fair share of crying because she felt so unsteady.
Her mom tried to help her but she was still frustrated.

I was worried she would give up completely, but Serafina stayed with her in the little learning area beside the main rink and she started to get more comfortable.

I was really proud of Serafina for sticking with her friend.  Eventually, Sunny felt more comfortable and they made it to the main rink.

 Of course, the main rink has it hazards.  Mainly, the adults...

Leo was totally fine despite this huge guy knocking him down.  The guy was very apologetic and Leo went on to skate a ton more completely unfazed.

Here are the girls taking a break.

 The whole skating crew.  We had a really good time.

Saturday at the Museum with Grandpa Skip

Grandpa Skip arrived Friday evening and we are so happy to have him visit.  It is over-due since he was supposed to visit in summer but he got too sick to come up.  Yesterday we drove to Stanford and checked out the Anderson Collection and the Cantor Arts Center.  The kids and I visited both for my birthday but it was fun to see it again with Skip, Nana and Tom.  

First we checked out the Anderson Collection.

 Watching a video to learn about the artist.

 Nana, Serafina, Grandpa Skip and Leo posing in front of the Jackson Pollack.  This piece hung over the Anderson's daughter's bed when she was a kid.

 The had a chance to make their own modern art and hang it on the wall.

 At the Cantor, there was another hands-on activity.

 There was also this interesting piece that looked like wallpaper with little dots but when you used the accompanying magnifying glasses you could see the dots were little faces.

 They have a large Rodin sculpture garden including this Gates of Hell.

Serafina's New Haircut

A couple of Serafina's friends got shorter haircuts and it inspired her go shorter with her haircut.  The result is super cute and of course, more manageable hair.

Bring-a-Friend-to-Dance Class: Lyrical

Serafina brought sisters Emma and Lane to her Lyrical dance class.  They were all excited to do the class together.  Emma and Serafina were in a ballet class together back in the day.  

Bring-a-Friend-to-Dance Class: Ballet

This week at Serafina's dance studio students are allowed to bring a friend (or two) to their classes.  Today Sunny and Millie joined her for her ballet class.  

 Serafina was super annoyed that I was taking pictures.  This is the only picture that she isn't giving me major evil eye.  It's still not great but at least she isn't shooting daggers at me.  

 I thought the teacher might forgo the usual dance class for a more casual situation to make it more fun for the guests, but that wasn't the case.  The class was just as challenging as always, including all the French words for the warm-ups.

On the drive home, the girls claimed they liked it and had fun.  But later tonight when I was with their moms at a PTA meeting, the truth came out that it was a little too intense for their liking.  The moms were appreciative that they didn't fall in love with it and started begging to add another activity to already busy schedules.

Art Museum field trip

Today Leo's class visited the San Jose Museum of Art.  He visited as a second grader and again as a third grader.  We've been a couple of times on our own as well.  

Serafina didn't do this field trip last year because the second grade teachers decided the risk of getting a grumpy docent was too high and weren't willing to take the gamble.  

We had museum teachers for this field trip and they were great.  We only looked at a few works but it gave the kids an opportunity to really examine and discuss the art.  

Here's a neon piece that started off the field trip.  

 They also explored an exhibit of photographs and writings from Vietnam.

 It was super cool.

 Then they got to make their own art piece.

 It was supposed to be a four quadrant representation of a movement they do regularly.  Some kids did "Jump" or "Walk" or "Run".  Leo did "skis".

Visiting the roller rink

Leo went back to school on Wednesday but Serafina is off until next Tuesday.  The last couple of days she's been stuck running errands with me, so today I decided to find some fun for us.  

We drove to San Jose to go to a roller rink.  Here she is ready to go with her skates.  

 She was pretty proud of wearing her own skates instead of the ugly brown rental skates.

 I wore the rental skates and still had a great time.  Apparently roller skating is like riding a bicycle; it comes all right back when you lace up those skates.

She's not quite roller derby ready, but she's getting better and most importantly, she had fun.  But I might have had more fun.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  We celebrated last night at my friend Kristi's house.  We've been ringing in the new year with her family for several years now.  Leo stayed home with Nana, but Serafina came along and spent time with her girl gang.  Kristi got them all matching pajamas which was super cute.  

 Kristi is dog sitting for Aida and the dog, Tahdig, didn't want to be left out of the fun.

 Kristi and I were also in our favorite lounge wear.  She gifted all her girlfriends the most comfortable lounge pants ever for Christmas and she encouraged us to wear them last night.  I didn't hesitate on taking her up on that suggestion and I even ended up wearing the same hoodie.  The other two moms did not wear their lounge pants and I have a feeling they weren't as comfortable.  We were super comfy.

 Mary is an expert French braider and I asked her to do Serafina's hair.

 It turned out really cute.

All the girls needed their hair braided after that.  

 The big girls bonded by looking at their phones together.

 More

 And here comes Tahdig again.

 Cuties!  From left to right: Sunny, Emma, Millie, Lane and Serafina

 So many braids!

Time to toast!