Today was the school's Multicultural Festival. It was hot and exhausting, just like last year. I helped in the Nicaragua booth, just like last year. My friend Gaby, who is actually Nicaraguan, set up this mural since Nicaragua is the "mural capital of the world". Kids were encouraged to add to the mural with art and words that reflect their favorite part of Laurelwood school.
Here's Serafina's contribution - a profession of her love for math.
Leo is participating in the school's Nutcracker again. This year he has an acting part with about three lines of dialogue. Yesterday was the first rehearsal and all the actors came together to meet the directors and get their scripts.
It was Blue Day on Friday at school. Over the summer, the PTA released a new logo and the kids sported the new design on Friday.
Always have to have a silly face picture too.
The kids receive an allowance that is distributed in to three bins equally - Spend, Save and Give. This weekend, they decided to donate their "Give" money to Puerto Rico hurricane relief. My very good friend is Puerto Rican and her entire family is there. Here's an article about her amazing sister, Ana Sued. We are donating the kids' money and some of our own to Unidos Por Puerto Rico; maybe you'll be inspired to do the same.
And today, because it's October 1st, we had to dress Fred up for Halloween. I knew I wanted him to wear the pumpkin this year. Leo was the pumpkin and so was Serafina, and now it's Fred's turn.
Of course we had to do a little fashion show/photo shoot with some other costumes too.
Leo is taking diving lessons on Saturdays. This was his first class in the pool. Last week they worked out in a gym because there was a festival at the park adjacent to the pool.
Here he is going off the "big board". He was nervous about it before the class started, but went right ahead without hesitation and did it several times.
Fourth and fifth graders are allowed to rent instruments from the school district and attend music classes on Thursdays. Leo decided he wanted to play clarinet. The music teacher handed out the instruments today. Can you tell he's happy about it?
We made the brave choice to go to the coast today. There was the potential for lots of traffic, difficult parking and crowded beaches. But after a little bit of traffic to start, the rest of the drive was smooth, there was a spot right on the street near the beach and we picked a beach that didn't have tons of people.
As soon as we got there, everyone was excited to get in the water. Right after this picture was taken, the boogie boarders in this picture told us there was a shark out there. The lifeguard came shortly after that to confirm there was a "positive shark sighting". Another surfer told us it was 8 - 10 feet.
We didn't worry too much about the shark. It's part of the Pacific Ocean playground. Of course we didn't let the kids go too far out.
Here's Mike, Lynz, Tom and the kids.
Mike, Tom, me and the kids
The kids made these cool looking handfuls of sand.
After a fun time at the beach, we had to have some Marianne's before heading home. It also wasn't too crowded.
Mike and Leo had a deep conversation about ice cream.
