History Park San Jose

Today, three of the second grade classes visited the History San Jose Park.  Leo has been there twice before but I only went once last year.  

Here's my group - Serafina, Raz (pronounced Roz), Kevin and Brian.  Raz is an epic drama queen who hurts poor sensitive Serafina's feeling multiple times a day.  I've had Kevin and Brian in my field trip group before.  They are pretty easy.  

 We started out with time to explore, so we went to check out the covered wagon.

And the train.

 The whole class visited a nearby "friendship garden".

 Then it was time to meet the docent for a tour.

 They got to experience life in the 1890s, including sewing with a foot pedal machine.

 And ironing.

 Outside they had to carry heavy buckets of water.

 And pump the well.

 She never looks this happy helping with laundry at home.

 She really liked milking the pretend cow too.

Valentine's Day and more

At the end of last month, I got sick, really sick, with possibly the flu and definitely a sinus infection.  Thankfully my mom was close at hand to help and the doctor prescribed an antibiotic.  A couple days later, Serafina got sick with a sore throat and rash.  She missed school on Friday, February 2nd.  We also decided to skip our planned Tahoe trip that weekend so the sickies could recover.

Needless to say, this threw us off a bit since we are used to keeping an every-other-weekend schedule.  But there wasn't much to do but adapt.

Last Thursday, I was asked to help at Laurelwood Preschool where my kids went to school.  I've helped and substituted in the classroom before.  My friend Kristi, who teaches the three year olds, was getting three new students in one day - a set of boy twins and a little girl who's twin sister was placed in the next door classroom.  The boys did fine because they had each other.  The little girl, Navya, freaked out once her parents left.  Her sister, Nitya, was also very upset but their mom stayed in the classroom.  Navya spent over an hour crying, screaming, lunging for the door (which I blocked with my body) and hitting me.  All that drama wore her out and right before snack time she couldn't keep her eyes open.  I motioned to my lap and she plopped down and fell asleep.

 Aunt Sheila was in town and Thursday after school, the kids and I went to my mom's place to hang out and deliver an early birthday present - this little patio set.  Here's Sheila helping Serafina with some homework.  We were having unseasonably warm weather.

 We headed up to Tahoe on Friday night to make up for the missed weekend.  The warm weather took it's toll on the snow and the conditions weren't great, but these skiers made the best of it.

 Yesterday, Leo helped me make the cookies for his class Valentine's party.  He was very proud of his hard work and took the leftover cookies to share with his diving buddies at practice tonight.

 Leo is really into the Hamilton soundtrack right now.  I made him a Valentine's card with a line from one of his favorite songs.

 Here's a little "then and now" Valentine picture.  The top two are from when each kid was three with hats made at preschool.  The bottom pictures are from today.

Snowball Dance

Last night was the school's Snowball Dance.  Leo wasn't interested in going and I'm not a fan of the cafeteria when it's pack, so we sat this one out.  Tom escorted Serafina and since Sunny's folks had other plans that night, he also took her.  

The girls were both very dressed up and excited to go.  

 Silly faces, of course.

 Tom is a really good sport.

 I received this picture via text message from a number I didn't recognize, but I recognize four out of the five girls.

They ended up leaving before the end of the dance; Serafina was exhausted but everyone had fun.

Leo is a Good Citizen

Earlier this week, Leo's teacher emailed me to let me know that the class had voted for him to receive this month's citizenship award.  Of course, I was very proud of him and it meant even more that his peers thought he deserved it. 

The award assembly was this morning and here he is shaking the principal's hand.  

 Four grade citizenship award winners.

 Leo's fan club.

 His super amazing teacher, Mrs. Chang.

I posted this picture of the four of us on Instagram with the caption that my main goal as a parent is to raise my kids not to be assholes.  I figure the rest will work itself out but it's not always easy to tell if I'm successful.  The fact his classmates recognized that he's a good kid seemed like a win for both of us and it felt good for both of us.  

Serafina's VIP

Thursday was Serafina's turn to be her class's VIP.  She spent last week working on the poster, which she presented to class.  

 She is not shy about talking about herself.

 She also got to bring five items to share.  She brought her dance pictures and her "broken leg bear".

 She brought her Minnie Mouse ears from Disneyland and her baby book.

She did a great job sharing and answering questions.

Chilly Tahoe weekend and ski videos

 Two weeks ago after our last Tahoe trip, I promised to edit the GoPro videos to post on the blog.  That totally didn't happen.  It might still happen, but in the meantime, I'll share some pictures and videos from this weekend's trip.

It was just our family at the house this weekend.  It snowed on Thursday and Friday so there was finally some powder on the mountain.  It didn't snow while we were there, but it was cold.  Like really cold.

I promise he's smiling under there.

 My fierce skiing warrior woman.

 This morning they played outside for a few minutes before leaving to ski.  I ran outside to take these pictures then ran right back in.  Brrrr!

Tom took this awesome picture.  

Check out Serafina shredding down the mountain.  At the very end of the video, you can see Leo speed demon down to the bottom.  

Apparently there were some races happening today.  Leo watched the competitors on the course and thought "hey, I can do that."  And then he did.  

Start of ski season

We had a successful first trip to the mountains this past weekend.  I would say "trip to the snow" but there wasn't much snow.  But the lack of snow kept the crowds away and we had easy driving both ways  - no weather, no traffic.

All loaded up on Thursday night with their sleep masks on for the drive.

 Friday morning they geared up and got ready to head out.  Serafina was nervous because she thought she would forget how to ski.  She was pleased to learn that she hadn't forgotten at all.  She lacks confidence on her skis even though she's a strong skier.

 I bid my crew farewell and headed to the other ski resort to take a yoga class.  The studio looks out on a pretty mountain and I really like the teachers there.  It's a nice way to spend some time since I don't ski.

 When I returned from yoga, the crew was inside for lunch and apparently the kids' stamina was lacking.  Tom convinced (aka bribed) them to go back out for a few runs but then it started raining hard and they came in after just a few completely soaked through.  Even their long johns were wet.

 I changed them into dry clothes and we went to our favorite pizza place for dinner.  They were ready to go the next day.  Tom has declared this "the year of self-sufficiency" so the kids carried (most) of their own gear.

 Day two at Squaw.

 Tom is really proud of this girl but also wants her to push her limits more.  I think she's going to have a great season.

 Mid-day on Saturday our housemates met us at Squaw to finish out the day.  We went home to cook, chat and rest up for one last day of skiing on Sunday.

The skiers put the new GoPro to use and took lots of video.  I'm going to try to teach myself how to edit them and I'll post them soon.  All and all it was a good start to the 2018 ski season.