Thank You, Smithsonian Magazine

 You gotta love Facebook.  Last week a high school friend informed us all of a special day I'd never heard of called Free Museum Day, sponsored by Smithsonian Magazine.  By simply submitting an email address, you could pick 2 free passes from a long list of participating museums.  Since our favorite, The California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, was on the list, we had to take advantage of the $60 savings!  Well, I guess this Free Museum Day is not such the secret I thought it was because every single person on Facebook seemed to show up at our museum today!  Though we waited 2 hours to even get in and then battled major crowds inside, the girls were real troopers and exclaimed over and over on the way home that it was "The best day!"

Though Ella intentionally wore yellow today and spritzed herself with some of my flower-scented body spray, she just couldn't get a butterfly to land on her, like Dave did last time.  To have such a colorful variety of birds and butterflies fluttering all around us in the glass rain forest exhibit was still a treat, though.  And Delia was much braver.

After the ground level rain forest, it was time to head downstairs to the aquarium.  We walked through the fish tunnel...

 And we petted giant starfish and purple urchins in the tide pools.

We found Finding Nemo characters in the Tropical Reef tank.  (Dory and Gill are actually pretty stunning in real life!)

We watched the stingrays and sharks glide right beneath us.

And we hiked up the stairs to the Living Roof (no easy task for Dave, who ran 8 miles this morning!).  This Living Roof is something totally unique to this museum.  The whole thing is a giant garden!  Everything grows in these engineered layers, with many environmental benefits.  Sorry I can't recall too many more details than that, we were pretty worn out and hungry by this point.  We had a snack on the roof and we ended our day watching the penguins being fed their snack too, raw fish.

It would be nice to experience this museum when it's not filled to capacity some time, but if they're gonna keep giving us free days, we're gonna keep taking advantage of a great outing that costs us nothing more than some patience! 

Shake It!

Though we're going on our 8th year of living so near this "Almond Capitol of the World", we actually knew relatively little about almond harvest.  Thanks to some almond-growing church friends and their teenage daughter, Denise (a favorite of my girls!), today we got a little tour.  We wandered around their orchards a bit, got tons of questions answered and even saw the impressive shaking machine in action.  Our hosts showed us how they used to whack the almonds out of the trees with heavy mallets until they bought the shaker machine with its lever-operated tree-hugging arm 15 years ago.  After our friends clamp the machine's arm onto each trunk and make it rain almonds, they let the almonds lie on the ground for about a week to dry out.  What comes off the tree is kind of a fuzzy green pod with a hard shell inside.  The almond is inside the shell.  Next comes the sweeper machine that puts the scattered almonds into piles.  They are then scooped up, put onto the elevated conveyor belt, dumped into a big truck and taken off to be hulled and shelled.  The whole process was super interesting! (I didn't take any pictures, so I just "borrowed" this picture from the Wickers' blog.  Thanks Heidi! :)

Though it was the girls who expressed the first interest in learning about this, Delia with lessons on almond harvest at preschool and Ella with questions I couldn't answer whenever we'd see one the big trucks in action in an orchard, today they were much more into Tilly the kitty, Denise's guinea pig and stuffed animals and a fancy bear bench! 

We shared a video of Ella singing this same almond jingle 2 years ago, here's Delia's version.  It's even more fun now that the line "I shook the almond tree as hard as I can, down came the almonds..." has been seen and experienced up close!

I Knew there was a Reason I Kept this Stuff!

Today was a slow Saturday, so I finally did something Ella has been asking me to do for months-- dig out the tub of my old toys from the storage shed and crack it open for a trip down the memory lane of my childhood.  When the home I grew up in needed to be cleaned out and sold years ago, I kept a handful of my favorite toys thinking some day I would want to look back at them (very much a'la Toy Story 3).  Recently, Ella became aware of the existence of these dolls called Barbies that one could dress up in beautiful gowns.  Since Barbies made up the majority of the play I did as a kid and I logged thousands of hours building them elaborate homes and story lines with Heather and Anna, I just had to share with my so-much-like-me oldest daughter.

I didn't keep much, just a few favorite outfits, my 2 favorite girls and Ken.  Heather, you may be pleased to hear that all the most glamorous ballgowns I tricked you into trading me are bringing your niece much happiness now! :)  Ella is in Barbie love with even this meager exposure.  Anyone need a Christmas present idea for her?

Ella is pretty disturbed that his belly is exposed, but I was cracking up when I rediscovered this outfit I had saved for Ken-- complete with the sparkly glove!  Someone tell me this also brings you straight back to your own days of playing Barbies in the 80's!

A Spark and a Cubbie

(And a pair of crazy eyes!  Don't know what's up with Ella :)  For a couple weeks now, both girls have been going to Awanas.  Like preschool, Delia watched Ella do this for 2 years and was just dying to have her turn.  Delia is in the Cubbie class for 3 and 4 year olds and Ella moved up to the Spark class for kids ages 5 and up.  This program has its share of fun (snacks, games, singing, crafts, etc.), but it's pretty hard core about Bible lessons and Bible memory too.  Delia is doing better than I thought with the weekly memory work.  The trick is setting it to rhythm or making up a little song for it.  Though Ella has complained that her "head will explode" (explaining the face, perhaps?) from all the Bible memory verses she's squishing into it, she has done well enough to earn her book and vest.

I realized last week that Awanas is an hour and a half of free childcare!  Dave and I took advantage of this and went on a nice dinner date last week.  Last night I was able to pop into his youth group kick off where I left aching from laughing so hard at the goofy students doing the goofy activities Dave had planned.  

Noodle Art

I remember making giant tubs of these colored noodles when I taught preschool a million years ago.  And it's still fun!  I guess some ideas never get old.

Family, since I obviously won't be mailing these type of works, enjoy a photo: Ella's pasta pièce de résistance is entitled "Bowl of Noodles".  Delia's macaroni masterpiece is called "Bean Stalk".

"When I Grow Up..."

"I'm gonna be a veterinarian."
"I'm gonna be an artist."
"I'm gonna be a writer."

"I'm gonna be a nurse."

"I'm gonna be a swim lesson lifeguard."

"I'm gonna be a volleyball player."

"I'm gonna be a mom."

Ella changes her mind about what she's going to be when she grows up every few weeks.  It's fun to see how real life inspiration keeps calling her to a new profession.  The vet was after a peek in the zoo hospital.  The nurse was after a visit with Auntie Heather.  The lifeguard was after this summer's swim lessons.  The volleyball player was after attending a recent high school game.  I'm honored that the one she always seems to go back to is mom. 

But as of late a new life goal has been set by Ella: "When I grow up, I'm gonna be a kindergarten teacher!"  With lovely Mrs. H. as her teacher, it was only a matter of time before Ella decided to emulate her.  She's been playing a lot more school than usual and even created this self portrait (that's serious-black-dress-wearing teacher Ella standing in front of the white board with some sort of pointer in her hand).

As for Delia, she's been pretty consistent.  When she grows up, she insists she's "gonna be a butterfly!" Something free-spirited and impossible, total Delia!

Dress Rehearsal

This Sunday our Children In Worship program resumes for the fall.  This is a ministry that escorts the little ones out of our worship service half-way through and takes them to their own time of worship and learning in an age-appropriate environment.  This means Delia's nursery days are done and, for the first time, she'll join us in church on Sunday morning.  As we did when Ella was this age, today we visited Daddy and took her to the empty sanctuary to practice.  I have no doubt that Delia could be the child climbing and jumping off of pews, running up to Dave in the pulpit or shouting out greetings to friends during prayers, so a dry run was a good idea.  We went through all the right and wrong ways to act in church.  Not that we're super strict, but Dave and I have always said that "being engaged" (standing and singing when we're singing, praying when we're praying, acting respectful like others) is our main rule.  I'm excited to finally have our whole little family together to worship.  We see constantly that Delia loves God and loves to sing and fellowship.  Now we just pray that what she experiences on Sunday becomes a  whole lifestyle for her that makes attending church a priority.

Busy Morning

This morning Delia and I spent almost 4 hours at AnnaJean's house helping with her annual peach canning.  The 50 jars we did today pale in comparison to the 200 jars I've done with her in the past, but the slice in my hand and the cramp in my back tells me we still worked hard.  Together we halved, pitted, peeled, sliced, jarred and sealed 3 lugs of peaches.  Now we can stock our pantries and look forward to this treat in the winter when our fresh fruit is not as abundant!

Chalk It Up!

We spent this Labor Day admiring some unique art-- chalk art drawn all over the sidewalk squares of a Sacramento park.  The "Chalk It Up" Festival was truly something to see.  We walked a long stretch of paved path around the park watching artists in action creating everything from advertisements for their businesses to portraits to abstract designs in vibrant chalk colors. (Not feeling so artsy myself as I realize the camera lens had a big smudge on it!)

We each picked our favorites.  Squares that featured cute animals, fairies, butterflies and movie characters won.

Some of the artwork was really amazing!  This artist was working off a real photograph of a child playing in the surf.  Isn't it cool how real you can make a sidewalk chalk drawing look?

You know that scene in Mary Poppins where they jump into Bert's sidewalk drawing?  This is the one we picked to jump in to.  Isn't it lovely?  Too bad it didn't work.

We ended our time at the festival by claiming our own little corner of pavement.  Ella was our lead artist and decided our artwork would display a picture of each member of our family holding hands.  We all got busy bringing her vision to life on the concrete.

A picnic lunch at the park and an hour of play on the super-cool, spaceship-themed playground equipment came next.

Then, since we were so close and the parking was free for the holiday and the place was virtually deserted, we had to stop in at the Capitol Building.  The girls got a simple lesson in democracy as we explained how no one person owned the fancy building or ran things alone.  Ella left proud to be an owner of her piece of California government. 

The rotunda (above) and the "pretty room where they make laws" (below) were a few of the stops on our self-guided tour.

We made one final stop at the famous bear statue outside Gov. Schwarzenegger's office.  Next to his office, we also saw his other famous (and scary!) "Deficit Counter" ticking the numbers UP by the second.  Maybe I should rethink the satisfied feeling I have about spending a really interesting day in Sacramento, but not spending a penny! :) 

Colored Skies

This morning we dragged ourselves from our beloved beds at 5:30 am to watch the exhilarating sunrise inflation and launch of a dozen hot air balloons at a local park.   This is not an exclusive or roped off event.  Early bird spectators don't watch from a distance, we can actually wander around the field the balloons are laid out in and see them get blown up just feet away!  We were close enough to peek right inside the billowy balloons.  One balloon engineer even told Delia to look out as she unlatched her rope anchor.

When we arrived, the sun was just rising, so everything was pinkish.  Since it will be over 90 degrees today, we also basked in the chilly air.

For an hour we roamed the field watching the balloons in various stages of inflation.  Ella was my co-photographer.  She even took a few of the following!

When the first one started its ascent, the whole crowd burst into applause.

One at a time they took off, so nine more times we cheered and waved.

We watched them float away, wandered around awhile bumping into friends, then ended our morning with a fun breakfast.  Everyone is pretty crabby and wiped out, so this will be the only substance of our Saturday.  But it's worth it!