Signs of Fall

Since I'm teaching the unit "Signs of Fall" to my preschoolers this week, I've had leaves changing color, crisp weather, pumpkins, apples and acorns on my mind a lot.  It worked perfectly that we had a free Saturday to drive up into the hills and experience some of these signs of fall for ourselves yesterday!

We spent the day hiking new paths at our favorite Big Trees State Park.  On the way, we stopped at a roadside apple stand for some cider donuts and honey sticks.

We know certain parts of Big Trees better than almost any other hiking area, but yesterday was a lot of new and unfamiliar for us.  On Friday they opened an awesome new visitors' center, so we had fun checking out all of its interactive exhibits.

Then we took a new trail that led to a scenic overview.  Most of the leaves were already down, so we were probably about two weeks off in experiencing fall to its fullest, but it was still beautiful and cooler and worth the outing.

The overview!  We could even see some of what we thought were Yosemite's peaks up here.

The leaves were dry and just barely clinging to the trees.  Delia discovered she could "make it fall" when she shook the trees.

 Though the loop we hiked yesterday didn't have as many Giant Sequoias as the one we usually hike, we still saw a few of these favorites.  The tree below was covered in drips of this really neat crystallized sap.

And then we drove down to the river where we skipped rocks, climbed boulders and took pictures in the pretty scenery.

This picture cracks me up.  I'll share it for the sake of keepin' it real here on the old blog.  At the river there were a lot of big boulders to scale in order to get around.  And a lot of wild rapids to fall into if you slipped off a boulder.  The girls are confident and strong climbers, we don't normally worry about them, but Delia was in a mood that had her being more of a daredevil than usual (imagine that!).  So, here she sits out since she wasn't obeying and climbing safely.  This picture just captures Delia and a moment that is somewhat regular for her! :)

Our great day of fall hiking was topped off with a view of the sun setting in a painted sky on the way home.

Happy Harvest

From Pippi Longstocking and Kaya the American Girl Doll's Indian Mom...

(And a closer look at the cardboard papoose we made for Kaya-- my favorite part of Delia's costume, and the reason I think she won the "Best Costume" prize at tonight's Harvest Party!)

Griffith Observatory

Our last day in LA, Sunday, was perfectly spent being reminded of the vastness of the universe at the Griffith Observatory.  We knew we wanted to get an early start on this day, so when we wound our way up the hill the observatory is perched on, the fog was still rolling in over the city.  This first picture show the infamous Hollywood sign and the wisps of fog covering up the city it names.

The observatory was another really cool building to admire.  We explored all around the outside first.  While our views of the city were obscured by the fog, we didn't care because we kinda felt like we were floating on the clouds.  The observatory has lots of neat interactive exhibits to explore.  We saw the huge tracks around the observatory displaying the orbits of each planet.  And we interacted with some different kinds of calendars and clocks that are powered by the sun.  While trying to figure out one sort of complicated sun calendar, Derek commented that we were searching for "The Well of Souls"! (Don't get that reference?  Think Ark of the Covenant and Indiana Jones.)

Inside the observatory, our learning about the sun, stars, planets and galaxies continued.  I was thrilled to show the girls some great models of the how everything rotates and orbits, causing day/night and seasons, a concept we've tried to explain, but is difficult to understand.  They posed by Einstein, saw real moon rocks and were flabbergasted over the small "You are Here" dot our entire solar system represented on the map of the known universe.

These two exhibits were some favorites.  Above, Delia measures what her weight would be on each planet.  Here's a tip for ya: Don't move to Jupiter.  We weigh about three times as much there!  Below shows the marks we actually made on the seismograph when all 6 of us jumped in front of it at the same time.

After a morning at the observatory, we had no choice but to recognize and praise God for the big creator he is.  Ella had a hard time wrapping her mind around the fact that she alone wasn't the red dot on the universe map, our entire solar system was!  How amazing that the God who created and controls the whole universe does love and care about us individually! We felt answers to prayer and God's blessings rain down on us all weekend-- safe travels, the chance to explore fun new places, family members who are truly best friends and laughter and joy in the midst of sorrow and mourning.

Santa Monica

Our Saturday afternoon gave us the opportunity to wiggle our toes in some SoCal sand and surf.  We went to the Santa Monica beach and pier.

What the girls loved most about this beach stop was all the exercise equipment right on the beach.  Delia has finally mastered the monkey bars this year and loved showing off her new moves while making friends with other little girls at the beach playground.

Ella, who mastered the monkey bars at age 4 and spends her recesses perfecting much more advanced monkey moves, made friends with the shirtless muscle men seriously working out on the beach.  She scaled the ropes and matched their fancy swinging on the rings.

Since it was on the way to the pizza place we were headed to for dinner, we made one more stop on this day at the La Brea Tar Pits and LACMA.  At the tar pits, the girls each held their noses while watching the bubbling methane gas and wrote their names on the wall with sticks dipped in the naturally-flowing tar.

Outside the LACMA we went crazy taking pictures in this cool, huge lamp post art installation.

Getting to know Derek better, enjoying each other's company and seeing an eclectic mix of stuff (van Gogh paintings!  Woolly mammoths in tar!  Muscle men on the beach! 100 lamp posts!), our second day in LA was another good one!

The Getty

On Saturday we went to The Getty with Anna and Derek.  How to describe this place?  Perched on the top of a hill overlooking LA is a beautiful, white, architectural wonder that is full of masterpieces from famous artists and surrounded by gorgeous gardens that boast the colorful art of our creator.

 We had to take a tram ride up the steep hill to get to The Getty (all free, by the way!).

And once there, we most enjoyed strolling around the manicured gardens.  The flower and fruit tree varieties were unique and well planned.  The colors were spectacular, especially as leaves were starting to change for fall.

The Getty had a number of cool fountains too.

Inside there were an overwhelming number of art galleries to visit.  My favorite is always the impressionists. We saw van Gogh's water lilies and Monet's cathedral for the first time.  The girls said they liked the art museum ("The Gecko" they kept calling it), but we could tell we were losing them if we tried any long stretches of art admiration.  I hope Anna and Derek can come back some day and take their time absorbing and learning everything they desire to without two tired children holding them back. :) (Or maybe skip the art altogether and just admire the rad light saber parking gates again!)

We got to The Getty early enough that we ended our time here with a picnic lunch.  And the day was far from being over...

Los Angeles

When we were in Michigan this summer, we received some sad news while we stayed with my sister Heather and my cousin Anna: Anna's dad was brought to the emergency room after having suffered a heart attack.  After a day of further tests, it was actually realized that her dad, my Uncle Ronnie, had stage 4 lung cancer.  Though I have not had much contact with my uncle for the past decade, he was a good and selfless man, he gave me some of my most fun childhood memories and he blessed my life by making and raising one of my all-time favorite people, my cousin Anna.  When he passed away a few weeks ago, we mourned and knew we had to see Anna as soon as possible.  Just as it was providential that we were with Anna when all this started this summer, we found God again at work when we realized a rare long weekend, clear of any Sunday responsibilities and with a built-in day off school for all of us, would allow us to make the drive down to LA.  We quickly made plans to head south for the sole purpose of being there for Anna, sharing a big hug and some quality time with her and finally meeting the man who helped her through these tough summer months, her boyfriend Derek.

What our weekend turned into was this glorious mini-vacation-- full of fun sightseeing and laughs so hearty, I nearly choked on the latte I was sipping more than once! :)  The time to reconnect, share laughter and good memories with dear family brought us all some much-needed peace and rejuvenation.  It was awesome!

On our first day in LA, we went to the Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens with Anna (the zoo membership from Mom and Dad coming in handy already!).  This was a great zoo that now occupies a spot near the top of our Favorite Zoos List.

 Ella charming a rattlesnake in the reptile house.

Love, love, love those cuddly koala bears!

It's just as much a treat for the girls to see Anna as it is for us!

These chimps were some of our favorites from the day.  The baby ventured over to the glass we stood behind and cracked us up when he tried to lick it to eat and drink the food stuff some zoo visitors were holding!

Delia said, "Aww, look at that giraffe family.  If only they had one more sister and a cousin, they'd be just like us!"

One really neat exhibit educated us about the ugly but endangered California Condor.  Condors are scavengers, a necessary part of their diet is bone fragments.  Here Delia is doing surgery on a condor to remove all the bullet shells, bottle caps and glass garbage it eats by mistake.  Interesting, huh?

After this day at the zoo, we swung through LA's famous outdoor shopping center, The Grove, so the girls could go to The American Girl Doll Place.  Then we finally met Derek, the guy we'd heard so much about, at night when Anna cooked us all dinner at her place.  It was a great day!

(I was going to write one long post about visiting Anna in LA, but now I think I'll split it up into days.  So... To be continued...)

Bravo, Ella!

On Friday night Ella participated in her second annual piano recital.  We're thankful for all the passion for music her wonderful teacher invests in her each week.  Though staying on top of the daily practice definitely takes work, we're also thankful that Ella continues to love to play and desires to keep improving.  Here are some videos of the two songs she played.  The first is a solo called "Shadows" and the second is a duet with her teacher called "Yankee Doodle Dazzle."

We went back and watched Ella's recital videos from last year.  It was fun to see not only how she's improved musically, but also how the several inches she's grown this year have brought her dangling feet to the floor! :)

This was a fun night to celebrate Ella and all the hard work she puts into learning the piano.  We had fun visiting with the other families Miss Sara teaches and we went out as a family for ice cream afterward.

Pictures from the Patch

With a day off school today, we recharged with some special activities.  First we met good friend Amy and her two younger kids for lunch and then we made our annual visit to the pumpkin farm.  Zero the Hero tells Delia's first grade class that we've survived our new routine for just over 40 days now.  We are all loving school, but were looking forward to this day off and it was a good one!

Jumping

 Flying!

 Buried in corn kernels

 Hunting for the perfect pumpkins in the U-Pick field

 This one...

 Not this one.

Making friends with a sweet baby foal

And the annual shot.  For fun, check out the first time we ever took the girls to pick pumpkins!

Funnies

Thought I'd take a second to throw a few funny lines on the blog.

The first is something I already posted on Facebook, but wanted to record here as well since the blog has become a place to preserve thoughts, images and memories for when I lose my mind! :)

Delia: Mom, it's Friday.  Today I had show-and-tell.
Me: Oh no!  We forgot to put something in your bag didn't we?  I'm sorry.
Delia:  Don't worry, it's okay.  I just stood up front and told jokes instead.

The second may require a bit of explanation.  In preschool we always try to focus on the positive over the negative.  For example, if my students are running around the classroom, I will say, "Please use your walking feet!" instead of, "Stop it!  Don't run!"  Since kids are so quick to catch on and label a classmate as "the naughty one", we also try to avoid calling out bad behavior with a student's name in public.  Instead I'll point out all the students who are doing the right thing.  So that explains why a Carpet Time music instrument lesson had me uttering possibly the strangest line I've ever spoken:

"Thank you and good job to all the boys and girls who are NOT putting the castanets down their pants."