Third Grade Bike Rodeo

I volunteered to help with this year’s Third Grade Bike Rodeo in October and had a blast. Palo Alto has been doing these in every elementary school for 20 years or so, and they have a well-oiled system. The day before, we set up several stations on the playground at school, each set to teach the kids about a particular area of bike safety. We had lots of volunteers, District reps, and a police officer helping on the day of the rodeo. It was so great to see all the bikes lined up and ready.

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My job at my station was to ride along the blue-taped bike path, scan for cars over my shoulder, and then signal and make a left turn when it was safe.

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Here’s Finn learning hand signals at another station.

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And here’s his group at my station, getting the pre-ride instructions.

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I thought the day was wildly successful, both in terms of teaching the kids about safety and inspiring them to ride their bikes more. In the days following, I got lots of positive feedback from parents, and our Walk & Roll to School Day (which was the day after the Bike Rodeo) showed a big uptick in kids who biked to school.

Bay to Breakers 2015

A few of my SoCal peeps flew up last weekend and we stayed in San Francisco and participated in the 104th Bay to Breakers race. It was a hoot. These were our costumes. We were “Team Go Big or Go Home.”

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We were a colorful and large spectacle, and we had a ton of people ask for pictures with us while we waited for the race to start. There were a lot of other great costumes and several throwback nudies, in spite of the police trying to get them to cover up. This set of officers was keeping watch over a particularly rowdy section of the route, but they were very nice to us when we asked for a picture with them.

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I have more pictures here, but this is one of my favorites of the day.

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Russian Ridge

I made it to another of my friend Sonya’s hikes on March 30th. It was a beautiful day with lots of wonderful views. Here’s a slideshow of my photos.

Windy Hill Hike

A few weeks ago I finally made it to another one of my friend Sonya’s hikes. This one was to Windy Hill Open Space Preserve in Portola Valley. It looked like the weather wasn’t going to cooperate as the skies opened up with pouring rain as we got out of the car at the trail head. Luckily it only lasted about ten minutes, and the rest of the time, although it was foggy, we got away with no more rain.

It’s a beautiful hike and a pretty good workout at 7.6 miles according to my Nike+ App. Everything is very green and mossy right now. We saw five newts crossing the trail at different points, a little bit of water in a stream, and several different kinds of wildflowers emerging for Spring.

And windy is right! It was gusty and cold at the top but the view was spectacular. Here’s a slideshow of my photos.

Edgewood Hike

On November 5th I finally made it on another one of my friend Sonya’s local hikes, this one to Edgewood Park and Nature Preserve in Redwood City. Sonya started publicizing the hikes more, so recent groups have been much bigger than the three or four of us we had on past hikes. I met a couple of moms from our school, and two other Bay Area newcomers.

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It was a beautiful day and the landscape, while dry, was lovely.

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Great views, too.

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Here are a few shots another hiker took. I definitely plan to go back there for more hikes!

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Solo in SoCal

Last month I got to visit home, ostensibly for one of Jerri’s famous movie nights (Gone Girl, in this case) but really the movie was just an excuse to visit my besties. And get a haircut from the beloved Roseanne.

Bonus: I got to meet Laura and Craig’s little baby Grace. Isn’t she cute!?!

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At one week old, she’s got Dad wrapped around her finger already.

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And here’s a picture of the gang at dinner. I stole it from Jerri and since she took it she’s not in it. Thanks, Jerri, for being such a master organizer of events!

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So, so great to be with good friends!

Napa with the Girls

At the end of June some of my buddies (Jerri, Gina, Laura and Cindy) came up for a wine tasting weekend. Jerri and Gina were also running a half marathon, but I’m going to ignore that fact lest I feel like a total schlub.

I don’t have many pictures, but we visited three wineries on the first day (Friday). This shot is from the second winery — Jerri needed to do a little spooning with this sculpture.

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On Saturday, Jerri and Gina got up early for their race. While they were gone, I went for a nice walk. Good scenery.

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After the race and cleanup, we headed out for another round of wineries. Jerri demanded a castle … and found one.

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The wine here was just OK, but the Guido-like pourer was worth it. I think Jerri took this picture at the castle, but I have no idea what we were doing. Maybe the wine was good after all.

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Our last winery was one that did sparkling wines. Here were our in our very comfortable setup.

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The glasses all together were lovely …

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… and the wine was delicious but I had hit my limit by then. Lucky for Cindy — the beneficiary of my share.

The next day we were winery-ed out and decided to drive to San Jose to see the Winchester Mystery House, which was interesting and weird.

Thanks for coming up, ladies!

45th Birthday

I had a great birthday this year despite the fact that it was number 45 — eek! I got in an early workout with Trent where he tortured me with 45 reps of a whole lotta painful stuff.

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Here’s a closeup so I can be reminded of exactly what it was.

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My workout ran a little long (it takes a while to do all of those things 45 times!) and by the time I got home Bruce had taken the boys to school. But they’d left me notes all over. First, the kitchen chalkboard.

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And Ezra’s present.

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(It’s a coupon book for things like massages and a car wash. Finn gave me something similar — with unlimited hugs and massages! — the night before.)

Finn’s note was on the other chalkboard. He started big but then finished small as he was worried it wouldn’t fit. Bruce helped make the block letters.

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Later in the afternoon I got these beautiful flowers!

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And I picked up some cupcakes for a pre-dinner celebration with the boys.

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Since Cari and I share a birthday, we thought it appropriate to share a birthday dinner as well, so we went to Racion with our better halves. It was a lovely evening and a fabulous day!

Game 7

I got to see a lot of great playoff hockey this year thanks to my friend Sherry and her husband’s unfortunate (for him) travel schedule. The best was Game 7 versus the San Jose Sharks, which the Kings won 2-1. I don’t usually bother trying to take pictures there, but we had a cool celebrity sighting — David Beckham carrying his daughter (diaper in hand) during the intermission.

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I posted that one to Facebook, melting the hearts of moms everywhere.

Better yet, the end of the game handshake tradition after a hard-fought series.

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Bummer that the Kings lost in the next round to the Chicago Blackhawks, but they put in a great effort.

Mother’s Day Activities

Mother’s Day was lovely this year. I got in a nice walk first thing in the morning and when I got home I was greeted with breakfast from my boys.

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Here are the sweet notes.

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Finn drew us snuggling.

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A little while later, we met our friends Eli and Allen and their girls, Josie and Marietta, and went for a hike on the trail by JPL. At first it’s pretty hot and dry …

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… but there’s a payoff.

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The kids love this spot and we stayed here for quite a while.

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Then headed back.

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It was hot, hot, hot and the kids were tired. But they walked all the way back.

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A little later Bruce took the boys to the Caltech pool while I got a nice rest. Here’s Finn — ready to swim.

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We went out to dinner later, too. A great day!

Hike to Echo Mountain

Last Friday those of us in Pasadena woke up to this gorgeous view of snow low on our mountains. (This is the view from my balcony.)

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When it looked like there was a break in the storm, Cari and I decided to hike up the mountain. We’d gone about 45 minutes up a couple of times before, but we wanted to get to the top this time. The snow was a big incentive.

It was a gorgeous day for a hike and the views were spectacular.

Beautiful day

Climbing

At one point we stopped to take a look and realized there was a huge storm cloud coming. It’s hard to really get the scale of it all, but I tried with the panorama function on my iPhone.

Panorama of weather

But we were on a quest and weren’t stopping until we got to the top. We got pummeled with some hail — luckily it was tiny pieces. And then the hail turned to snow flakes. For this California kid, it was awesome.

Finally, after about an hour and forty-five minutes, we made it to the top.

We made it!

It’s pretty cool up there. There are remnants of old structures and the railroad that was there. Very fun to see bits and pieces of the history.

The snow was still too far away for us to walk around in, but it was great to be up so high. And again, the views were fantastic.

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View from the top clearing up

We had a lovely walk down the mountain in perfect sunny and cool weather with no more rain or hail.

I have a few more pictures here.

Girls Trip to Washington

Last weekend some friends (Jerri, Carroll and Laura) and I took a trip up to Washington State for a fun girls weekend. I’d never been there before and it was great from a scenery standpoint alone. It was actually Fall there!

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We flew into Seattle, had breakfast here …

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… and then headed west. We stopped at this place called the Olympic Game Farm, which houses animals who used to be in the old Disney shows. (Although I believe all of these animals are actually the offspring of the orignal animals.) It was the best side trip! It’s basically a drive-through zoo and you can buy bread to feed the animals along the way. There were lots of small animals at the beginning — bunnies, peacocks and peahens, chickens, prairie dogs!

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Then we came to the llama and zebra area. Houston, we have a problem.

Llamas

Eek!

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Needless to say, there was lots of screaming and many tears of laughter during the 10 minutes it took us to coerce the llamas to get out of the way. Seriously, they were up close and personal!

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Finally, we nudged them away (with the car horn) and were able to move on. On to the bison in the road, that is.

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And finally, the payoff — the cutest bears ever!

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I have video!

After that excursion, we got back on the road. After a bit, we stopped for a hike. Again, the scenery was beautiful.

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Beautiful scenery

Our destination was this waterfall.

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Here we all are — it’s a blurry photo, but you get the idea.

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We rented a house and had a nice relaxing time — lots of uninterrupted sleep, popcorn, a movie, quiet. Perfect. The next day we took an excursion out to La Push beach. These giant trees washed up on shore were amazing.

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It’s always hard to capture the scope of landscapes. I tried with a panoramic photo on my iPhone.

La Push beach

After one more night of peace and quiet, we headed back home on Sunday. Our ferry ride had an unexpected escort — the Coast Guard. They assured us it was routine, but it was still kind of freaky.

Ferry escort

On the long drive back, I was struck by the trees rushing by, so I took a video.

All in all, a great weekend getaway with the girls!

UPDATE: Here’s a picture of me that Carroll took. Always rare, the photo of myself that I don’t hate.

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Stitches

With three boys in the house, it’s hard for me to believe that I’m the one who ended up at urgent care tonight getting stitches. But so it goes. The odds are never good for the pinky when it’s going up against a kitchen knife.

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Four stitches and a tetanus shot and I was good to go.

Grease is the Word

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Grease sing-a-long at the Hollywood Bowl with some friends from high school in lieu of a traditional 25th reunion. (Ugh, 25th, really?) There weren’t many of us there, but it was a very fun evening.

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Here’s the group: Mary, Lourdes and me in the front row; Kendra, Julie, Linda and Christine in the back.

Mini class of 1987 reunion

I really missed Paige, especially given all of the sing-a-longs we did when we were little girls. But she was in France, the lucky duck.

Kings Win!

This week the Kings won the Stanley Cup! I’m going to say that again because I’m still having a hard time believing it’s true — the Kings won the Stanley Cup!

I didn’t get to go to Game 6 where they trounced the Devils 6-1, but I watched from home and celebrated with screaming (“Mommy, you startled me!”) and tears of joy and disbelief. I’ve watched a lot of mediocre Kings hockey in my time but they were absolutely brilliant in this playoff run.

Kings win!

I was lucky enough to attend the celebration at Staples Center on Thursday. My seat was good, but still a little too far for great pictures. But I have a few. Here’s Dustin Brown bringing in the Cup. What I love about this picture is that a number of the players have their cameras and phones out to take pictures of the festivities.

Brown brings in the Cup

Here’s my all-time favorite, Luc Robitaille, giving a speech.

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Here’s the team watching the highlight film put together for the occasion. I think they enjoyed the film as much as the fans did. The LA Times had a great shot of some of them clapping while watching it.

Watching the highlights

And here they all are with the Cup.

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That NHL commercial is right — it really does turn men into boys.