Finn & Papa Camping Trip

In lieu of a birthday party this year, Finn wanted to take a bike tour / camping trip with Bruce. It happened this past weekend. They went to Butano State Park, camped overnight, and rode their bikes a lot. Since I wasn’t there, there aren’t a ton of pictures, but Bruce (and Finn) actually took more than I thought they would. Here are some of my favorites.

Giant banana slug. (They’re so gross.)

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Hot chocolate.

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Selfies.

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And a few panoramas to try to capture the beauty of the scenery.

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More pictures here.

Ezra’s Art 2015

The boys’ school offers an art class (Spectra Art) and so that their masterpieces are not forgotten once they are packed away, I’ll post them here. This post is Ezra’s. We should get Finn’s artwork soon and I’ll do a separate post.

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Also, because I don’t think I posted this last year and it was my favorite piece, I’ll post his screwdriver from third grade here.

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Fairmeadow Learning Celebration 2015

Last Thursday evening Fairmeadow had an all-school Learning Celebration where we got to see the boys’ classrooms and their work from this year. I had previously heard that last year the structure of this celebration caused some consternation among the parents, who were used to an annual open house. The difference seemed minor to me, but apparently the problem was that many parents were less interested in seeing their child’s current work and more interested in checking out the next year’s classrooms. Since we had Celebrations of Learning at Aveson, this format seemed perfectly normal to me and I saw no reason for any hullaballoo.

During the opening assembly, however, our Principal took no fewer than three opportunities to reiterate that the point of the evening was the appreciation of this year’s work. He pointed out that parents should focus on the process and not the product of the work, and celebrate their child’s year. Basically, it looked to me like his thought bubble was something like, “THIS IS NOT A RACE; YOUR CHILD DID NOT WIN.” But then I’m a bit of an outsider here.

We split up so each boy could have a turn with our undivided attention. I went with Ezra first. Here’s his desk, set up with his raccoon habitat, his Mission, and a couple of the books they are reading in class. (I love that he put a note that said “Special thanks to my dad” next to his habitat.)

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There was also a circuit building station.

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And after we played a math game with polygons, he showed me a couple of his favorite iPad math games.

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Ezra is a reluctant tour guide, but he did pretty well on this evening.

Finn, on the other hand, loves to show us his stuff.

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Here is his “Chagall’s Fantasy.”

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And his butterfly.

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We spent a lot of time going over his other artwork, as well as his journals for reading, writing, and science.

These boys have had a busy year!

Bono at Google[x]!

On Thursday afternoon, Bruce and I had this NSFW text exchange.

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I was just about to go pick up the boys at school, but luckily my friend Tiffany was with me and she said she’d tell them I’d be a little late if I wanted to pop over to Google. So I rode over there (across the street) and saw outside the visitor’s entrance a black suburban, presumably waiting for Bono’s return. So I plopped down on a bench and asked Bruce to come out and join me for a casual visit.

Pretty soon Bono emerged from the building with his host, Sergey Brin.

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There was no press, no onlookers other than me and one other man who’d been sitting outside and called Bono over to chat, and only a couple of other people who seemed to be Bono’s mini entourage. He walked over to the car and chatted with Sergey a bit more about the driverless cars in the parking lot.

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And then he was off. Seeing Bono so close to home and hearing his iconic voice made my day! Heck, it made my year!

As an added note, I’ve searched for news and/or pictures of this visit on the interwebs over the last couple of days and I can’t find anything. Apparently, even visits to Google[x] are super secret … or perhaps this was only a big deal to me.

(More pictures here.)

Ezra’s School Music Recital

On May 19th Bruce and I were treated to a fourth and fifth grade music recital. Ezra’s class (fourth grade) spent the year learning how to play recorder and they performed a song called “Jitterbug.”

They also sang two songs: “Movin’ on Out” …

… and “All American You and Me.”

They were all pretty cute!

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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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Ezra’s Firebird Award

Ezra received his Firebird award this month — at the very last award assembly, of course. You can tell from the picture it meant a lot to him. (He told me he crumpled it up to make it “easier to carry.”)

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“Creative spirit” could easily be code for something more nefarious, but I think his teacher really did [mostly] appreciate his outside the box personality.

Ezra’s Raccoon Habitat

It’s always heartwarming for me when Ezra, our reluctant student, is doing something at school that he’s excited about. He had such a project this week — building a model of a raccoon habitat. It was only after several days of planning and building that he mentioned that it was a math project; part of the assignment was to calculate the area and perimeter. Here’s his booklet.

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He came up with the idea to only have the raccoon’s tail showing since it was digging in the trash can for food. Here’s the model, complete with a hot glue pond with rocks, a little house, and a fence around the perimeter.

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I knew he was happy with it when he agreed to a picture our way to school today despite his recent camera aversion.

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School Pictures 2014-15

I cleaned out our desk area yesterday and came across this year’s horrific school pictures, which I had buried under a stack of paper. We have a history of bad school pictures, but these may take the cake.

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The group shots are more acceptable.

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Mother’s Day 2015

The Sunday that was Mother’s Day was a lovely but low-key affair. Bruce made me breakfast and then the four of us went to San Francisco to see the Kronos Quartet play a family matinee gig. We had lunch in the City and then hit an open house in Redwood City on the way home. (The scariest house ever, by the way, for which someone will probably pay 30% over asking.)

Anyway, I was kind of surprised by the boys’ lack of involvement in the day. They didn’t have crafts from school, which they’d always had in years past and I love receiving. Moreover, they just seemed to not really realize what day it was. Granted, we Moisions are generally low-key about these Hallmark holidays, but still it seemed odd.

Well, in true Moision fashion, a couple of days later they sprung into action with a “surprise” breakfast. I put that in quotes because they’d asked me to get bacon, eggs, hash browns and bread at the store for a big weekend breakfast, and then prepared it all while I was out on my walk yesterday (Wednesday). They also made a card which I was to read aloud and then at the appropriate moment they would put the plate in front of me.

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Ezra also made me a monster frame which you can see in the photo. It’s nice to be appreciated and loved, no matter what day it is.

Science Fair 2015

We made our first foray into science fairs this year when Finn decided he wanted to find out which shape of ice cube makes water cold fastest. There was plenty of time to get the project done, and Bruce and Finn discussed it a lot and made a plan in the weeks leading up to the due date. Unfortunately, the actual due date completely sneaked up on us, so they did the whole experiment and report the day before. And that was the same day we went to the Giants game. At any rate, they got it done and I managed to take a few pictures.

Here’s Finn filling the different ice cube trays with a turkey baster.

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And crushing the ice cubes with a meat tenderizer.

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These are the four types of ice cubes he tested: LEGO minifigure, LEGO brick, regular ice cube from the ice maker, and crushed ice.

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He loved using our instant read thermometer to test the water.

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And he made charts of the temperatures and set intervals.

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Here are the two mad scientists together.

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And here’s the final product. (Crushed ice was the winner.)

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Finn was a very proud little scientist.

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And one last shot — the science fair itself. It was incredibly well attended. Not surprising.

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Update: A few days later, Finn got a certificate for participating which he really liked.

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Random Photos

It’s time for another random photo posting. Here are some shots that don’t fit in anywhere else.

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And here’s all of us at the Giants game.

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Intruders Beware

A couple of days ago I noticed there were new signs on the boys’ bedroom door. I think they are so indicative of their personalities that I had to post them. Here’s Ezra’s.

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And Finn’s.

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Braces

So last month, this happened.

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And here’s why.

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Basically, there are three problems. 1) There’s not enough room for all the incoming teeth, 2) he’s got a pretty big overbite, and 3) he’s got that wayward yet-to-come-in tooth on the bottom that is heading in the wrong direction. The hope is that the braces will correct the overbite and open up the current teeth to make room for the new ones to come in.

Ezra was not happy about getting braces at all. In fact, at first he didn’t want any one to know and he planned to not open his mouth at school so no one would find out. But, it’s been a month now and he’s adjusted well. I think his teeth are already straighter.

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Only 11 more months to go!

Finn’s 8th Birthday

As mentioned in my last post, Finn turned 8 on April 12th, and we did a little more celebrating once we got home. Much to his delight, he had presents waiting for him — art supplies and soccer paraphernalia from the Becks and a “blow torch” from us. (He really wanted a blow torch for his birthday, and being Fun Dad, Bruce said yes. Thankfully, Fun Dad is also Reasonable Dad and he picked out the kitchen type blow torch. Finn loves it and I’m happy because now he can make me creme brulee.)

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I had also promised him a cake and because he loved the cake Cari made at the beach, I made the same one only in a different shape — chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate.

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In lieu of a birthday party, he has opted for a bicycle tour with Bruce and plans are underway.