Bruce at Winnemucca Lake
Continuing their ice fishing quest, Bruce and Andrei made a day trip to Winnemucca Lake in March. Sans children and armed with a longer drill, they gave it another shot.
There were still no fish.
But it was beautiful!
Month: May 2017
Spring Walk & Roll Day 2017
Way back at the beginning of the school year, I chose to have our Spring Walk & Roll Day in March instead of April because a) we had rain in April last year and b) April is when the standardized testing is happening and I figured everyone already has enough to worry about. Well, point b) was fine, but, unfortunately, we still had to fight the rain. I was really worried we’d have an unsuccessful event, but with the helpful ideas of a veteran Safe Routes rep, we managed to pull off another great W&R day.
It was a family affair — Bruce and Finn both helped make the poster and man the tables.
The poster was a huge success!
Here’s a video that shows all the post-it notes that the kids drew. I really was surprised at the outcome — such enthusiasm and creativity!
Choosing an Instrument
I don’t remember this happening when Ezra was in fourth grade, but this year the District held several events for fourth graders to try out and choose what instrument they’d like to take next year. Finn is interested in either the trumpet or trombone, and despite the ridiculous lines at the event, he got to try each of them.
We’ll see which one he ends up with, and start preparing the sound-proof practice room.
Weekend in Laguna
I got to sneak into SoCal for a weekend in Laguna with Cari in March. It was beautiful and relaxing. I have no pictures of us, but several of the beautiful landscape.
Also, here’s one from the airplane showing how temporarily green California is.
Finn’s Sacramento Field Trip
On March 9th, Finn and I went on the annual fourth grade field trip to Sacramento. I was happy to get to go again since I had a great visit with Ezra’s class two years ago. It’s an early day though! We were on the bus at 6:30 am! Here’s Finn and his friend Floyd setting in for the ride.
There was some confusion at first when our bus tried to drop us off at City Hall instead of the State Capitol building, but soon enough we were where we were supposed to be. We started off with a class picture in front of the building.
Once inside, we waited for our tour time by walking around a bit. Here are a few shots.
Los Angeles County’s display case (every county has one):
Finn in front of the bear that guards the governor’s office:
Our tour guide later told us that Arnold Schwarzenegger bought the bear from an art gallery when he was governor. He also said they call it “germ bear” or “bacteria bear” because everyone touches it. Yuck!
Here are a few shots from our tour. We weren’t able to see the Senate room because there were too many other tours happening but we did see the House. (As an aside, it did seem to be quite a bit busier tour-wise than two years ago. I’m attributing it to everyone’s increased interest in government since our last debacle of a presidential election.)
While our tour guide this time didn’t harass the kids about how they are responsible for taking part in government (a good point with poor execution), this year’s guide wasn’t that great either. He did a pretty good Schwarzenegger impression though. But, he didn’t point out fun things like the tiled California poppies on the floor. Luckily, Finn’s teacher, Mrs. Johnson, did.
After the Capitol, we still had two more stops on our Sacramento tour. Next was Sutter’s Fort, which had another school doing an overnight field trip in costume. Our kids got to see rope and candles being made, as well as the cannon being fired which was a huge hit.
After lunch, our final destination was the Railroad Museum.
Once again I had a little nerdy moment to myself while I admired the place setting display from the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe line.
Finn asked me to sit next to him on the way home. I think he had a wonderful day but was just done interacting with friends. Or maybe he just wanted to play games on my phone. (Sad news for him as there aren’t any games on my phone!) It didn’t really matter because about 20 minutes in he was out.
Great day!
Ezra’s 12th Birthday
Bruce and Ezra got home from their snow camping trip in the afternoon of Ezra’s birthday. They were tired, but not too tired to clean up and have a small birthday celebration. All Ezra had on his birthday list was Anki Overdrive paraphernalia, so that’s what he got!
For dinner we had Ezra’s choice of Howie’s pizza delivered and then ice cream cake.
Happy 12th, sweet boy!
Snow Camping
Over the weekend of Ezra’s 12th birthday, he and Bruce went on a snow camping trip with Bruce’s colleague, Andrei, and his son, Edward. They went to Carson Pass and had a fun but chilly time. As with the Christmas break trip, I’m hoping Bruce will fill in the details on this post at some point! For now, here are some photos.
More photos here.
Finn’s Buddy Assembly
On February 24th Finn’s class teamed up with their second grade buddy class for this year’s buddy assembly. They did a version of the book Click Clack Moo which was super cute. They also sang a song — here’s a video.
The video is a little far away, so here’s a picture from after the performance.
Rainy February
It’s not news that we’ve had a lot of rain this year. It’s a good thing — California is digging its way out of the drought — but I am over it. February 20th was peak ridiculousness as the storm drain in front of our house backed up and we had a flood. Here’s Bruce out there trying to work on the clog.
The clog wasn’t anywhere we could fix — somewhere further down the line — and it eventually corrected itself. But while there was a giant puddle in front of the library we needed a solution because the cars driving by were spraying the front of the library. Bruce’s tarp did the trick.
Remarkably, even with all this rain, our well-built little library had no leaks. Kudos to Bruce for good construction.