Last Semester

I forgot one very important thing happened on our last full day in Palm Springs:  Lucie lost her first tooth!  In the pool!  And maybe swallowed it!  At one point, Brennan popped up out of the water and very convincingly shouted, "I found Lucie's tooth!"  We were briefly amazed.  Then he handed over a fragment of a foam pool toy, laughed like a loon, and said, "Just kidding!"  We wrote the Tooth Fairy a nice note on the back of the hotel laundry service form, which she generously accepted in lieu of the tooth.  

Here's Lucie back home, showing off her new gap, and JJ the Robot Pug's new aviator costume:

We're glad the Tooth Fairy accepts notes, because when Lucie lost & swallowed her next tooth while eating, she knew exactly what to do.

Spring soccer went into full swing after break.  The Jellyfish practiced Wednesday afternoons again, meaning I got to once again experience how ineffective I am at getting 4-6 children to collect their stuff and follow me 2 blocks.

But the kids have lots of fun, especially when Coach (Daddy) lets them do their favorite drill, Buffalos & Hunters.  The Buffalo line up at the goal and run to the other side, trying to avoid the soccer ball arrows that the Hunters are kicking into the herd as they go by.  If you get hit, then you turn from a Buffalo into a Hunter, until the last Buffalo standing is declared the winner.  

Brennan's practice was on Tuesday after school, while I'm at work, and his coaches, god bless them, deal with getting him there and back, as well as tying his shoes, since I still hadn't managed to successfully impart that lesson yet.  Saturdays are game days, which can more or less take up the whole day, once you account for getting to to the park early for warm up and uniform check, game time, snack time, travel time to the next game which is inevitably in some entirely different neighborhood, and repeat the cycle.  (and for Daddy, add the responsibility of a) coaching one team; b) doing this solo on the weekends I'm at work)

Still, the kids seem to enjoy it, and they both have declared they intend to continue in the fall.  Daddy has been busy trying to snatch up the more promising kindergarten prospects, although he is hamstrung by my conscience, guilting him into taking people who signed up first, and his own, guilting him into making sure the new team(s) have enough players and helpful parents.

Late April and all of May also brings a flurry of year-end activities, when elementary school teachers either realize: we still haven't been to the Arboreteum/Farmer's Market/City Hall/Etc OR to hell with fractions, these kids can't focus.

The first event in this extravaganza is the Fun Run, where the kids run around the school block as many times as they can in 30 minutes to raise money for a partner school in Africa.  Despite my fears that my (pathetic) running peak was going to be smoked by a 7 year old this year, Brennan met last year's 11 laps but didn't push through. 

  It was a pretty hot day, though.

While the preschool doesn't participate in the run, they did bring the little kids out to watch and cheer, and Lucie got to run a lap with her brother since I was there to escort her.  She's already talking about how fast she's going to run when she gets to join in next year.

In addition to the Fun Run, Brennan went on field trips to:
1. Golden Gate Park, where they seem to be deploying 7 & 8 year olds as free English Ivy removal services under the guise of teaching them about invasive plants
2. The symphony, where some kids fall asleep
3. The Ferry Building, which he gave me no report back
4. Kezar Stadium for a Special Olympics Track & Field meet, which annoyed him as "all we got to do was sit there and watch"
5. City Hall, which he was uncharacteristically gushy about, explaining the City Seal and what you can see inside, and proudly showing me his related homework

Three (!) of these trips took place the same week as the FunFest with one the following week, which meant I had the privilege of sitting down one night to complete the five identical permission/in case of emergency forms required for his participation.  I didn't chaperone any of the above, because...

I went on the overnight camping trip in the Presidio.  I helped set up and take down tents, I cut up sacks of apples and made 2 dozen identical turkey and cheese sandwiches, I went begging for the special park-service approved bamboo S'mores Sticks TM, I navigated 20 kids with melted marshmallows, I tried to sleep through the inconsolable sobbing of Sloane in the next tent, and I unloaded a truck full of camping gear in the rain.  After which I felt pretty much absolved of having to participate in anything else for the rest of the school year.

Brennan had a fantastic time, hiking to Baker Beach, catching and releasing bugs, eating hot dogs, taking a flashlight hike at night, and staying up late telling ghost stories with the other boys in his tent.

Lucie has been busy with her favorite spring time activities, which include cajoling Mommy into biking to Golden Gate Park on sunny days, and then cajoling Mommy into buying fancy soft-serve at the Twirl & Dip truck by the Academy of Sciences.  Although Mommy thinks the vanilla with coffee syrup and toasted almonds is pretty tasty, so it's usually not a hard sell.

And she likes to take Roux for walks - anywhere, really, but Tank Hill is a favorite, so we had to get up there one more time before foxtail season sets in.  Because removing grass awns from your own dog's nose/ears/eyes is one of those things you never live down when you work at a veterinary hospital.

She's also learned to scale doorways like a spider, courtesy of her big brother.  She asked me to document her first effort:

She helped Brennan practice for the Egg Drop, since PreK students couldn't participate.  Standing on our back stairs chucking boxes into the courtyard is probably more fun, anyway.  Curiosity got the best of me and I put together my own concoction: egg inside an air-filled ziplock, suspended inside a large ziplock full of water.  Then I let Lucie throw it.  It caught a string of ornamental lights on the way down and ended in an explosion of broken glass and water.  (but the egg survived!)  Brennan more sensibly used old textiles - in keeping with the eco-friendly requirements - and is now 3 for 3 on the egg drop at school.

And just like that, it was May 26th - Last Day of School!  Next stop, 3rd grade.

Spring Break part 2: Desert

Hello, Rancho Mirage!  Our home for the rest of the week was the Westin Villas, a string of little terra cotta apartments lining a golf course.  I was a little worried it would be too remote - last year our hotel was about a mile from downtown - but really the entire Palm Springs metropolitan area is one giant flat stretch of shopping centers, dotted with golf courses.  It reminds me a lot of Florida, minus the mosquitos.  Also, in terms of tourist agendas, our biggest decision each day was which pool to swim in.

Daddy also thought it would be fun to bring the scooters.

Great idea, Daddy!

They scooted around the fake stream in the center of the villas.  They scooted along the edge of the golf course.  They scooted to the parking lot every time we were getting in the car.  They even scooted to the pool!

The pools were a lot of fun, and giant enough that the competition for chairs is a little less cutthroat then other resorts we've stayed at.  There were usually other kids to play with, and if playmates were in short supply, the Westin helpfully sells - and inflates - a number of giant pool toys.  Brennan picked out the "small" beach ball pictured below.  (the large one was about 3 feet in diameter, so I appreciate his conservative taste)  I have no idea what we are going to do with the event giant-er ridable dolphin that Lucie insisted on.

Also, there were water slides.

Lucie could ride this one by herself if she had a life vest.  The other pool had a faster slide that required using a mat AND a partner for kids under 48 inches.  It twisted around and shot riders out of a tunnel to splash down into a small pool.  Do I sound like I know more about this water slide than a grown-up should?  Do you have any guesses on who Lucie wanted to ride with her, until she felt brave enough to go down with her big brother?

Luckily, she felt brave enough pretty quickly, because we arrived right before a front rolled in, and temperatures dropped about 20 degrees, along with my interest in going down a water slide.  Admittedly, 20 degrees cooler in Palm Springs is still fairly warm, at least during the day.  But around 5 when the wind starts kicking up, outdoor time is not so fun.  Particularly when the wind carries a bunch of desert sand and grit.  The night we went to Hibachi Japanese Steakhouse, the walk from the parking lot felt a bit like:

Once inside, we discovered that the Japanese steakhouse schtick has not changed a bit since the 90's, Brennan will eat an entire salad if you put Japanese steakhouse ginger-soy dressing on it, and Daddy can catch at least two shrimp from the grill in his mouth.

The cooler weather meant we were willing to try things that would seem insane at 95° - like visit the Living Desert Zoo.  Here the kids are posing with a hyena, which is that washed out lump on the washed out dirt behind them.

We paid a very reasonable $5 per person to ride this camel for about 2 minutes.  Thankfully, neither kid had any interest in feeding the giraffes.

When real animals grew tiresome, there were pretend ones to ride.

Another thing to do when it's not a million degrees is get out and see the real desert.  I managed to find a kid-friendly trail in Indian Canyons - just a 2 mile loop, not too steep.  There was a little whining, but for the most part they were good hikers.

They found a fan palm fort,

rock walls and ledges,

and cactus!

Maybe next time, they will be ready for Joshua Tree.

We had a good time in Palm Springs, and hope to come back soon.  But next time, we'll fly.

Spring Break, part 1: Central Coast

Spring Break is here, and it's time to get away & head south.  Since we flew last year, we had a full 24 months to forget the length of the drive and the terrible-ness of the traffic on every! single! highway! around LA.  So we packed up the Subaru, and did our usual routine of somehow turning "let's try to get on the road just after rush hour" into "guess we better stop for lunch" before we even manage to get south of San Jose.  Which definitely cut into "maybe we'll have time to try a winery or two" on our way to Cambria.

Although as it turns out, it was entirely possible to fit our greater-Cambria area activities into one day. We rose bright & early on Saturday to make it to our first stop - the Hearst Castle.

When I first drove down the California Coast about 20 years ago, I'd wanted to see it but it just didn't fit into the itinerary - which continued to be the case with a lot of subsequent trips, to the point that the continued denial had clearly built the idea of visiting to mythical proportions in my head.  That, and viewing Citizen Cane as an impressionable freshman in my "Literature in Film" class.  (On the up side, I also saw It Happened One Night, the Godfather, and the Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings, which I certainly would never have chosen to watch at 18; and to this day I enjoy watching film versions of books I've liked reading and vice versa.  But I digress.)

We made it to San Simeon in plenty of time for our 9 am tour.  The kids were excited for the bus ride, and the herd of Barbary Sheep on the hillside, and charging up the steps in a cloud of orange blossoms to take in the amazing view.

But once it became clear we were there to look around a big, old house - not as much.  One of the guides did her best, trying to tie in Percy Jackson movies when talking about the Greek statues.  Our other guide simmered with a barely contained loathing for us, the jerks who were walking and breathing and sullying Randolph Hearst's vision with our lumpen presence.  Her sole comfort seemed to be scolding tourists for transgressing the rules - she berated the leader of a Chinese tour group to rein in two septuagenarians who repeatedly LEFT THE CARPETED PATH.  So you can imagine how well she handled this:

In my defense, I asked Daddy to pretend to toss a discus, rather than hug the statue.

Lucie & Brennan may have been a little young for it - and going forward, may refuse to visit "castles" on the grounds that it's a trick and there's no princesses, knights, etc.  But it was fun to imagine what it would be like to have your own indoor swimming pool:

This crowd wasn't much for lingering, so back in the bus and back down the hill we went.

There was plenty of time for an early lunch at the visitor center, and then head inland to the wineries.

We had a proper grown up wine tasting, complete with our name on a little "reserved" sign at Linne Calodo, while Brennan & Lucie threw sticks in the yard for the vineyard dog.  But they enjoyed Oso Libre a lot more - not only do they have a vineyard dog, but also - vineyard LLAMAS.

But wait, there's a few more hours of daylight left!  And the El Colibri Hotel was just a short trip along the boardwalk to Moonstone Beach.  Although Daddy stayed behind, since he mostly hates the beach, unless it's in Mexico.  While I sifted through the sand for pretty little rocks that may or may not be the eponymous moonstones (not the actual gemstone but some sort beach agate), the kids happily built a driftwood "structure" and then found a great place for jumping.

But eventually, we had to go to bed.  Because if you want the Easter Bunny to visit, you have to go to sleep.  And no one wanted to miss the First Annual Hotel Room Easter Egg Hunt.

Once all the eggs were accounted for, we stuffed everything back in the car and continued on to our real destination - Palm Springs.  Pool time, desert exploration, and finally being allowed to assemble our Easter LEGO kits from Gangi await!