Another Trip Around The Sun

Daddy-o's birthday came and went without a lot of fanfare this year. Adult birthdays sometimes get buried under the kid activities, so our Wednesday looked a lot like any other busy Wednesday, with school and work, waterpolo, errands, and a rushed dinner before we all had to get down to the church for youth activities and New Beginnings, where Bean was getting an award (more on that later.) Add in that Daddy-o, and now Bug have pretty bad colds, and even his delayed celebration was subdued by Bug having an ear ache that we needed to work with for an hour.

But in some ways, delayed birthday celebrations are nice. This year, it worked out that Daddy-o got cinnamon rolls twice, pizza (convenience when we had such a crazy afternoon/evening) on his birthday, AND got to go out for dinner at the end of the week!

We saved the actual celebrating for Friday night, so after dinner, we came home, (took care of Bug's ear,) and then opened gifts and had cake and ice cream. And the celebrating will continue because his gifts included tickets to Les Misérables when they are in Fresno this spring!

Happy Birthday, Daddy-o. We love you!

(note for future: Lemon Cake from American Test Kitchen cookbook--such good cake recipe!)

Rock City

Ever hiked with 20 kids before? What started as an optional hike for my science classes so we could look at the rocks we'd been talking about in class, grew into a 9 family hike. It was a lot of fun, and just a little crazy as we tried to keep track of all the kids.

The wind caves at this spot in Mt. Diablo State Park are so cool. The boys and I had come just a few weeks ago to check it out as a potential field trip spot and I was blown away (pun intended, haha.)

We spent quite awhile on this part of the trail, letting the kids play.

Love the days when this girl can join us! We miss her when she's at school.

There was a lot of climbing, on everything. I wish I didn't get so nervous when my kids are climbing. I let them do it, but it makes my stomach turn.

A day of adventure with so many friends.

Such a beautiful view, even if it was hazy. We tried to finish off the hike with the portion of the trail that has fossils in the rocks, but must have taken a wrong turn because we never found any fossils, but did find that we'd looped back towards the cars and were then just about done with the hike. Oh well. Next time. . .

Champions! These two have been getting along pretty well lately and it's so fun.

Mushroom Madness

Our parks and rec district hosts this activity each year. There were several dozen people who showed up to go mushroom hunting in Sycamore Grove, and this is just a small sampling of what we found.

We had so much fun wandering around, looking for mushrooms and then, back at the tables, a few experts began labeling the specimens we brought back.

Water Polo, Take 2

Bug let us talk him into a season of water polo through the rec center, so we currently have two water polo players! He was pretty hesitant about it at first, but I think he's enjoying it, even if it's cold getting out of that water in winter.

He had his first, and only, tournament of the season--three games in 5 hours, with no subs, so he played the whole game each time. What an introduction! But he did well for his first time and learned a lot, even just in the process of playing those back to back games. It's pretty tough to keep track of everything you are supposed to be doing, and then physically keep swimming or treading the whole time.

As always, this little guy gets dragged around to all the sporting events. We killed some time before the games started by going for a walk around the neighborhood by the school, and then he spent the rest of the time eating or reading :) As long as he doesn't run out of books, it's all good!

Get Outside

These first couple weeks of the new year have been full of little outdoor adventures. We've been more intentional about choosing to go for walks and to the park when we have free time, and it's been lovely. Having a goal has helped all of us.

The kids, especially Peanut, have been surprisingly cooperative. It's not that they don't like going outside, but they also like a lot of things that they tend to do inside, and without the goal and tracking their hours outside, they might have sometimes chosen to stay home when I ask about a walk.

The goal has also led me to ask more often--if they want to come with me for a dog visit, or to take a walk to the library. I love my alone time and had gotten in the habit of trying to sneak off as often as possible, but I'm now asking the kids and they are usually happy to join me, and it's actually been really enjoyable having their company.

I'm sure we are getting benefits from the extra sunshine and fresh air,

as well as all the exercise 

and mini adventures.

 

But I think the best benefit of all is from the conversations and chance to just be together, sometimes one-on-one, sometimes as a whole family, without all the distractions that come with our home and the screens and chores and to do lists. 

We've been trying to take a 20 minute walk after dinner most nights--nothing too long, and no real distance or speed goals, but just with the intention of getting outside a little more and beginning the wind down process of the evening. It's been such a calming activity and the newness of walking after dark has been great. Peanut has loved watching the moon get fuller each night, we've enjoyed the lingering Christmas lights around our neighborhood, and even found where the local rabbits like to come out after dark.

 It's amazing how much beauty a small change can bring into your life.

A Good Start

We kicked off 2020 with a long hike in Tilden and Wildcat Canyon Parks. I always feel like spending the day outside Jan. 1, and judging by how far we had to park from the trailhead, so do a lot of other people! The original trail we were going to do wasn't crowded, but had a bad 100 yards of deep mud at the very beginning, and even if we could have gotten past that, we weren't sure what the rest of the trail would look like. So we opted for the paved trail with everyone else. In some ways, it's really nice to see so many large groups of family and friends out hiking. And a crowded hiking trail still beats the mall crowds any day. We'll have plenty of quieter, more solitary hikes throughout the rest of the year.

The views from up on the ridge were stunning.

We had views of Mt. Diablo and the San Pablo reservoir on one side,

 and the Bay and Golden Gate bridge in the distance on the other.

The sunset as we were leaving was incredible. And once again highlighted how many people are in the Bay Area--every pullout along the road was filled with cars and people watching the first sunset of 2020.

We logged our first 3.5 hours outside for our 1000 hour goal. I came across the 1000 hours outside movement this past fall and love the idea behind it. Most kids spend well over 1000 hours a year on screens. Aiming to get outside for 1000 hours helps balance the time between screens and real world explorations. It get them into nature and focused in a very different way. It probably also makes it harder to reach the screen time averages ;) So we're going to be more intentional with our time outside and track it to see how close we get to that 1000 hours.