Tilden Botanic Garden Field Trip

One of my favorite parts of running a nature group is getting to plan field trips to places I really want to visit and the botanic garden at Tilden park was one of these places. We came years ago and I've been wanting to revisit it for a long time. 

The garden is such a beautiful place. It's divided into several different ecosystems found around the state.

And the volunteers are amazing! We had three guides so our group could split into three smaller groups so they were really able to pay attention to the kids and focus on some of the things they were interested in.

Bonus when we found mushrooms. The little bit of rain we had recently was enough to start things going.

At the end, the kids took a little while to nature journal in one of their favorite spots. The redwood forest area was popular with a lot of the kids.

We had a couple new families join us, too. Always love sharing these trips with more friends.

A few of my favorites: These beautiful succulents,

the creek bed,

the desert area,

and all the bridges. If we lived closer, I'd be here every week. Definitely want to visit in all the seasons to see how it changes.

 

Senior Night at Polo

Last game of his high school career--they always save the Livermore/Granada game for the final night, and do a combined senior night with both schools. 

It makes sense because a lot of these kids play club water polo together the rest of the year, so they all know each other pretty well.

We had a pretty big group of seniors this year. I think the teams will miss them next year--they've got some strong leaders who have really tried to help the teams grow, despite inadequate coaching.

Bug and his friend, B, who plays on the team with him, and then three of their friends who came out to support them. 

And more cheerleaders--there were a few families from church who came to watch the kids from our ward who play--and these two made shirts, haha. 

 It ended up being a really exciting night--the girls were down most of the game and then came back to tie it up in the last minute and won in overtime. And the boys kept it close for a long time and then lost by a still-respectable score, which was really as much as we'd hoped for.

It's hard to believe that this is it. No more high school water polo games for us. And within another year or so we won't even know any of the kids on the teams. Luckily, we still have a lot of club games to look forward to, and hopefully in college as well.

Senior Homecoming

Senior year means lots of lasts.

Bug had his last Granada homecoming. He's made some new friends since last year and went to the dance with them.

The whole group

Bug has had a lot of fun with all these kids the last few months.

And then he got a bonus homecoming this year--a friend from church asked him to go to the other high school dance.

Picture taking--

They had a fun group.

He really only knew one of the guys, none of the girls very well.

But they had a fun night.

(And took so many pictures. Guess it's a bigger thing when people are there with dates--or just that one of the moms was a little picture crazy.)

(She had all types of suggestions, haha.)

And the pose the kids came up with!

One more last is over. I really don't love the idea that this kid will be gone next year.

 

It's Autumn. . . Sort Of

October is always a back-and-forth month here in the Bay Area. The treats available may all be pumpkiny goodness (this was our lunch on the Sunday of our church conference weekend--with all the Trader Joes fall offerings.)

But the weather is still summer!

Daddy-o and I took the kayak out at Eden Landing and paddled through the marsh to the bay.

We saw a few types of birds, and harbor seals when we got out to the bay, but I think we'll keep exploring for better sites to put in. The water in the canals there looked pretty gross. We ended up each only paddling on one side so we didn't splash water up on ourselves, haha.

And then, we got one last swim of the season--the pool has cooled down a lot, but is still in the mid-70s and with the air temps in the mid-90s, it felt great!

October 7th--our official last day. 

I think the past two years, we haven't made it to October, so I was happy with this. 

We've had some gorgeous sunrises and sunsets lately. October seems to bring the best colors.

And we made it up to Apple Hill to grab some donuts. (The main purpose was to check out a friend's van build and get some pointers before we start ours, but we couldn't pass up the chance for apple cider donuts when we were in the area.)

We've still had beautiful nights for dinner on the patio. This is actually my favorite time for that because it's warm enough to be really comfortable, but also dark enough at dinner to use our lights.

And yet, with all the summer weather we've been having, we also got just enough rain to start off mushroom season and I'm already seeing fungi poking out from all types of places.

And we're getting the start of the trees changing colors. We have a lot of evergreens, but always enjoy the few trees that do change. We're still probably a few weeks away from needing jackets all day and turning on the heat, but summer is pretty much wrapping up.

Swim Meet Time

After doing the practices for a year, Peanut finally decided he'd try a swim meet with the year round team. Actually, he agreed to a series of fun meets--just their team, every Friday for a month to kick off the season.

We missed the first week, and he was not feeling 100% the third week, but he got out there and swam his best each week. He ended up shaving 9 seconds from his IM in one week's time, and another 4 from his 50 free the same week. He's got a good breaststroke to work with, and tried backstroke, too. (He's not a fan of fly, and that one is so hard, I don't blame him.) Proud of him for trying something that was a little scary. Maybe he'll even do another meet or two during the season.

Lots of Nature Time

The last couple weeks of September brought a lot of explorations out in nature. We had back-to-back Friday hikes starting with:

 Eden Landing, which I had scouted out after the water polo tournament. This site was perfect for investigating a marsh area--testing salinity and pH, checking water temperatures and looking for birds and other critters.

Found a crab, which was a big hit with the kids.

No shade, no hills, but it's a really pretty 3.5 miles loop around and through this marshy estuary next to the Bay. 

This used to be a salt production area, so there are still some remains of buildings, but there's a big ongoing restoration project to get these bay lands back to their natural state. And it's doing great things for the wildlife in the area.

We also spent a few minutes cleaning up trash near the kayak launch. 

The next day was the Bay Clean-up Day.

We joined the group at Del Valle and picked up trash for a couple hours. It was honestly a little depressing to see how much trash people just throw on the ground. Makes you lose faith in humanity just a little.

But my favorite find of the day: these beautiful oak galls! Insects cause the leaf to do this when they lay eggs on it. Pretty cool.

And then, the next week, we had another nature group hike, this time around the lake at Don Castro.

Our focus was on finding invasive plants, like the thistle that is everywhere through our hills.

We also explored the pond, looking for birds, turtles and frogs. We saw egrets, cormorants, and killdeer, along with a lot of mallards. And some of the kids thought they saw a turtle.

That weekend, I also got Peanut and Daddy-o out to visit the Springtown Preserve where I watched birds all winter and spring. I hadn't been for months and heard that there were a lot of egrets in the area.

We did find a few, although I think we missed the mating season. But I got to try out my new bird scope! I can't wait for this winter when all the migrating birds are back!