Just in Time

Look who got his license, and with perfect timing. Now that I can't drive, I'm glad I have someone to be my errand boy!

More October Happenings

Saturdays have been my hiking day this past month. Sometimes solo, like this trail just south of Tilden Park in Berkeley. I did 8 miles, and had 3.5 hours of quiet on the trails to think. It was just what I needed.

This was also a month of some pretty cool mushroom discoveries. This bright orange one was really big--about the size of my head. It has since faded to a dirty gray/white color and started shrinking, so I must have first found it at it's prime.

We still had really warm weather all month, and found a Wednesday when Bug and Bean could sneak away from school (they only have one 15 minute virtual check in on Wednesdays, and then are supposed to spend the rest of the day working on homework, but they'd both managed to get ahead that week.) We headed down to Rio Del Mar, where we met up with friends, and despite the cooler water temp and small waves, a few of the kids spent a lot of time boogie boarding.

Peanut preferred the incoming river which was a little warmer (and a lot shallower).

He made sandmen and women.

All the kids got into making drip castles. I love getting a good beach day in the fall. Just wish school didn't get in the way of us doing this more often.

Another hike in Tilden, this time with Daddy-o.

And we found another really cool mushroom.

Between all the hikes, I took a lot of early morning walks and because of the days getting shorter, I've seen a lot of sunrises this month! I'm just so grateful that the air has been so much better.

Yet another Tilden hike (this finished off the Bay Area Ridge Trail hikes in that park), this time with Bug. What a difference a week makes. Daddy-o and I were getting pretty hot with the sun blazing down on us. Bug and I had absolutely no view at all because of all the fog. But it was pretty. And sometime I'll have to go back to do this section again because it's supposed to have some pretty amazing views of the bay and hills.

End of the month, this girly FINALLY got to go take her Driver's test, and she passed with a perfect score!

And final hike of the month--another solo one, in Sycamore Grove.

This time, I had some companions for part of the hike. I followed these deer for awhile until a biker scared them and they ran down the creek bed.

 

Shelter in Place: Week Two Begins

My paranoia that the trails are going to close (which honestly has me in a bit of panic) led to us taking a hike first thing in the morning today. We went down to Sunol and tried a new trail, which turned out to be a winner--absolutely gorgeous and we only saw one family until the very end.

We are loving the outdoor time, as long as we can find spots without people.

Spring is in full force and we found so many beautiful wild flowers, lichen, and fungi. Now to identify everything--that'll be tomorrow's project.

Bean's been getting driving practice whenever we go out. She got to try the freeway today--I figure we better take advantage of this time when the freeways around here aren't crazy. She did great for the 1/2 mile she got to be on it :)

Then, it was time for Bug's first virtual piano lesson. It's not a format I think any of us would pick, but it's certainly better than nothing and we're working out the bugs to make it easier on his teacher.

Peanut hung out with his friends from park day. These virtual meetups are so funny--the under 10 crowd spends a lot of time being very silly.

We played around with some math puzzles,

and watched a couple episodes of Mister Rogers's Neighborhood, which was prompted by our family movie night when we watched A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Peanut is a fan. I wish I'd thought of pulling these out when he was little.

We ended the day with a full rainbow just before dinner

and evening entertainments with Peanut's puppet show (also inspired by Mister Roger's Neighborhood). His one liners were hilarious and he improvised a 20 minute show, including several original songs, that actually had a plot, even if it did get sidetracked a few times by the playdates the main character has with his new, and only, friend. I think we all gave it two thumbs up!

I'll just leave with a few more photos from our hike. I think nature therapy is the one thing that is keeping me calm through all of this. It's getting a little harder to not feel anxious and sad at times, but at least when I'm outside looking at this, I feel like the world is still a good place.