Feelin' Hot Hot Hot (Florida 8/2011)

Yep, we went to Florida in August. Nope it wasn't that bad.
I mean YES, it was hot. But there was the pool, the Weeki Wachee river, the pool, the beach, ice cream, the pool, the hose, the pool, a hurricane and ... the pool.

As usual we relied on other folks to take pictures, and they did, but we don't have those. We have these. Limited, but they hit the high points. (except for Weeki Wachee with Nicole, there was a wet camera incident)

Silas had his first ever full on beach day. Complete with sand castles, salt water in the eyes, and shell collecting. And a little bit of ice cream at the end.

Grandma Jane had us hooked up with shade and chairs and snacks galore. When I asked Silas what he thought of his day at the beach he said "Best day ever!" I think he felt like the shell collecting was akin to fossil collecting, feeding his dreams of becoming a paleontologist.  Also the thrill of being in the actual ocean, the very same water that the big fish are swimming in... as thrilling as he hoped.

We had a lot of fun with almost toddling cousin Sophia. Silas is really into his cousins; it is pretty cute. Here he is showing off his new underwater skills for cousin Owen.

Pretty impressive considering he arrived in Florida still afraid to put his face underwater.

He's also into Papa

But that's because Papa can throw a cast net, catch fish, get covered in muck also caught in the cast net, and then lets Silas do this:

He gave Aunt Karen (aka Cookie) a shell from his new collection. A symbol of his love and affection since he cannot seem to bring himself to kiss anyone but his mom and dad.  We are worried that might go some day soon too, and then he'll only have kisses for his beloved hammerhead...

Summer round-up Part 2

Tis the season for birthday parties. It does not rain here in the summer. Really. This is kind of disappointing to a Florida girl who loves thunderstorms but the benefits are all the outdoor birthday parties you can handle. Here's Silas sitting between the two birthday girls, Zimry in tiger paint and police uniform, Jasper in a lovely party dress. These two recently moved from half a block away to San Francisco, bummer. But we still see them quite often since we love them and Silas seems to consider himself part of the family, at least when cupcakes are involved.

And they do have this cool climbing tree in their SF backyard, and this nifty hike near their house. We drove over on the same day as our other neighbors Ali, Gwen and Eddie to form a huge horde of kids and moms roaming the SF hills.

Those are the moms, Penny and Ali, and those are our kids running ahead of us while we admire the view...

We have let our Habitot museum membership expire - it seems like the end of an era. But we have added a new membership to our role: UC Botanical Garden. Why would a 5 year old enjoy a botanical garden you ask?...

Silas was in full shark face paint that day. Terrifying to garter snakes...

Silas has started writing much more than just his name. When I updated the fridge calendar he added a few things (sorry the photo is sideways): Saturday the 30th will be for Knock Knock Games.

Our dahlias and scabiosa are blooming.

The CSA from Fully Belly was overwhelming us with eggplant, squash, tomatoes and peppers. So I made a filling and stuffed peppers and calzones, mmmm

After 3 years of practice Silas is mastering the climbing wall in downtown Berkeley. Here he is with his long time friend Amelia (a master climber from way back). But in these photos they are tigers.

And the fuel of our summer has been the fruits: grapes, berries, melons, but most of all the stone fruit. The plan is to eat as much as you can while they are locally in season. Kashiwase Farm's market stand is supporting our goal with the most awesome Spice Zee nectaplums, August Glo nectarines and Flavor King pluots. We go into such a frenzy at the market, even the farmer noticed that Papa and Aunt Karen make the annual pilgrimage to eat some California fruit. I guess Karen and I were so busy looking for pluots during her visit that we didn't take any photos on my camera. Just trust me when I say we had a great time with Aunt Cookie and it looked a lot like this...

naked yogurt and fruit dessert

Summer round-up Part 1

Ok so it turns out we did take a few more photos during Papa's visit in June, they were just on the camera still. Besides the big garage organizing project we also enjoyed a few California-style science and nature adventures. Starting out at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve tidepools we learned about crabs, limpets and tasty seaweed (I really don't have any pictures of the kids eating sea lettuce or walking barefoot on the slippery rocky tide pools or putting crabs on their heads, live ones).
We also took Papa to the Lawrence Hall of Science on UC Berkeley campus, way up the hill from Kevin's lab. There we enjoyed walking on the big whale out front, checking out the current animatronic dinosaur exhibit and Silas even got to pick out a new pet... and as Silas will tell you: it's not a dinosaur, it's a pre-dinosaur. Dimetrodon of course had to visit the prehistoric plants at Muir Woods.

And a few classic tourist shots of the Golden Gate Bridge...