gobble gobble wobble wobble

We were heading home from preschool and saw a bunch of wild turkeys. I decided to make a U-turn so Nathan can take a closer look. Glad I had a decent camera phone but should probably keep a real camera around even on errands like picking up from school from now on. Glad that wild life is still so accessible after we moved away from the zoo.


The fact that this one got off the sidewalk gave me an excuse to slow down enough to take this photo.

Being Green with Orange Stuff

In an effort to reduce our carbon footprint - I tried to use up the pumpkins that both kids brought home instead of chucking them into the garbage --> landfill like I did in previous years. Incidentally, both kids' schools provided recipes in their newsletters so I adapted those to make these:


Omitting at least one cup of sugar from each recipe still gave the muffins and bread just the right amount of sweetness as the farm gave us sugar-pie pumpkins (a sweeter variety). I also added some ground flax and walnuts to the pumpkin bread to up the nutrition and the kids loved both creations. Don't forget to toast the seeds to make pumpkins seeds for a nutritious snack !

Pumpkin patch albums

Both kids went to the same pumpkin patch but with different schools on different days with a different parent. Being an actual preschool and not a daycare, Nathan's preschool requires parent participation on field trips. Basically a child doesn't get to attend a field trip if the parent can't come because they simply don't have enough teachers to watch the very young 3 yr-olds. So you can see Nathan's album has a lot more posed photos as Daddy only needed to watch one child; while Mommy, as a volunteer, was chaperoning a bunch of very active kids and took mostly candids.

靚菜

When I got this beautiful head of Radicchio di Treviso from our biweekly farm box - I couldn't resist taking a picture. Most folks will grill this to mellow its slightly bitter flavor but I'm one of the weird ones who'll eat 苦瓜 raw (pickled with garlic/lemon/soy/sesame), so I actually enjoyed this with a simple vinaigrette - I was very surprised that our kids actually happily gobbled these as-is also and even asked for seconds !

By the way, if you're interested in trying out having just-picked 100% organic local fruits and veggies delivered to your door, let me know and I'll email you a coupon. By referring you - they'll give me a free box that I'll share with you if you live locally.

Little Picasso

Katrina came into my office with this picture and asked me what I thought it was (the original version didn't have eyes and was presented to me horizontally - I was deep in thought trying to solve a work problem and was about to tell her good job on a really nice colorful set of triangles). She then drew on the eyes but didn't really wait for me to speak before telling me her answer - take a guess before clicking the button to see what she said:

A walking dinosaur holding a flower

Muir Woods

We visited a while back at the end of summer but never got around to posting pictures. This was one of the few National Parks that our 3 yr old could hike on his own.

Before our visit, we downloaded the Quest for Katrina to read (I had her highlight words she didn't know and surprisingly, only a few words were highlighted.) It was a fun guide that helped us see and learn much more than if we were just idly strolling around as we do on most hikes.

Mommy helper

It all started when I replied to a mom's email asking if anyone can help her out as her meeting in San Jose got moved to the day she's scheduled help at Katrina's Kindergarten class.

For some reason I really wanted to help this mom even though I've already signed up for Prep (which doesn't require physical presence in the classroom, just cutting/pasting etc. at home - thankfully Jonathan helped with most of last week's matting project) Maybe 'cause our situations are so similar that we both have long commutes and can't always teleconference but still want to be involved with our kids.

Turned out I became the very first official parent volunteer for the class so Katrina was pleasantly surprised to have mom there. I didn't know what to expect but the teachers made sure I got to spend time with Katrina by switching kids around and also assigned me a more interesting task of taking small groups of kids out for a "Fall walk". We walked around campus and talked about what we see/hear/touch/smell/taste (didn't do taste) in the fall. We stomped on some leaves to make some crunchy sounds and clipped some brown ones on our clipboards.

I was a little worried the boys would run off or become uncontrollable but everyone was eager to talk and write on their clipboards and behaved very well !

Monterey Bay Trip Day 3 - Carmel

It's probably not a typical Carmel Valley attraction that usually comes to mind, but the Farm Stand on Earthbound's R&D farm turned out to be a fun morning excursion.

We were then going to check out some of the art galleries at the village but came across the Concours on the Avenue event and decided to check out hot rods instead. The Bavarian Swiss stone cottages and window flower boxes made a perfect backdrop for these classic post-war machines. There were lots of interesting muscle cars but my arm muscles couldn't hold a 33 lb kid and take pictures at the same time for too long, so hope you like the few I did capture with one hand.

The beach was just a few blocks down the street and was a great place for a picnic and some fun with clean sand. We also encountered a nice surprise along the shore - check the album to see what it was:
View album