Special Person Book

The hubby did not think I should be be spending this much time on a kindergarten project - but I knew if I didn't take the time to make a meaningful photo book when there's an "excuse" to do it, I'd never make one. Having always wanted to make a time capsule/keepsake box/baby milestone book but never did, this was my opportunity to make up.

The book stays at school till the end of the school year so having an electronic version is nice so she can enjoy it at home too.

Click on the mid-page arrows on the side to flip and click on the middle to view in full screen mode:

Yosemite Trip

For the first time in 10 years, Yosemite closed ALL ingress and egress roads due to huge continuous snowstorms. This rare event happened RIGHT before our scheduled trip - the 1st time the kids were going to get to see Yosemite. We were therefore very thankful that the roads opened up and the sun all of a sudden came out RIGHT ON that particular morning of our trip. It was also the ONLY sunny day with sunshine in a 20-day time span (it was rainy/snowy/cloudy 10 days before AND after that first day of our trip.) It was also on that day that I finally felt justified to have an SUV with all-terrain tires :)

Due to its low elevation, snow usually melts as soon as the sun hits so photographers had to get up really early in the morning to film the Valley in snow. Although folks who got stuck in the Park during the prior week also had continuous snow capped tree views, they had to endure horrid storms and road conditions. So we were indeed very blessed to be able to enjoy the magnificent snow-veiled Valley against blue skies with decent driving conditions.

We were actually glad that it snowed on the 2nd day as it was the kids first time experiencing snowfall and seeing how individually intricate each snowflake was. It got cold and rainy the 3rd day but we finished building our snowman and were on our way home anyway.

Had a great time relaxing, enjoying the scenary, sledding, tubing, making snow angels, watching snowflakes, and photographing. Enjoy the album :)

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.