Bike Ride for Oakland Schools

On May 17th Dan participated in Ride 4 A Reason, an awesome grassroots fundraising event for the Oakland Public Schools. More than 250 people participated this year and raised almost $110,000!

Dan now works in the K-12 school design department at Ratcliff Architecture in Emeryville, he felt compelled to help support our local schools. He made a custom DIY jersey with the company logo.

He did the long ride (109 miles from Oakland Tech High School to the capitol grounds in Sacramento). There were 2 shorter rides (starting in Fairfield or Vacaville) which a lot of school-age kids and novice riders did. It was a super positive and inspiring event. Thank you to all of our friends and family who helped to support the cause! Thanks also to Amy, a Duck's Nest mom, who introduced Dan to the event, and did the ride herself along with her husband.

I drove to Sacramento with Josie and Evie to meet Dan at the finish line. While we waited, we made a quick visit to Fairytale Town. Too quick, according to Josie... But celebrating with Daddy (and climbing some cool trees) was also pretty fun. :)

Girls at Fairytale Town

Climbing old cedar tree on the capitol grounds 

The riders gather on the steps while Evie and Josie watch

Go Oakland!

Building a Tower

Colin came over for a sleepover and he and Josie collaborated on this awesome tower/castle/skyscraper structure. It had little vignettes and additions/extensions that spread all over the room. They play so well together now - sharing ideas and negotiating conflicts (most of the time!).

Luckily, the Ev-asuarus didn't get close enough to destroy this awesome creation!

These signs were Colin's favorite part

The rocket launch pad was Josie's favorite par

Rocket ship!

Josie and I improvised a rocket ship project using of oatmeal boxes, toilet paper rolls, construction paper and rainbow duct tape. As Josie said, "We put our ideas together and made something even better!" She put a doll and dog inside (each wearing a jetpack made of a travel shampoo bottle stuffed with red/range paper "flames" that flare out and attached with a rubber band).

While we were working on it, I pulled out a library book we had called "Moonshot" about the Apollo 11 mission and suggested we look at it for ideas and inspiration. Josie frowned at that, and said, "I want to come up with my own ideas." Well, okay then!

In the end, she was so psyched about how this turned out- and I was too!

BTW, the book Moonshot is awesome! Great illustrations. Since it's written almost like a poem, I had to explain what was happening to Josie, but then she was into it.

Markers, markers, markers!

Both Josie and Evie LOVE drawing with markers. Since our set was pitifully dry, I ordered a set of 64 colors (!). A long IKEA tray worked perfectly to spread out the pip-squeak size pens for the two of them to share at the table.

At this point, Evie is equally interested in drawing on her fingers and hands as she is on paper... Josie likes to draw rainbows, butterflies, flowers, birds, the sun, people and pictures of our camping trips. She seems to like symmetry and doesn't hesitate to fill the whole page. Recently, she has asked me to draw something (a castle or a house) while she tells me the details and features she wants it to have. Then she colors it in and adds her own decorations and elements. For example, she asked me to draw her a castle, and we decided that the people in the castle were having a party, so they had flags and xmas lights, and balloons, flowers on the door/gate, etc. and there was a moat with a crocodile and a tree nearby with a bird's nest. My mom (Zizi) used to do that for me when I was a kid, and I have such great memories of working on those drawings together.

Camping at Del Valle

We braved the windy, chilly weather and had a fun weekend camping at Lake Del Valle in Livermore. Thankfully, it did not rain! We were joined by 2 other families (5 kids in all). Josie and Max had a blast climbing trees on Sunday, careful to look for poison oak first!

Easter 2014

We went to Sacramento on Easter morning and did the egg hunt at Gma's church. The kids had a blast. We went to Auntie Kathryn's house later that day and did a second egg hunt in her backyard with Sarah and Grandma Carolyn. I guess the Easter Bunny was busy this year!

Evie, Josie, Colin and Charlotte 

Enjoying the bounty

The best part of the day for Josie was wearing her new sandals

Easter Egg Dying

Josie and I were so excited to get out the natural dye kit I bought a couple months ago for Easter. She has been asking me about it for 2 weeks! We used 3 base colors (purple radish, blue cabbage, yellow annatto). It took a bit of experimenting, but the whole process was really fun. We might just have to do it again, even when Easter is over.

Josie's favorite egg - dyed in blue and then yellow

Picnicking Princesses

Pretend Car

Josie came up with this fun pretend car set up, using the loose carseats we had laying around in the living room. Couch pillows and bench cushion for the sides. The were both sure to bring along their babies and lots of activities for a road trip.

Moustaches

One of the best birthday party favors ever... stick on moustaches!