Graduations

The 2012-2013 school year is in the books. Sadly, all good things must come to an end. Teia really seemed to enjoy her first year at preschool and Kai rocked Kindergarten. I think we're all a little bittersweet about the transition to summer.

Teia's graduation ceremony was short and sweet.....

Followed by a little ice cream feast afterwards.

Kai's Grad was a bit more of a shin dig. He was so excited, counting down sleeps until his graduation. When the big day finally arrived he was ready. We were actually able to get him to dress in something other than shorts and a t-shirt worn backwards, which has been his school uniform for pretty much the entire school year. He looked pretty darn cute.

He surprised us yet again by willingly wearing his graduation "hat" which he decorated with an airplane. He sang along with his classmates on stage and proudly accepted his diploma.

I love this one as he gives me a thumb's up from the stage :-)

The songs were pretty cute. They sang Old Man Tucker, Make New Friends and This Land is Your Land, which was Kai's favorite. We heard it sung around our house many times in the weeks leading up to graduation. That is, when he wasn't singing a Rhianna tune which seems to be his other favorite song these days. After the singing on stage, the Kindergartners performed a dance # back in the classroom called Giraffes Can't Dance that was really amazing. Kai was one of the "chimps doing the cha cha" and MAN, it was cute! 

After the ceremony and performance we had a potluck. I made Nanaimo Bars (even tho its not Christmas) because I love Kai's teacher and she loves Nanaimo Bars. They did get a bit melty in the sun but were yummily appreciated anyway. 

Okay, prepare for picture overload....

Its kind of amazing to think that Kai is going to be a first grader in a few months. It seems like only yesterday he was 2. We're excited though b/c his new teacher seems fabulous already and we are so thankful that we found an amazing school where he could have such a wonderful kindergarten year and blossom so much. Teia can't wait to be a Kindergartner too so she can go to "The Co-op." We're just fine with her being the little preschooler that she still is....

June Craz-y-ness

A wise person once told me, "Never poo poo what a person with children older than yours tells you." Well, perhaps this person didn't actually say "poo poo" but that was the jist of it. Now, a whole school year into "real" school, I have empathy for those friends with older kids who bemoaned the homework and projects and field trips and so on..... When you're dealing with crying babies and poopy diapers the trials and tribulations of homework seem like far off luxury, til you get there.

And we're not even there yet. Thankfully. Kai's school isn't big on the homework thing, particularly for the younger grades, instead valuing outdoor play, free time, creativity, and imagination. But they sure are into lots of end of the year events and celebrations, enough to make first time kindergarten parents' heads spin.

So much has been going on and I've had so much to blog about but really no time to do it. So here's a smattering of what the last few weeks have been filled with as we head into the home stretch - the last week of kinder for Kai and preschool for Peach.

In the space of the last 2 weeks there have been so many events, some of which we just haven't managed to make it to. We did make it to Art Night, the last of a string of themed celebratory evenings at Kai's school. It was worth it to see the mini-city that the kindergartners had created, each building a reflection of the individual personality of its artist.

That is Kai's train station in the green with the triangle roof.

There was a taco truck, a toys r us, face painting store and even a soccer field. Amazing what these little artists created as you can see. 

Because Teia is an honorary member of Kai's class, she even found some of her own art on display. She was pretty proud. 

Closely following Art Night, Greg created another of his own works of art for Kai to wear to a costume themed birthday party of one of his classmates.

We're kinda hoping Kai will still be into the Coaster at Hallowe'en; wouldn't that be efficient? But we're not too optimistic given his track record of having favorite things for about 2 months max. If he does want a new costume, we're just hoping it'll store more easily. We now have a Trolley and Coaster costume sized for a kindergartner and no garage to store them in. I've told Greg he needs to start a public transit costume business but he has informed me these costumes would be way too pricey for any reasonable parent to buy, given how much time it takes to create one. Either way, Kai looked pretty awesome. 

The paint was barely dry on the Coaster and we were off to the Kindergarten year end camping trip at Mt. Laguna. That weekend is worth a blog post in itself but that will probably never happen so I've thrown it in here, amongst all of the other June craz-y-ness that is going on. Not only did we have to prepare for ourselves, we were part of Team Saturday Breakfast and together with 2 other families, were charged with cooking and serving breakfast to about 40 hungry campers. Somehow we managed to pull off bacon and eggs, a fruit/yogourt/granola buffet and pastries, together with coffee made in as many french presses as we could muster (with tea and hot chocolate for the few non-coffee consumers among us). Relaxing the weekend was not, but the kids did enjoy their time in the great outdoors and discovered that they really like climbing on big boulders. 

Teia in her happy nutella place - like father, like daughter. 

So much of the weekend was not captured in photos but there was only so much we could accomplish without growing octopus arms. And we were SO tired. Did I mentioned we were tired? And thrown into the middle of all of this was Kai's end of year "family learning project" on the space shuttle. 

Before we had unpacked the camping gear and caught up on sleep, it was time for the year end beach field trip to Coronado Island. I was actually dreading it. Yep, dreading a pleasant ferry ride and a few hours spent on a lovely beach. Because it meant packing another bag of stuff, schlepping that stuff around and running around after children again for an entire day, rather than actually unpacking our camping gear and getting organized while the children were at school. But despite my grumblings it did turn out to be a nice day and I'm just resigned to the mess in my house for now.

And here are a few pics of my cute little loves on the ferry ride.

Teia with her arm protectively around her brother ♥

And insisting on sitting on his lap. 

Taking a deep breath as we head into a week of graduations, pot lucks, ice cream parties, end of year teacher gifts (not yet imagined, bought or created) and slightly frazzled children. After Kai told me tonight that he had 4 sleeps left until graduation, he asked me how many sleeps until he could go back to school in September. I take that as a really good sign that he's had a really good year. Now we all have to do is survive the rest of this month and then maybe everyone can get some sleep! 

Multi-talented :-)

Seriously. He is. You should see Greg run and you should see him dance hula. And soon there will be photos of the his latest public transit creation (coming soon).

No, he doesn't usually spend Sunday mornings in the park with hula dancers. At least I don't think so. But when they pulled him out of the line to catch the bus back to the start area at the race over the Coronado Bridge last Sunday, he didn't have much choice. He put up a protest but the dancer wasn't taking no for an answer. And that is how Greg became part of the morning's entertainment. He did pretty well. I think the practice on our trip last month paid off, even if his wiggle came more from his knees and less from his hips.

Seriously though, I can mock away but Greg delivered a pretty solid running performance. I'm not sure how he does it but Greg doesn't seem to need to train for running. It just seems to be something he was born with. He may not be made to dance but he is made to run. 

A few months ago I posted about how Greg registered for this race with some guys from work, intent on winning the team division. But then a calf injury that has been bugging him off and on for the past few years flared up and that was pretty much it for his training. Being the team player that he is, pulling out of the race wasn't an option, so he did the next best thing: bought some fancy "healing" tape  (I suggested he try compression socks but he wasn't keen on becoming one of the "sock people"), and he just didn't run so that the calf could at least handle the 4 mile course. 

Seemed it handled it quite fine. 25:33 fine. 1st place in his age group fine. 1st place by 2 minutes fine. And this was a gigantic race with 8300 entrants. People get pretty excited about the opportunity to run over the Coronado Bridge. 

But Greg didn't win his age group b/c being part of a team disqualified him from the age group competition apparently. So the slow poke who took more than 27 minutes to finish the race was the winner. Greg and his team came in 3rd. "We Fix Submarines" were beat by some team called "The Elite Five." 

Greg was 33rd overall. Wow. I was around 600th overall and 20th in my age group which had over 500 participants. I'm still annoyed b/c the race results have my time a minute slower than it actually was....seems there were some lost/corrupt shoe chip files. My GPS said 35:25 but the race results have me at 36:26. I'm annoyed that I'm annoyed by this. B/c it doesn't matter and in all my years of being a weekend warrior, I don't think my results have ever been wrong before. #letitgo. Wow. I just used a hashtag (is that one word or two?). I have never, ever done that before. I don't think I will ever do it again. I just wanted to try it out. It was weird. 

Here is the photo I took mid-race. Yep, I actually stopped. I had my phone with me b/c we had a babysitter and it just didn't feel right to be disconnected, particularly when we were going to be essentially stranded on the other side for awhile. But it gave me a good excuse to take a few breaks when I felt stitchy during the race, which unfortunately happened more than I would have liked. But it was still a fun date morning with Mr. Speed and we got to listen to the Navy band.

I'm really, honestly not making fun of these folks. They sounded pretty good. But it is strange to see people in their Navy-issue whites gyrating and rocking on and pointing at the audience like they were the Scorpions. (Yes, I am a child of the 80's). 

Now Greg has been mumbling something about finally getting around to doing a marathon. Seeing as that'll take him about as long as it takes me to get groceries, I think he should go for it. 

Favorite Thing at School

Today the kids' literacy assignment was to draw/write about their favorite thing at school. This is Kai's:

"Frands" = "Friends" and Kai drew his friend Ian. It is a pretty good depiction, Ian has really crazy hair. This is just so great on so many levels. I do love his drawings of surfliners, trolleys, and Teia but this one is a definite keeper!

The 6 year old is in da houz!

The big day finally arrived. Kai turned 6. He was most excited. He's been changing up his favorite number alot lately. For a long time, it was the number 4. 11 got the nod for awhile then leading up to the big day, it became lucky number 6. Then just before his birthday, he switched it to 5. I think he realized he only had a few days left before he'd be 6 and 5 would be a thing of the past. He woke up on Saturday morning, walked into the living room and proudly announced "Mommy, I'm six."

Kai has been enamored with the red San Diego trolley for quite some time so we've been planning a trolley birthday party. But you can't plan too far ahead with Kai; he's very likely to switch things up on you and this birthday proved no exception. He loves the trolley, the Amtrak Surfliner and the Coaster (all trains in our area), and for awhile there even changed his name to "Trolley Surfliner Coaster." However, over the past few weeks a strong preference for the surfliner has been emerging. This required some flexibility on our parts to see how we could morph this trolley party into something of a trolley-surfliner party. Cue the reliable old internet and people who actually make Amtrak surfliner birthday stuff. We were able to get a balloon, pinata and some paper plates designed in the surfliner's glorious image. None of these details were lost on Kai. He loved every one of them.

Watching Kai open his gift was pretty awesome. He is not a kid who covets too much but this year we found something we knew he'd really like and took the gigantic risk of buying it in February (we've been burned by early buying with Kai in the past). We showed him some photos on Amazon and talked it up and before long our little man couldn't wait to finally receive his Lego Trolley. 

We were not disappointed. He opened it with a gigantic grin and squeals of "what is it? what is it?" although he knew full well what it was. I don't think I've ever seen Kai open a present in quite this fashion. 

He went straight to work (with Daddy's help). We had let Kai know that there would be alot of work to do to get this trolley in working order so he did expect it to come in pieces. But after an hour of work and no intact trolley in hand yet, Kai wasn't too keen on stopping so we could get ready for the birthday party. But what kid can refuse a bouncy house? We were finally able to get him to put Project Trolley away for a few hours so he could bounce to his heart's content and we could frantically prepare for the 60 person party. Yes....you read that right. SIX-TEE people. What on earth were we thinking? Let's just call this the party that spiraled out of control. Kai wanted to invite all of his classmates to his birthday party. He was pretty adamant about it. So, we figured, it can't hurt to invite everyone. I'm sure at least a third will have other plans. Well, we were wrong and almost everyone came, complete with moms, dads, siblings and even a grandma. 

Turns out we can throw a party for 60 people. The pool was full, the bouncy house was full, the yard was full. But the house wasn't. The weather was just too great to be inside. Everyone had a blast. 

Check out the cool Trolley take home boxes, courtesy of MTS. There are few buses in there too, just in case we ran out. 

And here is the fabulous (and gigantic) cake. This was our first time making our own decorative icing b/c we've become anti-food coloring at our house. We learned that it takes ALOT of vegetable-based blue coloring dye to turn white icing silver. But it still looked okay and tasted great. I can never get enough of the looks of excitement and surprise on my kids' faces when they see their birthday cakes for the first time. Check out the pic below as Kai checks out his cake - pay special attention to Teia's face (lower left). She just knows her brother is gonna love this cake!

Greg was the cake server, which he says was the most stressful part of the day. That is, until one of the other moms relieved him of the duty and very efficiently got that mega-cake cut and distributed to the masses. 

The Pinata pull was pure mayhem and I do look forward to the day my kids decide they don't want a pinata at their party. We did enforce a few rules given the age spread for the pinata scrum was 2 to 10 years, but it got pretty crazy anyway. Kai preferred a pull string pinata over the whacking kind, which was fine by me, although we did get tsked tsked by a Mexican mom at our party. (Okay maybe she didn't say tsk, tsk but if there is a Mexican word for haole, I'm sure she used it). 

I love this shot. Just have to wonder what Kai is thinking with that dreamy look on his face, "I wonder if she'll pull the right string and let the loot out?" or "one day I want Aurora to be my girlfriend." I think he's got some competition. I hear several of the boys in class have plans to marry her. But I do think Kai would be her cutest pick.

For the most part, Teia enjoyed the big day as well, although she struggled a little with seeing big brother get presents and attention. We tried our best to include her and keep her little nose in joint. Kai has been driving her crazy with his slow approach to gift opening. There are several unopened ones in our living room heading into Party day +2. But she is learning to be patient. She's also been busily planning her own birthday. She has gift lists and ideas for pinatas and birthday cakes. So tonight after dinner we celebrated her half-birthday with a candle on a left over piece of Kai's cake and sang her a Happy Half-Birthday song. Seemed to do the trick; she was pleased as punch. 

I know. She isn't turning 5. But she really wanted that #5 candle; carried it around with her all day. I think b/c 5 represents getting a booster seat, so she can be just like big brother and not stuck in a car seat anymore. Its hard to be the little sis sometimes. 

One final shot of my crew hard at work this morning on the lego trolley. I have to say I am very impressed with them. After about 3 hours of total work, they got the first trolley finished. Kai did it all by himself with patient direction from Daddy. Teia was not to be left out and put the tracks together. I think Greg is really enjoying this; b/c you know Dads really want their own Lego sets. 

And yep, today was also our 7 year wedding anniversary and we did get out for a few hours sans kidlets thanks to our wonderful babysitter and friend. But we do accept that, at least for the next several years, Kai's day is going to be the big late April event at our house. Happy Birthday Little Buddy!!!!

Hawaii

What a week, what a day. All this stuff in Boston just feels way too close to home. Only a few years ago, we were cheering at the Boston marathon and Greg was on MIT campus, daily. So relieved that our friends in the Boston area are all okay and so much sadness for those who are not.

For a happy distraction, reflecting on our trip to Hawaii seems like a good thing to do....

This was our second trip back to Oahu since leaving in 2008. Kai clearly remembers our last trip and was really looking forward to this one. A cold for he and I put a bit of a damper on the trip's beginning as we both felt pretty lousy. But sunshine, fresh papaya everyday, salt water and tropical breezes certainly helped us both feel better. You'll notice I didn't mention sleep. We all slept in the same hotel room for the first time ever on this trip. Overall, it went pretty well. The kids were exhausted each night and fell asleep rather than keeping each other awake to all hours. But a combination of the time difference and a little person named Teia, ensured that everyone was awake as the sun came up.

One night Teia fell out of bed and woke us all up. She settled back to sleep quickly but the rest of us tossed and turned all night long. So we were all pretty much sleeping by Teia's schedule, except that she was the only one taking 2 hour naps every day. But its hard to get too annoyed with her. She just enjoys life so much and brings us so much joy with her exuberance and love. Just look at this face....

But despite sleeplessness and colds, it was wonderful to be back. We saw great friends and spent lots of time in the warm waters of both the ocean and the hotel pool. Kai was so relaxed and happy in Hawaii-mode. He went barefoot or wore his slippas everywhere and couldn't get enough of the water - the pool and "the water with the sand" as he called it. 

Mama even got out for a surf session. It wasn't too successful in terms of riding waves. I was more than a little rusty and conditions weren't ideal. But it was a beautiful, sunny afternoon to be in the water and I was joined by a huge honu who surfaced beside me and stayed close as I paddled back to shore. (Yes, it was lovely to see him but he reminded me of the other large creatures that might be swimming about and I lost my nerve for solo surfing 200m from shore!)

Our hotel pool had an interesting rule where kids had to get out every hour for a 15 minute adult swim. We were puzzled by this b/c the hotel had another pool for the 18 and over crowd. At first we were annoyed, although the kids didn't seem to mind their towel time. But a few days into our trip after realizing that our kids could easily spend 3 hours in the water (requiring intense parental supervision b/c they both can't swim yet and the water was a perfect depth for Kai but Teia needed schlepping around the entire time), we came to appreciate this 15 minute break which surely was intended for exhausted parents. We'd grab a sip of water and momentarily rest our arms and legs, weary from tossing 35-50 lbs in the air repeatedly. Then the whistle would blow and Kai and Teia (and all the other little people) were off like shots to get back at 'er. It is funny watching little people waddle as they try to go as fast as they can without running on the pool deck. 

One of the big highlights of our trip was taking the kids to a luau. Seemed like a good idea until a few hours before when we started to worry that we'd spent a fair bit of money on tickets and we weren't sure we'd even get through the meal before the kids would want to leave. We were pleasantly surprised. Not only did the kids enjoy getting polynesian tattoos, watch a coconut tree climber and sit through a meal of pulled pork, seaweed, poi and rice (while I filled them up with pretzels from a zip loc bag), they really enjoyed the dancing. 

Little miss Teia found herself up on the stage twice dancing hula. These days where Teia goes, Kai goes too, so we all ended up on stage for a hula lesson in front of about 200 people, even Daddy was up there shakin' it! 

The second time Teia went up for a Tahitian competition. We were so proud of her, confidently heading up with her hula dancer, wearing her lei and giving it her best up there. Kai also headed up to dance with his little sis but changed his mind when he realized that Mommy wasn't going to be on stage this time. If you look closely, you'll see him. 

Okay, after 3 days of upload fails, I have to give up on this video. I did post it to my Facebook page. I will try again in a new blog post. I did manage to upload a different video of Teia dancing, this time on the beach. If you're wondering about her slow approach to the dance "stage," Greg and I were instructed to be the curtains. 

The final event of the night was the fire knife dancers. Both kids were entranced. That is, until the dancer set the floor on fire. Kai turned to us and said "this is a little much, I need a break." Later that night we asked Kai what was his favorite part of the evening. He replied "not the fire knife dancers!" Teia on the other hand gave us a pantomimed fire knife performance back at the hotel room. Wish I had video of that!

It must have been a good trip b/c the other night Kai announced to me "I'm ready to move now!" He must have felt a little unsure though b/c he looked at me and added "but you're not quite ready yet." Can't blame him, every time we go back the idea of living in Hawaii again crosses my mind. Scary thing is, this time I didn't even find it that trafficky or busy. I guess I am beginning to get used to busy places :-/

Xterra Black Mountain: Race Report

I know the grandparents are expecting posts about our trip to Hawai'i, and its coming, but I figured I'd do a quick race report while the details are still somewhat sharp and my perceptions haven't yet become too distorted i.e., it really didn't hurt that much, not sure why I didn't push harder....you know how it goes. No photos. This was a solo affair. Originally I wanted my little family there at the finish line but we're all still dealing with the time difference and its not in the right direction for early morning wakings for the little people.

I got the weather I was hoping for. Cloudy skies, cold breezes. I knew there was a good chance of this as we approach the month of May, known in San Diego as "May Grey." It was funny but I was hardly nervous at all as I looked around at all the runners around me lining up for the start, teeth chattering and jumping up and down to stay warm. Maybe it was the relief I felt that I wasn't going to bake like a potato on those exposed trails for hours that was washing away any pre-race jitters. Or maybe it was the lack of expectation that running on a hilly trail brings - no mile splits to make me feel slow and out of shape. Trail running kinda frees you up from all that road racing baggage. No matter whether you're a 7 or 11 minute miler, it happens to all runners I think. Slave to the watch.

Having pre-ran some of the course and pre-ridden the whole thing, I knew that we were all heading into a slice of rocky, twisty, downhill single track w/n the first few minutes. I'm not a great runner but I'm a little better at trail running and I'm not too shabby at descending. I think my years of mountain biking and adventure racing down mountains in BC trying to keep up with my 6 ft tall racing partners (all of them, even Jenn), gives me a little edge here over the nervous downhiller types. But as we all charged to the trail (yep, everyone was in a big hurry), I realized that trying to get some space to enjoy that single track just wasn't going to happen. About half way down though I did see an opening so I scooted out with a quick "on your left" and let it rip. A bit too much. Sub-7 min pace down the rocky trail was not in my race plan. But it was s-w-e-e-t.

Greg pre-rode the course with me so he knew the terrain and he also knows my running capabilities (or lack thereof). So he reminded me in pre-race strategy discussions ;-) that I only had so many matches to burn out there. I liked the analogy and kept it in my head. Once I was back on level ground and my pace slowed I remember thinking "....strike! that match is burnt!" I wasn't so sure how many more I had to burn but was hoping for at least a half a package.

Through to about mile 3.5 or so the race continued on some sweet trail, some level, some up, and alot of gentle down. I felt great and everyone seemed to be running so fast. I haven't raced much with a GPS but was glad I did today. When I felt like I was running too slow I'd look down and see that I was actually running in 8 min pace vicinity. Which for me, is pretty darn fast these days. I've been training my tempo runs in that pace range but I knew it was too fast for me for a race this long. But I felt really good and I knew tougher terrain awaited. So I went with it but I could smell the sulphur of my burning matches. I felt like I was holding back but it wasn't even close to slow enough.

As I passed the 3 mile marker I looked down and saw 24:14 on my GPS. Cripes! I haven't broken 25 mins for 3 miles in a long, long, long time. Even in my younger days I think 23:58 might have been my PB, on a road. It was somewhat elevation assisted but whatevah, it was way too fast for me. At that point I threw those matches into the nearest creek and wondered what it would take to hang on. So much for listening to my husband, a seasoned runner.

When I started to feel annoyed that the first aide station was a little further away than I had expected, I knew I was truly matchless. But I slogged my way to mile 5 where two ginormous hills awaited. These hills weren't super long but they were steep. Steep enough that I had walked the top portion of the second one the day we mt biked the course. Walking seemed like a good plan today too. I'm sure tomorrow I'll be feeling the effects of pounding down the backsides of those babies as well.

A steady climb up to a road crossing and the mile 6 aide station and I was at 1 hour. Seems my swift feet had left me. The terrain after mile 6 was about two miles of probably the "wildest" part of the course (meaning I couldn't see houses anymore). The vistas were sweeping and the double track trail was up and down with an overall elevation loss. My plan here was to run a good and reasonable pace b/c I knew the last 2 miles to the finish would be extremely tough with rolling terrain and a good uphill to the finish for the last half mile. I stuck to that plan for about 10 minutes before I wasn't sure if I was even feeling my legs anymore and my ears started to pop (this is a weird thing that happened to me last time I ran at Black Mountain and got really tired). I had made a deal with myself that when I started to feel rough I would take short 40 second walk breaks every 10 minutes. I've found that this can have a rejuvenating effect on me and even enable me to lift my pace. So I started my walk breaks. First every 10, then quickly every 5 minutes. Then I wasn't sure if I was doing walk breaks in my run, or run breaks in my walk.

Needless to say, I fell pretty much apart, spectacularly. I kept moving forward and I finished the race but it wasn't pretty. As I was climbing the last few hills and running whenever I could, just for morale's sake really b/c I don't know if it was any faster really than walking, I was trying to figure out how I could use my upper body to assist my tired and cramping lower body. Crawling? Envisioning a magical rope that I could grab onto and pull? At least this entertained and distracted me for a few minutes. I thought momentarily about cougars and how if one decided to jump in front of me that moment my fatigue was so great, I'd just lie down and say "buddy, I hope you like salt."

But there is always a little more in the tank than you think. Rounding the last uphill corner the race photographer encouraged me to "put on the gas for a picture!" And you know, I did. And then there was the finishing 50. Can't walk there. So I didn't. But sprinting to catch the girl in front of me? Not quite enough gas for that and she looked really young so not in my age group anyway :-P

Finished in 1:46 which strangely enough is just about what I estimated on my race entry form. The ankle and hip flexor held up and I seem to have found the energy to write this blog. Its nice to be back doing a little something competitive and challenging. Only 3 months ago I was probably in some of the worst shape of my life, running only 3 miles at a time and slow ones at that so I can't complain about today. It was a good day out :-)