they managed to fit in all sorts of things that I haven't got around to doing! They went to the Cal Botanical Gardens, ALL of the Berkeley Farmers' Markets , rode on the train at Tilden Park, and generally had a whopping good time I hear!
When my course was over we did some more adventuring with Kate and Liam- to the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park ( I took over a friend's membership as she moved home to LA).
What the kids seemed to like best was OUTSIDE the building. . . .
We also got to introduce Kate and Liam to the Bay Area Discovery Museum. Amiel is now too tall for the "tot spot" which is a big achievement I'd say. He had a different view on this and luckily the person who was guarding the "spot" from big kids (so that babies have a safe place to roll around) gave him permission to take Kate on a little tour of it. Unfortunately the room that I like best (blue water bed mattresses with lily-pad cushions on them) was under construction so I assume that next time we go (after the yearly closure and general fix up) it will be wholly new and exciting for Mimi (at least). I stayed out of the Tot Spot with Liam and we did some chalk drawing which was fun.
K and L left on the train back to Canada on the wednesday night. Liam was VERY glad to be heading home and I think Kate was too after being here for 2 weeks!
Since they left A and M and I have been doing our own adventuring. We visited the Bay Area Vivarium which is in Berkeley. It is a shop but it is a good destination for looking at reptiles, lizards, and creepy crawlies! We saw this awesome Blue Tongued Skink
and this most amazing Crocodile Monitor. I veered them away from the Monitor cages when they were being fed peeping baby chicks. . . I didn't want to be scarred let alone my kids! Some other kids who were there at the same time as us unwittingly watched nature take its course and I was glad that I had taken the necessary precautions to avoid this for us!We also went to the Adventure Playground which Ami aptly named the Inventure Playground where you can go and get yourself some tools and nails and add or subtract to the structures that have been built by kids for 30 years now! Mimi likes to do painting of the structures best. These are pictures from the internet. . .
The sun is really intense here and so mid-day seems to be a rather slow time for us. Last week we were joined by a classmate of mine, Sarah Paden, from my Anat Baniel course. She is also a soprano with red hair and I seem to remember seeing her about 6 years ago at UBC when she was participating in the Early Music Vancouver Workshops. Small world. We went up to Tilden Park, had a nice picnic on the grass, went on the Nature Walk, and also visited the Little Farm. We saw awesome red dragonflies zooming over a little woodsy lake there
and turtle sunning themselves on the logs. We came back home after trying to play at the playground but the kids just sat in the sandbox looking dazed. The sun was too much! When we got home the kids busied themselves with playing with neighbours and Sarah and I were able to do some Anat Baniel work to refresh our memories and to get a nice lesson in too!
that's all i can think of for now. . .
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