Monterey Bay Aquarium

My oldest brother actually took a vacation. I know. I was surprised, too. He brought his family along, too. Seriously. They went to down to Socal and spent a couple days in Disneyland and California Adventure, then drove up north to spend a few days with us. It was so fun having them here.

Since our trip out to Utah in May, I have no desire to travel anywhere for a while, so it's nice making everybody come to us. We've got lots of visitors scheduled for next month (Asher's birthday!).

Akiko was still in school, but I pulled her out for the day and we drove south to Monterey Bay and spent the day at the aquarium. Here are the highlights:

Danny and the kids overlooking the bay.

Ian, Akiko and Savannah getting up the nerve to touch some sea stars, cucumbers and crabs.

I told you they wouldn't bite.

Brave little Moses dove right in.

These are called decorator crabs. They take bits of seaweed and camouflage themselves.

"Hey Ma! The water's wet!" Asher Splasher doing what he does best.

Rays that we could pet... if they came close enough.

Leopard shark that you could also pet. Sharks are so misunderstood.

The kids and Terra enjoying one of the many ginormous tanks.

So, Ian and Savannah get along with my kids really well. They're all close enough in age that they played with each other spectacularly. I expected Savannah to fawn all over Asher, but I should have known better. Savannah only had eyes for Akiko. Ian, on the other hand, totally fell in love with Asher. The feeling was mutual.

New best buddies.

What aquarium is complete unless it includes the cast of Finding Nemo? This was the only good pic I could get though and somebody spilled beer in front of this display and it made me gag.

Eels kind of freak me out.

The cousins in a giant clamshell. Forget about trying to get them all to look at you at the same time. Impossible!

So, the next couple pictures need a little explaining. There was this eggshell and both the boys wanted to climb in it. I figured it was a great picture opportunity. Only the first pic turned out. I took, like, 20 pictures and it's really amusing to watch them in rapid succession, but here are the winners:

My boys. I accidentally coordinated their outfits, but I'm glad I did. They're so cute.

Moses found it hilarious when I imitated Asher, "Hey! How do I get out of here?!"

"No Asher! Stay in the egg!"

Here are my favorite things to see at any aquarium:

So. Beautiful.

See all the tiny shrimp it's feasting on?

Yay for cute little seahorses!

I forget the names of these ones, but don't they look so cool?

My favorite: the weedy sea dragon.

Posing with a giant replica of a birthing daddy. That's right. Male seahorses are the ones who carry and give birth. Can you see the little baby coming out near the swirl on Moses' shirt?

Flamingos. Beautiful. Picture doesn't give them justice.

Asher really loved the sea turtles.

Seeing these really made me yearn to go snorkeling and swim with them on Maui.

Akiko made friends with an emperor penguin. It's fake. But she loved that it was life-sized.

So, a word, if I may, for those that may travel to the Bay area. There are two aquariums in the area: Monterey Bay and the Aquarium of the Bay at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. Admission is about the same to get into either, but I highly recommend skipping the one in SF and just go two hours south to Monterey.

We went through the entire aquarium in SF in 1.5 hours and it took us an entire day to get through the one in Monterey. It's pretty easy to do the math and find out which aquarium is not only more awesome, but which one also gives you the best bang for your buck.

Love. This. Place.

Pomp and Circumstance

I was hoping to post this the day it happened, but we were so anxious to kick off our summer.

Akiko has completed kindergarten! Yay! She is super excited for first grade, but I just want her to enjoy her summer before we have to start thinking about school again.

Graduation day! Recognize the dress?

The whole kindergarten had a little assembly for the parents in the cafeteria at first. They sang songs for us. Then we left to go to the individual classes for the graduation. Thank heavens! The cafeteria was soooo hot! And anytime I got a good shot of Akiko, someone would step right in front of me and block her. Grr! Anyway, I'm glad we didn't have to sit through 100 kids, that we didn't know, getting their certificates.

Mrs. P. was such a sweet teacher. She was so willing to help us with Akiko's work. Anytime we mentioned that Akiko was getting bored or that she found the work too easy, she would get a little packet together for extra harder work for Akiko to work on. It challenged Akiko more, but she's better off because of it.

Akiko! You did it!

 Akiko has very mixed emotions about the whole thing. She's sad that she won't see her friends over the summer, but she's excited for first grade. She is looking forward to the break, but she won't be able to spend a whole lot of time with Mrs. P. anymore.

We also got Akiko's final report card for the year. She started out pretty strong, but overall improved in all areas. Her report card is stellar. I hope she can keep up those marks for the next 12 years. ;)

One of the boys in her class was sitting next to us during our picnic at the park. Akiko read something off a wrapper she had been eating out of and the boy said, "Wow Akiko! You can read that? I can't. You're the best reader in the class!" I had one of those awkward mixed emotion moments where, all at once, I thought it was such a cute, sweet thing to say, and I was proud of Akiko, but I also pitied the other boy. I was all sorts of twisted up.

And to end it all, here's the cherry on top of Akiko's kindergarten sundae of awesomeness:

No surprise here, right?

We love you Akiko! Keep up the great work!

School's Thisclose to Being Out!

Seriously, who gets out of school in the middle of June? Everyone else we know has been out of school for a week or two. Akiko still has one more day. Tomorrow is her kindergarten graduation, so keep your eyes peeled for that post.

Anyway, today the kindergarten classes went on a field trip to the park and I was able to chaperone. I haven't been able to on any of the other field trips they have taken because I've got two other little ones in tow and have been disallowed to take part in them. So, when Akiko's teacher said I'd be able to, I jumped at the chance.

It was a lot of fun. We just walked to the park, but it was all five of the kindergarten classes, so there were about one hundred kids there.

Walking to the park. I was a little late, so I brought up the rear.

One of the teachers brought along a bunch of recess equipment: stilts, jump ropes, chalk and bubbles. The kids had a lot of things to choose from besides the regular playground fare.

Akiko demonstrates the stilts.

Asher demonstrates his one-handed Mowgli crawl.

This picture is just to show that Moses was there, too. He ran off and did his own thing the whole time we were there.

Yo homie! What up?

Rethinking the decision to put this one up.

Asher is the unofficial "class baby." All the kids in Akiko's class fawn over him. Especially this sweet boy and another little girl (three pics down). They are his biggest fans.

We were both disappointed that this bubble wand didn't give us star-shaped bubbles.

Akiko posing with her BFF.

Bubbles!! My bubbles.

Asher with his other #1 fan.

Aren't bubbles awesome?

"Whoa! Akiko, how did you do that?"

I tried to keep him away, but finally had to relent and let him play in the wood chips and sand.

Showing off his standing skills.

Building sand castles.

Sand goes in...

... octopus comes out.

Playing with the parachute with Mrs. P.

Wheeee!! Swinging is fun!

So, I'm super excited for summer this year. Last year was kind of a bust for me. We were still new enough to the area that I didn't have a clue what to do around here. I was also extremely pregnant and then I had a newborn and no energy.

Akiko has only nine short weeks off of school (what?), so I've compiled a list of nine things (out of dozens of other fun choices) that we're going to do once a week every week of summer. This is in addition to our summer camp group that we have planned for a few of the weeks. I also plan on spending a fair amount of time at the pool.

So, here's to looking forward to Akiko's first official summer break. I'm totally stoked about the whole sleeping in thing, too.

Preschool Graduation - The First Time

Moses finished his first year of preschool yesterday. This is year one of three. That's right. Moses will graduate preschool two more times before he gets to go into kindergarten.

Nonetheless, Joseph and I are still really proud of him. His teachers love him and told me how much he's grown and changed this year.

Moses has always been the kid who is perfectly content to go off and play by himself, but I've been told that he's become more social over the course of the year and has transitioned from parallel play to cooperative play. In fact, he is able to tell me the names of his friends at school, which, I think, is a pretty big deal. Especially for a boy.

Anyway, Moses has enjoyed his first year of school, but I think he's looking forward to the summer. Frankly, so am I.

Here's the video of Moses receiving his "pretend diploma."

Now here are a few shots of Moses on his big day:

Moses and a couple classmates waiting for everyone else to get their diplomas.

Super proud.

He thinks he's such a big boy now.

Asher doesn't understand what the big deal is.

He wanted to pose all around the garden.

I can't find my baby boy in this picture. All I see is my big boy now.

I Totally Knew She Could Do It

We've hit another milestone today! Well, at least Akiko has.

Akiko can ride a bike without training wheels!

So, here's the thing: she's had this little princess bike for, like, ever. I think we bought it for her when she was about two and a half. So, yeah, we've had it for a while.

Anyway, it's a toddler bike, so it's got training wheels. For the last several months, Joseph and I have been trying to convince her to get rid of the training wheels and we have always been met with screaming resistance on the subject.

I could tell Akiko really did want to take them off, because one by one, her friends have been getting rid of theirs, but she would not let us do it. Joseph did, at one point, but... I'm not going to go there. So they went back on.

For several weeks, the subject had been dropped. Akiko got a scooter for her birthday that she rides to and from school daily. Her bike gets hardly any play time now unless one of her friends is over.

Well, this afternoon, we were over at her best friend's house because I had some things to talk about with her mom (we're doing another summer camp together this year, so stay tuned on that subject).  We sent all the kids outside to play so we could talk. Kids wander in (there were 13 kids over at the house, not including the babies) while moms usher them back out.

While I sat on the floor, entertaining Asher, I saw Akiko ride past the door on her friend's bike, park it and come in. "Hey Mom! I can ride H's bike all by myself without training wheels and without falling!"

"Really?" I ask, half excited and half exasperated while thinking, I knew she could do it. I just knew it! She just needed to get over whatever it was that was holding her back. 

So, it never really was that moment where one of us is holding the bike steady as she wobbly steers her bike down the street and then we let go and cheer her on. No, it was just a Hey! I guess I could do it all along moment for her.

I'm really excited and proud of her, but I also want to shrug my shoulders, throw up my hands and sigh because all that fighting over the stupid training wheels was so not worth it. The moment was also a bit anti-climatic.

I am excited, though, that we can go on family bike rides and pull the boys in the trailer. But that will only happen once we get Akiko a bigger bike and get rid of that darn toddler bike.

Quote from Akiko just moments ago:

"Mom, I'm totally excited for you to take off my training wheels. It's so much funner to ride my bike without them."

I guess I better get to it!