More Practice Shots

When I went running this morning (yes, I run in a cemetery), I noticed the view was especially good. Normally, mornings here are misty and you can barely see a mile in the distance. But, this morning, the sky was very clear and blue. You can see the red tint of the Golden Gate, the blue waters of the Bay, and the freeway in the distance. I came back after getting ready for work to take some shots and this is the best one (sigh).

Yesterday I had some time after work to test the self-portrait function of the camera. Focus is challenging, but I love that this camera can take photos in low light without a flash.
Jack was ready for his closeup in another shot I took, but I prefer this one. He's too used to posing for ads for car sales--he's got that car salesman smile down. I avoid it when I can. Here, he's talking to the boys.


Little miss toothy got another visit from the tooth fairy this weekend. She has a missing tooth on the top left and one on the bottom right (her perspective). My baby is growing up! Dahin and Ronan have the same color eyes--this beautiful deep amber color. In darker light, her eyes take on a more hazel appearance, with a lot of green in the mix. In the sun, they are definitely an amber.

Oliver's eyes are like his dad's--what Oliver says are "black" eyes. He says he loves his "blown" [brown--the kids tend to use apa's pronunciation on words like "ice cleam"] hair, too, and does NOT want white hair. Dahin and Oliver had a fight the other day over the fact that one day, when he's old, he might have white hair. He was adamently opposed to the idea. Oliver's a little fighter, and a bit of a smart ass. He carries this little magna doodle thing around with him and writes messages on it (normally in the form of pictographs). The other day, I told him to do something NOW (yes, I was in drill sergeant mode) and he scribbled something really fast on his mini magna doodle and said, "See this? It say, 'I don't cawah [care]'." Hmmm. The time-out was well-deserved.

Ronan is quite the model. He likes to have his photo taken, and especially to look at the photos afterwards. He also, unselfconsciously, loves to do or have anything that nuna (Dahin) does or has. Right down to the Barbie backpack he insists on carrying with him everywhere. To entice Dahin to trim her nails, I offer to paint them once they are trimmed. Ronan, as well, now has bright pink toenails and rose-colored fingernails.

To prove that Lily does, indeed, have a distinguishable and cute (HELLO--look at this!) little face from her backside, I took these shots. So there, Paige. Tell me this is not cute--I dare you! Wiwy WUVS her wettuce! Yes, Paige. Just for you.

This is Lily smiling. Really. Or telling me to back off. Hmmm...

Otto the Wonderdog

For use in my visual culture project I am currently working on, I petitioned to use some of the grant money to buy a digital slr camera (yes, it technically belongs to the University, but still a very cool toy). I chose a Canon EOS 5D because a mom at Dahin's school (who is a professional photographer) recommended it. I'd had my eye on it as well. The package arrived at the Institute today and I decided to practice a little with the camera. Otto, the Associate Director's loveable little pug, became my first serious subject. I definitely need a lot of practice, but these shots turned out alright.

How cute is this! Can you resist these great big sad eyes? Martin (the AD) says that Otto's "fairly hideous; like a monster from the deep," but I beg to differ. While one could argue this is a face only a mother (or, in this case, a daddy) could love, Otto knows he is a true beauty. I think Otto really loved getting his photo taken. My first big challenge: Taking low-light color photos that don't turn out yellow-tinged. This kind of learning is fun.

Watering the Garden

I've volunteered to water the garden at Dahin's school every other week and the kids have become huge fans of the gardening sessions. For the most part, this is due to Mr. Lans, the science and gardening teacher (who, incidentally, took these photos). Dahin has gardening class with him every Thursday (did I mention I LOVE this school?) and the second and third grade kids planted this pollinator garden to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Parents, in March, helped to dig up the ground and build the plant boxes. Dahin had last Friday off and helped with the composting and watering.

Usually, Mr. Lans arranges to be at the school when it's my turn to water the plants. He gives the boys jobs like finding worms and snails in the compost bin or spreading compost on the plants. Last Friday, the boys and Dahin watered the pollinator garden and helped plant a couple of new plants. Dahin, who has become a master aphid-finder, has the special job of spotting potential pests. She helped assist Mr. Lans once in gardening class when the lesson was about garden pests because of her knack for spotting the little buggers.

The gardening sessions have proven to be great for Oliver, who loves messing with water, and Ronan, who loves flowers. When we go to Target, Ronan has to stop and smell every flower in the garden section. I have to tell him to slow down or else he'll hyperventilate. Oliver loses patience with the 'smelling sessions,' but still loves playing with the compost, bugs, and garden tools at the school. The kids look forward to seeing Mr. Lans. Oliver summed it up when he said, "I LOVE Middah [Mister] Lans."

Ballet Recital

Dahin (who, btw, lost another baby tooth; note the gap on the right) had her second ballet recital with OBA today. She did remarkably well, considering the fact that she had a little panic attack before her recital last year. At first she refused to sign up for the recital, so I signed her up anyway (one for the therapist's couch when she's older). But, I didn't push the issue. The week before the recital, she had a revelation. "Oh, they have snacks backstage...that's fun! I want to do it." And, that was that. Glad I signed her up early because the sign up sheet had disappeared at that point.

Putting her newly-bobbed hair up was a bit of a challenge. I initially had it in pigtails, but the stage mom back stage said, "Uh...no, no, no..that's not gonna cut it." And instructed me to get as much hair as possible into a little ponytail in the back. We then pinned hair straggles back with bobby pins and voila! It wasn't half bad.

Here the kids are lining up to go onstage. Note the little boy with the hair thingy in his hair, too. He's three, very cute, and does pretty well in dance class with his older brother and all the girls. I'm trying to convince the boys to join, but Ronan insists, "I not a big boy, I a little boy." Hmmm. I'm sure that means he just doesn't want to do it, despite the ballet classes Dahin holds frequently at home.

Last minute details included making sure all the kids's laces were tucked inside their shoes. The older dancers, in ballet 1 or ballet 2 class, helped with the younger ones, making sure their hair was neat and shoes were secured. The performance, as always, was really well done. We're not allowed to take photos or videos in the theatre; otherwise, I'd show some shots from the stage.

Oakland Civic Orchestra

The Oakland Civic Orchestra had our final concert of the season this afternoon. It went really well, despite some scary moments at the dress rehearsal yesterday. We have four concerts a year and this is my second concert with the orchestra (in the picture above, my head barely appears between my stand partner's and the flute player next to me. I give Jack brownie points for trying). All of our concerts are free, which makes it a good trial classical concert for parents with kids. The OCO consists of community members who are not, for the most part, professional musician. There are retired musicians and some who play professionally in groups throughout the Bay Area, but the majority are people like me who have day jobs; doctors, teachers, students, etc. Today, we played J.C. Bach's Sinfonia in F, Mozart's Sympony No. 31, a woodwind ensemble piece, and Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major.

This is a picture of me with Cory Lee, our solo violinist. At our first rehearsal with him on Monday, we literally had to pick our jaws up off the floor after we heard him play. My stand partner turned to me and said, "He's going to be somebody." I totally agree. The sound he produces on his violin was so pure and effortless, it is heartbreakingly beautiful. If you think he looks a little young, he is. He's only 19 years old and a freshman at Juilliard; a school that admits only a handful of violinists--out of all the young, aspiring violinists in the world--each year to be a part of their program. So, after the concert, we all lined up with our programs and had him sign them. His mother took snapshots of everyone with her camera and patiently shot additional pictures for people. Cory was a trooper; hanging out in the stuffy performance hall (well, it's a church, but on concert days it's a "performance hall") to sign programs and pose for photos. I truly believe I'll be buying his cds some day very soon. If I can figure out out to post a streaming file of his performance on here, I'll do it. Meanwhile, here's a link to a performance that sounds very similar to his rendition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSoNgAB5P2c

This is Marty, our artistic director and oh-so-patient conductor. She is the reason we were able to play with Cory--she is the conductor and director of his former high school orchestra. Extremely dedicated to music education and enrichment, she is the heart and soul of the fifteen year-old orchestra. She's also a composer.

This is my stand partner, Meredith. We discovered we attended Sewanee summer music camp together in high school when I asked her about her Sewanee sticker she kept in her case. Both of us had thought the other looked familiar. I found photos of her from that summer in 1987. It's pretty wild. She's a lot of fun to play music with, and super-knowledgeable and enthusiastic about classical music.

The kids seemed to have a good time at the concert, although Dahin was a little grumpy afterward and Oliver fell asleep during the Mozart. This photo was taken post-performance and during the reception, so cookies and cupcakes had been scarfed down and added some specks of color to their cheeks and clothes. Jack has been extremely supportive of my participation in the orchestra and has shifted his work schedule so that I can make it to rehearsals on time. I love doing it and am grateful for the opportunity, and I'm glad it's given me a chance to expose my kids to classical performance on a regular basis. Oliver's favorite piece is, hands down, Brahm's Hungarian Dance No. 5 (he requests it every time I practice), with Beethoven's 10th running a close second. Dahin has taken to the piano (she does a mean "Ode to Joy") and, someday soon, I'll see if the boys show a preference for an instrument. As for now, they seem to enjoy listening and dancing to it.

Mother's Day

Dahin had made me a card in school that said, "Dear Hilary: I hope you have a lovely day. P.S. I love you." That was sweet. On the actual day, it didn't start out feeling like mother's day--or, at least it didn't feel like a day in which I should be PAMPERED and treated like the QUEEN I am (yes, that is maniacal laughing you are hearing). Honestly, despite some hopes that Jack would do SOMETHING I realized very quickly there would be no massages, time to myself, etc. At 6:30 am, Ronan crawled into bed, half naked (he had ripped off his diaper because he had soaked his pants--and his bed sheets--during the night), and said, "Make me dwessfest." Ok. After I made him say "please" I got up, made coffee (while Jack remained in bed, snoring), and made some pancakes. The boys found that watching me make "dwessfest" was super entertaining (see above). Jack eventually did get up and wished me a happy mother's day and offered to buy breakfast (note: after I had prepared the pancake mix and heated the pan), so all was not lost. After doing a few loads of laundry and cleaning, the day took a turn for the better because the kids and I made plans to go fly kites and have an evening picnic at the Marina with friends of ours.

The weather was absolutely perfect. Although our kite is decidely uncool (notice the Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, too, design) and I have serious kite envy when looking at the pirate ships, dragons, etc, our kite took off SO easily. In fact, some kite enthusiasts kept making comments, "Well that just went right up," "Look at Winnie the Pooh go." It was so much fun.
We had a GREAT dinner of balsamic vinegar chicken pasta salad, pesto pasta and grilled chicken, salad, watermelon, blackberries, cookies, and chocolate with hazelnuts (this was supposed to be for the moms, but the kids raided the Trader Joe's bag).
Look at this amazing view! You can see the city in the background, already surrounded by the evening marine layer. Spending the afternoon with the kids and friends made this an absolutely fabulous mother's day.

Old Sacramento

Old Sacramento is a wonderful place to visit in the state capital if you want to learn about local history and/or need someplace to feel happier about living in California, considering the recent budget cuts and the mess the economy is in here. It has total tourist trap potential, but it's totally Old West style, which feels really fun. The state railroad museum, a running steam engine (which you can ride on weekends), living history events, and mini museums are some of the great things about it. There are plenty of places to eat, all pretty affordable, which means the potential for being able to spend an entire day here is good. We've lived nearby for five years and this is the first time we've visited. We certainly plan on going back!