Category Archives: California

Sunday at the Aquarium with Grandma D & Auntie M

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This past Sunday we had ambitious plans to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium, stay a few nights and then come home. Long story short (Best Western’s online booking system is horrible), we ended up making a very long day trip of it, and spending Sunday night and all-day Monday in Palo Alto.

The boys love the aquarium, and they had a ton of fun showing Grandma D and Auntie M all their favorite spots, the kid zone, the sharks and turtles in the Deep Ocean tank, the sardines and the water sprayers. They also love the inter-active exhibits, and when Auntie M holds them up so they can get a better view. I’ve started a September 2012 album at Picasa, you can find more photos of our Aquarium adventures there!

Gavin in the local paper

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Gavin’s been going to Sebastopol Council Meetings (you can follow his occasional live tweets about them @gcarothers, hash tag #SEBCC), and generally taking some interest in local politics.

Then he got quoted in the local paper.

“Without these large companies, lots of us would not have jobs, not have things to buy and not have a reason to live here,” said Gavin Carothers of Sebastopol.

He does make a valid point, without “a large company” hiring him in 2007 there was no way we would have moved to Sebatopol (or have even heard of it).

Last nights City Council meeting ran until 12:40 in the morning. Gavin came home around 10. He also said (and this didn’t get into the paper), that there needs to me more to buy in town than “chocolates and magik crystals.”

I think the chocolate store went out of business, but there’s still a tea shoppe!

May Day

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In both 2002 and 2005 I had the pleasure of being in one of the little towns near Augsburg for May Day. Instead of workers rights and civil unrest, the Germans celebrated the arrival of spring, erecting a giant may pole, serving lots of food and getting quite drunk.

Today we opted to celebrate more in line with the German tradition (minus all the beer): we grilled burgers, ate outside for the first time since last year, and the boys got played in water table.

It was Patrick’s first time at the water table (and outside on the patio without being held) and with the help of Oliver, he got soaked to the skin. Oliver also helped to “wash Baby har!” and make a “road!” of water all over the patio.

    

I suspect this is going to be come a recurring theme over the summer, so I need to find Patrick some shoes that can hold up well to getting wet a lot. Hopefully I can find some in the box of shoes O’s outgrown (although P has larger pudgier feet than O did at this age and O was 11 months in the dead of winter). I suspect there will be a pair or two from last summer, or the summer before that fit, I just need to figure out the American vs. European sizing and find all the size-labels.

Ice-cream without Assistants

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This evening, the conclusion of the free-range, organic, non-vegetarian eggs and ice-cream making saga.

After yesterday’s failed attempt and extra assistance I decided to wait until the boys were tucked into bed before I tried again. The bowl had been freezing for well over 24 hours, and with no extra helpers to stick their fingers in the soupy mess I was sure things would go smoothly.

About five minutes into the process Oliver started wailing – I am still not entirely sure why. We rushed up stairs, leaving the mixer to do it’s thing, settled Oliver back into bed, and returned to gloriously creamily churned ice-cream.

Ok, it wasn’t quite that easy, I had to scrape down the sides of the bowl once or twice before the hollering started, and the churned ice-cream didn’t all fit in my up-cycled yogurt container, but aside from that, things went very smoothly.

It tastes amazing. I think the local, free-range, organic, non-vegetarian eggs helped, as did the local, organic heavy cream and milk. The least local-organic-free-range things I used were the Ghirardelli coco powder and chocolate chips, and the salt (it is sea salt fromCostco), I’m ok with that.

Most of it made it to the freezer.

I also found a use for the five unused egg whites. I made Mexican Chocolate Chewies (a friend gave me the Homesick Texan Cookbook for my birthday, sadly the recipe does not appear to be posted on her blog).

The recipe called for three egg whites, but I had five leftover, I figured the eggs I’d been using were a little smaller than the average off-the-grocery-store-shelf egg (the chickens just started laying) so I used them all.

Next time I do that I’m going to up the chopped pecans from 2 to 3 cups. Other than spreading a LOT more than the previous batch (those are scant 1-tablespoon sized drops of cookie dough), they taste pretty AMAZING too (I think the Ghirardelli helped there too).

free-range, organic, vegetarian diet eggs

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On Thursday one of the mother’s in Oliver’s waldorf group approached me and asked if I had chickens. Some days I think we are the only family in West County with a chicken-less backyard. I’m OK with that. I like chickens, they’re great, I like to roast them, bake them, fry them, have them on sandwiches, but running around my back yard/over-sized flagstone patio? No thanks, I’ll pass.

She looked very relived to find I was chicken-less, and then asked if I would like some chickens. Not so much. She explained they had ten chickens (they’d over-bought assuming they’d loose some to predators – and they hadn’t), and the chickens had started laying eggs, by laying eggs, there were “50 this morning” and she had some eggs in the car, would I like some eggs?

Eggs, yes. Chickens, no.

Thankfully the chickens are not going to new homes, just their eggs. So I came home with a carton of free-range, organic, vegetarian diet eggs (the carton said vegetarian diet, but her husband made her scratch it out because the chickens ate organic, free-range worms and bugs, they were bad vegetarians).

While I was thrilled by the gift of a dozen free-range, organic, vegetarian diet eggs, I usually buy them in cartons of six because I don’t use eggs very often. I didn’t want the eggs to bad (although Gavin has since assured me they’re likely to last for quite some time as they were freshly collected Wednesday and Thursday morning and grocery store eggs are at least a month or two old), so I did what any logical person with small children who like to “help” and who needs to use up a few eggs does: I decided to make custard-based ice cream.

Yep.

some of the remaining eggs

another pair of little red wain boos

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At the Waldorf pre-pre-school open-house Miss Donna stressed the importance of layering the children and having weather-appropriate outfits, including, but not necessarily limited to rain gear.

In September, I went to REI and picked up 2T-sized rain coat and rain pants on clearance, and then put off buying rain boots, he already had a pair that fit… they back in June anyway. June… October… they’re not that far apart.

With more rain in the forecast it was inevitable that at some point O would need to have appropriate footwear, so I hauled the boots out of their exile in the garage (they were crusted with mulch) and had O give them a walk around the kitchen so I could feel where his toes were.

His feet have grown since June.

They’ve grown almost two shoe sizes. From a 5 to somewhere between 6 and 7.

So this afternoon O, P and I went to the feed store where O insisted that his rain boots had to be red. Not yellow, or black, or turquoise, they had to be RED. We got a size 7 and thick cushy socks to help them fit better.

Of course, when we got home, the “wain boos” had to be put through a vigorous testing process. Fortunately (for him) it was raining, so all of his rain gear got tested. He stayed dry, it got wet, and the boots got mulchy.

I’m not entirely sure what he was doing, but he stayed out for a total of about two hours, he came in a few times, announced he was “all dum,” took off his outer layers and then changed his mind and went back out. Whatever it was he was up to, must have been very important.

I put some 3M hooks on the side of the counter by the door so the wet and muclhy would be contained. Depending on how well this works, I may add a few  more for hats or other accessories at a later date.

A Pumpkin & A Star Trek Officer walk to the Park

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We spent much of today helping our friend Miss E celebrate her third birthday. Miss E had a costume party at Ragle Park, so I raided our costume bin for inspiration.

Patrick went as a little pumpkin, he fit Oliver’s pumpkin outfit from 2009 perfectly, so perfectly, I may have to cut the footies off for it to fit for Halloween this year. P was hailed as “adorable” and mistaken for a little girl a few times (pumpkins are nice and gender neutral).

Oliver, Gavin and I went as Star Trek officers (2010′s costume pick). I was unable to borrow Elizabeth’s sexy little red dress (it would make breastfeeding almost impossible), so I wore a red shirt and my LOTR elf ears (I was a Vulcan, and the pointy ears are nice and generic), most of the time P dozed in the Ergo. It didn’t really matter that I wasn’t wearing a Star Trek insignia pin, the ears, red shirt, and accompanying Star Trek Officers filled in the gaps.

The boys and I got compliments on our coordinated costumes, and inevitably people asked if we were Star Trek fans. Yes and no. Yes, we’ve watched all of TNG, but no, we’re not the types who go to conventions, or learn the languages, and I don’t know minute Star Trek trivia (although I think Gavin might know some). I like the costumes because they were simple (and inexpensive) to make, fairly unique among our circle of friends, and easy to spot across the room (or park, which can be really useful when there are lots of kids around).

We received a compliment from one of the other mothers, O was “playing so nicely” with her son – a 1 1/2 year old, holding his hand, helping him up the stairs to the slide, etc. O was being “very sweet” with him. It was very nice to hear.  Continue reading →

6-String G-String

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Yesterday we went to the Sonoma County Fair. I forgot to bring our camera, instead we brought home an Oliver-sized guitar.

No more air-guitar for O, his “nae-nae” is THE new favorite toy. I’m not sure why he calls it a “nae-nae.” My best guess is it comes from his air-guitar days when he would dance around singing “nah-nu, nah-nu-nae!”

I am amused by the guitar’s packaging. In the font they chose, the number “6″ and the letter “G” look verysimilar, so it looks like the toddler has a G-String Guitar.