Winter in the Bay

We don't have much exciting to report from the second half of January. It was chilly for outdoor activities and still getting dark soon after 5 pm. We attempted to meet Kalinda for a play date at a park one Saturday but got chased inside by rain and ended up hanging at the Billy Beez indoor playground at the Oakridge mall. The girls did have a blast there. It's always hard to say goodbye when it's time to go home.

The January book club meeting featuring tacos, St Germain sangria and lots of brownies, cookies and toffee was a great success.

We got to have lunch and dinner with our friend Mark while he was in town for work and also meet his sister Lynn, which was fun.

I joined the JCC, which I am loving so far. They have a great class schedule, and I have done yoga, pilates/yoga fusion, step, interval, and core blast classes. Doing step again is a blast from the past; I hadn't taken a step class in forever. I still need to try the dance/zumba, bodypump and other classes. I've been doing stronglifts again, and also started taking Valerie to the indoor pool once a week to play, which she loves. I'm planning to enroll her in swim lessons for March and April, which I am hopeful will help her gain confidence in the water. As it is she clings to me even in two feet of water. I think she will get a lot out of lessons.

We found that the orange tree in our backyard was producing incredibly delicious, tart, juicy oranges and enjoyed eating those while they lasted. A lot of the flowers in our yard and around the neighborhood also started blooming thanks to all the rain. The seasons are so different here, with some plants and trees going dormant and shedding leaves for the winter, and others blooming and looking the most radiant.

the peonies (?) in our front yard are gorgeous!

 

this tree on our street was ablaze with bright yellow blooms for a while, really striking.

 Valerie's obsession with all flowers and plant life continues, and her great love is for dandelions. She loves the yellow ones and the fluffy white "seed head" ones as well. Our walks to school are extended due to stopping to look at, pluck, touch and play with all the dandelions we see along our route. She also likes to tell me she's going to give this or that dandelion to whoever she is thinking about that day. Most often she's "going to give this dandelion to Caiya (her friend at school) or Kalinda" but sometimes it's one of her cousins or friends from Cincinnati.

She loves all flowers, but I won't let her pluck the actual flowers from people's yards, so it makes sense that she loves being allowed to pluck dandelions. She also collects clover and other flowering weeds, sticks, leaves, fallen blooms, and anything else that looks interesting, before immediately discarding and then stomping on whatever she has discarded.

a dandelion to give to Kalinda

We enjoyed lots of family movie nights this winter when we were stuck in the house after dark. Since we only have a small love seat in front of the TV, Rich had the brilliant idea to construct "mega couch" by putting 4 dining chairs in front of the love seat for our feet and using blankets to hold it all together. It has the feel of being all snuggled up together in a cozy blanket fort, and is best with his special recipe for stove-popped popcorn with herbs or truffle oil. 

mega couch!

We completed Disney boot camp, which entailed watching all the Disney animated movies from the library so Valerie would know the characters when we went to Disneyland at the end of February. Some of the ones we watched all together on mega couch were Inside Out, Ratatouille, Toy Story and Tangled. It's so much fun being able to watch movies together as a family. Always a good option when it's dark and/or cold outside!

 Valerie also enjoys taking her baby doll - who, she insists, is named "Baby" - just Baby!! - on walks to the park. She assures me she has packed snacks in the stroller in case baby gets hungry.

We survived January and look forward to spring; each day is a little lighter than the one before!