karana and shaun

happy halloween 2013! the first year that mahala and noble did not have coordinating costumes, but they really picked some great ones. mahala's was based on the native american character of karana from the book "island of the blue dolphins" and noble was the tv character "shaun the sheep". as usual, i went wild with the glue gun and mahala's was completed the day of halloween in one hour - my new record. we did the usual fairfax parade, doming street trick-or-treating, and our neighbors house for a little after party.

sacramento field trip

the two fourth grade classes went on an all day field trip to sacramento to see some native american history and to check out the capitol. we started at 7am and were back by 7pm. we took amtrak to sacramento and walked over 5 miles between the station, the native american museum, the capitol and the train museum. mahala had been looking forward to this all month!

cross country

mahala had a fun cross country season ending with an awesome performance at the big blackie's pasture run.

buddies

mischa and noble are good buddies! (watching their big sisters run cross country)

pumpkin patch field trip

the three first grade classes went to a pumpkin patch in petaluma for the day to pick a pumpkins and potatoes and eat fresh pumpkin ice cream. noble harvested 3 potatoes which we ended up eating for dinner and he picked a great wrinkly pumpkin. they also got to play around in huge piles of dried corn - probably the highlight!

mahala's birding field trip

hearts desire beach

after a saturday morning soccer game in point reyes, we headed out to hearts desire beach in tomales bay with the milsteads. the five kids collected seaweed, went bug hunting and spent plenty of time wading in the water while us parents hung out in the shade chatting.