showstopper & notable quotables

Daddy built this stage on Maddy's insistence that she needed a place to perform.  She recently got into the '80s cartoon, Jem, which is about a punk rock girl band.  I used to watch it when I was a kid.  I was looking through a box of old keepsakes with Maddy and we came across a Jem coloring book that I had when I was 10 years old or so.  She flipped through it and was intrigued by the pictures.  I told her it was a cartoon I used to watch and she also wanted to watch it.  Curious, I checked to see if it was on Netflix, and lo and behold, there it was on streaming.  We both watched an episode of Jem that I haven't seen in over 25 years.  You gotta love the internet.  (Maddy went on to watch the entire first season). 

Anyway, she decorated this stage that Daddy put together so she could perform like Jem.

She even dressed in pink to match Jem's hair. 

Maddy said a couple of things this week that I find noteworthy:

*While discussing how happy Daddy is with his man cave, Maddy said, "Well all you do is watch TV and lounge up."

*Maddy was disappointed to hear that tomorrow was Friday and that she had to go to school.  "I wish it was Monday, Saturday, Saturday, Saturday.  Monday, Saturday, Saturday Saturday.  This way, we only have to go to school or work one day and TA-DA (!), the next day is the weekend." 

chalk

We've made chalk drawings on the sidewalk once before, but when it rained, they disappeared.  When Maddy wanted to draw on the walkway in chalk again last week, she was disappointed to learn that they'd disappear again when Daddy would turn on the sprinklers.  I told her that we could simply draw the pictures again, but she felt that she wouldn't remember them and she wanted to draw them exactly the same way.  So, I told her to take pictures and she was happy with the suggestion.  Here are the pictures she took herself:

lake anza at tilden park

Let's make up for some lost time, shall we?  When my good camera broke last summer, I felt that pictures weren't worth taking if I couldn't take them with my good camera. I meant to fix or replace the camera, but I kept putting it off because it seemed so expensive.  Well, I still don't have a good camera, but I've taken plenty of pictures with my iPhone and I've decided that they'll work just fine.

Anyway, a couple of weekends ago when the weather was unusually warm for April, we took a short drive to Tilden Park.  First we stopped at Little Farm where we've been a few times already to feed the cows some celery (no pictures), then we grabbed a spot on the lake to have a picnic lunch.  Maddy had no idea we'd planned a day at the lake so when I pulled out her swimming suit, she was SUPER excited.

 

 That's Maddy on the platform.  Daddy told her to stay off of it, but as soon as he fell asleep for a nap, she climbed up on top, apprehensively at first, but then she was happy she got away with it.

labor day weekend

Maddy always expects to be entertained.  She thinks the weekends are for doing things and staying at home relaxing is just not acceptable.  She works hard all week at preschool and looks forward to Friday, her favorite day. She constantly asks, "What are we doing this weekend?" And on Saturdays and Sundays, she'll ask, "What are we doing in the morning?  What are we doing after my nap?"  This girl is always go, go, go.  So, for Labor Day weekend we had a few activities lined up.  On Saturday, we drove down to the Santa Cruz mountains to Roaring Camp where we rode an old steam train through the forest.  On Sunday, we took a nice long bike ride around Alameda in the morning and visited Scott and Barbara in San Francisco in the afternoon (pictures of that in another post).  And lastly, No holiday weekend would be complete without a visit to Auntie Rachel's nail shop, Zaza, for a little miss mani-pedi.  We did that on Monday morning. 

And here's the mani-pedi (with sparkles):

miami beach

We visited Miami Beach for a quick layover on our way to Panama.  We literally had one day there.  We woke up early, rented bikes, toured the town, had lunch beachside, grabbed a drink at The Raleigh hotel, and later met an old friend for a traditional Cuban dinner.  Most of my pictures on my regular camera were ruined, but I managed to take this one with my phone and instagramed it.  We decided that we'll come back for a longer stay with Maddy.

reduce reuse recycle

This mask gives new meaning to the word "reuse."  Maddy's school wanted to demonstrate to the children that we can reuse items instead of just throwing them away.  It's a great concept, but I'm not sure if Jello boxes were intended to be reused as masks.  To Maddy, it made perfect sense.  For me, it was hilarious (which accounts for the frown on Maddy's face...I couldn't stop laughing at her....I mean, c'mon, there's garbage on her face).  

the 4th (of july, that is)

Better late than never, right?  I don't know how I managed to forget to post the Fourth of July photos, but I'm making up for the lack of posts this summer now.  For the Fourth, the fam went to the Oakland Hills to a half-constructed house overlooking the entire bay and San Francisco.  Yes, it was a half-constructed house.  Dion's brother has been building a house for the past two years and it has yet to be completed.  He decided to have a BBQ and invite everyone over to enjoy the incredible views.  So what if we were eating on sub-floor surrounded by studs?  The BBQ was delicious and there were sparklers for the kids.  We stayed up way past Maddy's bedtime to see the fireworks displays around the Bay Area; Maddy couldn't get enough.