There is the friendly neighbor cat, who feels right at home…even waits by the door to come in (though she is never invited.)

There is a mushroom house occupied by two cheerful gnomes.

Nearby you will find a rabbit, a deer, a few ducks, and other statuary.

The most recent addition we noticed on our last visit was a little door in a previously unoccupied hole in the walnut tree.  This attracted a great deal of attention and speculation about the occupants, although they did not appear at home when we knocked (many times).

The wildlife varies but is always entertaining. This large green beetle appeared out of the blue a few weeks back, the only one we have ever seen. It must have been lost or taking a rest stop on the way to somewhere else.

“Hurry! Before the car breaks!”
— The kid tries to get her parents up and out of the house

Before we visited my mom on Sunday Jill said, “You should make another family history video!” I was feeling slightly less than energetic, but since it’d been a while since my last video, I hurriedly packed some cameras in a bag and we set off.

Once there, my mom gave me a drumstick (yay!) and I parked myself in front of her TV to watch some HGTV (I can watch stuff ‘Professional Grade’ and ‘American Handyman’ for hours!)

“Hey, aren’t you going to video your mom?” my bothersome lovely wife asked.

I gave a low Wubie grumble as I unglued myself from the comfy confines of the La-Z-Boy, muttered a cheerless goodbye to Mike Holmes, and went outside.

Once mom agreed to the interview, I grabbed my ultra-cool Canon 60D…and discovered I’d left its battery in its charging cradle at home. Awesome.

“Oh well,” I thought, “that’s why you bring backups!”

So I pulled out my trusty Flip camera and handed it to Jill. She was taking on the dual role of both interviewer and camera person for the video. I grabbed my other backup, (yes, I brought along three cameras!) wrestled with a tripod for a bit, and we shot an impromptu interview.

And it was a lot of fun.

Some notes:

• Next time I shoot a video with two cameras I need to make sure they’re both recording at the same rate. I had lots of audio sync issues while editing this video
• Because of the audio issues, I ended up cutting the interview into two parts. I hope to post the second part later this week
• Boy, am I glad Jill shot video w/ the Flip during the interview. I started the edit thinking I wouldn’t use much of her Flip footage; I ended up using most of it. I like its saturated look
• Jill was the all-star here. She’s the one that prodded both me and my mom for the shoot. It was her questions that kept the interview going
• Less than halfway through the shoot I had to leave my camera as the kid ‘volunteered’ me for a game of ‘Chase Me’
• I made the beginning of this video (the pan over all of the photos) a few years ago as a test. I never used it for anything (except for a post), so I thought I’d make it the intro for this video. The music is “Mr. Blue Sky” from the Amelie soundtrack

The next day, she was inspired to make a caterpillar house and look for caterpillars while visiting grandma’s.

She didn’t discover any caterpillars, though grandma reported seeing some lovely green and black ones on her tomatoes a few weeks back. But she did find two green grasshoppers on the geraniums next to a rose bush.

So into the caterpillar (now grasshopper) house they went. They didn’t stay long, but they humoured L and didn’t seem to mind too much. After testing out the box they went back to napping on the geranium.

Maybe next time she will find a new insect friend!

L set up the chairs and invited the guests out to the stage area. Once everyone was seated the show could begin.

She sang and danced, with a few of her favorite invisible friends to help her out.

She ended the show with her usual bows and “Thank you, thank you, everyone.”

We went to the Nevada County Fair, which had loads of rides, games, food, music,  animals and exhibits.

 
After watching her fearless cousin tackle walking on water in a big bubble, L had to give it a try!

We had a wonderful visit, can’t wait to see everyone again!

Do you know what I dreamed about last night? Caterpillars at Filoli! - Lucy

One of the neat things about visiting Filoli is that you never know what you will see. The flowers are changed often, and the wildlife varies as well according to the season.

Recently we have seen wild turkeys and deer, and even both in the same day! The turkeys are hilarious…very self-assured birds who sometimes walk in front of a car, puff up, and gobble gobble at you.  The deer are so used to Filoli that they do not bolt at the first sight of visitors…esp. since we stay mostly at a distance.

There is also a resident rooster at Filoli, and though we have never seen him, we hear him often. Sometimes they let one of the chickens roam around in the garden…the last time that happened, Lucy was just a baby. She was scared of it even from a distance, and wanted to run away.

Oddly enough, her grandmother was also scared of chickens. She related this to me one time when we were walking through Filoli (possibly the same day as the chicken episode). Lucy has also shown a great dislike of chickens and roosters at petting zoos…so I think this might be an inherited trait.

Anyway, the last few visits we have been noticing…caterpillars! There are the little tiny green ones that dangle on strings hanging out of trees and get stuck in your hair (they have these every year at Stanford too), and the regular sized ones with stripes or spotty patterns. Here are some of the cool caterpillars we found recently.
Anyone able to identify them?

Yesterday we went with Grandma to see Lucy’s cousin starring as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz at her school.

Lucy is a big fan of putting on shows, and she loved it…she was on the edge of her seat. We envision a lot of plays and shows in our future.

There were no photos of the show allowed, so we just snapped some before and after pics. It was a lot of fun, and we look forward to the next one. Congrats on a wonderful play!

Mommy, I wanna see the volcano interrupting!

-while watching Kilauea’s latest eruption

We just got back from a snowy weekend. Lucy enjoyed playing in Gma & Gpa’s yard, where there was still a bit of snow left over from last week’s storm.

Before:                                         After:

Here are some snow cats we made in the big pile of snow in the driveway:

We went up to Soda Springs for some snow play at Planet Kids. Lucy had a blast.

She rode on the tube ride, climbed the snowy volcano, and coasted down the hill. We checked out Boreal, which will be great next year for some ski lessons!

We celebrated Grandma K’s birthday with a cake made by Lucy, and played trains with Grandpa.

Grandpa gave Lucy a treasure chest, and let her pick out some shells to put in it!

We saw a rare and endangered monk seal resting, fenced off of course to allow him his privacy;

Mike, Jim and Tisa snorkeled and tried out a new underwater camera head strap thingy;

Grandma Vita started a new book (The Other Boleyn Girl)

Lucy splashed around, kicked sand into the waves, watched her daddy snorkel, counted chickens and roosters and baby chicks, played with the faucet at the rinsing station, and snuck in a climb and a slide on the beach playground. Phew!

None of us got sunburned (hopefully) and we all managed to pile into one car (though trooper Tisa was boxed in by chairs and boogie boards and had to wait patiently in a hot car to climb out of the back after all the gear was taken out.)

Later on we checked out a local farmer’s market, had an ice cream, bought some veg and snacks, and wandered through shops.

The weather has been absolutely perfect, not too hot, no rain, we have been very lucky so far. What a wonderful day!

p.s. Our gracious hosts have prepared gourmet dinners for us each night, this is surely the best restaurant on the island. Must remember to photograph the food!

The menu so far chez Tisa & Jim:

• teriyaki steak on a bed of coconut rice, haupia cake

• peruvian grilled chicken with zucchini, cassoulet and baguette

Lucy was so enamored of the coconut rice we got the recipe and will make it for her at home.

Recipe: Cook rice (in rice cooker of course) with homemade chicken stock and coconut milk, liquid to rice ratio is 2 to 1.

Next post: tour of the magnificent abode and the dramatic rain forest back yard.

First up, the 4 year old portion…princess themed, with castle, knights, and princesses. (She said she and I could be the valiant knights, and Auntie Laura could be the princess.) There were cupcakes for all, and a crown each for Grandpa and Lucy.

After the cupcakes, piles of presents (she says her favorite present was her new scissors), and dancing portion, we went out to dinner for the grown up portion with Gpa’s longtime friends.

We had a great meal, good company, and madame managed to make it through the long meal by getting Grandma to rub her feet.

After dinner we had a coconut cake chez Gma & Gpa, and presents for Grandpa. A wonderful time was had by all!