Month: May 2010

We played a board game with Leilani. It’s name roughly translates to “Oh, I think there is a shoe…”. About 24 cards with colorful pictures are put face up on the table, 5 are covered with colored caps, a colored dice is being rolled, and you have to guess what’s under the cap, if you are correct you win the card and place the cap on something else.

The first 2 rounds Andy and I did not do too badly. Leilani played with the cards she had already won, when it was her turn she briefly looked up, guessed correctly and went back to playing. She had an unbroken streak of remembering about 10 in a row. Andy and I looked bad. Really bad. Leilani commented: “You should have brought your memory to the game”. It would have really helped…

Photos by Sonja, captions by Andy.

On a previous hike, we finally found a good trailhead for San Bruno Mountain (here), one that starts off with a lot of wildflowers (in the spring) and connects to the summit ridge. We don’t always hike all the way up, but this time we did.

Once past the planted eucalyptus, the grasses and wildflowers cover the lower slopes:

I know we’ve seen mallow elsewhere, but I think this is the flower that characterizes San Bruno Mountain to me, at least the southern slopes. Maybe it’s just because it seems Leilani is always wearing something of the same color (see below):

There are no huge carpets of flowers, but in some places, the densities are nothing to sneeze at (unless you have hay fever of course :-)

Not too far above the eucalyptus is the first rock outcropping. This one has graffiti, but it’s Leilani’s favorite to climb (which she does really well up AND down):

Lupine are the most abundant flowers here:

Which is why this area is prime habitat for the endangered Mission Blue butterfly. Were were lucky to see several and get a good picture of this one :

We did not see–or perhaps recognize–the rarer San Bruno Elfin butterfly, named after San Bruno mountain. From that Wikipedia link, they tend to live on the other side of the mountain. Who knew that “San Francisco is notorious in international lepidopterist circles for its long list of disappearing butterflies.” [link]

A bit further up, at the top of the lower slopes are some unspoiled rocks to sit on and look at flowers and the view of the city. Poor California poppies, they’re so beautifully orange and yet so ubiquitous that we hardly mention them anymore:

Then there is a flat part before the trail goes up steeply on the upper slopes:

On the upper slopes, there is more scrub vegetation and a big variety of other flowers, though less density.

The Indian Paintbrush always impresses:

This one we call by it’s German name, Spitzwegerich, because we don’t know it in English. Andy also uses it to “shoot” the flower at people, a skill he learned in France as a kid:

The sage is impressive (and well photographed, if I may say so):

A neat sort of mauve fiddleneck:

And an unknown flower from a plant that looks like some sort of wild gourd:

But the tiny scarlet pimpernel is my favorite:

At the very top, there are views of SF (not pictured, I guess we’ve seen it before) and trail junctions to go east or west on the ridge (and perhaps down to the north, we need to explore some more):

There is also some sort of bush flowering, it has pointy leaves like a holly, but I don’t think it is one. It’s just one of those drab shrubs that blends in with the rest all year until it puts out some bright flowers in the spring:

This wasn’t meant as a sequence (and I think the pictures were taken in different places) but there were less flowers to photograph near the top, so we took a picture of the next most colorful thing, Leilani hiking down:

PS: watching the planes coming and going to SFO can either be an added feature or nuisance of this hike, depending on how you feel. However, I was surprised to read this: “On June 28, 1998, United Airlines Flight 863, a Boeing 747-400, cleared nearby San Bruno Mountain by only 100 feet after a pilot erred in correcting for a failed engine during takeoff. The plane was en-route to Sydney, Australia.” [link]

Leilani has continued to take riding lessons. She really loves it, and it is one of the highlights of her week …together with singing lessons, little gym, Sonja’s teaching Thursday and camping on the weekends. Oh, and there are playdates twice a week… boy are we over-scheduled…

(Please note the pink light-up boots)

She can not walk through this gate, even when we are in a hurry she needs to climb…

A Chinese New Year’s Dragon at Leilani’s school

Munching on Sorrel we found a big Flymushroom Amanita muscaria in San Bruno Park (November)

We went on to climb in this net

Thanksgiving with Lisa and her friends and family. Guess wou took the photos

Zen Art at Lisa’s Thanksgiving party

Tree in San Bruno Park

Christmas, LA

We went to parenting classes, and Leilani played with this girl in the meantime

Parent’s night out – Leilani goes to the little gym the last Friday of every month from 6:30 to 9:30 (bedtime is usually 8:30 now) That time they had pirates as their theme

Thelan had to leave and go back to France. This was his last Art Exhibit

People photographing their kids… and some people have nothing better to do than to photograph the photographers….

February 5th we went hiking on San Bruno Mountain

Andy helped with a maintenance party at Leilani’s school

Leilani learned how to save her drawings on the iphone

After the Easter Party we went straight to the Golden Gate Park. We found great parking and walked to the Japanese Tea Garden

Don’t. Just Don’t. Whatever it is…

Aaahh… much better

Fuzzy plant stem

Passionflower

Leilani is petting the Azaeleas

We don’t really remember, but it must have been very interesting

Actually I meant to focus on the background… but the magnolia is pretty too.

We were wondering if these are apples or apricots…

This we know – Candy-Cane Camelia

It was really that green.

Leilani was playing with her new (easter) ball.

Leilani had to take this photo – turned out nicely uncropped and not color corrected. Actually nothing in this post really is photoshopped

We had tea and pastries at the teahouse and fed this duck.

We went to a playground for another half hour, walked a little and had dinner at Shangrila. Wow, what a day. Leilani fell asleep as soon as we put her in the car.