Month: July 2010

Memorial Day weekend, a bit early for the Sierra, but we heard of Pi Pi campground in the foothills from the Mushroom club. No, it had nothing to do with Pippi Longstocking… we went there for morels and flowers.

We found enough mushrooms to have 6 meals of them. A few very tasty morels (we think they all got picked before us) and some very crunchy Spring Kings (boletus). We only regretted one thing… we did not bring a nice frying pan. They were still very tasty, and now we do have a special camping frying pan and a bigger camping pot.

Putting the gold pan (more on that later) to good use:

Blond morel, one of the few:

It was the boletes, not far from the campground, that made the trip:

And made Sonja smile:

Excitedly they awaited their train

and waved to all the other trains

FInally….

“I think I can see my school!”

…the trip was so short, it was almost time to get out…

walking to Washington Park

I think Leilani really enjoyed her hair standing up almost as much as sliding

Just when you think it could not stand up any worse

Lunch

Unfortunately Leilani got very upset because she could not do the monkey bars. She has little upper body strength, and it is something she never practices. Josselyn and James were really good at it.

Leilani sat underneath the play structure pouting and crying and did not come out for the group photo. I had no success getting her out, Brigidan had to talk to her.

Going back the train was late and we sat and sang for a while.

We found this Clarkia on our way home.

Before the Posy parade we got together four times and made craft flowers. Everybody had fun, we got a lot of flowers made. I planned and Leilani tested almost all the crafts that we made.

The Flower crowns require a lot of steps. Olivia and Alyssa got theirs completely finished, Leilani put 4 more flowers on the one she had started at home, and there were a few in progress.

We used a lot of recycled materials – cut up cereal boxes and magazine paper.

The first time we almost forgot to feed the kids… Liselle reminded us and Bigal and Olivia helped her to get the snack ready. Watermelon, veggies and cheese sandwich – Yum!

At the next crafts event: I had found an old yoga mat (and washed it) and we cut these jester crowns from it.

Unfortunately we did not photograph the other 2, but we made a lot of mushroom hats… the items were raffled off just before the parade and almost everybody was fully decorated.

We had a Hawaiian Night at Leilani’s school, complete with Hula dancers.
Thanks Amy for the photos.

Thanks Katie, for organizing

I froze a little, but wearing my Hawaiian Dress was worth it…

Leilani’s hula teacher is on the left and on the photos further down in the blue dress

Below is a Youtube Video:

Click on the arrow to play the movie

We finally found the Randall museum (for children) in San Francisco, but it was closed. So we enjoyed the great views and climbing the hill above.

Twin Peaks with Sutro tower (for TV and radio) in the clouds:

Windy, as usual (can someone tell me why SF doesn’t have windmill all over the hills?):

Leilani loves to climb rocks and is getting really good at it. Now we’re teaching her how to get down too:

We met up with Francine and friends to walk around Land’s End, the rocky coast of SF outside the Golden Gate:

Somebody had made a whole labyrinth out of rocks, Sonja and Leilani walked half of it before getting too cold (did I mention it was windy?)

Nothing greener than ferns in the springtime:

Gloria, Jude Yali and Kyler, Ruth, Francine’s goddaughter and fiancee, us and Francine: