Kindergarten!

Madeleine started Kindergarten a month ago, and she has been loving every minute of it. Here she is on her first day, SUPER excited to start.

Ross was also excited for her, although also very sad that he wasn't starting school as well.

She loves picking out her clothes every day (and even started wearing this cute red sweater knitted by Grammie that she had not worn for many months).

If you look closely, you can see a lone tear on Ross's cheek... he is still a bit sad that Madeleine got to be five first. Also, she has been very tired and moody while at home, and he is taking the brunt of it. Gone is our sweet, sharing, playful girl who plays puppy with her brother... so he often resorts to bugging her to get attention, which of course never ends well. We are hoping this phase ends soon.

Madeleine is in afternoon kindergarten with a wonderful teacher, and loves telling us about the rules, the order of the day, and her most recent day as "class president" where you get to be the special helper on various tasks.

Our Trip to Edinburgh

Every two years Steve attends a conference put on by the International Society for Optics and Photonics and it alternates being held in North America and Europe. Ever since we found out (two years ago) that this year's conference was in Edinburgh, I have been looking forward to going with him. My parents graciously looked after M and R the whole time, and although we don't have any pictures of their time together, we heard many stories and it was clearly a lot of fun for everyone. 

Steve's conference went well - he saw many familiar faces, including old colleagues from New Zealand. Here is one of the three posters he published for the conference. Steve described the poster sessions as being like a science fair, where you stand next to your poster and people walk by and chat with you if your poster looks interesting.  

We stayed in a little flat on Young Street for the week of the conference. 

 

We had one day before the conference started, so we walked around the Castle and enjoyed watching all the clouds (which are generally absent in our part of California). 

While Steve was at the conference all day, I would spend my days exploring on foot. Most days I ran between 6 and 8 miles along pathways and backstreets. It was fun returning to places I remembered from the year I lived there during university (15 years ago!).

On the first day, I ran down to the waterfront along little side streets and out to the end of this cobblestone quay.

On the way home I went through the Botanic Gardens - just as impressive and lovely as I remembered them.

On my next day of exploring, I ran up Arthur's Seat - a volcanic mound in the middle of the city.

I left the very cold and windy summit for the shelter and warmth of this mossy hillside.

There was constant construction right outside our flat and I noticed that the workers were carefully removing each cobblestone to lay a new pipe. A few days later, they had to fit each stone back in place, like a giant puzzle, to rebuild the road.

Another day I ran along the Water of Leith.

On my last day of running, I followed the Union Canal and saw various houseboats.

In one spot, the canal went over top streets and workyards, right alongside a raised train track.

As well as running and exploring, I spent my time in coffee shops or gardens - journaling, reading, and sketching. It was so relaxing and rejuvenating to do all these things on my own time.

A view of George St, near our flat. Every day the weather would be a mix of sun, clouds, and rain. It was so nice to be in cooler temperatures and have so much rain.

Once the conference was over, Steve and I hiked up Arthur's Seat together.

We rented a car and drove north to Inverness for one night, then on to Loch Ness and a night at the edge of Loch Maree. Below is the view from our hotel in Loch Maree - a bit worn out at the shore, but a beautiful view of the Loch and hills.

I made the most of the only bathtub in our travels and filled it with peat-filtered brown water from the highlands for a long hot bath.

After Loch Maree, we drove back to Edinburgh and stayed near the airport the last night. We flew out early the next morning and both felt very ready to be home with the kids. Even though we skyped with them each day, we missed them a lot and felt like we had had a good break.  

June with Family

I have a bit of catching up to do, beginning with all of our wonderful family visits in June. Aunty Kristin and Uncle Matty were out here for a couple of shows that Matt's band was doing.  

Polly also came on the trip, and although the kids took awhile to get used to her, they really did love having her around for cuddles and games.

We took Polly to the school park (lovely private elementary school up the street from us - only $25,000 a year).

The kids shared Kristin's scarf on a windy day by the Berkeley Marina.

My parents also came to visit and overlapped a bit with K and Polly's visit.

We went on a walk/bike ride with Kristin and Polly at Cesar Chavez Park.

Ross helped Kristin make pancakes.

Kristin and I went into San Francisco for one of Matt's shows, and came across this little restaurant.

We celebrated Grammie's birthday a bit early and the kids helped her blow out her candles.

We took Grammie and Grandpa out for dinner at one of our favourite Mexican restaurants.

And a couple of more pictures, from early June before all our visitors arrived. We took the kids to the "crane park" in Oakland where they can ride bikes and watch the big freighters come in to dock.

Both kids took their first ever swimming lessons at this local pool - M quickly loved them and gained a lot of confidence in the water. Ross, on the other hand, cried every day for a good portion of the lesson and displayed his stubbornness by refusing to follow instructions. He did gain some confidence however, and did much better in his second set of lessons the following month.

Madeleine is 5!

Madeleine asked to go visit Grammie and Grandpa's house in Abbotsford for her 5th birthday, so we did! This will be the last year we can easily take off for two weeks in May, so we were happy to make the trip. She helped Grammie with the pink icing and sprinkles on her cake.

We were so glad to have Steve's Aunt Joanne come up for the birthday celebration. Madeleine shared her new tea set with us all, and asked that we not sing Happy Birthday to her... she really doesn't like being the centre of attention! I think she comes by that honestly...

The rest of our visit was filled with the usual fun Grammie and Grandpa activities, such as reading books old and new...

Playing in the new treehouse built by Grandpa, accessed by a little trail in the nearby forest...

Playing with water, bicycle pumps, hoses, and buckets in the basement...

Swinging on the tire swing built by Grandpa (Ross loved looking down at them as he swung over top)...

Building legos...

Washing dishes...

And of course viewing the transit of Mercury across the Sun with Great Grandpa's telescope and Daddy's sun filter.

Madeleine really loves all things to do with horses, and chose this paper cut out horse book from a toy store. She loved dressing up the horses and putting the fairy riders on them. She says that when she grows up she wants to ride horses and she often says she wishes we lived on a farm with horses. I can relate well to all these day dreams - and clearly remember trying to convince my parents that a horse would fit in our backyard.

She loved our time at Grammie and Grandpa's, but by the end of the two weeks she was saying that she was looking forward to going home to see Daddy (who could only stay the first four days). When Daddy picked us up at the airport, she reminded him that we still needed to look for a pedal bike for her... imagine her surprise when she opened the trunk to see this! She was speechless, with a huge grin on her face. She was eager to give it a try and after a short time at the park yesterday, she was riding by herself today!