Tate Modern

This past summer, while I was in London, my friend Val and I visited the Tate Modern.  She had been quite recently and knew there was one exhibit that I would love.  She was absolutely right!

They had a whole exhibit on puzzles and manipulatives.  There was a room filled with large slider puzzles - one of my childhood favorites!

But my favorite part of the exhibit was a room with a square of carpet in the middle and stacks of wooden blocks.  They weren't the unit blocks we are used to using at school, they were able to connect to one another; however, it was really cool to see adults manipulating something they normally would shrug off as a children's toy.

The funniest part of the experience was that we had so many people come through while just Val and I were on the carpet building that they thought we were a part of the exhibit!

Wine tasting with Papa Rist

Since we already went to McWay Falls and the Monterey Bay Aquarium on this trip, and I had done the touristy San Francisco things with Papa Rist on his last visit, our last obligatory Bay Area must-do was wine tasting in Napa Valley.  

The boys really had to twist my arm to get me to spend a whole day wine tasting.  Ha.  I really enjoy wine, so a day dedicated to trying many different wines and finding my favorites is pretty much a perfect day.

We tasted at three wineries in the St. Helena and Oakville areas and had a wonderful time.

The first was one of Tall Dark and Nerdy's favorites:  V. Sattui.  They have a really cool story of being an Italian-family-owned winery from San Francisco before prohibition shut them down.  They also have some wonderful wines.  Before we even started tasting, TDN told me that I would love their Gamay Rouge and that we would be bringing a bottle home with us.  Like usual, he was correct.  It's light and sweet without being too much like those candy-sweet wines I used to love.

Next, we went to Silver Oak Cellars.  They specialize in cabernets, and since Papa Rist really enjoys Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, this was a no-brainer for today.  The people in the tasting room here were so much fun.  We were talking about wine and welding and everything in between.  Definitely a great stop!

Number 3 was a place we had never heard of, Cosentino, but had great curb appeal on the way up to V. Sattui, so we decided to stop by on the way home.  This was a great little discovery.  The tasting room was much smaller than at the other two we visited, but the wine was great.  As an added bonus, they had purse hooks along the counter, which is a plus for any woman carrying a bag :)  We will definitely be stopping here again, too!

Cardboard sculptures

We saw a lot of interest in taping over several weeks, and I decided to extend it at the art table with sculptures.  I set out cardboard and found materials such as yarn, strawberry baskets, etc. as well as lots of masking tape and scissors.

Some of the results were pretty cool!

A bird house

A table and chairs

Staring at fish

Tall Dark and Nerdy and I are both, well, nerdy.  We like to "nerd out" about a lot of different things, both individually and together.  One of the things we have been nerding out about together recently is fish...well, more coral than actual fish.

TDN has a large aquarium in his house with incredible coral everywhere and some really cool fish.  

We had just spent a few days getting everything nice and cleaned up after he had been out of the country for a few weeks, and we got an awesome new fish, when Papa Rist came to town.

We decided that in addition to going to McWay Falls at Big Sur, we would go to Monterey while we were down south.  In case you don't know, you can't go to Monterey without visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  It is really freaking cool.

So maybe we goofed around a little bit too :)

Papa Rist was done with his tour through the aquarium in about an hour...we, on the other hand, were a little rushed finishing in 3 hours.  We had so much fun talking about the fish, looking at the different corals and anemones, and dreaming of what we could try to get for the aquarium at home next.


The aquarium has a great jellyfish exhibit.  One of my favorites are these guys that has bacteria that make them glow like this.

Fine motor skill development

I have been thinking a lot about fine motor skill development and how to help certain children with these skills.

Using pipettes is one thing that has been useful, as well as really enjoyable, both for me and for the children.  

While continuing to think about this, I babysat a 3-year-old who had just received a new game as a gift.  I am often turned off by many of the toys children this age have to play with, but this one pleasantly surprised me!

It was a "wok" with different colored pieces and tweezers so that multiple children could pick up and sort small objects.  To make the game harder, you can turn the wok on and it shakes, making more fine motor control necessary to succeed at the game.

This little guy wasn't ready for the wok to be turned on yet, but we used the tweezers and sorted for hours together one afternoon.

McWay Falls

Tall Dark and Nerdy has been tempting me with a place called McWay Falls since we were first just becoming friends.  It's a picturesque waterfall in Big Sur that spills out onto a beach with waves crashing in all around.

Just hearing about it and seeing other people's pictures could almost take my breath away.

But, because of all my knee surgeries and his traveling for work, we still hadn't been there and I hadn't seen it in real life.

That all changed when Papa Rist came out to visit for Christmas this year!  On the day after Christmas, we got up early, hopped in the car, and drove down to Big Sur, not stopping until we were at the path to McWay Falls.

It really is beautiful.  And getting to experience it with two of the most important men in my life made it even better.

When the waves roll in, the waterfall is suddenly running right into the ocean for a few seconds.

I could just sit and listen to waves crash along the shore for hours and hours.  In the early morning, with hardly any other people around, this was a magical place and moment.

Babycakes

I got a Babycakes cake ball maker for Christmas this year and was so excited that I could hardly wait to try it out!

The New Years Eve party I was going to turned out to be the perfect excuse to take everything out of the box and give it a go!

I modified a yellow cake mix by using oil as directed, using milk instead of water and only using half the amount, and adding an extra egg.  They turned out perfectly...except for when I filled the wells too full!

This will be a fun toy to keep learning with!

 And, because my friends are awesome, they fought over the "UFO" and "rocketship" cake balls, as they called them.  The "imperfect" ones were the favorites!

New Outlast Blocks

We are extremely blessed in terms of the resources we have available to us at my school.  One such blessing comes in the form of these wonderful Outlast blocks from Community Playthings for building large structures outside.

These are different from our other hollow blocks in that they actually have interlocking pieces, making the learning curve a little steeper, but the possibilities greater also.

We make these available nearly every day in our Redwood Grove or Back-40 area, often with a provocation like this set up at the beginning of the session.

Stanford Football

While I'm still feeling our heartbreaking loss to Michigan State in the 100th Rose Bowl on New Year's Day, I want to remember a couple of my favorite moments from this football season, because it was definitely one to remember!

During our awesome defeat of Oregon, John Elway was recognized on the field at halftime and his number was retired.

Our Big Game victory was the largest in the history of the rivalry game, winning 63-13.  

Also, the trombone section's group costume (each section wears a costume together for the Big Game) made this Big Bang Theory fan happy.

Cookie party!

Everyone knows how much I love cookies, and how much I love Christmas, so it was no surprise when I called up some of my friends for a cookie party before Christmas.

We had too much fun baking, decorating, sipping champagne, and catching up to take many pictures, but it was a perfect evening!

We only made iced and decorated sugar cookies and peanut butter blossoms because we were having too much fun decorating to keep baking!

Water flow

One of my classrooms had a project on Water this summer.  We read stories and sang songs about water, made art projects using water and watercolors, and explored many properties of water.  

One such property that I explored in our outdoor Redwood Grove area was flow.

I set up gutters with water at the top and bottom, cups and scoops of various sizes, large hollow blocks and more gutters for adding on to the water system.

The exploration was really exciting to watch, especially noting the differences in how the 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds interact with and experience water and its flow.

2013 Year in Review

2013 wasn't all roses, but, looking back, there are so many wonderful memories that I kind of forgot the hard parts of it all.  The first half of the year involved many, many physical therapy and doctor appointments for my knee, but the half-marathon I ran in the fall kind of made up for it.

January

2013 literally started out with roses when I traveled to southern California to watch my Stanford Cardinal play in - and win! - the 99th Rose Bowl.  My friend Kyla and I made the trip together, celebrating New Year's at a fabulous mansion party in the Hollywood Hills before watching our team in Pasadena.

At the end of the month, we celebrated Jas's birthday by going to a pop-up black-and-white masquerade ball and dinner party.  Masquerade ball has now been officially checked off of my bucket list!

February

My second knee surgery in six months happened on February 6.  The first surgery wasn't able to heal the whole tear in my meniscus, so they went back in and re-did the surgery to get the second half to heal.  My friends and neighbors were so sweet to bring me care packages.

 March

In March, I flew back home to South Dakota for "spring break" and Easter with my family.  Baby Sister, my cousin Les, and I had fun with the baby lambs, dinking around on the 4-wheeler, and going shooting with a dear friend of mine.  Holidays in South Dakota are definitely one of a kind!

April
April was marked by the start of the season for our garden.  We spent a day planting and setting up the drip irrigation system, and it was all worth it for the months of fresh veggies we got to enjoy!

May

In May, I had my first Bay to Breakers experience - a "run" across San Francisco with thousands of my closest friends, in costumes, with a lot of beer.  It was definitely memorable, and I'm glad I did it with this guy.

June

In June, I was finally able to go back to work with a mostly-recovered knee.  The same week, I also started graduate school!

Earlier in June, Tall Dark and Nerdy had an aunt and uncle come to visit us, so in showing them around, I got to see Yosemite for the first time.

July

I went to a lot of concerts in 2013, but two really stick in my head as representing the year.  Possibly because one was the largest concert I've ever been to - Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z's Legends of the Summer Tour.  Possibly because I planned the best date night ever taking Tall Dark and Nerdy to see Weezer in San Francisco at an incredible temporary venue.  Possibly because I went to these two concerts two nights in a row.  Whatever the reason, they were a couple of really great shows!

August

August brought an incredible vacation to Europe with Tall Dark and Nerdy.  With our time together in Germany, our long weekend with friends in Munich, my day by the lake in Zurich, my time in Scotland with my grandmother, and my days in London with friends, this trip couldn't have gotten much better!

September

I was able to fly home and be a part of when of my oldest friends' special days this fall.  I have known this girl nearly all my life and we have become such close friends since high school, even with me living 2000 miles away.  It was such a wonderful weekend kicking up our heels and celebrating a great couple!  And I got to spend time with Baby Sister, which made it even better!

October

On October 20th I participated in my second Nike Women's Marathon.  This time I did it pretty much on my own, and I ran more of it than I thought possible.  After all my struggles with my knee this past year, this was a huge day for me.  I couldn't run the whole thing, but it will come, maybe in 2014!

Now, as dorky as this sounds, the other highlight of October was getting our wood burning stove installed at the cabin.  Now I can relax by a fire all winter!

November

Every fall, the school I teach at has a wonderful auction to raise money for our scholarship fund.  Tall Dark and Nerdy and I went, talked with wonderful parents, and had a really nice evening (and even took a nice picture!)

At the end of the month, we headed to Cozumel, Mexico for a mini vacation.

December

The reason we headed to Cozumel was the Tall Dark and Nerdy was competing in an Ironman triathlon.  I'm so proud of him!

My dad came to visit us for Christmas, prompting a trip to Big Sur to see McWay Falls - which Tall Dark and Nerdy has been tempting me with almost since we met!

Wow, 2013 had a lot of memories!  I can't wait to make more in 2014!