A trip to the California Academy of Sciences

The boys and I recently spent a week in California with my parents.  Near the end of our vacation, we went to the recently renovated California Academy of Sciences.  Wednesday is free admission day! This is actually a very substantial savings as adult tickets are normally $29.95 and kids are $19.95.  This would have cost well over $100 for the 5 of us to go (for the brief duration of 2 and 4-year-old attention spans). 

The “new” museum is gorgeous and one of the most environmentally friendly museum buildings in the world.  I remember reading about its renovation in a number of national magazines, with heavy attention spent on its “living roof” which recycles water and collects solar energy.  When we walked in, we were greeted by a towering T-Rex skeleton, which was an immediate hit.  We walked on a bridge over various deep tanks filled with rays, sharks, and other fish and were able to watch them under our feet.  There is also a coral reef filled with colorful tropical fish.  My parents had introduced the kids to The Little Mermaid just the previous day and the kids enjoyed seeing Ariel’s world.  There were many exhibits, which we skipped due to my kids inability to wait patiently in line, but we did enjoy the dino coloring pages and crayons in their waiting areas. 

Showing off a T-Rex coloring page, with Grandma hard at work in back

I knew the group would last about 90 minutes on good behavior, so we were only able to hit the highlights – which were fantastic.  The kids were up close and personal with various tortoises and lizards, and were able to watch them play, move around their environment, and eat vegetables.  

This Turtle and Lizard "tank" is right at 2-year-old eye level

We enjoyed the hall of African animals, which includes a fantastic penguin exhibit that is half below-water so the crowd could watch the penguins dive and frolic in the water and above on the rocks.  There were full size lions, gorillas, and other African animals along the hall as well.  We moved on to the Swamp and an amazing aquarium on the lower level with many tanks including reefs, jellyfish, a touch/tide pool area, and other aquatic attractions.     

All of the animals really held the kids attention and they asked a lot of great questions.

We broke for lunch at the right time – just as our first meltdown hit – and ate at the garden café.  There is indoor and outdoor seating, and we had a great time in the very kid-friendly outdoor patio and yard.  There were benches, seal statues to climb on and a large lawn for running.   The San Franciscans and tourists seemed to not mind a little noise, and one lovely lady was watching the kids play and offered to take a family photo for us. 

A great post-lunch play on the lawn behind the CA Academy of Sciences

 The adventure continued even after we returned home.  The California Academy of Sciences website offers a live penguin web cam.  My kids like the underwater view the best, where we can see the penguins’ feet, flippers and bellies as they swim around, and the whole penguin comes into view when they dive.  http://www.calacademy.org/webcams/penguins/.

Beach in a jar (for summer all year long)

Prep time: Overnight

Activity time: 30 mins

We went to the beach a number of times this summer.  On our last trip, we collected shells, driftwood, rocks, pine cones and sand for our final beach art project. 

We disinfected each item with bleach to kill any micro-organisms (and those that are not so micro).  Following the directions on the bleach container, I submerged our treasures in pails with the appropriate mixture of bleach and water and soaked everything overnight.  I also soaked the sand in such a mixture.  

Disinfecting the sand (in jars), shells, rocks and driftwood

  The next day, we washed off the shells and rinsed the sand.  We then lay everything out in the sun to dry, spreading the sand out on plastic shopping bags to expose as much as possible to the air.  Once everything was dry (an hour or two for the shells and sticks, a bit longer for the sand) we put some sand in each jar and then layered in our sea shore items.   

The finished product

I have one beach jar on our living room shelves for the family to enjoy and the boys have a jar in their room by the window.  These will remind us of the great times we had as a family at the beach this summer and help us remember that next summer isn’t too far away.

The Alex My Giant Busy Box - The best craft box ever!

Elijah received the Alex “My Giant Busy Box” for his third birthday. I knew this was “activity gold” and I quickly hid it in a closet so it would be "new" for our beach vacation. The kids were extremely excited when I pulled this out – and I was excited to finally get to use it (4 months later)! 

More on the goods: the thing I loved most about the Busy Box is that it was all-inclusive, and I didn't need to buy anything additional to do any of the 16+ crafts.  The kit also includes a big chunky glue stick with glue that goes on purple and dries clear. This was not only very helpful to make sure everything sticks, but also for catching glue in unexpected places before it dries.

The kids' favorite activity was making paper bag puppets (popping out the animal body parts out of the perforated paper, gluing them down, and adding stickers to the finished product), There were 4, so each boy made 2. The puppets were colorful and the kids put on many impromptu puppet shows.  There were also a number of surprise wild animal sightings - it was like being on a safari!

We made the lion together and it was love at first sight!

There is also:

• Sticker art (a park background with veggie, flower and animal stickers and a pizza with toppings) + frames
• Tissue paper art with 8 colors of small tissue paper squares
• Clay with cardboard animal limbs and eye to add in to create 3D animals
• Chicken, sheep and piggy shaped pre-cut card stock with an assortment of goodies like pipe cleaners, feathers, paper accessories, flowers, buttons, and streamers to glue on.

We got through 1/3 to half of the activities in the “My Giant Busy Box” and are now bringing it home for our next rainy day.

“Tinker toys” on the cheap lead to hours of fun

The preparation for our beach vacation included a trip to the dollar store. We picked up 2 sets of “sticks and blocks” for $0.99 each (one set for each boy of course), filled with colorful mini-dowels and cubes with a hole drilled on each side. Very Tinker Toys-esque - and at a great price. 

I set up towels for the boys on the deck (so the sticks wouldn't fall through the holes in between the slats of wood) and the boys created structures and obstacle courses for their toys for over an hour.  Mom helped make a tower with a tunnel and the boys took it from there!

 

A tradition inspired by the toughest of times

My grandmother passed away last week and the entire family travelled home to Northern California to say goodbye. It was truly wonderful to see everyone, but it is unfortunate that it took such a tragedy to get the Solomon diaspora together.  I don’t believe we’ve had all 6 cousins together in one place before – and it was nice to hang out just us “kids” for the first time.  We had a family reunion in Santa Monica while I was in college, but as the cousins have 18 year age spread, I don’t believe my youngest cousin Russell was born when we all gathered.   We spent our days in the Bay Area together reminiscing about my grandmother and the 62 years of marriage she and my grandfather shared, and I realized that it was a shame to save such an outpouring of love and story-telling for after a loved one died. 

My family tries to have a weekly “special” dinner.  We often do this on Shabbat, and gather our family (and very often friends as well) for a sit-down, traditional dinner.  Our kids are young, and we created this tradition with the intent to make sure that we sit down as a family for at least one uninterrupted meal together as our lives grow even more hectic.  I want to add to this tradition, and also include the story-telling, complimenting, and story-telling that was shared at my grandmother’s funeral and Shiva. While it is a lovely thing for a family to gather to offer comfort and celebrate a life that has passed, I want to instill in my family a tradition of celebrating one another in all stages of living.

Beach photo session

The family spent the weekend at the beach last week.  As frequent Quality Time Mom readers already know, our boys wake up between 6 and 6:30.  We actually look forward to our kids’ internal clocks announcing dawn when we want to have a beach photo session.  The morning light is absolutely amazing.  We took advantage of a recent Children’s Place clothing sale to outfit our boys in complementary white and blue shirts (so the photos would look “intentional” without being too matchy-matchy).  We often buy white shirts for our frequent beach photo shoots, and this time Elijah was the recipient of the mostly white polo shirt.  The early light reflects beautifully off white apparel and gives the wearer a clean glow. 

We packed Zach, Elijah and their cousin Madelyn up in the wagon and walked the ¼ mile to the beach.  Mom brought a beach pail to collect treasures for a future art project, her coffee and the kids’ water bottle and we were set! 

Mike got some amazing shots with the kids walking up and down stairs.  He took these shots running backwards in front of the kids as they stormed the beach.  Somehow, our little one took the lead and these shots turned out best, because when Elijah tailed the big kids, he got lost in the pictures.

Here they come! Mike is running backwards in front of the kids for this shot.

The little one looks even smaller in the back.  But I like the composition of this shot Mike took.

Rather than pay $100+ for a professional shoot, we took advantage of our early rising to start off our day in the most amazing way.  These pictures are going to go on display in our apartment so we can have a little bit of summer all year ‘round.

Some of my other favorite shots from our beach shoot

Mom was there prepping for a future craft project (collecting treasures), with a back-up camera, and with her coffee (hey - we got up and out at 6 am!)

Swimming with a 4-year-old in the Bay

I’ve written a number of blog posts about my family’s time at the beach.  This weekend, I took Zach out for his first solo Bay Swim.  The playground is amazing.  There is a kiddie pool that is under 2 feet deep, staffed with a life guard and complete with bath toys swirling around in the water.  Zach and I headed for the Bay – and again, the playground does this in style.  There are wide steps with handrails leading down into the water.  There are 2 life guards, life vests in a variety of sizes, and assorted swimming “noodle” floats.  The life guarded area is blocked off and culminates in a float about 10 yards away with 2 ladders for easy access.

We found a life vest for Zach, armed him with a swimming noodle, and he was off!  The dual floatation support gave Zach the confidence to go back and forth from the stairs to the float a number of times.    He loved bouncing in the small waves that came our way in the wake of the speedboats.  We lay on the float and bounced on the water as the boats would go by.  Zach learned to close his mouth when the waves came (the hard way, after getting a face-full of splash!) and didn’t let the surprise scare him. 

We’re going back next week and will definitely head to the bay again for some one on one time.