Kiira's last day of kindergarden

I can't believe she is now officially a first grader. Her accomplishments and milestones this year from 5-6 years old:

Kiira can/has/has not:

1. CAN Tie her shoes in bows and double knots (she is very proud of this)
2. CAN Braid (very loosely)
3. CAN Write the alphabet in both capitals and lower case
4. CAN Read beginner level books
5. HAS NOT lost a tooth yet
6. HAS walked/trotted off the lunge line on her pony
7. HAS trotted a course of cavalleties all by herself on her pony
8. CAN ride her two wheeled scooter
9. CAN ice skate
10. CAN swim across our pool doing the doggie paddle
11. CAN jump into the pool and put her head under water
12. CAN get on stage in front of 3,000 people to perform a ballet performance (with no jitters)
13. CAN count to ten in three languages (English, Spanish, French) and has mastered a handful of words in Chinese
14. CAN draw amazing butterflies, hearts and horses. Drawing a family is one of her favorite things to do.
15. HAS figured out how to push her little brother's buttons
16. HAS pulled her mom and dad around her little finger
17. HAS gone through the whole school year as one of the only ones to NEVER lose her "superday"
18. HAS grown 3 inches in 9 months (I kid you not!)

YEAH Kiira!!! We are so proud of all your accomplishments this year.

Alan's birthday

Not as much of a fan of his birthday as I am of mine, we celebrated Alan's birthday with a simple family gathering and a cake and homemade dinner of his choice. The kids couldn't resist helping him blow his candles out.

Welcome to Marin County - welcome to the 21st century - hello composter for Alan's birthday. I think he really liked it!

Bookstock

On very short notice (3 days) I was asked to stage the dugout at Giants Stadium. Gamely, I took this on. How does one make a dugout into an area fit for VIP's you ask? Well, you make it into a home away from home for them. Candles, orchids, lamps, candles and lots and lots of pillows. AND you give away alot of promo material. Jenny who is my partner in the staging business and her mom, Ann, who happened to be visiting helped Alan and me put together all the free giveaways the night before! What troupers they were staying up till midnight.

The event was called Bookstock and they were expecting about 5,000 people to come to this large marketing event for a locally produced and written movie called Touching Home. In the film, a set of twins, Logan and Noah Miller, tell their story about trying to make it in major league baseball while grappling with the debilitating effects that alcoholism can have on a family. In real life, the twins grew up in Lagunitas (which is the town next to Nicasio where I ride). They got Ed Harris to star in the movie by showing up at the San Francisco Film Festival and convincing him to read their screenplay. They later wrote a book about making the movie and the longshot they had in getting it done. The book is called Either You're In or You're In the Way.



Making the SAGE design promo materials with Alan, Jenny and Jenny's mom Ann



The dugout BEFORE



The dugout AFTER



The movie being premiered on the jumbotron at Giant Stadium

Fairy of Generosity

It is time again for the semi-annual Roco ballet performance. I missed the last one as I was in Australia trying to coo my niece to sleep. Not this one - present and accounted for. We approach this performance with both excitement and sadness. Miss Erika has been a wonderful teacher for Kiira but Kiira announced that she would like to do the Nutcracker next year. I have been researching how exactly to do this. When I told Kiira that she would have to switch ballet schools and go somewhere where her friends were not - she nodded very determinedly. I realized just how serious she was about this. So...buh-bye Roco....hello Marin Ballet.

In the meantime, for Kiira's last performance with Roco - she performed a moving piece as a Fairy of Generosity. This was Evan's first performance as a guest in the audience and he did GREAT. He was mesmerized by all the dances and clapped supportively at the end of each. He greeted Kiira at the end with a bouquet of beautiful flowers. Way to go Kiira!!!

Feeling a little WICKED

Seeing as this year is the big 4-0 for me, I wanted to have birthday month. OK - let's get serious. I want to have birthday month EVERY year!! :-) I guess I just used turning 40 as a good excuse to do that. Since my friend Mona Helen's birthday is also in June we decided to have a day just to ourselves. We arranged childcare and headed to the city. There, we proceeded to be pampered by Nordstrom Spa. After, we were spoiled with delicious food at Jardiniere, oh yum! Following, we lost our cares in a production of WICKED. It was spectacular. Not only the singing and the sets but also the story line. For those of you who don't know the story - it is the story behind the story of the Wizard of Oz. How the witches became who they were. VERY good writing. I highly recommend it. I hadn't been to the Orpheum in so long it was a challenge for me to even remember where it was. Ah the days when we had the time and resources for culture on a regular basis....

Kittens, kittens and MORE kittens

Today we became the proud parents of two little kittens. Ever since Calvin and Bullseye passed away I have been missing that certain little fuzzy presence in the house. Alan, however, was not having the same tug as I and it has taken until now to convince him on added bodies in the house. I think the final push was my begging for kittens for my 40th birthday. We had checked out kittens before but alas, these did not work out. So, I contacted Maine Coon Adoptions. Cal and Bull were part Maine Coon kitties and I like the fact that these are the dogs of the cat world. Not only are they big but they come when you call, visit when you have company and don't seem to know that a dog is bigger than they are.

Apparently we are just going into kitten "season" (who knew there was a "season"?) but all of the adoption agencie's kittens were accounted for. They recommended I go to a few shelters that they get their kittens and cats from. Long story short, I drove 1 1/2 hrs north to true country land where animals come in triplicate with no one to take care of them. The chances of all the kittens I saw being put to sleep were very high and my heart said save those that you can.

I surprised the kids with, names that would finally be settled on, Hawkeye and Lulu and we haven't looked back since. A few goopy eyes and a couple colds later (the kitties that is), they have melted our hearts and become a part of the family. Even Rennie has accepted them, despite their repeated attempts to snuggle up to his warm body and play with his tantalizing long whiskers.

Apparently they are nocturnal because often as I drift off to sleep, I hear them tearing around the living room and up and down the stairs. They come alive and explode with their abounding kitten energy. I love to sit on the couch and watch them jump and fall off of the chair, tumble over each other and run in circles around a feather on the floor. Quite simply they make me laugh in a slapstick humor only an animal can master. The unembarrassed try and miss, the fumbled attack and tumble or the spastic leap and spin only a kitten can do is something that people try to capture on film to watch and watch again. Only, we have it live. It just doesn't get much better than this!

Mother's Day 2009

Kiira asked me the day before Mother's Day - what would you like? I said breakfast in bed. The morning of Mother's Day I woke up to a crash outside my bedroom door. No screaming....this was a good thing. Next thing I know the door is cracking open and Kiira is coming in with a tray of a mug, a package of watermelon and a yogurt. Bless her little heart, she couldn't open any of the packages but she put them on the tray anyway. Turns out the coffee mug held only water so that spill was not a biggie at all. She made me this card on the computer at school. Such a good girl she is!!! It's a good thing I paid attention to this treat because she was the only one that actually remembered Mother's Day in our family.