Clover Gets Nails Clipped

The one activity that Clover is not fond of is getting her nails clipped. Dorothy is the nail clipper in our home. Here are a few photos from today's nail salon session.

Dental Visit and Ebisu

Dorothy and I had a chance to get away from the kids for a short while today. It didn't matter that this was only made possible because we had a dental appointment in San Francisco and Dorothy's sister was able to watch the kids for us. After the appointment, we sampled a trio of edamame, maki sushi, chirashi shushi, and shioyaki salmon at one of our favorite restaurants in the City, Ebisu. We actually tried to get a table at Hotei which is a noodle restaurant owned by the Ebisu owners just across the street from Ebisu, but the place was full. If your appetite is for ramen or other noodle dishes, then Hotei should be your destination. Ebisu does not feature much in the way of noodles. The one new item for us was the trio of edamame which featured the usual salted edamame, and then two variants: togarashi lime edamame and lemon garlic edamame. Our usual use of togarashi is on udon or other noodle dishes so having it on edamame was a first. The lemon garlic edamame reminded us of eating garlic fries. Thumbs up from us!

Mission San Francisco de Solano

In California, one of the subjects covered in fourth grade is the history of California missions. These missions were significant in the early history of what is now California. The establishment of these missions led to missionaries being sent to California by the Spanish government and forever changing the state's history.

The teaching of this part of California's history in schools has not been without controversy. Critics have pointed out that in instances the teaching has been sanitized of some of the less palatable elements of the relationship between these new Americans and the Native Americans. Missionaries converting the natives to Catholicism using techniques viewed by as being overly coercive. Natives attacking missions and then suffering for such actions.

General Mariano Vallejo was responsible for establishing Mission San Francisco de Solano in what is now Sonoma, California. Later in life, Vallejo played a key role in the conversion of California from a Mexican district to a State, including naming of the counties in California.

It turns out that Mission San Francisco de Solano would be the last of the 21 missions established in California. It was also the only mission that was established after Mexico's independence from Spain. It was the last mission established because of the secularization of the missions.

Ethan along with the other fourth graders visited Mission San Francisco de Solano. The field trip included sketching the mission, a visit to the barracks, a visit of the mission, lunch in the town square, and a short walk to Vallejo's home. The interesting aspect of the field trip was that Ethan's class only saw one of the other two classes just once until the end of the field trip when it was time to re-board the buses.

The songs in the slide show below are "El Album" by Aterciopelados (a folk band from Columbia) and "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" by Green Day. Enjoy!

2011 Little League Opening Day

After a hiatus from baseball, Ethan is giving baseball another try. His team is the Double A Cardinals. Ethan is playing at the level where the players are pitching to each other for the first time. This means that there are many walks and lots of runs scored.

Ryan is playing for the first time and his team is the Single A Nationals. Ryan's league is a coach pitch league which means that your coach pitches to you. There are no walks, but there are strikeouts.

The league runs to about mid-June. Below is a little slide show of the Opening Ceremonies for the league with the Mayor on-hand to throw out the first pitch. Let's play ball!!!!

Family Dinner

We had a nice night out with Dorothy's sisters and some of their family at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants in the area, 3 Brothers from China.


This was the first time for some of us to meet the newest addition to the family, Kalista!


Cheese!


Kalista making the rounds to visit everyone!


Checking out Naomi's sketching!


Ryan ate so much that he decided to do some push ups to work off the food!