Summertime Fun and Activities

I disappeared for a while!  No great adventures or fabulous vacations to write about, just life with three kids at home all day.  It's been a busy mix of swimming lessons, summer camps, play dates, and other random things from our summertime bucket list.  (We're actually making some good progress on this!).

It seems to be that the kids' new favorite activity is geocaching.  I am hoping it is because they love to explore the great outdoors and see new things, but really I think it must be the swag.  Either way, I'm happy.  It gets us out of the house and away from passive activities on electronic devices. 

Here's a few pics from our latest exploits:

San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers

I took a day trip to San Francisco with the girls to see the Conservatory of Flowers.  We thought we would take advantage of the free admission that the Conservatory offers on the first Tuesday of the month.  While we planned to go see the new butterfly exhibit, we never actually made it inside.  We packed a picnic lunch and ate in the outside gardens.  The kids ended up having such a wonderful time playing and exploring the area that the Conservatory was closed by the time everyone decided that they were ready to go in.  :(  No matter--I don't think the kids minded at all.  They had such a great time looking around, no one felt like the missed out on anything!  Audrey was fascinated by all the flowers, people, birds, and activity.  It ended up being a great outing anyways.

Cantor Art Center

Saturday was a gorgeous day in the Bay Area.  The kiddos and I took a drive to the Stanford campus and ended up having a picnic lunch in the Rodin Sculpture Garden.  It was the perfect place to hang out--plenty of shade, lots of space for Audrey to run around, and tons of benches and picnic tables to choose from.  Kelsey and Maddie enjoyed wandering around and viewing the color took of sculptures. 

Afterward, we went into the Art Center.  We spent about half an hour browsing the rooms (the length of Audrey's attention span).  The museum has a nice collection of pieces from around the world and a good representation of different time periods.  I think my favorite part was seeing Rodin's Thinker.  The kids had a good time....Kelsey was interested in the Greek and Roman art, and Maddie found the Japanese art engaging.  I am hoping we can return later this summer so we can look at some of the sections we didn't get to see this visit.  Given that admission to the museum is free, a visit of any length is well worth it.

Summer Time Fun

Summer is one of my family's favorite times of the year.  We love the longer days, sleeping in, working in the garden, and lazy days with nothing planned.  Each of the kids usually has a couple of summer camp activities or swimming lessons, but we kind of prefer the unstructured days with the freedom to do what we want whenever we want. 

Since M has been a bit sad about the school coming to a close (she loves going to school and seeing her friends), we made our annual Andrews Family Summer Time Fun List so she would have something to look forward to.  Our list is pretty informal.  We basically write down every possible thing that sounds like it might be fun to do.  Then we pull out the calendar and see how we can get to as many of these activities and ideas as we can.

So far it's worked pretty well for us.  We don't usually get to everything on the list, but we save it to use as  next summer's inspiration.  This year, some of our list includes the following:

1. See redwood trees
2. Bubbles
3. Cherry picking
4. Swimming with friends
5. Play dates with cousins
6. Leaf pressing
7. Letterboxing (visit here to learn more about this really cool activity.  In the past 7 years, we have done this in 2 continents and 6 states!)
8. Gardening
9. Picnic at the beach 
10. Visit Angel Island
11. Ride bikes and skateboards
12. Build a geodesic dome
13. See the new Monsters, Inc. movie
14. Make cheese
15. Make lots of ice cream

Last summer we tried having theme weeks (i.e., Olympics Week, Scrapbooking Week, Beading Week, Science Week).  The girls are considering if they want to do something like this again.  Our theme weeks were definitely a lot of fun, but required some planning and organizing.

I hope that this gives you some ideas and inspiration for your own summer plans!

Terracotta Warriors

Last week the kids were on spring break.  While we didn't go anywhere or do anything big, we did get to visit some local places and do a few projects that have been on our list of To Do's for a long time. 

On Sunday, we took a trip up to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.  Hard to believe that it was everyone's first trip to the museum.  It was a Target-sponsored Family Day, and it was busy!  A staffer at the museum mentioned that the free days bring in 2-3 times the usual number of visitors.  Despite the huge line to get in, we waited for only about 30 minutes.  The museum was fantastic about taking care of their guests.  Several people circulated around the line, passed out brochures about the exhibit,  and answered questions.  At one point, a "warrior" came out to pose for pictures with people.

The exhibit was impressive to view.  I was surprised at how serene and elegant the warriors were even though they were soldiers.  The handicraft and innovation on the other artifacts found in the tomb was amazing as well.  

So glad that we had the opportunity to see these beautiful pieces.  The kids enjoyed the exhibit because they had learned about the works of art in school.  I was surprised at how enthusiastic K and M were when I initially suggested that we go.  Everyone enjoyed themselves.  It would be great to some day return and look at the rest of the museum.