The New Site

Thanks for being so patient with us.  After a lot of discussion, we decided to just start a new website that we can add to continuously.  This site will be left up as Olivia archives.  So here it is.

http://teamsupercool.net/

Out of Space

Sorry we haven't posted anything in awhile.  It turns out that we have used up all the available space for this site and we haven't quite figured out what to do next.  Since we don't want to delete what we have and start over, our options are pretty much to either purchase more space or start a new a site and try to link the two together.  So until we figure out our space issue, there won't be any new posts on this site.  We'll try to have the adventures of Olivia up and running again soon.

Spider Picnic

And today's the day the spiders are having their picnic....

Our Campsite

We went camping!  We tried Olivia out on her first two night trip.  Since a major part of our last camping trip consisted of us getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, we went with beach camping.  It may be colder and wetter, but there's no mosquitoes.  We left on Friday, unfortunately a lot later than we were planning, and so as soon as we got to the site it was a scramble to get everything set up before it got dark.  Brian, Jess and I started putting up tents, Niki started a fire, and...

Olivia dug a hole.

We did end up cooking in the dark.  Our lantern was having some issues so we didn't end up bringing it.  Niki played role of overhead lighting. 

That only lasted about five minutes before he decided to use some engineering wits and duct taped the flashlight onto a tree.

I made a big pot of some really healthy chili.  Niki and Olivia contributed to the meal with some really unhealthy cheese dogs. 

Our campsite.  We were about a mile from the beach in some really great sand dunes.

On day 2 we made a big batch of rice crispie treats.  Excellent camping food. 

Olivia playing with some Batman cards.

For dinner on day 2 we went with spaghetti but forgot any kind of strainer so Brian and Jess improvised.  This was quite impressive.

Roasting marshmallows.

Right at the edge of our campsite was a little hole and one of the times I was walking by, a vole of some sorts popped out and scared the bejeezus out of me.  Let's just say that the scream was probably heard by all in a mile radius.

On the last day Brian, Jess and I packed up the campsite and Olivia and Niki played in the mud.  I mean, Niki was teaching Olivia about water flow.  I think they were just trying to get out of doing any work.

The Dunes

Here we are checking out one of trails through the dunes where our campsite was located.

And this is why we chose this site.  Olivia loves sand.

Doing some rolling down one of the dunes.

And doing some scooting down a dune.

The Beach

Olivia heading out to the beach

It was very cold, windy, and very foggy

The beach had no shortage of driftwood

Lots of driftwood.  People put together driftwood buildings and such.  This was the most impressive one that we saw.

The Lookout

Arriving at Bodega Head.  This is basically a huge peninsula you can walk out on and get a great view of the coast.  There was also a place you could walk down to a small beach.

Here's the view

And here's us heading down the the beach.  Just as the trail ends, all that's left is a ladder type thing to go the rest of the way. 

Sitting on a pretty rock talking about mussels.  I thought, we should totally take a family photo.

And this pretty much sums up what Niki and Olivia thought of my idea to take a family photo

But they humored me anyway

And here we are trying to get back up from the beach.  Turns out that I don't really like beach ladders.  Olivia does though.  Thankfully going up was a million times easier than going down.

The Drive Home

Getting ready to start the drive back home.  Olivia enjoying some one on one time with her favorite little dog.

So the drive back was particularly long because Olivia refused to take a nap and she was cranky.  So, we found ways for her to stay entertained.  She showed us some funny faces.

 Then we just gave her the camera.  Here's Olivia taking a picture of her feet.

Olivia taking a picture of me

Olivia taking a picture of Korey dog

And this one is greatest of all.  She even held the camera out and said, "Say cheese" as she took this picture of herself.

Preschool Week 2- Bugs

For the start of bug week Ava joined us for the day.  Since Monday is usually our library day I decided to push that to Tuesday so we could get right on with the field trips.  Today was all about water bugs.  We packed up the wagon with a small picnic and I grabbed two nets from an Elefun game. 

The girls acting their age :)

When we got to the pond I was totally blown away by what we saw.  There were hundreds of small blue dragonflies all over the place.  They were so beautiful and thankfully for me, easy to catch, so I caught a couple for Olivia and Ava so they could get a close look.

It was really funny to see them start off very slowly and carefully trying to catch a dragonfly.  After about ten minutes they realized it was getting then no where and so when they saw a dragonfly land on a plant, they would run over and practically beat the plant down trying to get the bug.  In case you're wondering, that technique didn't work either.

 I love this shot.  "Mom, I think I got a dragonfly!"  Olivia did end up catching two bugs before the day was over.  She yells over to me, "Mom, I got one.  I got a bug!"  I run over and she releases two bees right in my face.  No stings thankfully but from then on I had to be very clear about not catching bees.

 We did an entire day for bees because bees are cool, except when they fly in my face.  It just so happened that a bee garden opened up the week before.  I love UCD.  They have made preschool so easy and practically free.  After visiting the garden, which was really cool, Olivia didn't want to do my bee craft so we went with what she wanted to do.  We ate honey sticks and then later on baked a honey cake.  Her ideas were better anyway.

Olivia visiting the Bohart Museum of Entomology.

Art Projects for the Week

 Olivia really liked this one and wanted to do a picnic scene so that ants could eat a cupcake.  To make an ant, dip one finger in paint and then dot your paper three times.  Add legs and antennae with a marker.  I really like this project because Olivia actually did some independent research for it.  While I was cutting out the paper pieces for the picnic, I asked Olivia to look through her ant book to see what color ants were so that we could use the right color paint.  As I cut out the paper I could hear her talking to herself about what all the ants were doing, sometimes laughing at them, and going on about how cool the ants were.  When she went through the entire book she came up to the table and we had this conversation.

"Mom, I'm done.  I'm ready to paint." 

"We don't have any paint picked out yet.  Did you find out what color ants are?"

"Ah! I forgot to see what color ants are!  I'll be right back"

So, she went back to the book, flipped through a couple of pages, and announced that ants are black and brown. 

 I think this is really cool.  Niki nailed a circle into a piece of scrap wood so that Olivia could make a web.  I just tied a long piece of yarn onto one of the nails and Olivia zig zagged the yarn all around.  Then we made a pipe cleaner and pom pom spider to go on top.

Spiders generally have 4, 6 or 8 eyes.  I love any reason to use googlie eyes and now Olivia does too.  See that spider at the top right?  Olivia's cutting is getter a lot better.

 Painting a ladybug rock.  It's bug week.  How could we really have a bug week without painting a bug rock?  And, she made a dragonfly to look like the ones we caught at the pond.

 The dragonfly is a Popsicle stick glued onto a clothes pin with wings and a head cut out of foam.