Our New Home

Over the past 3 weeks, we have been slowly moving from Fair Oaks to Davis, CA.  Our new home is less than 2 miles from the beautiful Davis Waldorf School, where Rick will be teaching Grade 6 in the Fall.

Davis is a pretty town, with over 100 miles of bike paths, a farmer's market twice per week, art center, natural food co-op, and the University of California.  Jennifer and Rick met at UC Davis 22 years ago and got married on campus, so the town is a special place. And, Davis is just 20 minutes from downtown Sacramento, so we are still close to family, friends and conveniences.

The kids are enjoy riding their bikes and walking down a bike path at the end of our street to the nearby park and pool.

We took the Unitrans bus to Joey's tap dance camp this week.

Seeds and transplants from the old garden were started in the new yard right away.  Looks like we might get some pumpkins, peppers, strawberries, tomatoes and herbs!  Plans are in place to expand gardening from containers to a larger area for the Winter crop.  We will miss the garden in Fair Oaks (look at the amazing harvest picture...what a pumpkin!).

Our favorite park!

We took Grandma and Grandpa from So. California, and Auntie Jess who is in podiatry school, to a nearby park.

These strawberries were from the farmer's market.  Sooo sweet!

Kids are happy, Rick's classroom is looking terrific, and our cat Sammy had 4 baby kittens during our last night in Fair Oaks.  They are growing quickly!  We are so grateful to be here in Davis.

Homemade Botany Books

Separate from our science main lesson books this past school year, Ricky, Joey and Wilson each made their own Botany Books.

We tore pieces of watercolor paper and used Stockmar watercolors to design our covers. Mommy cut some white paper to fit the books and punched two holes at the top of them.

We each made a "twizzler" out of yarn and tied the tops of the books.

The botany books contain a table of contents, sketches of plants from our yard and the UC Davis arboretum, names of plants, and poems/quotes about plants.

We observed the apple tree in our backyard all year. Once per month we sketched the same branch. Finally, there are little apples this month!

The bulbs we planted at a homeschooling bulb planting clinic in October bloomed throughout the spring. We sketched some of our bulbs as they grew.

We will continue to add sketches, information and poems to our botany books as we explore our new yard.

Mother's Day at Whole Earth Festival

Mother's Day began with a beautiful breakfast, made by Daddy and Joey for Mommy and Lola (Grandma). Yummy vegan treats and fresh, raw fruit!

We then trekked over to the University of California, Davis (where Mommy & Daddy met, went to college and got married) for the annual Whole Earth Festival. What fun! This event is held on campus every year during Mother's Day weekend. Lots of natural, organic products, demos on composting and solar power, live bands, activists reading poetry, raw vegan food, and wonderful vendors selling kalimbas, tie-dyed clothing and all sorts of arts and crafts.

The city of Davis has more bikes than people, and the college campus is no exception! It's always great to see people biking instead of driving.

We watched the food vendors putting lemon peels into the compost piles.

We stopped by the drum circle on the way out...anyone could join in and drum or dance.

Such positive energy! A wonderful way to spend Mother's Day as a family.