Claremont

So the past couple of days, we had to go out to Claremont for Star Testing. This was the one thing we had been dreading about being a part of a public charter school!! I was so worried how Bella would feel about the testing. But it ended up being totally fine! She came out of her tests happy and completely unfazed. She said it was easy! Gosh, it's nice how things work out. She tested on both Wednesday and Thursday from 9-12. The first day was cold and gloomy so my friend Amanda and I hung out in a cute bakery called "Some Crust" in the heart of adorable Claremont, while her son, Lala and Ceci colored. The next day, which was sunny, we hung out at a park and the kids had a blast.

On Wednesday, after the testing, we went to see my friend Lorell and her kids, Abby and Seth. We had not seen them for over a year!! What a wonderful reunion!! We got to hang for 3 hours before we had to leave for the Armory.

On Thursday, after the testing, we decided to wander Claremont a bit because it is just so charming. What a cute, hippy, college town! We stopped because I HAD to check out "Espiritu." What a beautiful store full of Mexican folk art! We then went into a new store called "No Sugar Added" which carries organic clothing and natural toys for babies! They gave us balloons there. I LOVED the name of this Yoga studio. Later, I was delighted to find that the Birkenstock store was owned by the same lady that owned the Pasadena store I used to shop at 20 years ago. I bought my first Birk's from her (and my 2nd & 3rd!) back in the late 80's! It was really great to see her! She closed the Pasadena store 5 years ago but her Claremont store is still going strong. We had lunch at a place called "Full of Life," peeked in a toy store and then headed back to Alhambra. We needed to meet Susan at the Farmer's Market!

Wow!

Today several of my worlds collided-- or would aligned be a better word? It was sooooo amazing!!

My church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, aka the Mormon church) conducted a nation-wide service project through an organization of our church called "Helping Hands." I was delighted to find out that my particular stake (Pasadena) was volunteering at the Pasadena Earth Day! Not only that, this event was held at and sponsored by the Armory center for the Arts where my girls take their art classes! I had not even planned to attend because I was already planning to meet Brieanne and Eric at an Art Festival up at the Waldorf school. But then I thought I would stop by to check it out. Thank goodness I did, it was amazing! The first thing I saw before I even parked, were two missionaries on Colorado Blvd. handing out flyers trying to get people to come up to it.











When I actually got there, I was surrounded by tons of my church friends, and then many of the eco-friendly organizations I love to support. The organic green truck was there with their yummy food. One of the first things we did was make cute little magnets from old magnets--the girls glued little embellishments on them. Path to Freedom and Freedom Gardeners were there! I LOVED seeing my homegirls, Jordanne and Anais. We had a good time talking about chickens because Jordanne is an expert! And they had pizza baking in a solar oven, which was so cool. It was such an amazing mix of my worlds! Even the missionaries who taught and baptized Brieanne and Eric were there and it was so wonderful to see them! Thank heavens Brieanne and Eric were up visiting so they were able to come meet us too and see their missionaries! It was neat to be able to introduce Brieanne to Jordanne because they have so much in common. The missionaries were manning a booth where they were making pots out of folded newspaper and then kids could come and fill them with dirt and plant poppy or sunflower seeds!

There were lots of booths that were educating on how to better care for our earth through recycling, saving electricity, saving water, etc.

I could hardly leave because there were so many people to talk to. And I was just so excited that our church was supporting an Earth day event!

But we finally left to go up to the Art Festival in Altadena. It was a great event too--beautiful arts and crafts. My girls had a blast playing with Tristan who they miss very much since she moved. I wish I would have taken pictures of them playing! But Brieanne and I were too busy admiring all the art. What a great day!

Chickie fun and Caterpillars

Today I found my poor dad covered in chicks!! I am so blessed, he is so sweet and easy-going! He's also an animal lover, so he really didn't seem to mind being woken up by chicks and silly little girls. Later, I happened to see Ceci giving another chick a makeover.






















Later in the day, we got CATERPILLARS in the mail!! We are so excited to see them turn into Painted Lady butterflies! They are very tiny right now, so we're looking forward to seeing how big they get.

HAPPY EARTH DAY!!!!

Hope everybody has a wonderful Earth day celebrating this beautiful planet our Lord so lovingly created for us. May we cherish it and be the responsible caretakers we should be!










What a fun Earth Day we had! Lately, our days begin and end with little chickies and today was no exception. We've been bringing them outside during the day to enjoy the outdoors. The girls LOVE them! Ceci wore her new "Green is the new black" t-shirt and Lala wore her "Organic Rocks!" t-shirt for the occasion. :) (I bought these organic t-shirts at Sears of all places! But sadly, they didn't have them in Bella's size.) We had circle time outside and I read the story of the creation from our children's Bible. Then we sang two very fitting songs:

My Heavenly Father Loves Me
Whenever I hear the song of a bird, or look at the blue, blue sky
Whenever I feel the rain on my face, or the wind as it rushes by
Whenver I touch a velvet rose, or walk by our lilac tree
I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world,
Heavenly Father created for me!

He gave me my eyes that I might see the color of butterfly wings
He gave me my ears that I might hear the magical sound of things
He gave me my life, my mind, my heart
I thank Him reverently
For all His creations of which I'm a part
Yes, I know Heavenly Father loves me!

and

This Pretty Planet
This pretty planet, spinning through space
Your garden, your harbor, your holy place
Golden sun going down
Gentle blue giant, spin us around
All through the night,
Safe 'til the morning light!

I LOVE that our archway is in FULL BLOOM right now! How perfect for Earth day! My mom planted these purple flowers (I have no idea what they are, but they always make her presence strongly felt. ) They also make me think of the quote, "The earth laughs in flowers." Aren't they wonderful??







We decided to gather all the flower seeds we had and to plant them! Most of them were collected from different eco-fesitvals we've been to. We planted California Poppies, Cosmos, and then some unknown wildflower packets in our front yard with our roses. Then we planted Marigolds with our tomatoes. It was fun, although a little hot for planting. Today the girls had their Armory drama class so we soon headed off for that. During their class I went to the Rudolf Steiner bookstore in Old Town Pasadena where I bought the cutest book, "The Sun Seed." I thought it was a wonderful Earth Day book. The illustrations are amazing because they are made from felted wool! Afterwards, I went to Whole Foods where I got us some yummy chocolate Earth balls. I just couldn't resist for Earth day! We enjoyed them with some tangerines after dinner! For story time, we got to read our new book. :) (And then it was time for LOST!)

Happy Earth Day! Let's make every day Earth Day!

Topanga Earth Day

What an AWESOME day!

The only bummer was, that it was TOTALLY HOT. But otherwise, what a great time we had! It started with yoga. I did some until it was just too hot to continue. (It had to have been 90 degrees at 11am and I really didn't want heatstroke.)








So I went and checked out some of the booths for a bit and then joined Craig and the girls at the opening ceremony. It was a BEAUTIFUL peace ceremony where we wished peace on every country in the world! People who wanted to participate lined up to get a flag and then would wave the particular flag and we would all say "Let there be peace in (name of country.) Bella and Lala both got to do it. But Lala LOVED it and did it about 5 times! As time went on, I thought I would like to go through with Ceci. So I got in line and was totally thrilled when by chance I ended up with Mexico's flag! A little later, we did the last flag--the United States. It was pretty cool that Lala was again the flag-barer!! Everybody of course, cheered like crazy for our country (and for little Lala!) It was so neat! Then, to end the ceremony, our friend Woody came out with an Earth flag and then Stephanie came out with a peace flag and they waved them together. It was really a beautiful ceremony. We felt very blessed to be a part of it-- to be able to wish peace on all the countries of the Earth! I know the girls enjoyed it very much.




Of course, throughout the day there was fun happening all over the place. Great music, great organic food, great eco-friendly things for sale, and fun activities for kids in the play area. We ended up shopping from a vendor who started the fair trade labels called Jedzebel and Ecogirl. I bought the girls these gorgeous Jedzebel skirts made from recycled saris. I bought myself an Ecogirl organic cotton blouse which I love!

Another really cool thing that happened-- we bought a $1raffle ticket, and Lala pulled out a $25 certificate to Pat's Topanga Grill! We were pretty happy about that!

We really enjoyed going into Visionary which was a remodeled trailer that is a mobile eco-boutique! It was really cool!

We had lunch from organic green truck on the go--delicious food!



One of the performances was by the Topanga Belly Dancing Troupe!












Bella and Lala had to have these cute baskets-- they bought them with their own $.

The time flew by until we had to go. By the way, here is the tail of the biodiesel bus that drove us up the hill! It was super-cute!







The Circus




I know we are CRAZY, but we had been given tickets to the circus, and we really wanted to use them! We caught the 7pm show. Can you believe how crazy we are to go to the circus after a big (HOT and exhausting) festival? It was really fun, and pretty cute! I especially enjoyed the trained doggies. We loved our fez hats and kept singing "Ain't never gonna do it without the fez on!" These shots were some of the highlights of the show.