Last day of school!

 

Today was my daughter's last day of first grade! I actually got a bit emotional while dropping her off at school and think some other parents did, too! I do love her elementary school and teachers. It's a nice community.

I ran the kids to school and preschool in our Burley trailer/jogging stroller today and stopped at the grocery store for some milk and fruit on the way back. It was maybe a 2.5-mile roundtrip? The distance on my Apple Watch isn't very accurate when the phone is in the Burley because it sometimes "thinks" that I'm driving. Very slowly, I guess. Anyway, I'm not sure how long I'll be able to do this Burley/stroller jog with both kids. My almost-7-year-old is essentially sitting in a stroller next to her brother when I do this, even if it doesn't look exactly like a stroller. That said, why is sitting in car any better than sitting in a stroller?

The rest of the day, I worked, threw in some laundry, went for a walk outdoors. It was a nice warm day, though the afternoon is still windy, as per usual here. Work was fine, except I don't like the feeling of never being on top of all my tasks and requests. There's ALWAYS more I could do, and there are always requests coming out of the woodwork - like a project that just landed on my plate from some other group within marketing, even though my plate is already more than full. I know I have it so much easier than people toiling in coal mines or factories or even knowledge workers who are in jobs they hate. My work is fun, I work with nice people and have a lot of flexibility...and yet, it could be better.

Anyway, tonight we're going to have an easy dinner (couscous, raw vegetables, fruit), do the whole bedtime routine, and then my husband is taking a red-eye to Philly for his cousin's wedding. The wedding doesn't allow kids, so I'm staying home with the kiddos. Which is fine.

Tomorrow, I will take the kids to our gym in the morning - I hope to take advantage of the on-site childcare for an hour or so while I do some work and life admin. Then we'll go to a birthday party in the neighborhood, after which my daughter has her annual ballet performance. Last night and this morning, she suddenly became terrified of the performance. We were able to mollify her by promising a "Squishmallow art set" after the performance (decided that this is an appropriate situation for bribery). She seemed to feel much better after that, but we'll see how it goes tonight tomorrow. Thankfully, my dad is going to come and help out with the 3-year-old so that I can focus on getting M to and through the performance.

O just went to pick up the kids from school - I'm going to wrap up the workday, make this couscous, and get ready for the weekend.

Office day + outfit

On Tuesday, I went to the office because some of my management was in town and we had a team lunch. I work in a VERY casual environment, so this was my outfit: Mother jeans, Jenni Kayne cropped cashmere cocoon cardigan, Quince scoop neck tee, and Nordstrom Carolina sandals. 

Was it the most creative and fashionable outfit ever? No. Was it comfortable, reasonably put-together and very "me"? Yes, it was, and so I figured it's worth sharing. 

Going to the office was nice. I'm still extremely thankful that I'm mostly a remote employee because the commute is at least 50 minutes each way door-to-door, more with the (very likely) traffic. The office is nice, and it's always fun and valuable to see my colleagues. I keep saying I'll make it a point to go in more frequently, but, in reality, I need a compelling event - like managers visiting from out of town. Maybe this quarter I'll make it in more!

 

Memorial Day weekend

We had an active weekend, even though it was relatively cold and pretty windy. Low 50s on Saturday and low 60s Sunday and Monday. 

On Saturday, we drove to Berkeley to visit my husband's and my alma mater. We also both got our Master's degrees from there, I'm not sure what the term for that is. I think alma mater just applies to undergrad.

Anyway, we started at the Downtown Berkeley farmers' market, which was a weird as I remember it. This surprised me because Berkeley has become more and more "upscale" in the last 10-20 years. Perhaps this is because the school year is over, summer school hasn't started yet, and many of the wealthier residents were out of town for the long weekend. In any case, we bought a couple of pastries (which the kids rejected), and Y became obsessed with getting cherries (which we didn't buy because we didn't want to carry them around, and we need to pit cherries before giving them to the kids).

We walked through the campus to the Campanile, the big tower in the middle, and even got to go to the top. The kids rode their scooters, even uphill, and I was impressed with Y's stamina. Then we went back down and had lunch at Triple Rock Brewery, which I visited many times in college and after without realizing it was apparently only the 5th brewpub in all of the U.S.! I'm not sure what defines a "brewpub", perhaps I will research that another day.

On Sunday, I took the kids to Sports Basement to find wetsuits. Not for surfing, but for swimming in the cold pools around where we live. We live in a very windy area, and the afternoons often aren't warm until August or even September/October. And the pools are heated, but a couple fewer degrees than I would like. 

To take advantage of the pool at our gym and the pool where the kids take lessons, I decided to buy them short wetsuits. Unfortunately, SB only had the full-length versions, but I at least tried them on for size and then ordered online. But the kiddos looked adorable, and we bought some crocs and water/outdoor toys. So the trip wasn't for nothing. Then we went to the pool at our gym, which was actually not too cold that day, and in the afternoon an adorable friend of Y's came over for a playdate. 

On Monday, Memorial Day, we went to our gym pool again and met u with friends. M swam very well, she's 95% to being water safe at this point, I would say, but she got really cold. The pic is of her in my old high school swim parka, warming up. The kids ran around with friends and had a lot of fun. 

Here's a random photo of O and Y doing stretching or push-ups or something like that. I think that's from Monday morning. I ran on Saturday and did stationary cycling with Bakari on Sunday and Monday. And like 10 minutes of upper body strength, but that's a lot better than nothing!