Totally Totoro

With Amalia's Girl Scout cookie sales coming up (February 5th for those who are counting down the days!), Lily decided she wanted to sell something too. So the girls decided to make clay Totoros (a beloved character from the Hayao Miyazaki movie, "My Neighbor Totoro").

 Mini Totoros

 Amalia's creations

 The production area

 Holding an umbrella

Getting ready to bake in the oven

Goats and arrows

Last weekend, Lily and Andy went to Tulare for the 2015 California State Indoor Archery Championships. I expect that he may want to provide a follow-on post with more details, but below are some pictures and brief descriptions as told to me by Lily.

 The shoot was at the fairgrounds. The younger archers were in a separate, smaller building.

 Lily was one of the youngest ones there, but it was nice that she was paired with a girl about her age.

The competition was held over two days. They shot 20 ends of 3 arrows each day at a distance of 18m.

We won't know the results for a few weeks, but Lily shot about what she did in practice at home, so that was pretty impressive.

 This is the larger building where the adults shot.

On Saturday after the shoot, Andy and Lily went to nearby Bravo Farms. A place I think Huell Howser would have loved.

 This is inside a 7-story treehouse.

 Apparently it's "world famous."

The farm also had three goats. This one is either Foster or Kleiser. The third goat was smaller and really bossy, according to Lily.

 The truck to sand ratio was pretty high.

 Lily said the tri-tip was delicious.

 At the fairgrounds, Day 2.

 

Bravo Farms collects "everything."

Meanwhile, back in the Bay Area, Amalia and her friend Joaquim were busy making beautiful floral arrangements.

Christmas 2014 in the Rear View Mirror

We were finally able to put up our Krinkles High Heel Tree after many years in Carol & Dave's attic. And our lights finally went up on the house just a day or two before Christmas. Here are a few moments captured from Christmas Eve in downtown San Jose and Christmas morning:

The Green Team of San Jose had a drawing for customers who "follow" them. Naturally, being the greenest residents in the area, we won tickets to Downtown Ice, an outdoor ice rink erected in downtown San Jose every winter. And being green, we took VTA.

Finally! We get to open these two HUGE boxes!

A tan bean bag! Perfect!

A gray bean bag! Cool!

Our champion archer sporting her new JOAD jacket.

I LOVE puzzles!

Moo Cow knows where it's warm. That's a furnace register under his front paws. And that blue thing plugged into the wall is Dot (Dash is out of frame) from Wonder Workshop.

Santa gave Lily an apple corer-slicer that was put to immediate use.

Did I mention I LOVE puzzles? 10 in the box and 3 already done right after breakfast.

Our proud archer eyeing her target.

And since Amalia is all about experiences and not things, she got Just Dance 2014 for the Wii.

We all also played Smath, a mathematical variant of Scrabble, received by Amalia. We all enjoyed that and many other gifts from Santa and family.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a happy and healthy 2015!

Goodbye 2014. Hello 2015.

While the girls went south to frolick in SoCal after spending Christmas in San Jose, I headed north to visit my parents in Lake Wildwood for a few days, where we finally finished a gruesome 1000 piece puzzle we started over Thanksgiving; squeezed in a half round of golf; and had a rare Pierce family get-together for dinner, with my mom, brother Charlie and sister Stacey (and other friends and family). I then drove back to San Jose where I got to hang out with my buddy John, his son Ian, his boxer Riley, and my mom & step-father Colin.

On the 29th, John and I went to the Stanford Men's Basketball game versus Arkansas-Pine Bluff, if you want to call it a game. Stanford was up 45-14 at halftime...

On the 30th, my mom, Colin, John, Ian, and I went to Levi Stadium to watch Stanford play Maryland in the Foster Farms Bowl in the middle of high wind and freeze advisories. It also wasn't much of a game (Stanford won 45-21), and apparently there were a few people there John and I knew, which means we made up almost half the attendance for the game...

It wouldn't be Stanford football without the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band. According to a woman seated in the row in front of us, the LSJUMB is a "scatter band" which requires much more skill to do formations than a traditional marching band. So there, THE Ohio State Marching Band!

Everything in this frame is frozen solid.

Everyone defrosted for the night at my place and then we all spent New Year's Eve eating, watching college bowl games, eating, playing Star Wars Monopoly, eating, making a New year's prime rib dinner so we could eat some more. It was a great few days of food & drink, fun, friends, and family. And it was a perfect way to close out 2014.

Here's to 2015!

Horse trade

 The girls started off 2015 by working on their horse-grooming skills. 

To earn this opportunity, Lily first had to let Amy watch her shoot a few arrows with her bow. (I neglected to take a picture of the makeshift target we made using a hay bale in Amy's parents' back yard.)

We came for the jellybeans...

...but left with some history. Today we visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. Amalia wasn't terribly interested (though she did like Air Force One and Marine One), but Lily absorbed a lot of the displays and information. Her favorite part was the Berlin Wall. 

 The fanciest helicopter I've ever been in. Though I did have to duck my head inside. 

 Ronnie greeted us as we walked in. 

 The West Berlin side. 

 Nancy was not a tall woman.

 The East Berlin side. 

 Overlooking part of the Conejo Valley.

 Waiting to go inside Air Force One. 

A bit breezy. 

Christmas Eve PJs

 The tradition continues.

 Lily got camouflage; Amalia, Elf on the Shelf, to remember Tin by.

They're both very happy.