Before our party last weekend, to make it easier for us to get ready, a friend offered to take the girls to the zoo. Zoe chose to stay home to help, but Avery opted to go – and, based on the fun she had on the new obstacle course there, I think she made the right call!

-M

Q (and then, later, me and Q) has hosted a Super Bowl party for as long as I can remember, and this year was no different: We opened our house yesterday to about 40 of our friends and their kiddos. There was a lot of prep work beforehand, but the girls were huge helpers; in the photo below they’re stopping for a little break.

-M

We’re ready for it!

-M

Another highlight of our time downtown: the girls ziplining near a replica of Golden Gate Bridge. It wasn’t as picturesque as our time in Hawaii – but fun just the same!

-M

In honor of the upcoming game, downtown San Francisco has been transformed into “Super Bowl City.” It officially opened on Saturday, and the four of us headed down to check it out.

-M

There is a big emphasis on spelling in the second semester of first grade, and Avery has been hard at work at her words. After chatting recently about the strangeness of the inclusion of the letter “k” in the word “know,” I jokingly said, “Why is the English language so difficult? Who should we talk to about that?” Her reply: “Talk to God.” (And when I asked, “Okay – what’s his address?” she told me, “You don’t need one – He lives everywhere.”)

-M

More school fun – this time a field trip to the Hiller Aviation Museum for the first grade. I tagged along and got some pics…

-M

Zoe’s teachers sent this photo of her in action yesterday afternoon. Presentation done, mission accomplished!

-M

As mentioned below, Zoe has been hard at work on a project about San Francisco landmarks. She chose the “painted ladies” (i.e. the colorful Victorian houses the pepper the city), and as she did her research, took photos, and put together her PowerPoint presentation over a several-week period, we all learned tons about them. Her oral presentation was today, and I’m betting it went pretty well.

-M

“Avery, that is NOT acceptable,” I heard the little mommy (i.e. Zoe) yell while playing with her sister the other night. “What happened?” I called out, and a beat later: “Oh, nothing. We worked it out.”

-M

Avery’s not the only one who has been doing cool things at school. Zoe has been hard at work on a research project on a San Francisco landmark (more on that soon) and, as part of her unit on measurements and fractions, she and her classmates made play dough one day this week.

-M

This is pretty cool: Earlier this month, a cardiologist (the father of an 8th grader at the school) visited Avery’s classroom to teach the first-graders about the human heart. From the school’s newsletter on the visit:

Dr. MacGregor and Jacob asked the first graders what they already knew about the heart (they knew a lot); then, using a model of the heart, they explained the heart’s structure and function and the causes and effects of heart disease and then answered questions from the class.

“The highlight of the presentation,” said teacher Barbara Eisenhauer, “was when Dr. MacGregor brought out three human hearts for the children to examine and touch. One heart was healthy, one heart was from someone who had had a heart attack, and the last heart was from someone with high blood pressure. By the end of the presentation, the children could tell which heart represented each condition.”

Little doctors in the making?

-M

Avery recently got invited to a birthday party for four (male) classmates. When I told her who the party was for she said, “I don’t want to go because there will be boy things there.” I took her comment as a teachable moment – and I started to explain that girls and boys can like the same things and that there are no such things as “boy things” and “girl things.” “There is in my land,” she replied.

-M

For Q’s birthday last week, per tradition, we went with a bunch of friends to Golden Gate Fields. Each year keeps getting better and better: The kids are older (look how much change five years has brought!) and more into the races than ever before. We didn’t win big, but we had fun!

-M

Avery is sick, which is part of the reason I haven’t written in a few days. It’s nothing major – she has a low fever and just generally feels blah – and when she inquired about whether we would be going to the doctor, I told her that it probably wasn’t necessary. “You just have a little bug,” I said. “You mean I swallowed a bug??” she asked, to my amusement.

-M