Goodbye School – literally!

June 7, 2017June 7, 2017 | poppypeach

Another year over and now I have a 7th and a 4th-grade child, what is going on! Over the weekend we made some handmade chocolates as teacher gifts, as chocolate is always good plus it makes you happy! The kids wrote thank you cards and made the chocolates for their teachers (all 7 of them!) and that was goodbye to another year of school. Our school is out for summer, and now we have 9 weeks of fluffing around till we get back into it all again… at least one month of it we will be on the other side of the world and back home to Australia.

Here is Missy with her teacher Mr A who loves fishing we found this super cool fish stuffie at Olympic National Park and thought it would make the perfect thank you gift for an amazing year! Mr A has empowered our children with the power of being able to fix, make, craft, write, hammer, drill, paint, staple and most importantly DO. It has been the best year for all of us in 3rd grade!

Our school is being remade over the next couple of years, so the class walls had many caring words written on them in Sharpie, the kids were finding it tough to say goodbye today, but we had to be out of the campus before the school is demolished! Off we went to lunch with some friends and then a pool party, it was certainly an excellent way to start the summer!

I love putting myself under deadlines so, I decided today I wanted to make a bag for Mr A as a farewell gift to put the salmon in and I love how this great white shark flannel works with the FabMo pocket, and I love my machine and how it makes the best buttonholes for these vintage buttons to match the fabric. So now after my assessments are submitted each weighing 50% is now time to decompress for a bit, before I finally wrap up my 12 weeks of study! Just two weeks to go and we are out of here, and then it will be time to well and truly chill out on the beach and enjoy some family time together – YES!

Celebrations and Mothers Day relaxation

May 15, 2017 | poppypeach

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of our beloved school Stevenson PACT Elementary School – it was such a fun filled event full of entertainment, dessert, food trucks, art – a mosaic, and what the kids loved most of all was balloon swords. It was hilarious to see all the kids out on the field sword fighting with balloon swords, and everyone was having such a grand old time doing it!

The alumni enjoyed seeing their friends who were at other schools and had an excellent time playing, and the adults of the community enjoyed catching up on life.

The school was decorated with some very thoughtful ideas like this tree full of favourite memories and the watercolour flowers made by the kids.

At the end of this week, we say farewell to the beloved spiderweb that I am climbing – it will be removed over the summer to place the new temporary school buildings in its place. It is such a fun play structure, and apparently, the new play structure is nature inspired so we will see how that compares to this super cool spiderweb.

In quiet times when not studying or driving the kids around I sit and knit and made a couple of pussyhats this week for one of our teachers – this is my son’s 1st-grade teacher who wanted a hat for herself and for her daughter. We saw each other at the Women’s March, and I suggested I knit a hat for her in the beautiful Malabrigo Rasta.

Saturday was a busy day with a yoga class and helping my friend out with a knitting party in the afternoon. So Sunday I really had to get into gear with my last 2 assessments for this teaching period and get on track and now after devoting a few hours of my mothers day to study I feel I can get through it all! Mother’s day was lovely with the kids making a beautiful spread of pancakes, kombucha and a cup of tea complete with flowers freshly picked from the neighbourhood. I said to Ash to come on a bike ride with me as I wanted to take him out for some exercise and we rode a nice 10 miles (16 km) out on the bay. The head wind was not very enjoyable, but it was so lovely to get out and about on such a beautiful day!

And there is my beloved bike on the trail with no one around, we found some binoculars and spotted a pelican – next time we will take our bird watching binoculars!

A piece a week – Liberty of London dress finally ready for summer!

June 11, 2014May 28, 2016 | poppypeach

This last week of school has been so busy with lots of gatherings and farewells to school and friends for the summer! It has been such a wonderful year at school with our amazing teachers for both the kiddos. But boy did the year fly past – I cannot believe that I will have my oldest in 4th grade in a couple of months!! The last day of school I enjoyed the morning with an exercise class and I had to run an errand for one of the teachers. So while I was waiting there was downtime and peace at the library where I came across a wonderful book called ‘The Kinfolk Table‘. It was so random as I was initially attracted to the name and then the content was oh so inspiring with the emphasis on amazing food and eating casual dinners with friends. Love, love, love! I found this hummingbird cake recipe that I am looking forward to trying and many other recipes that do not have meat, so yay!! Oh and the added bonus is that the recipe collection is from the Portland based magazine Kinfolk, oh my, I am just so happy when the universe drops these treasures into my life.

The hummingbird cake from the Kinfolk Table

In amongst the farewells to school on Friday I had to say farewell to my beautiful neighbor who is moving up to Seattle! We have had some good times together in the short time we have lived in this ‘hood and it is so bittersweet to say goodbye to such wonderful friends. Still the positive is that we are going to visit Seattle real soon, so yippee!

Hanging with the lovely ladies – my neighbors!

So that was the end of school and the fun of the vacation begins. I caught up with some gardening on Saturday and Sunday we hit the San Mateo County Fair as Groupon had a super sweet deal. We had been to the Event Center for the Maker Faire so it was interesting to see it in a new light complete with animals, performances and dodgy carnival food. The kids wanted to check out the animals first… Of course my favorite were there – the goats, oh so cute! The bunnies were loved by Missy and Mr Ash loved the chooks – wanting to bring a chicken home to live in the garden. I had to remind him that we have two cats who may or may not be too keen on living with a chicken!! From the animals we checked out the culinary arts, plants and flowers which all were very impressive – indoors and away from the heat. It was 35 degrees on Sunday I must add, which was not so good for the hula dancers on a black top stage – they had to perform on the grass as it was way too hot for bare feet. After the hula dancers we headed over to another hall to see the rainforest with snakes, sloths and the most cutest hedgehogs. This was the hall I wanted to spend the most time with the quilts and home arts, obviously!! Unfortunately my son was getting a bit antsy about it all and wanted to go an play a dodgy carnival game which taught him a lesson in being ‘ripped off’. It was a fishing game and you can win a large or small prize – I wondered if anyone really did win any large prizes! All in all a fun experience at the fair and a great day out with the kiddos. Oh and in these pictures the Liberty of London dress fabric, a bit crushed by the heat – perfect for the day complete with pockets!