Bluma Flower Farm

Do you ever walk through a city and think about just what you might see on the roof tops of apartment buildings if you were to look up? You'd likely see a lot of air conditioning units and other electrical equipment. Maybe a furnished roof deck for the tenants to enjoy. But what about a farm?

Ok, that last one sounds a little crazy, right? Well, as crazy as it might sound, there actually is an apartment complex in Berkeley with a farm on top of its roof!

During our recent visit back to California we had the pleasure of visiting Bluma Flower Farm. Usually visiting a farm of any sort requires heading out of the city, but this particular farm is located right in the heart of Downtown Berkeley. Located within easy walking distance of the UC Berkeley campus, Bluma Flower Farm can be found on the roof top of a student housing complex, six stories above the city streets.

It's such an ingenious use of space that would otherwise not be utilized. Let's take a look... 

20+ Best Places to View the Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge.

There's just something special about that international orange span across San Francisco's Golden Gate that pulls at the heart strings. 

Like the Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building, or Sydney Harbour Bridge, it's one of those landmarks that I will never tire of seeing, no matter how many times I see it. And trust me, we saw it a LOT in our eight years in the Bay Area as we had a view over the Bay from our Berkeley apartment. Every single day the sight of the towers peeking out over the fog made my heart flutter.

I know that this is a pretty common reaction for a lot of people, especially if you're seeing the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time, so today I'm sharing some of my favorite places to catch a glimpse of the bridge.

25 Kid Friendly San Francisco Bay Area Hikes

Ever since we moved from California to Colorado I've been dreaming of going back. I miss our life in the San Francisco Bay Area so much, but right now I'm grateful that here in Colorado we have a house and a yard, with plenty of space to spread out. In the Bay Area we'd be finding ourselves on lock down in a two bedroom apartment with no outdoor space of our own, which, as much as I want to move back, isn't particularly appealing right now.

For those of you who find yourself in that same position I'm sharing my favorite hikes in and around San Francisco. They're all kid friendly and area great way to get out and get a little exercise without traveling too far from home. As always, click the bold and underlined title for more information.

Please make sure to follow any and all Shelter in Place orders before heading out for a hike. Keep at least 6 feet away from other hikers and don't forget to pack the hand sanitzer. While parks are currently open this may change, so make sure to check online first.

Mathilde's Kiwi Bot

If you frequent Downtown Berkeley, or if you've been following along with my Instagram stories you're sure to be familiar with Kiwi Bots, the cute food delivery robots that zoom around Downtown and the Cal campus. If you don't frequent Downtown Berkeley or watch my IG stories, then you're probably wondering what on earth a food delivery robot is!

Kiwi Bots are super cute robots that have taken over the sidewalks of Berkeley. Created by the Kiwi Campus team at UC Berkeley, Kiwi Bots are the cutest way to get your meals delivered from local restaurants. You order through an app, chose a delivery location within the zone and the Kiwi Bot brings the meal to you in its insulated body that keeps food hot or cold. As you can probably imagine, Mathilde is obsessed with them! She loves seeing them on the street when we're out and about and always wants to stop to chat to them - or give them a hug.

In the lead up to Mathilde's birthday she kept asking for a pet Kiwi Bot as her present. While a delivery robot of our own would be amazing, they're not really something that's available to purchase - and if they were I imagine they'd be super pricey. What is available to purchase, however, is a plush Kiwi Bot! Perfect as a gift for Mathilde's birthday.

Now, there's only one way to get a plush Kiwi Bot, and that's to order it through the Kiwi app and have it delivered by a Kiwi Bot! How fun is that? 

Cal Day 2019

This past weekend we spent a day at UC Berkeley for the annual Cal Day event.

Cal Day is the university's open day, but it's not only for prospective students like you might think. While there is plenty on hand for students planning on attending Cal, it's also a day filled with fun activities for the whole the family. At Cal Day you'll find spirit rallies, musical performances, campus tours, booths from every club you could possibly imagine (and lots you would never imagine existed!), hands on science experiments, campus police displays, animals to pet, sporting events and so much more. In fact, there's so much on offer at Cal Day that's it's impossible to even see half of it.

Lunar New Year Festival 2019

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

It's the year of the pig; Ava's favorite animal and coincidentally, the Chinese year she happened to be born in.

Every year I love taking the kids to the various Lunar New Year celebrations around the Bay Area, but given that this year happens to be Ava's favorite animal of all time, it feels a little more special.
Last weekend we braved the rain and headed to Berkeley's Fourth Street shopping district for the annual Lunar New Year festival.

We arrived just as the lion dance was about to begin. Every year the lion dance is based on a story relating to the animal of the year. This year the lion dance was based on the three little pigs story. Children from the crowd was chosen to be a part of the show - acting as the little pigs. They were divided into three groups, those with a house made of straw, those with a house made of sticks and, you guessed it, those with a house made of bricks.

Halloween 2018

It may be November and everyone has already moved onto Christmas, but I'm here with a little more Halloween fun to share.

This year the girls' costumes were a pretty mixed bag. We had Ava as a Minecraft creeper, Lola as a mermaid, and Mathilde as one of her many alter-egos Pinchy the lobster. I did my usual trick of making a last minute costume out of existing accessories and dressed as a cat. Kim Wore his class nerd costume - the same one he has been wearing every Halloween since we moved to the US in 2011. If you've seen any of my previous Halloween posts, you'll know the costume!

Berkeley Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival 2018

This past weekend saw one of our favorite local festivals here in Berkeley, the annual Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival.

Now, you would think that the chocolate part of the festival would be what excites my kids every year, but the chalk art part of the day is actually the big draw card for them. It's not every day you get to get creative on the sidewalk, after all. Plus, it's a competition with prizes up for offer.

This year's festival happened to fall the day after we arrived home from our East Coast trip. I'll be sharing our East Coast trip here soon, but make sure to check out Instagram in the mean time as I've been sharing sneak peeks there. Anyway, we were all a little tired from our early flight home from Boston so we had a quiet morning and headed to the festival in the afternoon. This didn't give us an awful lot of time to try out the chocolate on offer but we still had plenty of time for the girls to get creative with chalk.

We found ourselves a few clean-ish squares of sidewalk along Shattuck Avenue in the Gourmet Ghetto and the girls got to work.

Our Summer tradition at Brushstrokes

Summer break is over and the kids are back at school, but today I wanted to share one of our Summer traditions. It's a fun indoor activity for any time of year and a great tradition to start.

With the long Summer break here in the US I'm always looking for fun things to do to keep the kids occupied. There are certain activities that are a Summer tradition - going to camp, heading to the beach, spending time at the pool, playing in the park... And then there are the activities that have become our very own Summer traditions. 

One such thing is our annual visit to Brushstrokes Studio here in Berkeley. Every Summer break the kids and I spend an afternoon at Brushstrokes painting a ceramic plate each. It started off as a one off, but when I realized how wonderful it would be for the kids to each have a collection of their own hand painted plates when they're older I decided that we'd make it an annual tradition. We've done it five Summers in a row so far, and even just in that short amount of time it's amazing looking back at how the kids' artistic skills have developed. It's also fun way to keep track of their interests at the time. 

This Summer break the girls couldn't wait to head to Brushstrokes and paint their plates. They had been coming up with ideas for quite some time and were eager to set paintbrush to plate. Here's a look at what they created this year.

4th of July 2018

Ahh... Summer break!

That time of year when I think I'm going to be able to play catch up on the blog because I'm not running backwards and forwards between school and kid activities all day. Ha! With three kids home all day (and still plenty of kid appointments and activities to attend) I think I'm even busier than usual. But I'm making it a priority to catch up on the blog because I have a ton of fun stuff to share with you all.

First up let's take a look back at last week's 4th of July celebration...

As usual, we spent much of the holiday at the festival at Berkeley Marina. We ate corn dogs, went on pony rides and bounce houses, made animal friends in the petting zoo, watched some fun performances, and soaked up all the red, white and blue spirit of the day. Oh, and took a ton of silly photos!