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.

Cal Day 2014

Yesterday we spent the day at university for the annual Cal Open Day. For one day every April the UC Berkeley campus is open to the public with pretty much the entire university experience on display.

The girls and I with Cal mascot, Oski Bear 

A day at university

This past weekend was another busy one for us. The start of the warmer weather marks the start of the non-stop festival season here in the Bay Area. I swear that this time last year we attended a festival of some sort almost every weekend, sometimes even more than one per weekend. Well, this weekend was no exception with festivals to attend on both days.

Let's start with a look at what we did on Saturday...

This Saturday was Cal Day, the annual open day at University of California Berkeley. Back home in Australia university open days are pretty much just the domain of prospective students and their parents. Here, however, the open day is a festival for the whole community. Sure, there are heaps of stands set up to provide prospective students with information and the whole event is like a giant pep rally of school spirit, but there are also lots of fun hands on kid's activities to keep the little ones entertained. And that, of course was the whole reason we were there!

Ava and Lola at Cal

Lawrence Hall of Science

Time to cross another place off the "Bay Area with Kids" list...

A few weekends back we visited Lawrence Hall of Science here in Berkeley. 

Lawrence Hall of Science is actually part of the University of California Berkeley - let's call it Cal for short. Being a university town, a major part of Berkeley is made up of the Cal campus. And it is huge. 

Cal not only offers a learning environment for college students but is home to a large array of family friendly, community venues from Botanical Gardens, to sporting venues and science museums.

I wasn't really sure what to expect at Lawrence Hall but I had heard from other parents at pre-school that it's a hit with kids around Ava's age. Well, it certainly was a hit with Ava too!

Lawrence Hall is full of fun, interactive science exhibits that kids can get involved in. 

First up we made paper planes and attempted to fly them through targets. I say "attempted to" as I don't think we actually got any through the target! We had fun though and that's the main thing. 

This one looks like it might go through...