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 2016

This past weekend we spent a day at university for UC Berkeley's annual Cal Day.

Cal Day is always a fun day for families in the Bay Area. The university opens its doors to the public to show off life on campus. There are plenty of activities and information booths geared towards prospective students (which Ava hopes to be one day) but there are also lots of fun kid friendly activities and displays. The girls got to play in campus police cars, make nature themed crafts, take part in science experiments, create catapults and balloon powered cars, pat snakes, lizards and sea creatures, play scientist in a lab, and meet Cal mascot, Oski Bear. What a busy day!

52 Weeks: Week 30

Week 30: Frozen Yogurt, Squirrels and Pink Hair

It's been pretty hot here over the last week. Well, hot by Bay Area standards. The weather here is generally so mild that when it reaches 24C/75F it feels positively sweltering!

When the weather is hot like it has been we like to cool off with a frozen treat. Frozen yogurt, gelato, ice cream... We like to mix it up and visit different places. Right now the girls' favorite place for a frozen treat is Menchie's Frozen Yogurt. Menchie's was on our way home from the Botanical Gardens earlier in the week so we dropped by for a treat. Poor Mathilde was exhausted from running around under sprinklers in the Botanical Gardens and slept through our time at Menchie's, but the big girls and I enjoyed our delicious yogurt.

UC Berkeley Botanical Garden

On Monday the girls and I ventured to a popular local spot that we had never visited before; UC Botanical Garden here in Berkeley.

This weekend, UC Botanical Garden had their biggest weekend ever in terms of attendance and it was all due to one special flower. Trudy, the garden's resident Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum) or Corpse Flower was blooming for the first time. What makes this flower so special? Well, first of all it takes at least seven years for the plant to bloom for the first time, and then that bloom only lasts for a few days. Second of all, the flower is absolutely massive. I believe that Trudy reached 56 inches in height! And last but not least there's the smell. When the Corpse Flower blooms a foul odor reminiscent of rotting flesh is released to attract flies for pollination. I'm guessing you can tell where the name Corpse Flower comes from!

When I heard about the blooming Corpse Flower I knew I had to take the girls to see it. I mean, how often do you get to see a flower that's bigger than your whole body? Or smell a flower that reeks of rotting flesh? But as the UC Botanic Garden is perched high in the Berkeley Hills where regular buses don't go I wasn't sure how we'd get there. As luck would have it, it turns out that the UC shuttle buses I see driving around town aren't just for UC students (as I has always thought) and there's one that goes right to the entrance of the gardens. Woo hoo!

Trudy's bloom was at its peak on Sunday - and so was the number of visitors. We waited until Monday when I knew it would be a little quieter to visit. While it would have been amazing to see the flower completely open, the large crowds would have been too much for the kids.

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