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 2015

This Saturday was Cal Day, UC Berkeley's annual open day.

We spent a good part of the day enjoying the sunshine, watching dance performances and a pep rally, pretending to drive police vehicles, trying our hand at playing instruments, meeting animals, and getting creative with a little tinkering. As always, it was super busy and there was so much going on that it was impossible to see the whole campus, so we stuck to the things that the girls had enjoyed in previous years.

Berkeley Super Kids

This past Sunday Ava competed in her third cheerleading competition with her team Berkeley Super Kids.

My little cheerleader

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

Berkeley Bear Cubs

This last weekend was a busy one for us. On Saturday we went to an Easter party, which I'll be sharing soon, and on Sunday Ava had her second cheerleading competition.

Ava has been taking cheerleading lessons with Young Champions since September last year. At the end of each 10 week (or so) session a competition is held between groups from the Bay Area and beyond. You may remember Ava's first cheerleading competition with her team Berkeley Stars which was held back in January. You can see it here.

This time around Ava's team was called Berkeley Bear Cubs. If you're not familiar with Berkeley then let me just point out that the sporting teams at the university here are all called Cal Bears, hence our little ones choosing the name Bear Cubs.

Ava's team of eight competed against a large team from Oakland and an absolutely massive team from San Leandro. They came in third and were pretty excited about their medals. All of the kids did a fantastic job and we were very proud of them.

Ava shows off her bronze medal and trophy

You wish you were a Berkeley Star

While we're living in America I want Ava and Lola to try out things they wouldn't be able to do at home. So when the opportunity came up for Ava to take cheerleading classes after school we jumped at the chance. Bring it on!

Ava has been taking cheerleading classes since September and she loves it. She takes pride in the fact that she knows all her arm movements and has been working hard at perfecting her jumps. Admittedly, all of her various jumps end up looking pretty much the same but she's getting there. She's quite dedicated to getting everything perfect and practises her cheer so much at home that even Lola knows all of the words!

Our little cheerleader