Air Plant Workshop

Last week I got back into my floristry work. Well, kind of...

As we don't have any outdoor space of our own in which to grow a garden, I've been looking for ways to bring nature inside. Potted orchids, terrariums and air plants (Tillandsia) are slowly starting to fill our apartment with green. Last Friday evening I attended a “Tillandsia (Air Plant) Mounted on Driftwood" workshop at Utsuwa Floral Design in San Francisco's Japantown.

I'd been trying to get into one of the workshops at Utsuwa for months but they sell out rather fast. As soon as I heard about this particular workshop I signed up straight away. Past workshop projects have also included terrariums and bonsai.

The materials: air plants, driftwood, moss... 

Father's Day USA

Oops... once again I've written out a blog post and then forgotten to go back, add in the last few details and click the publish button!

It's not really Father's Day here anymore, but it was when I started typing this post...

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It's Father's Day here in America.

Lucky Kim gets to celebrate Father's Day twice a year; in June for American Father's Day and again in September for Australian Father's Day. No fair! I only get one Mother's Day.

The upside (for me) to having two Father's Days a year is that I get an extra chance to work on gift and card ideas.

This year for Father's Day (USA edition) Ava and I decided to give Kim the gift of family bike rides. Ava drew some lovely pictures of Kim and the girls riding their bikes and I turned them into a gift pack.

Ava liked the idea of giving Kim a booklet of vouchers. I liked the idea of making him a card that entitled him to unlimited family bike rides. Something he could keep in his wallet and pull out every time he wanted to take the girls for a ride. We decided to combine the ideas and make both. Well, sort of.

We came up with the idea of the Mason Family Bike Club. Ava and I made ID cards for each member of our family and these were included in a Member Gift Pack with a dozen vouchers, each one good for one family bike ride.

The "Mason Family Bike Club"  member gift pack with Ava' original drawings

Codornices Park, Berkeley

I seem to be on a roll with the playground posts tonight so why not add another one?

Here in Berkeley there is a hidden gem of a playground in Codornices Park. Ok, so it's not really all that hidden, but it's new to me.

A while back I read about some amazing concrete slides in San Francisco. For some reason I was talking to a staff member at our local Trader Joe's supermarket (local as in the supermarket under our apartment) about these slides and he mentioned that Berkeley has it's own concrete slide. Huh? How had that slipped past my radar? As soon as I got home I got online to find said slide - to the detriment of my perishable groceries which were left out while I scoured the internet! It turns out the concrete slide is located in Codornices Park, a favourite amongst Berkeley locals. Codornices Park was added straight to my "must do" list.

A few weeks later we happened to be catching a bus that went straight past Codornices Park. On our way home we stopped off and made a bee-line straight to the slide.

Now, although incredibly popular with kids, this slide is not for the faint of heart. It's 45ft long, barely wide enough for an adult's backside and made of skin grazing concrete. To avoid tearing off skin, and to make yourself slide faster, it's best to slide down on a piece of cardboard, especially if you're wearing shorts. We had no cardboard with us but luckily there's quite a lot of it left behind by previous sliders.

Ava slides down at high speed.

Dolores Park Playground

Time for another amazing playground, this time a little closer to home.

When we first moved to the Bay Area one of the first places we visited was Dolores Park in San Francisco's Mission District. It's an amazing park with sprawling lawns, breathtaking views over the city and some pretty interesting views of the (not always dressed) locals! One thing that was missing, however, was a playground.

Fast forward to April this year and a new playground has been opened in Dolores Park. And what an amazing playground it is. The kids absolutely love this new playground. I love this new playground!
We visited the new playground while attending the Cinco de Mayo Festival in Dolores Park. As you can imagine, the park was absolutely packed with festival goers. That said, the playground has enough to keep kids occupied even with huge crowds. I think the only thing the girls had to wait their turn for was the swing and the long slide. Other than that it was go, go go...

The playground at Dolores Park

I won't go into too much detail about the playground. I'll just let the pictures tell the story.

Dennis the Menace Park

Back in April we went for a short trip down to the beautiful coastal town of Monterey. The highlight of our trip was our visit to Monterey Bay Aquarium - you can read about it here. While the aquarium may be the biggest drawcard in town there are a few other "must see" places to take the kids.

Once such place is Dennis the Menace Park; quite possibly one of the coolest playgrounds ever!

This playground was designed by the creator of Dennis the Menace, Hank Ketcham who was a local in the Monterey Bay area.

Dennis the Menace Park

Now I must admit that not being a fan of Dennis the Menace I was a little skeptical when I heard the name. However, I'd been told by quite a few people that it's a great place. Well, they weren't wrong. This playground has everything: slides, tunnels, flying fox, swings, bouncy suspension bridge, rock climbing wall, a maze, plenty of things to climb, a weird spinning ride that I couldn't possible name...

Modern Communication

I thought I'd share this photo of the girls chatting to their Nanna through Skype.

Hello Nanna!

Got to love modern technology. It certainly makes keeping in touch with family and friends on the other side of the world so much easier. Between Facebook and Skype we're always up to date with news and the distance just doesn't seem so big.

Home Grown Pickles

As you would have seen in my last post today was Ava's pre-school graduation day.

Ava's teacher was also "graduating" from pre-school after 26 years of service. All the children and parents contributed to a group present, however Ava really wanted to give her teacher something special just from herself.

Ava's teacher really loves pickles. In the past Ava has given her teacher several pickle related presents; a simple jar of pickles for Valentine's Day and "Pickle Party Beans" (green jelly beans) for her birthday. We needed to come up with a new pickle themed idea for a graduation present.

As Ava's teacher is retiring and plans to spend her time gardening we thought she might like to grow her own pickles.  One jar, a few packs of Pickling Cucumber seeds and a half dozen hand drawn labels later and we had our gift.

Teacher Meri's Home Grown Pickles kit