cold and windy beach party

At long last, Anders had his birthday party. Last year, we had a beautiful warm party on the beach in Pacifica. This year, we had a cold and windy party at Ocean Beach. The kids still loved it.

Ten!

A lot has happened in ten years!

Spirited Away

exploring

Anders and Soren came up with a new use for the air cannon at the Exploratorium that normally is used to send a beach ball into the air.


We also spent a bunch of time in the Tinkering Studio, which has a great vending machine...

...that sells electronic components and tool kits.


The Tinkering Studio also has a wall of trophies, featuring disassembled toys.

Food Bank - apples!

For our second family shift at the Food Bank, we lucked out and got to pack apples, rather than the far more common shift of portioning rice into bags.



We packed 2+ pallets of apples into smaller boxes. Here Sigrid is, celebrating the bottom of the first pallet of apples.

Soren tried to escape this pic, but you can see his head peeking out from behind some boxes.


It was a small crew today (instead of the 80 volunteers they expected, we for some reason only had about twenty of us), but we managed to box up 12,600 pounds of apples in our two hour shift. You work up an appetite when you're surrounded by apples for two hours, so we went to Little Chihuahua for an early lunch.

Pagan Eggs

My contribution, in honor of Michigan playing in the Final Four later today.

Vivaldi Club

Midday performance for the elementary school.


Here is one of the several pieces they performed.

hair salon

Until today, I was the only one ever to have given either of the boys a haircut. But they've been on a mission to grow their hair out (exactly how much is unclear), and I wasn't sure my skills were up to the longer cuts, so we went to Great Clips in the Diamond Heights Shopping Center.



Voilà!

mathematical thinking

The fourth graders are sometimes given a "problem of the week," which this week asked them how many more minutes there are with at least one 5 in them than minutes with at least one 6 in them in a 12 hour period (using a digital clock with no seconds). They are allowed to have an adult help them work through the problem.

One notion I've been trying to work with Anders on is that for a problem like this, figuring out the answer is only part of the solution—you also need to be able to explain your reasoning. Anders quickly figured out that there are "matching" minutes for 5s and 6s. That is, just as there is a 1:05, there is a 1:06. Then we explored the 5 o'clock and 6 o'clock hours, where every minute has a 5 in one, and every minute has a 6 in the other. Finally, we talked about the minutes from :50 to :59, where every minute has a 5, but only one (:56) has a six.

After all of that, we figured out the answer (there are 99 more minutes with at least one 5 than with at least one 6)—in fact, we figured it out three times, using slightly different techniques (two of which are on the left page below). Finally, we worked out a way to express the solution (right page). Once we had hashed that out, Anders wrote up the answer himself.

Big White: Seattle detour, Saturday

And we're off! Oh, except the second leg of our flight has been canceled due to whiteout conditions in Kelowna. So... quick, book a hotel in Seattle!


The Hotel Max is super hip, with retro games like Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.


It's also right next to the United States District Court.


We arrived a bit before 4, and our room (which we had just reserved online) wasn't quite ready. We went down the street to a coffee shop. Let me tell you, Seattle hipsterism makes San Francisco look staid.



We were three blocks away from Seattle's Pacific Place Din Tai Fung...



...so the boys (and Sigrid) tried xiao long bao for the first time...



...and some kimchi dumplings...

...plus orange juice with sprite...

...and some red bean buns to close dinner out.

Big White: Seattle detour, Sunday

We couldn't get rebooked to Kelowna until Monday, so we spent Sunday checking out Seattle. We started off by checking out the Pike Place Market.


Soren had two corn dogs for breakfast...

...while I went for the fried chicken hearts and gizzards.


After a more normal breakfast start, Anders joined Team Corn Dog.


Next, we went to the Space Needle. Sigrid is thinking that maybe we're done with tall towers with long lines. She and I went up the Eiffel Tower on our honeymoon; we went with the boys, Miran and Haraboji up the N Seoul Tower in 2016; and now the Space Needle. Whether it's because it came after the others or because it's under a lot of construction right now as they add a glass floor, we were underwhelmed...

...but we did get this fantastic souvenir pic. (For the record, I told everyone to make a funny face, but Soren seems to be the only one who did.)


After all the crazed travel and last minute arrangements on Saturday, we needed some downtime, so after lunch we went back to the hotel room, where Anders did some homework. He looked a lot like I suspect I do when I'm working from my hotel room while traveling.


While Anders was working on his homework, Soren and I went down to the lobby and played games...
...checked out the lobby art...

...and enjoyed the afternoon happy hour (well, I did).


We originally tried to come up with a cool dinner plan, but eventually decided that was too ambitious. Instead, we ended up going to an Il Fornaio, of all places. (There's an Il Fornaio in SF, and another in San Jose.)