Mount Diablo State Park

Over the weekend the girls told me they wanted to go hiking. Hmmm, okay. I decided it would be fun to take them up to the summit of Mt. Diablo. We always are talking about it as we drive into Walnut Creek and I was able to find a relatively short trail around the summit that I thought they could handle.

After a long morning of swim team photos we headed out. I underestimated the amount of time it would actually take us to drive to the summit. When we reached the guard booth and paid our entrance fee ($10) I was informed it was another 30 minutes to the summit. I kept that information under close guard and read all of the signs on the way up to the kids.

Once we finally reached the summit I was actually amazed at how excited the kids were, they just kept saying "this is so awesome!". I'm not sure if I would have thought it was that cool at their age. We explored the observation deck and the visitor center. The center is relatively small but the kids loved all of the activities  and the information movie that was being played.

At the summit

Eventually I convinced them to head down to the Mary Bowerman Trail, which circles the mountain just below the summit. It's .7 miles and I had read that the first part of the trail is wheelchair accessible, so I figured that meant it would be kid friendly. Of course, that would have worked out great, if we had started at the start and not the end.

At the trail head or trail end as we discovered. 

It was all going great until the trail narrowed and the steep cliff to the right started to make me nervous since Miss. Ky has a skill of tripping over her own feet. When the bugs and various creatures started increasing in numbers and Syd started saying she was scared, I decided it was time to turn-around.

When we got back to the car, I found the start of the trail on the other side of the street, but by that point they were over the whole "hiking" thing. I told them they tried it and that was great, and if they didn't enjoy it that was okay as well. They decided they wanted to head up the visitors center one more time.

The actual summit is inside the visitor's center, they were
so excited to be standing on the top of the summit

Summer has arrived

We've been on hiatus over the school year but with both girls out of school we are gearing up for a fun filled summer. Mostly we will be at our pool as Sydney is swimming on swim team for the first time ever. This is scary for us as parents as we realize (or I realize) I just dedicated my entire summer to the pool and swim meets. If this is something she loves, I'm happy to support it and tote her all over town so she can swim her heart out.

She had her first meet over the weekend and I think we fared pretty well for rookie parents. We arrived early to make an attempt at getting somewhat decent parking and hopefully a spot to set up base (chairs and cooler). Thankfully Sydney was only swimming in two events, freestyle and backstroke. Even with only two events were were there from 8am until about 12:15pm. Sydney did fantastic and I'm super proud of her, she took over 3 seconds off of her backstroke time in just one week. Kylie on the other hand started crying that she wanted to go home after Sydney completed her heat of freestyle. Okay, so I may need to find some alternative arrangements for Kylie for the summer, as I'm not sure we will last through too many more meets.

Besides swimming I purchased some bridge books for the girls to make sure they stay sharp on their academics over the summer. Okay, not so much a concern for Kylie but if her sister has something she must also! We will be hitting the library this week to start their summer reading program and check out their Discover and Go pass program.

Yesterday they decided they wanted to go hiking. Hmm, okay. I researched today some places that we could go "hiking" with a 4 year old. This little girl will run her heart out with you, but complains about too much walking. When the weather cools down a little bit we are going to check out the Mary Bowerman Trail at the summit of Mount Diablo. It appears to be a fairly short and easy trail around the summit and should offer some great views. I'll let you know how that works out for my little hikers.

Our family garden is growing beautifully! In fact, my garden is still full with my winter vegetables, so for Mother's Day the family built me a second bed. While I wait for my garlic to cure and my onions to be ready (late July) I need to start planting some more in the summer garden. So far we have tomatoes, a cucumber and some parsley thanks to my mother-in-law. Scott also installed a drip system, which will make my life easier.

I've been experimenting with some new recipes geared for athletes. The results have been great for me and I've even found some family friendly ones! I'll share those with you over the summer.

If you are looking for some good books over the summer, I suggest checking out the Goodreads website. You know when someone mentions they read a great book and you try to remember it? Yeah, that never works for me either. I love Goodreads because I can keep track of all the books I have read, want to read and what my friends are reading. Check it out and friend me.

Busy as a Bee

We have been super busy over here and haven't had time to post any updates. We started Mini-Mermaid Running Club last week and had a fantastic week with the girl's. They were not slowed down by rain and on our second practice session they kept asking if it was time to run yet? Okay by the end of .75 mile run and the .25 mile cool down walk I think they were DONE.

This photo pretty much sums it all up

Super large photo so you can see the expression on her face!

I'm feeling after having completed our first week and I hope the girl's are excited for week two where we will be focusing on the "heart" and of course more running!

Over the last couple of weeks it's been obvious that I need some new breakfast options. I've grown tired of the usual and to be honest there is barely time for me to even prepare and eat breakfast all why trying to get two girl's up dressed, fed and out the door by 7:45am. Many of my friends have been talking about making egg cupcakes ahead of time and heating them up during the week for a quick healthy breakfast. So today I finally had my opportunity to make some (that and the fact that Scott and I both bought eggs at the store this week). You can pretty much throw whatever you have on hand in the fridge to make these, but here is the basic recipe I used Breakfast Cupcakes. I used onion, spinach and jack cheese but you could do some great with things. Here is my final product.

Hopefully this saves me some time this week!

Soccer, Soccer, Soccer!

Sydney had her first soccer game over the weekend and I have officially become the team photographer, apparently this is what happens when you show up with the biggest camera. Sydney is on a team of mostly 2nd graders and since this is her first time playing she seems to be taking her time to actually get that the idea is to run and try and kick the ball. She did manage to get a few kicks in but for the most part wandered around the field lost in her own thoughts. Which I'm okay with, I know eventually she will get comfortable the girls on her team and the best part is that she is running around the field and getting exercise!

Since so many of my friends have kids who play sports I wanted to share an awesome thing that Shutterfly does. They have share sites, but more specifically you can set up a site for your sports team! It's totally awesome, you can create your roster, coach contact information, calendar, game schedule, sign-ups for snacks, and share photos. I set one up for our Soccer team and my Mini-Mermaid Running Club. Such a great way to communicate with other parents and to share photos and other necessary information. So far I'm really loving it.

Speaking of Running Club, I am excited to have six girls take part in my Mini-Mermaid Running Club! I still need to raise about $100 in the next week to cover our supplies and entrance into the our 5k but I am so excited to start running with these girls! If you would like to make a tax deductible donation to support our team, please let me know.

Cold Season, Running Club and Peach Mojitos

Really, how is that so many of us have summer colds. It just seems so utterly wrong to have a runny nose, sore throat and headache when it's sunny outside. What I really want to do is curl up in bed with a movie and some tea, but it just seems wrong to do that when the kids want to swim in the sunshine.

As most parents are this time of year, I am ecstatic that school is about to start and I'll get at least 2 days of week of me time (for three hours a day anyway) to volunteer at the school, workout and shower (not necessarily in that order). If I haven't mentioned I volunteered to be a Dolphin Deli Director (our hot lunch program which raises over $50,000 for the parents club - our 2nd largest fundraiser). As I go a little crazy here making sure we have enough volunteers to run the program and training all of the said volunteers I am optimistic that we will be able to execute this program as well as our predecessor. In addition to this I have decided rather recently to coach a Mini-Mermaid Running Club team. I am so excited about this I can barely contain my enthusiasm. So far I have 3 girl's confirmed, 2 more possible waiting on fall schedules. My goal is to have between 5-10 girl's for the 6 week program where at the conclusion they will run the Mermaid SF 5k run. More then just hopefully instilling a love of running in these girls we hope to help build their self esteem, teach them to set goals and teach them about proper nutrition for fueling their active bodies. This program is offered at no cost to the children because we want every girl to have the opportunity to participate in this amazing program. I will spend the next month fundraising for our club to cover the costs of the materials for the program, t-shirts and journals for the girl's and entrance into the 5k. If you would like to make a donation to our team it is 100% tax deductible and I can forward that information to you to support our team. I will also be selling coffee and cocoa to raise money for our team as well. If you would like to support us that way, please let me know. Our coffee and specialty beverages will sport the Mini- Mermaid Running Club logo on them to remind you of our great little team.

Lastly, I believe I promised you a peach mojito recipe. We are lucky enough that my in-laws have lots of peach tree's and recently I received 2 huge bags of frozen peach slices. Lucky me, I didn't even have to peel them myself! The only change I make to this recipe is that I I prefer to have my peaches not purree'd in the blender, I've tried it both ways, but I prefer to muddle the slices with the sugar, lime juice, etc.

3 cups coarsely chopped peeled ripe peaches
1 teaspoon grated lime rind
1 cup of fresh lime juice (about 4 large limes)
3/4 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of packed mint leaves
2 cups of white rum
4 cups of club soda
crushed ice


Blend peaches until smooth in either a blender or food processor. Press peach puree through a fine sieve into a bowl and discard solids.

Combine rind, lime juice, sugar and mint in a large pitcher and crush the mixture with the back of a wood spoon. And puree and rum to the pitcher, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Stir in club soda and serve over ice.

I personally add the soda water to each individual glass so that the soda does not go flat if the pitcher is sitting out. But in my experience if you are having a party, these will go fast and go ahead and mix the soda into the pitcher.

Enjoy!

Lawrence Hall of Science and Veggies

As you know my quest for the summer was to find inexpensive and fun things to do with the girl's. Today, we went to the Lawrence Hall of Science where they currently have Dinosaurs Unearthed, a very cool exhibit you should catch while it's here. As Lindsay members we receive a 1/2 off discount but since the girl's also participated int he Summer Reading Program through the library we also had a free youth admission and much to my surprise they let us use both together, so it was only $14 for all three of us. It's been  along time since I visited the Hall of Science, but the girls were like wild banshee's so excited by all there was to see and do. The moving and roaring dinosaurs were a huge hit but they also loved the sphere that showed our earth with locations of volcanoes, weather patterns and then turned into the sun and other cool things.

We packed lunch and enjoyed it outside looking down on a great view of the Bay Area. The girl's are already begging to go back.

One thing that I'm not sure I shared is that we built a vegetable garden for the summer. Last year we did most of our veggies in planters and this year Scott built us an actual bed to have fun with. While Kylie is a great eater and loves veggies and fruit I was hoping that the process of watching your own veggies grow would encourage Sydney to try some things. We were probably a little excited and planted too soon but we started with a wide range of tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, corn, celery and carrots.

Pretty soon our garden started to grow

Well, one side of garden started to grow
 

We saw great growth in our corn, celery, carrots, squash and green beans. Sadly, critters started eating our corn, but left everything else. The celery has grown some amazing stalks, more than I can eat!

The carrots are so good! And to think all we did was toss a  bunch of seeds to get such a great bounty of yummy carrots. The squash sort of took over so we know for next year to give it it's own bed. It was difficult to see when to harvest the squash because the leaves covered up all of the veggies, but I think I have a handle on it now.

I was going to share a new recipe with you but I need to go cook some veggies! Next time I'll share my peach mojito recipe!

Soccer Camp and Orange Chocolate Chip Bread

It's been a crazy summer for us, so much drama and stress that I decided the kids needed something fun to do. In the Spring, I thought for sure there was no way Sydney would be interested in a Soccer Camp, 3 hours everyday of Soccer... I wasn't sure she would enjoy it. However over the spring we got a small soccer net and she already had a ball so the girls started having fun kicking the ball around. Given that the kids loves to run and there aren't any organized running leagues at this age I asked her if she wanted to attend Soccer Camp and she was ecstatic! She's attending Soccer through Euro Soccer Camps and today was her first day. I hadn't bought her any soccer gear as I wanted to see if she would actually enjoy it and if she did I would enroll her in our local Soccer League for the fall.

We picked her up and got to watch the last 20 minutes of camp.

This was the last drill they did, one player from each team runs to the cones to circle around it as they comeback, the ball is thrown into play and whoever gets the ball and scores a goal earns a point for the team.

Showing she is as speedy as her competitor

In the end he scored the goal, but she did good! 

 Needless to say she was thrilled and tired when we picked her up and said she loved it! So we went out afterwards and bought cleats, shin guards and some new dry wick gear for her. I hope she enjoys the sport I think it will be very good for her.

On to some grub! Yesterday morning I was watching the Food Network and they were featuring a bakery that makes all of these delicious coffee cakes and breads. One of the breads they made was an Orange Chocolate Chip Bread and it looked amazing. So I was off to find my own version! Here is what I made yesterday.

Ingredients

• 1 medium navel orange
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Wash and grate orange. Place orange peel in a small bowl. Juice orange. Add enough boiling water to the juice to measure 1 cup. Pour over orange peel; let stand for 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda. In another bowl, beat egg, butter, vanilla and reserved orange mixture; mix well. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in chocolate chips. Pour into a greased 8-in. x 4-in. x 2-in. loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 55-65 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. 

To top this off I made an orange simple syrup. I may experiment with this more but this is what I did. I took one navel orange and grated the outside and juiced the orange. I added both to a small pot with 1 cup of sugar and some water to the orange juice to make 1 cup of liquid. I boiled until it became like a syrup.

Once the loaf came out of the pan I pricked the top of the loaf with lots of holes with a toothpick and than brushed the syrup all over the top. The idea is for the syrup to sink down the holes and help keep the bread moist as well as add a glaze to the top of the bread.

Enjoy!