Schools now in full swing, and yet we managed to have a very busy weekend. It started Friday night as usual with Chinese school, which Lauren's getting into more and more each week. This year she has a new teacher, and she's a lot better about doing homework and participating in class. This year's class is a little more homogenous, meaning they've moved the older kids out of the class, and most of the class now is within a year or two in age, so there's not such a big gap in learning abilities. Lauren is actually excited about learning to read the new books, and recite them (she has to turn in a recording of herself reading these books as part of her homework).On Saturday Lauren and I got to go to the newly renamed SAP Center where the San Jose Sharks have their hockey matches. The Sharks opened up the rink before the first game of the season to the Sharks fans so they could go on the ice and skate for an hour. I signed us up early, and the only requirement was that you had to bring your own skates, which Lauren already had, but I didn't own any, so I found a used pair on eBay for $0.99 with about $12 shipping, and they arrived on Friday, just in time for us to go skating. In addition to the hour on the rink, we also got to take a picture in the mouth of the shark (seen in the picture above). Lauren really enjoyed the time on the ice, and she's determined to learn how to ice skate better.
After our adventure on the ice, Lauren had to go to a classmate's birthday party at Bowlmor in Cupertino. She was excited about going bowling, and in fact spent every spare second trying to get in an extra turn on the bowling lane while she was at the party. While she was there I noticed that one of the other parents was one who had helped me a lot when I was the room parent last year for Lauren's second grade classroom. So I asked Lauren if her son, Zach, was in her class this year. Lauren's response was "No, and it's a good thing too."
I asked her why it was a "good thing" that Zach wasn't in her class. Lauren's response, "Zach asked me to go with him to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, so he can kiss me under the Eiffel Tower. I told him no, I was too young to be married, and I didn't want to be married until I'm at least 23." I almost burst out laughing, but didn't and instead relayed the story to Lauris, who thought I should tell Zach's mom that story. I refrained though, but maybe another time when the kids are older.
On Sunday we took a drive out to Casa de Fruta, a roadside attraction on Highway 152, that's been there since 1908. It used to be an unavoidable stop for anyone doing the drive from San Jose to Los Angeles, before they converted 152 to be completely freeway (before there was a stop light at the corner where Casa de Fruta stood, so it was always just as easy to get off and take a break there. Lauren likes the rest stop there because they have a great assortment of dried fruit, and they sell bags of soil, that kids can use to go treasure hunting in a big water wheel and sluice run they have out back. The kids take their bag of soil and dump them into a strainer in the sluice and shake them back in forth in the water to find the treasures that are in their bags of soil.
This time around Lauren found an arrowhead, some gemstones, and a shark's tooth in her bag of soil. We also bought some dried apricots for Lauren, and walked around the property before heading out. On the way back from Casa de Fruta we stopped at an RV store, since Lauren wanted to take a look, and Lauris has been thinking about buying an RV to replace the home we have down in Arizona.
This coming week marks Mid-Autumn festival, also known as August moon in the Chinese calendar. So have a great week!
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