Japan update!

Just to let you know: I've been working on my Japan travel blog for the last 3 months and I finally finally finally finished it!  Here are my entries:
Japan 2017
Overview of our trip!
From Los Angeles to Tokyo!
The Japanese Alps
Magome-Tsumago trail
Matsumoto and Hirayu Onsen
Kamikochi!
Takayama and Hida No Sato
Kyoto - Day 1: Fushimi-Inari-taisha and Day Trip to Nara
Kyoto - Day 2: Silver and Golden Temples!
Kyoto - Day 3: Gion and Higashiyama Ward
Nagoya and Nagashima Spa Land 
Mount Fuji and Fuji-Kawaguchiko!
Tokyo - Day 1: Ghibli Museum
Tokyo - Day 2: Sightseeing frenzy!
Tokyo - Day 3: Cat Cafe and back to Los Angeles! 

Click on the links to read my day-by-day updates!

Apologies for the fact that my entries are written in a mix of past and present tenses, but that's because this journal was written in bits and pieces, late at night or on Sunday mornings, and grammatical coherence was not my top priority. I just tried to remember as much as possible, and jot it down as well as I could, so I will be able to cherish these memories for a long time to come!

Hope you will enjoy it too, and who knows, it may help someone plan their own Japan experience ❤️

Pancake Breakfast!

Today, our school's PTA (Parent Teacher Association) hosted its 32nd Annual Pancake Breakfast and 4th Annual Mount Washington Made, a craft fair selling jewelry, textiles, ceramics, housewares, clothing, food, arts, crafts and more. All from local designers and craftsmen, and with parts of the proceeds going back to the school! It was the first time we went, because we usually spend our Saturday mornings at Dutch School, but this year, we decided to skip school (oei oei) and check out the pancakes and fair. It was a good call, I think, breakfast was great and I scored a nice new necklace! The kids had fun playing. I'm so happy we live in such a cool neighborhood!

Lily plays the violin!

... or at least, is learning how to play it! She got to know the instrument during her week of Santa Cecilia Orchestra Camp in summer and now she's very motivated to play! Hopefully the motivation will last! She has a beginners class on Tuesday nights. She also joined Orchestra in school and requested the violin, but was assigned the cello 😳. A beautiful instrument, yes, but I'm not sure how learning two different instruments at the same time will turn out!!! Fingers crossed!

Girl Scouts Mural

One Girl Scout motto is to "always leave a place better than you found it". Lily's troop did this by painting a beautiful mural on the back walls of the third grade classrooms of our neighborhood elementary school. They finished the mural in just 2 days (one Saturday in June and one Sunday in September). The project was led by Erin Althea, local artist and mom of girl scouts Scarlett and Juniper (Scarlett is also in Lily's class). The girls painted mountain peaks and howling wolves (our school is on a mountain and is the "home of the howling wolves").
Here are some photos of "during" and "after". It looks fantastic, and if I say so myself, even better in reality!

The Muppets take the bowl!

Another great night at the Hollywood Bowl! We went with our friends Brandi and Greg, and their son Emmet (who goes to school with Lily). I loved the show! The kids liked it too, but when it gets past Ennio's bedtime (around 9 pm), he just crashes and sleeps... He even missed the fireworks!

 

Lily's Egg Drop Engineering Project

Welcome "Egg-gineers"! Your job is to think like an engineer and design an egg container that can protect a raw egg from cracking after being dropped from our school library rails to the elevator doors. In class students will be exploring concepts of force and gravity and will be using the scientific method to write a report including a detailed sketch of their design, a hypothesis, procedures, individual result analysis, and a conclusion including a redesign.

Goal: To protect your egg from breaking or cracking from the fall.

Lily had so much fun working on this project (she used a net (packaging from Baby Bell cheeses), balloons, a parachute, a cardboard egg container she had cut up and painted yellow as a little chick, cotton balls, and some tape and strings) and I had so much fun reading her report (which she wrote in school). Here's an excerpt: "Results: My egg survived!!! It did not crack because it went slow and the helmet had no air space. The helmet just kept it still so nothing happened to the egg. I'm happy it worked. I hope I get a 4 on it because I did hard work on this, it's neat, it works and it's cute. So, I should probably going to get a 4 or a 3." She certainly didn't lack confidence when working on this!!!

Here are some photos of Lily working on her project at home and testing it!

 

Labor Day Weekend

We are dealing with a heat wave in Los Angeles. The temperatures over the weekend were almost consistently over 40℃! To stay cool, we went to Hurricane Harbor on Sunday. Luckily, it has started cooling down since Monday!