February-March 2016

In the middle of February, we celebrated the lunar new year (hello, year of the monkey!) in Chinatown on a day when the air temperature was -9 and the windchill -31. Dim sum plus indoor lion dances for the win!

Then we went to the MFA's family art day on Presidents' Day--the kids loved making musical instruments and sculptures and patterning collages, and we all admired the new "Ceiling Snake" installation in the Druker Family Pavilion. Lunch at Dumpling Palace on Mass Ave followed.

At the end of school vacation week in February, we went to Great Wolf Lodge with Sarah and Sean for a quick two-day, one-night waterpark and arcade extravaganza. Everyone had a great time, and Sarah is plotting our next trip back.

Wiley the Wolf joined us for breakfast that Sunday morning before we hit the pools again. Marcus did a pretty good job of reading his book (one of the Gregor the Overlander chronicles) and ignoring him, but Samantha was pleased.

This month, their swimming and tennis classes ended--we will likely do another round at some other point, but not right now. Samantha was pleased with her perfect "report card" from the "Bubbles" class, and is proud that next time she can enroll directly in "Waves," the next level up. Marcus had fun in tennis too.

On Super Tuesday, we all dressed in coordinating "Hillary" shirts and Samantha came with me when I voted in the morning. "Are you going to vote too?" Grandma asked her. "No!" she said. "You have to be older than a big number to vote!" At school, though, she made a sticker for her shirt showing who she would have voted for, if she'd been able to ("Hillary, because we need more girl presidents!") and some teachers also took a vote on which space to open up first when they went outside("Ten children voted to open Brown Ground, and only one voted for the Bike Area, so we opened up Brown Ground first."). Democracy in action! Also, I hope the shirt still fits her in November!

 

Finally, Samantha's artwork of the month: a group Valentine from the Grasshoppers to the Red Ants; an alligator wearing polka-dotted socks; a bunny holding a cup full of Easter eggs while jumping on a pogo stick; Mickey Mouse in his house; two people playing football on different teams; the Statue of Liberty, some apples, and some hot dogs; and a smiling BB-8.

Plus, the art creation process in the classroom:

We celebrated Sarah's birthday together on a beautiful spring-like day, all going to Brookline for all-you-can-eat sushi, and then walking a couple blocks to the Rose Garden playground, where we sampled a dozen donuts from Blackbird and a dozen from Kane's, played whiffleball, and relaxed in the sun.

This month, but actually all winter, has been the period of fantasy series for Marcus. After racing through all the Harry Potter books, and loving them, he read the entire Gregor the Overlander series and the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series, with brief forays into The Book of Three, The Brothers Lionheart, and a few other classic fantasy novels. He's a reader, through and through all right!

He's also doing well in orchestra--here, they played "Apollo Suite" in the spring concert:

 

 

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Created: 3/17/16. Last Modified: 3/20/16.