Life with Lotus Maria and Lucian Stone

So it turns out life with two kids means little time to update our blog. Add to that our summer this summer was filled with less trips and one big move and it equals a hectic few months. For those of you who don't know this died in the wool SF family made the big decision to live the city we love for better weather, a bigger house, a shorter commute, better school and the more diverse community that is Oakland. When I put it that way it seems crazy that we ever stayed in the city. But it was really sad to leave, but we are very happy with our choice. And for those of you that only hear about Oakland on the 6 o'clock news let me tell you it's pretty awesome over here.

Even with all that that doesn't mean we haven't had any fun. We can always make time for some fun around here.



In June Lotus finished up her first year of preschool. At that point we hadn't found a house in the East Bay yet, but we were actively searching, so we doubted she would have returned for another year. So she graduated from Morning Glory with the children that were continuing on to kindergarten.









Lotus had a pretty magical first school experience. Her teachers Trish and Andrea were two amazing, warm, patient, lovely women. The Waldorf teachings can seem strict and some might say cultish and we had a hard time with some of the rules. The nomedia rule is pretty hard to follow, when daddy works at Pixar. In the end Lotus blossomed there and she made some great friends. But we were ready to move on.















Lotus spent most of the summer touring open houses with her mom. She was a trooper and even started mocking my tone of voice, "ooh this is nice" or "I'm not sure this is the one for us."
But we did squeeze in one little trip over 4th of July to Napa. The highight of the trip for Lotus was visiting the winery Castello di Amorosa,not for the wine mind you. She loved it because it's a "real" castle. We had a great time touring the castle and imagining what it would be like to be a real princess in live there.





We had a lovely rest of the weekend and though it was a short trip with a short travel time, we felt very accomplished that we all survived our first family of four travel experience.