As you might know, Anna goes to an elementary school where they teach using Spanish immersion. Meaning, the vast majority of her day is taught in Spanish. I think something like 30 minutes a day is in English. The obvious question most people ask us upon hearing this all is "So, do you speak Spanish in the house?" Sadly, no. Jason took a couple years of Spanish in high school which now equates to him being able to say those choice words like bathroom, beer, beach, girls, and water. I took some ridiculous amount of Spanish (12 years?!), worked in Mexico City for a time, worked nights in Tijuana (no, not like THAT...it was real work), traveled to Guatemala one summer with my Aunt Barbara (awesome!) and helped my Uncle John navigate Barcelona (super!). I took to Spanish like a sponge to water. Unfortunately, without constant use my Spanish skills are shriveling up. I am limited to Mexican restaurants and telenovelas. sad.

Since I loved what Spanish did for me in my life, I really felt it a gift to have Anna in this immersion program. She'll feel a little more free to travel the world. She'll appreciate new foods, new places, new faces. And hopefully be challenged to learn another language or two in her future.

This past Friday I tagged along on the first grade class trip to La Lecheria (the dairy) at Cal Poly. The kids got to see cows poop, talk about utters, and get licked by slobbery calves. Afterward they ate ice cream made from the Cal Poly dairy. By far my favorite part was seeing their expressions when we told them the ice cream was from those same cows that they just saw. Being that their strongest association to those cows was the pooping part they'd just witnessed...they all put down their spoons for a second and thought about their next bite pretty carefully. BAHAHAHA! a little blurry, but i love that the only photo anna would let me take of her all day was when she was surrounded by her friends.
  and finally the boy that anna had a crush on at the beginning of the year