Our walkway aka Art Gallery

Most of the artistic creations of Jr. and the little one from their school work are displayed on the doors of our cabinets in the garage. Granted it is not organized neatly but it is a treat to pull into the garage and stare at some of their early work. Brings back memories and makes you forget long work days at the same time. 

We do update the garage drawings on a rotational basis, once a quarter or when daddy feels like it.

The inside of the house is another matter. The walkway is reserved for work they do in art class and we are adding to the collection every month or so. 

Here is the little one's latest work .. 

and our walkway as of today

The display helps motivate them because everytime someone visits our house, they go to the walkway to see the additions and ask the kids questions and encourage their work. 

In the process, I am also learning how to improve the "display" by spacing things out right on the walls and re-arranging pictures in portrait vs. landscape format etc.

They do have other works on glass and on "rocks". They are both painting rocks now. Those are going to be tricky to display. Planning to buy little ledges that go on the wall and put the rocks on top. 

That will have to wait for a few weeks!

History projects

The little one has a school project where she has to be a person of historic interest, dress like that person and do a report, 5 minute speech in front of the class etc. 

The two most popular picks for desi girls ? Sacagawea and Pocahontas! 

Jr. was Sacagawea three years ago and the little one is Pocahontas. San found an old tops of hers that fits like a gown on the little one and with some creative touches with feathers from three years ago, we present to you an authentic looking Pocahontas.. well, as authentic as we can make her..

The sepia tone doesn't do justice to the colorful feathers, so here is a full color picture of the little Indian. 

We hope she does her speech with the same enthusiasm she showed for dressing in costume. 

A tree that was..

Eight years ago, when we moved to this house, the red leaves on the medium sized Japanese maple tree was part of the allure. It grew around 2-3 feet taller over the years or at least, that is our perception.

Recently though the bark started splitting off and the top branches lost their ability to regenerate leaves come spring. We took pictures of this to a tree expert who said it is because of a beetle that affects the fresh tender shoots at the top of the tree and kills the tree. Apparently lots of trees in Cupertino are impacted by this. If we had sprayed this two years ago with some chemicals to kill the beetles, the tree had a chance. Now its days were numbered.  Took this picture as a farewell of sorts. You can see the top branches with no leaves. Incidentally, those branches are the favorite for all the birds including hummingbirds. Guess they were eating the beetles and we had no clue.

A few hundred dollars and a dump truck visit later, we are left with an open void. What is worse is that the neighbors tree seems to have a big section missing leaves as well. 

We walked though the daughter's school playground. They have huge 30 year old redwood or pine trees. More than half of them are leafless on the top. That is not good. Hope the city does something before they all fall or create a fire hazard in summer. 

There are only 5 trees left of the original 8 in the front yard now! 

It is sad to see a tree that takes decades to grow, get cut down in the span of a few hours. It is also intriguing to see a tiny beetle destroy a mighty tree! 

Hoping that more trees don't get affected.