September 2010
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Hooray for Park Day!

 

The Calandro Clan annual Park Day was a huge success! As planned, we travel to twelve parks and spend thirty minutes in each one for a total of six hours of play. We have done this for years and look forward to it all year long. We love experiencing our parks all in one day to immediately compare the uniqueness of each location. To spice things up, at the two minute warning before we leave each park, we gather in one location on the edge of the park. At the word GO we dash to the slides and try to zip down each one before the two-minute mark is up. This is just one more layer of wackiness as we depart for our next destination.

This year, we played on a structure that was brand new and had just opened that morning. What a way to break it in! We also were disappointed when one park was completely closed off and under construction. (We have driven past several times since Park Day and it still isn’t open. It looks amazing and we can’t wait to play there.) Although that park was closed, we still enjoyed ourselves by walking around the lake and watching a remote control boat race. We never would have known this nautical group gathered there twice a week if we hadn’t taken that walk. The surprises we encounter each year make Park Day a terrific experience for our family.

We got a bit of a later start than we wanted, so we ended our day later than we wanted, but we had a fantastic time. We were joined at two parks along the way by friends of M1, no one got sunburned, and we all agreed it was a tremendous day.

With Uncle Vinny’s creativity, Animoto, and the LOML’s secret passion for editing video, we have this fun video to remember the day. We hope you enjoy it.

Thanks again to our wonderful sponsors Pithy Little Soda Works and Action Wipes. You made our day extra-special and we appreciate your support in our adventure.

Until next year, enjoy your local parks and be sure to take your vitamins so you can join us in Park Day 2011! Now go outside and play!

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August 18th, 2010 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: Uncategorized | One comment

My Life List

I feel blessed to experience this list with the people I love the most -my family.

Some people call it a Bucket List, but I’ve always called it my Life List. Call it what you want, it all means the same thing: a list of what I want to do before I’m not around to cross things off my list anymore.

My list looked different from when I started it in college from how it looks today. Now I’ve got the “With My Family” component. The addition of this part of my list is very special to me and has only just begun.

Thanks to the wonderful @deguia (Daniel De Guia) from twitter, I finally have compiled my list. Up until this time, I carried it around inside my brain. This is the first time I put it in written (typed) form. Want to see @deguia’s list? Go to his site and check it out.

So here it is; thankfully I’ve crossed quite a few things off my list in my 42 years on the planet.

Eileen’s Life List

Scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef

Travel extensively on my own

Graduate from college

Own a home

Re-do our kitchen

Re-do our bathrooms

Have a wall of bookshelves in our home

Donate my ponytail to charity

Travel to Australia

Experience the hot air balloon festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico

See the stars on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame

Go to a movie at Grauman’s Chinese Theater

Be happily married

Dance with my father at my wedding

Kiss the Blarney Stone

Hear the bells of Big Ben

Go to Japan

Climb the Eiffel Tower

See the rose windows of Notre Dame

Go to the roof deck of the Empire State Building

See the arch in New York from When Harry Met Sally (NOT crossed off after my trip to NYC. Now I have a good reason to go back!)

Go to DisneyWorld

Go to Disneyland Paris (for free!)

Be a grandma

Celebrate my 100th birthday

Bunjee jump

See the pyramids

See the Mayan Temples

Shake a King, Queen, and the President’s hand

See the Petra Great Temple

Run a half marathon

Run the Bay to Breakers

Get re-married to the LOML in all 50 states before our 50th wedding anniversary (is this even legal?)

Have a son

Have another son

Have another son (notice: “have a daughter” is not on my list; we’re DONE)

Write a children’s book

Write a Christmas children’s book

See a taping of Oprah

See a taping of Saturday Night Live

Go to the Price is Right

See a taping of the ‘Rosie O’Donnell Show

See a taping of Letterman

See a taping of the Ellen Show

See a taping of Johnnie Carson (sadly, this will never be crossed off; he was a genius)

Hike Half Dome in Yosemite

Go to the Galapagos Islands

Drink a bottle of beer on the Great Wall of China

Be Tinkerbell on the zip line at Disneyland and set off the fireworks

Go to Hershey, Pennsylvania and see the Hershey plant

Go to Vermont to the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream factory

Be an elementary school teacher

Get my pilot’s license

Own a convertible

Own a convertible again

Be on television

Learn to ride a unicycle

Learn to juggle

Learn to surf

Drive a race car

Eileen’s Life List With My Family

Cheer and cry when my boys graduate from college

Dance with the LOML at my sons’ weddings

Find a bag of money

Go to Catalina Island

Camp in all the National Parks

Go to Rio and eat at our friend’s restaurant

Go to Alcatraz

Travel to Australia

Tour the monuments, Smithsonian, and White House in Washington D.C.

Hike Half Dome with at least one of my sons

See Europe

Run the Bay to Breakers with at least one of my boys

Dig ditches in a third world country

Go to Hawaii

Fly around volcanoes in a helicopter in Hawaii

Go to Disneyland

Go to DisneyWorld

Go to Europe

Go kayaking

Scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef

See the LEGO factory in Billund, Denmark

Phew! There it is, or at least there is what I can remember. As I go through life I say, “That’s on my Life List!” I’ll have to be sure to add to this as I discover new adventures waiting for me and the Calandro Clan. 

What does your Life List look like? Do you have one? Let me know and share some of the things you want to do. I’m sure it will bring me right back here to add to mine. 

Now I better get off this computer and get busy crossing some things off this list. Onward!

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July 29th, 2010 | Tags: , , , | Category: Uncategorized | 2 comments

Park Day Preview

 

The t-shirts we're sporting this year. Thanks Action Wipes and Pithy!

PARK DAY!!!!!

Yep. When you say it you have to yell it, italics style, because it is HUGE!

Calandro Clan Park Day is one dozen parks in one day, thirty minutes at each park, six hours of play. We do this every summer, usually on the last day of summer for the LOML. We map out our route, pack a bunch of food, and play hard. In the last two minutes at each park we race down the slides on the structures. It’s wacky. It’s silly. It’s Calandro Clan tradition.

This year we are changing it up a bit. This year we have t-shirts. This year we have sponsors ~Action Wipes and Pithy Little Soda Works. This year we are decorating the windows of my mini-van. This year we will use sidewalk chalk to autograph each park when we leave. This year we have a guest: Uncle Vinny. This year will ROCK!

Tune in soon for photos and perhaps video. Follow the adventure on twitter using the hashtag #ParkDay2010.

Try to keep up!

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July 27th, 2010 | Tags: , , , , | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Summer Cup-date

oooooo...artsy-shot from our Cambria hike

We’re about half-way through the summer and about halfway through our Summer Cup activities, so it’s time for a cup-date on what we’ve been doing. Here’s the Calandro Clan summer so far:

  • Drive-Ins (saw Toy Story 3 for the second time ~love all three movies)
  • Cookie Day (each Calandro chose a recipe and we baked all day, then gave the cookies to our neighbors)
  • Downtown Day (a lovely day with Grandma Frog and Grandpa Ringo ~yes, we really call them that)
  • Blues Game (M1 got a foul ball and all three Ms participated in the dizzy bat race)
  • Avila Barn U-Pick Peaches (another activity with G. Frog and G. Ringo ~we made a cobbler at home with the peaches)
  • Doc Burnstein’s Ice Cream (best ice cream on the Central Coast)
  • LEGO Day
  • Library (we go often)
  • Pool (swim lessons)
  • Bob Jones Trail (fit all four bikes in the van ~thanks Toyota! ~the LOML doesn’t have a bike ~that’s another story for another time)
  • Get doughnuts (don’t you judge me)
  • Mustang Water Slides (not one Calandro got a sunburn ~quite an accomplishment)
  • Avila Beach (awesome day with the Nielsons ~Panasonic LiHD family #12)
  • Cambria Hike (Harmony Headlands State Park ~we’ll do this hike again)

Some things still in the Summer Cup:

  • Many hikes
  • Park Day (A dozen parks in a day ~thirty minutes at each park)
  • Ice cream sandwiches for the firefighters ( bonus: awesome tour of the stations)
  • Hit a bucket of balls at the driving range
  • Lemonade stand (all the money goes to a charity TBD ~M2 wants it to go to a Children’s Hospital)
  • Kite Day
  • Sidewalk Chalk Day (one of my favorites)
  • Pismo Beach
  • Train Day

Our neighbor, one of the Grand Marshalls of the Bike Parade

Along with all this, we travelled to the Bay Area (and beyond, once) to hang out with our generous, awesome family, held a neighborhood 4th of July Bike Parade and Potluck Picnic, and had a mini-vacation to Monterey. Yep, we’re insane having loads of fun.

How are you spending your lazy days of summer? We hope your days are filled with wonderful Summer Cup-worthy activities!

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July 24th, 2010 | Tags: , , , , | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment
 
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