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 [...]]]>  

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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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 [...]]]>

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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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 [...]]]>  

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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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:

L ~ is for Loooong road trips. We make a lot of them and our Sienna always gets us there.

O ~ is for On the go. The Calandro Clan is up and out all the time. We need a reliable car for our adventures.

V ~ is [...]]]> You know I love my Toyota van. Here are some reasons why:

L ~ is for Loooong road trips. We make a lot of them and our Sienna always gets us there.

O ~ is for On the go. The Calandro Clan is up and out all the time. We need a reliable car for our adventures.

V ~ is for Versatility. Our van lets me pile in bikes, surfboards, kids, and carpool with ease.

E ~ is for Every day. I’m in it every day and show it no mercy. It can withstand a beating.

If you love your Toyota you can visit their facebook fan page and share your Toyota story. And you know I love a good story. Hope to see you there.

“I’m participating in a Toyota/TwitterMoms campaign, which inspired this post. My opinions, thoughts and feelings are my own. As a TwitterMom, I’m eligible for a courtesy gift of $50.00.”

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The rules for LEGO Day are simple:

LEGO Day is the brainchild of the youngest M for a Summer Cup activity. [...]]]>

The mini-figure bin got dumped. I could play with these guys for hours.

The rules for LEGO Day are simple:

1. Pick a theme everyone can agree on.
2. All Clanadro Clan members build with LEGOs all day.
3. See what we have created at the end of the day.

LEGO Day is the brainchild of the youngest M for a Summer Cup activity. The other day we pulled it out of the cup and everyone cheered~let the building begin!

First, we determined the theme: it’s been foggy and cold here on the Central Coast of California which is not great beach weather. In honor of the time of year and in the hopes that the weather pattern will improve, M1 suggested the theme of “Beach”. We all agreed and quickly started naming elements we wanted in the design: sand, ocean, boardwalk, resort, tidepools, lifeguard tower, lighthouse, and people relaxing on the beach. Everyone had an idea to start the day.

Make way for LEGO Day!

We moved our couches to the side of the family room, took all the LEGO bins out of the playroom for easy access, and got to work. M1 started piecing the sand together, M2 fished through the bins for blue pieces to create the ocean, and M3 constructed the lifeguard tower. The LOML worked diligently on the pier and I made my beach resort dreams come to life.

In the middle of the afternoon, M2 and the LOML made a trip to see our pediatrician. Our middle M has been running a fever and coughing. After a quick listen to M2’s lungs and a run to the drug store for antibiotics, the Clan was back to our full building capacity. I’m happy to report, M2 is now fully recovered, and fever-free. He wasn’t diagnosed with walking pnuemonia as his brother, M1, was a few weeks ago, and it wasn’t whooping cough either. Just a weird bacterial bug that’s going around.

Finding a needle in a LEGO stack.

I felt so proud observing my boys working together all day, with only a few disagreements on how something should be made and who got what pieces. They negotiated with each other without too much screaming. Bonus! They encouraged one another and offered compliments on the items they created. I loved watching them work together to reach a common goal.

All day long, M1 (who has a super-scary, complete inventory list of every LEGO in our home catalogued in his brain) kept saying, “Where is that surfboard? I know we have one! I can’t find it. Where is it?” Of course, at the end of the day, as he stepped back and admired our work, he walked around the corner of the room to the stairs and there, on the floor, was the surfboard. “Here it is! Now where are we going to put it?” We looked at our scene and we all agreed: it was so packed with features it didn’t need one more thing. The surfboards we had made using other peices looked great just the way they were. It was official; we were done.

The finished product.

Our beach scene was complete with a pier, boardwalk, lighthouse, tidepools, sunbathers, a waterskier and ski boat, kayak rentals, surfers, breaking waves, a resort, lifeguard tower, parking lot with cars, metal detector-weilding beachgoer, ice cream shop, cabana, ocean, sand, and rowboat. Not bad for about five hours of work!

We never had a LEGO day before, but we will certainly have one again. Maybe next time some of you will join us and share your creations. Until then, happy building and may you always be able to see a LEGO piece on the floor before you step on it.

Onward!

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19 billion LEGO bricks are produced each year. Judging from this photo and the creations around our house, I’d say we have about one year’s worth of production within our home (minus the hundreds I have vacuumed up and sent away in [...]]]>

One day. Millions of LEGOS. Unlimited possibilites. What would you build?

19 billion LEGO bricks are produced each year. Judging from this photo and the creations around our house, I’d say we have about one year’s worth of production within our home (minus the hundreds I have vacuumed up and sent away in the trash). I may be exaggerating, just a little, but not much.

For our Summer Cup activity today, all five members of the Calandro Clan are participating in a new adventure, one I’m sure will become tradition: LEGO Day. This idea came from the youngest member, M3, who shouted out the suggestion as we were putting events into the Summer Cup.

Our simple LEGO Day idea: We build all day on a concept that is decided in the morning. At the end of the day we see what we have built. We may need to break in the middle of the day to take M2 to the doctor because he is running a fever of 103.3, but we’ll figure out how we can work that into the rules of the day. We may do some building in the car on the way to his appointment. We’re waiting for a call back from the doctor. As you know, we’re making this up as we go along, and we adjust our plans when necessary.

So, this is our “Before” page. Tune in later for our “After”.

Let the building begin!

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Here is the conversation I had with my eleven year old son, M1, at dinner tonight:

“Mom, can I log on to yoursphere tonight?”

“You know we don’t let you on the computer at night.”

“Well, remember last night when you wouldn’t let me log on? Well, I got some eggs yesterday morning and when I went [...]]]>

Here is the conversation I had with my eleven year old son, M1, at dinner tonight:

“Mom, can I log on to yoursphere tonight?”

“You know we don’t let you on the computer at night.”

“Well, remember last night when you wouldn’t let me log on? Well, I got some eggs yesterday morning and when I went back to check on them this morning whatever hatched had run away because you wouldn’t let me get on the computer last night.”

Excuse me? Did he just try to blame me for something getting lost in his virtual world? Hooray for a teachable moment brought to the Calandro Clan via yoursphere, a safe, fabulous online social community!

This opened up a dialogue about communication (Am I a mind reader? How can I know you have a specific reason for logging on if you don’t tell me? How do you want to discuss this in the future?) and creating interest in a virtual world (Why do you think yoursphere created the eggs with time sensitivity? How do you feel about being responsible for what you create?). Topics for the future: how to manage your virtual time, just like real time; and virtual responsibilities vs. real world responsibilities.

Thank you, yoursphere for giving M1 the opportunity to safely explore a virtual world at an age when I can talk with him about what all this means. I want to help him understand about boundaries while he will still listen to me. If he were to launch into an online community when our communication weren’t as free-flowing (perhaps as he gets older) I may not be able to talk with him about some of the important aspects I want him to understand.

If you haven’t already, please take a look at yoursphere and consider allowing your child up to participate. If you decide to join the community, let them know the Calandro Clan sent you and you could win $50. Just use the code YSMC-0076 when you register and you will be entered for a chance to win a $50.00 American Express gift card. All that and online safety for your child, too. What are you waiting for?

I wrote this review while participating in the Yoursphere Test Drive program by Mom Central on behalf of Yoursphere. I received a free lifetime Gold membership on Yoursphere.com, Yoursphere t-shirts, and a $50 American Express gift card to facilitate my review.

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