Interview a PD: Serena Zhou

And...a week later, Serena's interview is finally finished! Her responses were definitely worth the wait, though :)



The sound is a little funky, gets pretty quite in certain parts and slightly loud in others (although that's probably because I have zero volume control over my laugh), but it wasn't worth delaying it more for me to watch more tutorials on apple.com.

Happy Sunday!
Holly

Questions and the Moon

With our first session summer volunteers arriving tonight, life at the house has gotten a liiiiiiittle crazy. As evidenced by the still-unedited Serena interview, nowhere to be found monthly update, and general neglect of the dishes.

The interview will be up at some point this week, but in the meantime, please start sending me questions for Seth Harlan! The deadline for questions is Thursday at noon, so send them in before then if you want them to be included!

Last night we ate dinner up on the roof to celebrate our last 'family dinner' before summer changes everything, and the moon was killer. Check it out below.

Holly

An Open Letter

An open letter to all of our Moms, who we miss even more than usual today.

Dear Mamas,

Happy Mother's Day!

We're sorry we can't be there to bring you breakfast in bed or help out in the garden, take a walk through the neighborhood or share a glass of wine on the porch together. Thank you for letting us venture out on our great Ecuadorian adventure and for making home such a sweet place to which to return.

Below you will find a few things we miss most about you, today and every day!

Love,
Us


(Walks through the neighborhood, movies on Saturday, Chicken & Rice and Thanksgiving)


(Talking on the phone at least three times a day)


(Good ole' home cooking - king ranch chicken, spinach enchiladas, chicken barf bombs, etc. )


(Afternoons spent wandering the stacks together at The Tattered Cover Bookstore)


(The healthy desserts and assisting in turtle surgeries)


(Looking at you looking at me, and your smile)


(Roaming around the house yelling "MOOOOMMM" then realizing she's probably in the backyard again with a glass of sweet tea, tending the garden. Yep, right again.)


(Tunnel of Fudge Cake, Rocky Road brownies, and walks in the park at dusk!)

Self Portraits

So here's the thing with my children's art class. While I try to incorporate some kind of artistic technique or artist study into each class, when 75% of your students are under 5 years old, it gets a little tricky. Take Jori, for example. He would rather sit under the table scraping off crayon shavings with his scissors than learn about Georgia O'Keefe's desert inspirations. Or Carlitos. He'd rather be kicking Jori, who's under the table, than trying to understand Kandinsky color palettes.

Imagine my surprise yesterday when, after discussing the composition and symmetry of the face and explaining the 'self-portrait' project for the day, each and every one of our tiny students were hunched over their papers, painstakingly drawing their "football-americano" shaped eyes half way down their oval-faces, making little heart lips, and trying to remember where their ears go (Kerley was absolutely positive that her ears are in fact above her eyebrows). Yes, Serena and I had to walk them through every step of the way, coaxing them to erase all pencil marks after going over their faces with pen (ALL of them, Jonathan), and help them cut out the difficult parts involving their drawn hair, but overall, I was incredibly proud of the finished products. They even kind of look like them :)

We're excited for Eliah's brother, Aravon, to arrive tomorrow night! We LOVE visitors!
Happy Friday,
Holly