Tobin and his favorite girl from preschool decided to dodge the sticky heat (95°F/35°C) and spent an entire afternoon playing dress up. Their favorite costumes were scary animals – shark and crocodile. It was petty hard to keep a straight face and act sufficiently scared …

Ever since she was a pint sized Audra Rox fan, Mika wanted to try out some funky hair color. Today was the day.

The last month of school is full of silly activities and ‘themes’ for our big girl (first grader). It started off with ‘Twin Day’, which was perfect for Mika & Mica: they don’t only have similar names and hairstyles already, but also tried to dress up in matching styles on their own a few weeks ago. They were as coordinated as they could possibly be (without school uniforms): two light blue t-shirts, two dark blue skirts, and two pairs of purple sandals. The icing on the cake were two little berets that Mika once got from Tomoko (for her third birthday?).

Tomorrow is ‘Funky Hairstyle Day’. ‘Pajama Day’ and more coming up soon. Stay tuned…

Anticipating a low-energy day after Mika’s sleepover, we didn’t make any special plans for today. In the afternoon, we went to check out the newly expanded offerings at “our” Pier 6, but didn’t even get to explore the entire two additional acres today. All the kids wanted to do was splash in the water park … (to be continued)

Today, we brought back the taste of Shelter Island with a potluck BBQ at Luna’s house. The girls had an extra special agenda though – their second sleepover! Tobin got to stay up past his bedtime as well, so there were happy campers all around.

Besides Tobin eating a mouthful at Fort Defiance, this is also the first HTML5 video posting on our site. Please let me know if you have any problems. Moving forward, all videos on our site will be in HTML5 rather than Flash.

At long last, we are enjoying Summer weather. It started a couple of days ago … just in time for this (Memorial Day) weekend, which marks the official begin of Summer. The kids are ecstatic, but i hope the heat dial doesn’t turn to ‘sweltering’ right away. At almost 90°F, the sprinklers at the playground were running this afternoon. Mika and Mica got soaking wet, then collected water to supercharge the slides. Tobin still kept a safe distance to all the splashing action, but in the end, he did get his toes wet…

On some nights, Mika is taking over bedtime story reading. Today, she picked an old favorite of both kids, Yoko Writes Her Name.

Today, we hosted our first official double play date: i picked up two 3-year old boys from preschool and had one of Mika’s friends as a drop off guest as well. Four kids from 3 families … piece of cake?

Once i had the logistics figured out (the schools are far apart, and multiple strollers had to be retrieved), it went over really well: the big girls didn’t get bothered by a little brother … and the little guys didn’t have a big sister steal their show. Of course, a king size snack was the secret ingredient to an all-around laid back attitude. (No pictures of the girls today – gotta give them some privacy every now and then)

Always looking for ways to pass time during Mika’s 1-hour German after school class, Tobin finally summoned his courage to ask the firefighters of Prospect Park North for a private tour. Their firehouse is located on the same block as German school, and we have watched the trucks getting called to duty almost every Monday. Today, we were lucky since they just pulled back into the garage when we got there. Tobin inspected Engine 280 & Ladder 132, marveled at the ready-to-be-jumped-into pants- and uniform lineup, and got to sit in the driver’s seat. If you’re wondering why he is looking so serious: he was almost as intimidated by the professional gear as he was excited to see it up close. The really big smiles spread ear-to-ear over his face after we had left.

We finally managed to skype with Berlin’s bluest eyes, Fabian and Paula. Last Summer, we had a great time catching up and getting the kids together in Julia’s garden. Hopefully, there will be another chance this August.

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Now that Mika’s English reading is fairly fluent, her German reading is starting to emerge as well. She doesn’t really have much practice beyond the weekly, one-hour after school class, but every letter or postcard from Omi and Opa gets tackled with excitement.