a free moment

This is the first free moment that i have had since. since. I dont know. but here i am to bring us up to date, very quickly.


graduation night! my beautiful theresa!

Theresa Graduated from the AMI Program. oh thank heaven. I am so glad thats over. I framed theresas degree and put it on the wall at the door. That degree means more to me than mine which is collecting dust somewhere, no not really but i feel like i graduated too. This program was tough on us. We didnt do anything last year but work on this. we are pumped to start living a normal life again, to make trips, to visit family, to go on a date. NO MORE SUMMERS IN DALLAS! SOMEONE HAND ME A DRINK! The only plus was being able to hang out with my extended family and for them to get some face time with AK

I wanted to say that while there, akello was totally into the air conditioners around the complex. We spent hours looking at them. We would count them over and over again.



While in dallas we found some awesome tortillas at whole foods. they look like this. the best store bought tortilla that i have ever had.



Back in austin we had some stress as our floor was not ready as planned upon our arrival. But its in now and we love it. It came just in time for theresas school to begin (why we got it in the first place) and for akello's second birthday. Yay!
akello is two! here are some pics from his party, or playdate as theresa wanted it more to be, which makes sense being as akello is only two years old. We had a great time and invited all of akello's freinds. Their parents had to drive them though so we let them hang out too. We had pizza and pie. Akello's favorites.




















So theresas school is underway and going good. She has 5 students and will add a sixth soon. She has hired a spanish speaking assistant and is able to deliver her goal of spanish immersion. The assistant only speaks spanish. I have also begun teaching at Austin High School and have seen the promised land. Teaching at this school is soooooo much better than teaching at Crockett. I could go on and on and on and on about how much greener the grass is here. but i have a lesson plan to do.

oh and at akellos party a lot of people loved the blueberry pie, and Laura even asked for the recipe. So Here it is.

http://www.pickyourown.org/blueberrypie.php

one legged bandit

IMG_6972, originally uploaded by Gilkata.

Akello and one of his freinds from school. You'll notice that akello has both legs in one pant leg. "he insisted" his teacher told me when i picked him up. Thats a montessori thing says theresa. Natural consequences.
He did pretty good on the evening walk around the complex with both legs in there I must say.

MUSEUM DAY

So i should start by warning of a name change for this blog. I will be changing it soon as I dont talk about montessori so much anymore. Theresa will be using this name "the modern montessori aesthetic" for a blog that she plans to do. So stay tuned for that and know that you can always find this blog by going to www.akellogarcia.com

more to come...

Thursday the Nasher Sculpture Center stays open late from 5 to 9pm, and is FREE! With time running out on our dallas stay i was so happy that we were finally able to make it this past thursday to one of my favorite places in the world. We followed akellos lead, and were only able to view the main gallery, the visiting exhibition downstairs, and the front of the garden. Not bad. This is why a museaum trip with a toddler must be free in my eyes. That way i don't feel for having to pay my cash only to leave 15 minutes later.





I think akellos favorite sculpture was the stairs. We went up and down quite a bit.



akello thought that the sculpture garden would be a great place to runaround naked as illustrated in this video





Where's akello ?




While akello was ready to leave, daddy still had some gift shopping to do so mama walked with him to the main attraction....the water fountain outside the DMA. i snapped this pic as i walked outside the nasher.

Upon closer inspection of the DMA we realized that it was open too and upon walking inside we found a jazz band playing in the main foyer. They were great and akello was interested enough to stay for a whole song. Tons of people were inside to watch. This seemed the thing to do on a thursday night.



Akello was not done and led us to another water fountain that he spied a block over.
The fountains in front of the Hunt Building. I love this building. Its one of my faves in dallas. Not too tall but a really cool fascade of bending glass. really cool at night too. Here akello is awestruck by the "bellagio" style fountains







Proof that akello is smart.

So i think akello is a pretty smart kid, but who cares! so does every parent (about their OWN kid)
But heres proof.

The other day im cooking a pizza and akello cant wait for it to come out of the oven. He's literally sitting there in front of the oven watching cheese melt. At one point i pick him up and move him to check on the pizza, opening the door and taking the pizza out with a hot pad. "5 more minutes" I say, and put the pizza back in the oven.

Well 5 minutes later akello runs to the shoe bucket and grabs some crocs. I'm like, "time for a costume change?" this is new. but then he puts his hands in his crocs and runs over to the oven to open it. "crocpads" as they were.


"pizza ready!"



so we decided on the blue bat set. The ball is foam, and not plastic, which ruled out the plastic baseballs. And while the mini Baseball bat is wood, and most resembles a real baseball bat, (both good montessori things) it was too dangerous in mama's eyes. so we decided on foam bat and foam ball. He can barely lift the bat and basically golfs with the bat and ball. He does like to play catch though. either way, he wants to play baseball sun up to sun down

B-ball Picture

Just another day at the park. Akello loves basketball. See that field behind him? yepppers. baseball. i've been trying to keep him away from baseball for awhile, just cuss of the bats and balls. lots of hard stuff, but he's seen them play over there and many times he will just stand at the fence waching. He's been wondering why he has one of every ball except the baseball, and has been asking for a baseball repeatedly. i spent all day yesterday looking for the right gear for him. They only make baseball mitts for 3 and up. Looks like im going to have to go custom. Stay tuned to this developing story

Flower Arranging

One of akello's favorite things to do at school is flower arranging. So mama hooked up a little flower arranging work for him

i want my direct tv

i want my direct tv, originally uploaded by Gilkata.

so this was interesting to see on our walk the other day. We have cable in our apartment for the internet, but almost everybody has this dish thing. around here. Cement and bucket sold seperately

updates

like my flipper shoes?

so akello has really gotten into swim class lateley. he wants to swim at the pool everyday and has started to say "swim class" every other minute. last week theresa came with me to swim class so i could show her the ropes being that shes going to have to take over for me this saturday while i make a trip to austin.

I dont mind going to the pool so much with how freaking hot its been. So hot, akello needs a hat and an umbrella!








this past monday i went back to austin to handle a few things. One being moving alot of furniture around to make way for the flooring contractor to put in some new laminate flooring !!! woo hoo! The flooring contractor agreed with me that we would have to remove the wood paneling from the living room as it would clash pretty bad with the maple flooring. Of course he agreed, what am i saying, hes a contractor! So as pretty as that wood paneling was....its now gone along with the carpet!!


file photo (b.a. (before akello))



this made the work a little easier knowing that soon i could move all the furniture back onto a new easy to clean floor. On top of this, we are also making some changes with furniture placement and room designation.

The contractor was pretty impressed with the wood paneling,

"they spared no expense here with this. This is REAL wood! A realy nice stain job here too. look at this trim! its been coped! nobody does that anymore! (rip!)

we are going to paint that wall white. a big white wall with maple flooring will really help to brighten up that room.


here we see the flooring sitting in the kitchen as it takes its 72 hours to aclimatize itself to its surroundings.

im going to miss that green linoleum in the kitchen. tears! (of joy)



so we have also done away with the guest bedroom upstairs, (sorry yall) and replaced it with the office, as the office is now akello's sleeping room. We are going to start having him sleep in his own room when we get back........in ONE WEEK!!!! we are SO excited.

The guest bedroom used to look like this.....



and now...



so now you might be wondering,,,,but Gil, if the togo sofa is in the new office, then what am i gonna sit on when i go to your house to watch a movie. And with that, the saga of the plastic couch continues.

Some of you know the saga of the plastic couch all too well. Well its so big that it can only be downstairs, but theresa wants it out of the environment for the school, so that means it goes upstairs, or outside. And its NOT going outside, (unless god forbid theres a flood, in which case we would be able to use it as a boat and paddle our way to safety as it IS made out of fiberglass.)

There is a very small chance that it can make the corner by the stairs. Doubtful, but possible. maybe. Better call in the moving angles expert. This is a job for My dad. I would use my "batman-esque" searchlight that i had made for him with a triangle, but it was mid-day so i just called him.



lets take a look at that file photo again,,,,



This sofa is a beast! Its wide, three inches longer than 8 feet. And we have 8ft ceilings. Did i mention that it weighs a ton? My parents arrived and we assessed the situation. Long story short, we decide to forgo the stairs and take it up via the upstairs fire escape.



my mom takes one look at this idea and proclaims,
"Nope. I think it's time for craig's list"



But we prevailed and now the plastic couch and the eames chair are together as one for the first time ever,

plastic couch, say hello to my little friend!

Bathes are soooo 2007

So whenever theresa or i are taking a shower akello keeps on popping his head in, saying that he wants to take a shower too. Hmm...sounds like two birds to me! So I put him in the shower with me and now I shave 30 minutes off my day. So far he's been wanting to take a shower all week.

At first he's a little timid of the water, only giving his tummy a shower but he gets into it eventually.