The Festival Season Has Arrived

Miles has been having tons of fun hanging out with his cousins, playing outside, and sometimes on weekend nights, he gets to play an hour of E-rated video games (gasp!).  Never thought I would allow the video games to enter the household but I think this kid must have manifested it for himself, getting a second-hand game cube via Uncle Bob & Aunty Cheryl, money to buy Star Wars games from his Uncle Allan, and a dad who defends his weekend hourly right to play. That is, if he "earned it". According to Jus, it's been the language to get Miles to abide by house rules. If he breaks these rules, he loses "video game privileges." Miles has been very rule-abiding since his dad introduced this condition. Every now and then, Miles will be on the verge of breaking a rule but very quickly check himself, followed by asking, "do I still have my privileges?" 

The heat has returned and so have the festivals. This weekend in Vallejo was the annual Pistahan fest at the waterfront. Although it was scorching hot, I didn't want Miles to miss out on his peoples. Gotta get this boy exposed to his community & culture. But when we got there, if he learned anything, it would be that Filipinos use umbrellas even when it's not raining! Miles, Aunty Angela, and Aunty Ching, and I went and met up with his other Aunties Erica & Rhea,  and Ayana. He was on a mission to find shave ice but was content with this (peep the umbrellas in the background).

On Sunday,  Miles got to play video games at Uncle Rob's house with his favorite big cousin, Paulskeee Jr. Paulskeee Jr. + video games was heaven for this kid, who love both!

He literally cried when we had to leave Uncle Rob's place to meet up with more of his aunts, uncles, and cousins at the Telegraph street festival in Oakland which is literally down the street from where Aunty Xtina & Uncle Arjuna live. It was fun for him to hang out with Kasama & Gwyneth and Maliyah is so cute and happy. Makes me want someone else to have a baby girl soon (Jen? Awts?). Miles was excited cause there were bouncers, shave ice, and kettle corn, "I love street fairs mom!"

On a trip to the library last week, Miles signed up for the Summer reading program, committing to reading at least 10 books this summer. In August, they throw a book lovers party for all the kids who sign up."Ten books is easy mom! We can do that in one night!" He reassured me. One of the books he borrowed is called, Creatures of the Sea, a pretty cool children's book about ocean life and I figured, hey why not make this into a home school lesson plan subject for these summer weeks? Miles has been enjoying the book, asking me to re-read the 70+ pages over and over (even though he's memorized a lot of the info already). I'm learning a lot about the ocean myself! It's been a good way to get ready for his summer trip to Hawaii. Yesterday, Miles drew pictures of his favorite sea creatures and grabbed the globe so that I could show him where each creature is found. His favorite creatures include the razor clam, gulper eel, viper fish, and sea cucumber. We made a sea creature collage of all his art work and cleared his desk space for all his ocean books. It's been a lot of fun! One day next week, we'll make a day trip to one of the beaches up north which we've never been to.