Happy New Year from the K-Os!

Can't believe it is 2014!  Year of the Horse!

First time camping

Maiya's first time camping.  We went up to Fallen Lake Campground near Lake Tahoe in August in the Prius.  That was pretty cool.  We drove up in a thunderstorm all up the 395 and through the mountains to Tahoe.  When we got there, a flood had gone through our Campsite.  We met Tony's Mom and Don, along with their friends Gretchen and Bill, who fed us and took care of us, and made Maiya's first camping trip an easy one.  After 2 nights camping, Tony flew up and met us in Tahoe and we spent 2 nights in Tahoe relaxing and hanging out before driving back home.

Kalamazoo Trip

 A week in Kalamazoo Michigan with Tony's family for Passover, March 2013.  We stayed with Fran's cousins Jo and Judy's houses.  We visited freezing Lake Michigan, the Frederick Meijer Garden in Grand Rapids, and just hung out with family.  Grandpa Don bought Maiya her first loom on this trip.

Happy New Year 2013

Ringing in New Year's Eve with the K-O's!
  

Children's Day @ School 2012

Children's Day is a big deal at Maiya's school.  It's the day where when the Nihon Buyo (traditional Japanese dance) classes put on full kimonos and makeup and share their dances.  Maiya and Eve were the only 1st grade girls in their class.  It took almost 2 hours for hair, makeup and dressing all the girls, for a 5 minute performance.

1st and 2nd grade girls

1st graders perform Kaeru no Uta Ga and Beethoven on Pianica

And a little J-pop "Oha Raku"

NaBloPoMo12 #11
(Backblogging May 2012)
Happy Bday to Darin, Maura, Erin

Children Deserve a Future

Contingent walking from LTSC

I've been working in the Child Development field for almost 8 years, as a parent, and 7 years at LTSC.  We have had a lot of successes with families in our Family Literacy program, with parents learning to speak English, gaining confidence and self-esteem, and several of our parents putting themselves out there and testifying before Commissioners at First 5 LA and School Board members at LAUSD Board meetings.  I am so proud of them, and inspired by their courage.   I have done it countless times myself, almost monthly it seems, and each time I am a shaking mess, 

We have gone to rallies, marched from Echo Park to downtown over the years, and in April this year, 55 people from LTSC, parents, children, teachers, directors and friends joined us at the march and rally to save Childcare from budget cuts with another 3,000 people who attended.  My programs were cut $200,000 last year, and this year they were cut an additional $100,000 so when they say that budgets are balanced on the backs of poor families, immigrants, and children, these are the babies, toddlers and preschoolers we work with every day.  

So, enough of my soapbox, here are some pictures of the Childcare Rally in April.  

LTSC Staff, Parents, Children!

Me and Maiya... LTSC Grace Iino Child Care Center Alumni (2005-2008)

Disa, who was Co-campaign manager for Meghan Sahli-Wells

Angelina Preschool teachers

Grace Iino staff and families

Child Development, the personal is political

Peace. Out.

NaBloPoMo12 #10
(Backblogging April 2012)

It's as Easy as...

...riding a bike.  So we have been doing the Walk and Roll Wednesdays since last year.  I've been volunteering to help with the kids walking to school, once a month.  But, Maiya hadn't been able to ride her bike without training wheels because we really just hadn't spent much time on the bike.  Maiya had gotten pretty good at riding her Razor scooter.  Anyways in April (yes I know that was 7 months ago), Tony took the training wheels and the pedals off the bike and let Maiya go on it.  I saw online that it said to let them go for about half an hour, and once they got the hang of it, it's time to take off the training wheels.  Well, they remained off for several weeks, or even a month.

She got pretty good at it.

Here she is practicing still... and sporting a skirt on her
shoulders like a shawl, for some reason.

Finally, after CicLAvia in April where Maiya took her scooter, we went home and I figured out how to put the pedals back on.  Much easier than I thought it would be, and immediately she was off!  That's my girl.  Peace. Ride. Out.

NaBloPoMo12 #9
(Backblogging April 2012 posted on 11/10 catching up on 11/9)

CicLAvia @ MacArthur Park - April 2012

For our 3rd CicLAvia in April 2012, Maiya and I drove down to MacArthur Park and again brought our scooters.  Maiya had just learned how to ride a bike that week, and I was concerned that she would be a little unsteady with all the thousands of bike riders en the route.  We joined Great Leap, for their performance of "Cycles of Change," bicycle stories directed by Dan Kwong and based on peoples personal stories created in Collaboratory workshops.

 The performance, "Cycles of Change" with George and Danny on taiko and percussion.

These photos tell a story all by themselves.  

I'm going to call it a blog and sign off NaBloPoMo12 #8!  Peace. Out.

Grace's Groupies in SF

So it's been 10 years since I've been to San Francisco, when we went up with NCRR for a Report Back on our trip to Cuba in 2001.  When we heard our friends Grace Lee Boggs and Scott Kurashige (aka Tula's dad),  were going to be in San Francisco on a speaking tour of their new book, The Next American Revolution, Sustainable Activism for the 21st Century in March 2012, we decided to drive up to San Francisco to see them.  It's been two years since the US Social Forum, which was the last time we saw Grace and visited in Detroit.  Since it's late and I'm tired, this will have to be another photo caption blog post.  These are the top 13 out of 118 photos from the trip.

By kismet, our friend Joe Reilly was in Berkeley performing a
children's concert at La Pena Cultural Center that same morning.
It so happens that we met Joe through Grace at the Boggs Center, and our other friends in Detroit,
who at the time were part of the Long Hairz Collective.

Joe's latest CD is "Let's Go Outside," is one of his many works with
children, animals, nature and all things eco and Michigany.

Maiya with Daddy at the La Pena Cultural Center mural

One of a dozen or more self-portraits taken from the backseat.
I think this is one going over the Oakland Bay Bridge.

Maiya Grace wearing her Grace Lee tee

Visiting with Grace before her talk

Event sponsored by the Chinese Progressive Association (or whatever CPA stands for).
I liked how progressive and diversely API the crowd was, numbering around 400 people.
The previous day Grace had engaged in a conversation with
Angela Davis at UC Berkeley at a woman's conference with 1200 people attending.

Shea, one of our favorite and most knowledgeable Detroit-based activists
who we met in our summers volunteering with Detroit Summer

View from our hotel room

Grace Lee and Maiya Grace at an after party in Grace's hotel room

Tony talking with Grace about education or activism, I'm sure.

One of Daddy's original 3x5 cards

Meeting Tish!!!!

So, there's another one of our short trips, barely gone a day and a half.  I think we left at 4 am, and got up there in time to see Joe's 10am concert, then drove across the Bridge to SF to see Grace in the afternoon.  We then drove out to Grace's hotel near the airport to hang out, then back to our hotel near Chinatown.  The next morning, I went walking around San Francisco and loved it, and walked over to visit/meet Tish, one of my favorite blogger friends (and first blogger friends back in the days before FB when everybody was blogging) who I have been good friends with for 10 years, but had never met in person.  Something non-bloggers don't really get.  Tony and Maiya came to pick me up and ended up hanging out with us, just talking and catching up.  It was a great visit, and one that I hope to do again one day soon.  

Our only regret is that we didn't have time to see Manilatown, home of our Manzanar friends Al Robles and Bill Sorro, both who passed away in recent years, or our friend Jiro Kobashigawa, Tony's former landlord, an Okinawan activist, poet, artist, writer, who passed away this summer at the age of 97.

Peace. Out.
NaBloPoMo12 #7
(Backblogging March 2012)