Beach Trip and Field Guidebooks

Last week we traveled around wine country sharing our beautiful home with my parents who were visiting from the East Coast.

Beach Trip, cuddles with the grandparents

One day to beat the heat wave sweeping Sonoma County, which I guess could technically be called summer, we headed to the shore hoping to see interesting sea birds and a colony of harbor seals with their pups at Goat Rock Beach.

Beach Trip, harbor seals basking in the sun

This beach is particularly interesting because it’s where the Russian River intersects the ocean. Below you can see the river on the right flowing westward into the sea on the left.

Beach Trip where the Russian River meets the sea
Beach Trip where the Russian River meets the sea

The two sides are distinctly different not just in the salt content of the water, but also in the clarity, color and turbidity. During the summer months a sandbar builds up along the beach, separating the Russian River from the Pacific Ocean, making an idea location for harbor seal pupping.

Beach Trip, running in the sand

The smooth sand and interesting driftwood also make for a fun place to explore.

Beach Trip, playing in the sand

Any time we travel to the beach we bring several field guides so we can identify the animals and plants that we encounter. Here are the best ones we’ve found, our favorite beach field guides:

Favorite Beach Field Guidebooks
California Seashore Life: An Introduction to Familiar Plants and Animals (A Pocket Naturalist Guide). If you’re going to buy just one California beach guide, this is the one to get. Laminated and pocket-sized, this is our most used guide. (Evidently they have hundreds of guides in this series, so you’re likely to find one specific to your area.)

Favorite Beach Field Guidebooks
Pacific Coast Bird Finder: A Pocket Guide to Some Frequently Seen Birds and Pacific Intertidal Life: A Guide to Organisms of Rocky Reefs and Tide Pools of the Pacific Coast are inexpensive, pocket-sized guides with great picture and interesting factoids (shown on the top row, above). There are many books in this series focusing on trees, tracks, flowers, and wildlife across the United States and Canada. Check them out!

Favorite Beach Field Guidebooks
Pacific Coastal Birds (Peterson Flash Guide). Evidently this laminated field guide is out of print, although there are several others in the series that are still available (including the Atlantic Coastal Birds). An alternative to this guide is the Peterson Field Guides for Young Naturalists: Shorebirds that contains more in depth information about commonly found shorebirds for elementary and middle-school students.

To ensure that we always have these guides with us on impromptu beach trips, I try to keep them packed away in our trunk all summer long (along with our picnic blanket and sand toys). With the beach just a half-hour away, we find the cool ocean breeze to be a needed reprieve on hot summer days. We want to be able to hit the beach in a moments notice. We love California Living!

Sewing Inspiration

Sewing Book Inspiration (Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts)

Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts contains so many creative projects in addition to outlining the basics of various sewing techniques. Some of the projects that I’m most looking forward to tackling include:

Sewing Book Inspiration (Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts)
Appliquéd sea-print tote
I love the idea of combining fabric-printing with appliqué, thereby adding another texture and dimension to a tote.

Sewing Book Inspiration (Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts)
Velvet-lined jewelry boxes
What a nice way to jazz up wooden boxes and make a special keepsake box.

Sewing Book Inspiration (Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts)
Sewing Book Inspiration (Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts)
Ribbon embroidered flower prints
A beautifully simple project that’s eco-groovy and screams “try me!” I can’t wait to make some embroidered flowers for our bedroom.

Sewing Book Inspiration (Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts)
Japanese Sashiko Embroidery
I’ve found this stunning embroidery made of small running stitches in a grid-like pattern to be more difficult than it looks, but I’m looking forward to practicing and perfecting my method. These place-mats are stunning.

More Great Art History Books for Kids

Can You Find It? Art Appreciation Books for Kids by the MET
Can You Find It? Art Appreciation Books for Kids by the MET

Art is important in our family. We come from artistic families and greatly value making and supporting the arts. In that vein, our family loves picture books designed to develop and inspire an appreciation for the arts in young children.

We greatly enjoy these colorful board books for the babies and toddlers alike:


We adore this more advanced series focusing on exploring the alphabet and numbers through works of art published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

We’ve recently discovered another fantastic art appreciation series written for children to add to our family library:

Can You Find It? Art Appreciation Books for Kids by the MET

Published once again by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, these Can You Find It? books focus on identifying details within works of art. Think of Where’s Waldo but with an educational, historical twist.

Can You Find It? Art Appreciation Books for Kids by the MET

Our daughter adores these books and has spent hours pouring over them.

Can You Find It? Art Appreciation Books for Kids by the MET

These particular books were written in 2005 and are no longer widely available in stores (we bought our copies at a local used bookstore). Nevertheless, a quick search online turned up many affordable copies in used form, as well as some other books in this series, plus the Metropolitan Museum of Art sells copies online from their store.

Can You Find It? Art Appreciation Books for Kids by the MET

What better way to promote art appreciation than by supporting the museum itself?! If you intend to buy this item, please hop on over there and order your copy today.

Pride and Prejudice with Pictures!

Did you know that Marvel has published a graphic novel version of Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice? (Thank you to Jenny for the info!)

As someone who devours all things Jane Austen, I was thrilled to hear about this. I’m all about bringing nineteenth century literature to the masses.

My copy arrived this morning. I can’t wait to dive right in. Doesn’t Caroline Bingley (above) look deliciously awful?! I abhor Mr. Collins already too:

I’ll provide one last shot, because I know you’re dying to see their interpretation of Pemberley…

I can’t wait to get reading… After this, I’m tackling the Marvel Illustrated Sense & Sensibility.

Make Your Own Literary Magnets

Our three year old loves her Very Hungry Caterpillar magnets, a wonderful hand-me-down from friends. Unfortunately, these Eric Carle magnets appear to no longer be available for sale.

This got us searching for other magnets featuring beloved storybook characters. You know what we found? Nothing! There were plenty of magnets featuring television or movie characters, but none featuring our favorite storybook characters.

So, in true Spritzer Leyba fashion, we quickly set out to make our own.

We printed pictures from our favorite Kevin Henkes picture books onto plain white paper. Next time we may print the characters directly on magnetic photo paper (who knew such a thing existed?! Brilliant!).

We then laminated the paper (alternatively, instead of laminating sheets you could use packing tape).

After adhering the paper to magnetic sheets, we then cut out the characters.

A simple and quick project! Now we can use and love these literary magnets on our fridge or on the magnetic board that’s waiting to be hung in our daughter’s new room.



Curious about the characters?

From left to right: Jessica (from Jessica), Lilly (from Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse), and Chester, Victor, Wilson, and Lilly (from Chester’s Way). All family favorites! We almost always read each and every one of these books before bed each night. Check them out!