Favorite things

Nothing better than being at Notre Dame, wearing beads, and standing on a fire truck.

Last California mega-post

Here is a summary of our last couple of weeks in California. Things got kind of busy there for a while, so I now have more catching up to do on the blog.

In preparation for leaving California, we decided to run the hot tub for a while to make it at least look clean after we left. We found that there were two frogs and several GIANT slugs living in it. I caught one of the frogs. Sean was very interested to see it, but not touch it. A few days later he agreed to hold it. That lasted for about ten seconds. I wish I had recorded the look on his face. He did not like holding something wet, cold, and jumpy!

Sean claimed this suitcase as his own when I got them all out and started packing. One afternoon while I was making dinner he just sat in it and looked at his books all by himself. So cute. Luckily he moved on to something else by the time I had to actually pack stuff in it.

Grandma and Grandpa S. sent Sean this truck and trailer in the mail. He was SO excited. He loves things that hook together.

Just before Halloween we went to the Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa for some kids' activities. This is the most impressive product of the day. Can anyone tell that Dada helped out on this one? I think he secretly wants to put a glitter pen on his Christmas list. ;)

Sean shows off his blue tongue after a popsicle. And I'm glad we have an abundance of address labels, since so many end up on his shirt instead of our envelopes!

More indoor playground fun.

Sean discovered the foosball table at Dada's work. (Yes, that's right, all you accountants and engineers out there - some workplaces actually have games! Whoa!)

Sean found the Crazy Taxi game too and was hooked. Especially when he realized that it takes place in San Francisco - there are even cable cars!

Speaking of cable cars, we went into the city to do one last ride. We got a day pass and started out on a streetcar.

We stopped at the Streetcar museum, which was a huge hit. They had a hands-on area where you could play with the bell, levers, etc. from old streetcars.

Future streetcar operator?

Next we stopped at Rasputin where we picked up some good deals on some cds. They also had wheels bolted onto the stairway, so of course we had to check those out too.

Next we rode the cable cars down to Fisherman's Wharf.

Man I miss that California sun.

Sean wanted to see how the cables work. They are just endlessly fascinating.

We went to Ghirardelli Square but weren't really in the mood for a huge ice cream sundae, so I just bought a bunch of chocolate to bring home. You will be amazed to learn that I have not opened any of it yet. I guess I just want to make sure it lasts until we get back to SF again, and who the heck knows when that will be?! Well anyway here is a tired Sean by the Ghirardelli Fountain.

We had one last dinner out at Mary's Place, which is Sean's favorite restaurant. I don't think he really cares about the food, he just likes to play with the truck/trailer they have there. The food by the way is really good.

Sean and I made a stop at the Novato History Museum. He was not really excited about it, but luckily they had a couple of hands-on things.

This is the view from the front of the museum. That's the old city hall building which is currently being restored. In the background, Mount Burdell.

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but we only had one car while in California. We managed just fine (and I really wish that in Ohio we lived within biking/walking distance to the library, grocery store, church, etc). I would drop Jeff of to work in the morning and pick him up in the evening if I needed the car, but for the most part I got myself into decent shape towing Sean (and library books, groceries, etc.) around town on this. It got great gas mileage.

Indoor playground / Fleet Week & hot tub videos

Novato has an indoor playground that we go to once a week. I tried to get a good picture of Sean, but he is constant motion, so he was blurry in all of them. I will try again this week.

This is an old one from Fleet Week. In case you need a translation, Sean says "Blimp almost landing.... far away ocean."

We have a hot tub on the patio that we have not used at all since we arrived. Yes you probably think we are crazy, but the slugs got to it before we could and that was the end of it. We still run it every once in a while so we don't get in trouble with the landlord for letting it get too gross. Sean was fascinated by it - "This dial means.... how much pressure.... this filter over here under there...." he got a little flustered at the end I think because of the camera. :)

In this one he explains the dial, buttons, and how the water comes out of the filters.

And I don't believe it, but I am actually caught up on pictures and videos! I guess that means I will have to remember to take the camera with me this week/weekend for whatever we end up doing!

Lucas Valley

Last weekend we went for a little hike in Lucas Valley, which is just south of Novato. Jeff wanted to check out Skywalker Ranch, but of course it is completely gated and hardly visible from the road. Oh well. Someday he will get in there I think.

Anyway it was a beautiful day and we wanted to enjoy the sunny, warm weather. It still feels like late summer here, with maybe one day a week actually feeling like fall (windy, crisp air, cool).

Mama trying to bust through the cattle gate. (I couldn't figure it out.) It's nice to know that lots of cows are pastured here and not confined like the ones you see in Meet your Meat.

This was as good of a view of Skywalker Ranch as we could get. It's really huge and as you can see has a giant pond in the front.

And as usual, we stopped for a snack. Sean said, "Sitting on George Lucas!" when we sat down. He comes up with all kinds of amusing lines - I wish I could remember them all!

Streetlights turn on!

Since it has been getting dark earlier, we now have a new post-dinner routine. We have to make sure we get outside to watch the streetlights turn on. Sean gets very excited when he sees that it's dark outside since during the summer he would be in bed before dark and up after the sun came up. We have to make sure we get dinner going before it starts getting dark, otherwise Sean is suddenly done with dinner and repeats "Streetlights turn on!" over and over. He doesn't want to miss the action.

So this is where we hang out every evening....

Fleet Week

Fleet Week was two weeks ago and included lots of boats and airplanes around San Francisco. On Saturday we decided to avoid the crowds in the city and went to the Marin Headlands to watch the show.

Sometimes when we get in the car to go somewhere, Sean asks to put his shoes on once we get there. Fine, no big deal. The problem is when we get there, and Mom thinks Dad brought Sean's shoes, and vice versa, but in reality nobody brought them. Oops! Luckily we parked near a children's museum where we found some wellies for the low low price of $29.99 (and don't forget 9% sales tax). Sean loves them, and we will make sure they get lots of use until his toes are busting out of them!

We arrived early, so we spent some time tossing around a tennis ball. Somehow this kept Sean entertained for quite a while. He also kept saying "just about started!" even after the air show started. He told me he was waiting for water to start coming out of this giant rock in the bay, and for some reason it never turned on. Weird. ;)

The nice gentleman sitting next to us had two pairs of binoculars that he let us borrow for a while. I have decided to put a nice pair of binoculars on my Christmas list - we just have a little cheap pair and they simply do not compare to the good ones!

Sean enjoyed playing under a blanket and pretending to take a nap. He kept saying, "Good night, Sean!" over and over and then he would lie under the blanket for about 5 seconds (I think that's about the longest he can sit still unless he is actually tired).

We made it about halfway through the air show before Sean really did get tired, so we went home for naptime. On Sunday Sean had an early nap, so we decided to brave the crowds in the city to see the second half of the air show.

We found a horse to pet and stood by for a minute until we saw the sign that said "Pet the horse: $1." Luckily the guy was talking on his cell phone so he didn't notice us.

Due to the fog, the Blue Angels did their low show, so it was especially loud and close and AWESOME. Sean really enjoyed watching them, but he thought sometimes they were a little too loud.

Here is a giant ship in the bay. Sorry, I'm not up on my ships so I have no idea what this is.

Finally, on an unrelated note, this picture is for Vnak - I noticed the other day that Jeff was actually NOT wearing his tie dyed shirt. And besides tie dye, what else is part of our family's wardrobe? Notre Dame apparel, of course!

Veg Fest / Bluegrass Festival

We took the bikes down to Golden Gate Park a couple of weekends ago. We first hit up the San Francisco Vegetarian Festival. Jeff took some pictures of what he thought the highlights were.

Here is an overview. There were tables set up with different vendors - lots of free food samples, stickers, posters, etc. Sean plastered himself with "no fur" stickers.

No idea why they had bellydancers there, but it was entertaining.

The bellydancing music was too loud for Sean, so we headed outside to find the "children's corner." That was advertised on the flyer, so I was anxious for Sean to have something fun to do. I was thinking, maybe some arts and crafts, maybe a bounce house, lots of kids playing, etc. It turned out to be a table with a basket of broken crayons and a dirty inflatable octopus. As Sean would say, "What?!"

Also that day in the park was a huge Bluegrass Festival. There were about five stages set up with music, and it was really packed. We parked the bikes at the top of a hill that overlooked the crowd.

Lots of people. This was just one of the stages.

Having fun in the sun.

Snacktime!

More of September

Just found some more pictures from September.

One Saturday morning we drove east to Fairfield, CA for the Jelly Belly tour. Sean and I had done this previously on a weekday, but it was lots of fun so we decided to go back with Dada.

You have to wear a hat on the tour, and if you don't have your own, they give you one. They reminded me of the hats you can get at Steak and Shake.

In the factory there were lots of Jelly Belly murals. The first one done was of Ronald Reagan, who was apparently a huge Jelly Belly fan (especially licorice flavor). They have since done all kinds of celebrities and other things such as cartoon characters, etc. I liked this one the best though.

Next stop in Fairfield was the Budweiser brewery tour. We opted for the free one, which turned out to be quite minimal. (The more extensive one would probably be more interesting, but it's really hard to pay attention to someone talking to you when you are trying to prevent a 2-year-old from wandering off and getting into trouble!) I thought this room was most impressive though. The tour guide said that each aging tank holds enough beer for one person to have a 12-ounce beer every hour for 57 years or something like that. That is a lot of beer!

They also had a tasting room and gift shop. Sean enjoyed sitting on the cool chair while we enjoyed our beer samples.

"What can I get with this ticket, Mom? Just a glass of water? Are you kidding me?"

This banner was hanging over the factory. I thought it resembled my life story, which goes a little more like "Raised in Fairfield, lived around the country."

*****

Just a couple pictures from around the house....

Sean and I have been seeing the turkeys around a lot lately. I previously thought that there were 14, but the other day I counted 22! Holy cow. One day they were hopping the fence to go to the pool, and Sean ran down there (it's about 2 doors down from our place) and yelled at them to get their swimsuits on first. Hilarious.

What?!?! Rain!?!? We haven't seen here that in months, literally. Now it's a frequent occurrence but I enjoy it - it's nice to have a change in weather!