EB

EB was kind enough to visit us here in CA. We went to the Exploratorium, which was lots of fun. Pretty much everything was hands-on, which is Sean's kind of place! Also it was free that day which was an added bonus. That made it crowded, but I think everything in San Francisco is crowded during the summer anyway.

I didn't take any photos inside the museum, but outside and across the street by the marina there was a free fair. On the way we took a couple pictures of the GGB. I really should stop asking Sean to "smile" for pictures. :)

The fair had free bounce houses, activities, music, etc. Even free train rides!

While we were waiting in line for the train ride, some fighter jets flew by. And again and again, including red white and blue smoke. We wondered what was going on. Then, there were loads of people jumping out of airplanes. I have never seen so many parachuters in my life! Sorry this is a terrible picture with a dirty lens, but it's all I've got. If you look closely, you'll notice that the jumpers formed a "T." When we got home I checked the news, and all the craziness in the air was part of a filming for a T-Mobile commercial. It was really cool to watch, as well as to ponder the amount of money a very large corporation was spending on advertising.

Here EB and Mr. Sean go for the train ride.

When the train pulled away, I saw that in the marina there was a GIANT boat/ship/yacht - something huge. AND, look what it said on the side:

Yep, that's right, there was a Notre Dame yacht in the SF marina! So of course after the train ride we had to walk over and check it out up close.

We saw that the back door was open. I was wishing that Jeff were with me to walk right on and say "Hi! I went to Notre Dame!" But I am timid so we just stood there and looked at it for a few minutes, imagining getting on the boat and cruising the bay with some rich alumnus.

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We hung out around the house a bit, too. Sean and EB did some watercoloring. Sean generally just keeps his bike helmet on all the time when he's outside since he's on and off the bike so much.

We did a little running in the grassy patch by the pool.

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Back to the city.... we made a trip to the cable car museum, which I had been looking forward to for a long time. There were some displays inside about the history of cable cars in SF. I didn't realize that they once went all over the city (there are now only 3 lines I think). It was kind of sad to learn that. Back in the '50s the city got rid of them because people were driving their individual cars (among other reasons I'm sure). They almost got rid of all of them altogether, but at least a few were saved.

Sean loves gears and wheels and anything mechanical, as you probably already know. He enjoyed the museum.

The cable car museum is just a few blocks from Chinatown, so we spent the afternoon there and had dinner there. I found some Chinese Checkers for $2, which I thought was a pretty good deal. It also came with another board for some game involving dice and fighter jets. Most of the stuff we saw in the shops there made about that much sense. Anyway Sean likes it!

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We headed to Napa Valley one morning to see Old Faithful of California, a geyser. Sean was kind of scared of it at first, but then became interested as it sputtered, stopped, then came back about 10 minutes later. You can tell it was really hot that morning - Sean was red, sweaty, and really not in the mood for photos.

Did I mention it was hot? This was in the shade, too!

We had lots of fun with EB! Her presence was requested often during the week. "EB play with you?" was the most repeated phrase. (Sean is still working on learning how pronouns work. "You" and "me" are confusing!)



Next up, the Gravenstein Apple Fair, followed by our big trip to Yosemite then a visit from Uncle Paul! Stay tuned....