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!