06.27.07
Posted in Family, Holidays, Outings, Travel, Work at 4:12 pm by Christina
Jeff has finished up a big push through April and May and June that is finally over this week. We had hoped actually to go away for a few days of vacationing, but eventually decided that would be impractical given other constraints and obligations. So we decided that we would vacation from home, which gives us a lot of the pleasures of vacationing, but still our own beds and pillows and none of the hassles of a large vacation prep.
We decided that we would have an activity day followed by a rest-at-home day, with a lot of time spent together as a family even on the at-home days. On Monday we did our outing to the county fair which I’ve blogged here and here. Tuesday we took Cissa to the airport, caught up on a few chores around the house, and worked on getting the new bookshelfs braced (for earthquake safety). We got about two-thirds done and finished up today, Wednesday. First on Wednesday, though, we went to the Oakland Zoo and stayed about four hours, letting Jamie walk through a lot of it (although his favorite parts were the dirt and the pebbles and not any of the animals). I’ll post a few pictures of that once I get them off of my camera.
Katie would like to go on a nature hike; we will likely go to Garin Regional Park in Hayward, which has a creek, but I’ll research a bit to confirm a location with water as that’s important to her. (It could be a hunt; the bay area is very dry and we are seeing daily wildfires out our back windows turning many acres black.) Jeff would like to spend a day at the beach; we’ll need to decide which of the many great Pacific beaches to enjoy. I think I would like to do a bike ride. We’re also talking about seeing a baseball game.
Now that the bookshelves are braced I am going to set up our Library Thing account and we’ll start cataloguing the books and emptying boxes. That is going to be exciting; I got us some custom stamps to label the books once we’ve input them and the girls are looking forward to turning the process into a bit of a game.
It’s wonderful to have Jeff mostly off from work (he’s still participating in a few regular status calls and the like); he’s been working really hard! Still, it seems to be paying off with repeat clients; Genentech just contacted him today to negotiate for a new project.
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Posted in Family, Kids, Outings, Photos at 3:42 pm by Christina
After we finished up in the exhibit hall, we decided it was time to let Jamie out of the stroller for some free-range time. We headed to the kiddie carnival at the back of the fair and he enjoyed three rides with his grandparents. First, a helicopter ride with Cissa:
He just loves helicopters and has a sound-word for them – one tongue click. Propeller airplanes get the same sound, but jet planes get the ASL sign for airplane.
Next was an elephant ride with Meemom:
And finally a carousel horse ride with Poopop:
Took him a while to settle into this one, with some tears at the start, but once he got a better hold of Poopop’s shirt the tears stopped and he enjoyed himself!
All of these rides culminated in requests for “more”!
After a snack – which was actually three different snacks for Jamie as I tried to find something he would eat in quantity, since he hadn’t had anything since his naptime bottle – we moved over to the small animal exhibits and enjoyed rabbits, guinea pigs and any number of birds. Jamie really enjoyed these and the birds, which he could be standing for and under his own power, were favorites:
Then we went to the Alaskan Pig Races and Emma was chosen to lead a cheering section for one of the finalists:
Finally, the girls gave the bungee jumping a shot, convinced us to let them have a second turn so they could achieve somersaulting, and begged us to please let them do it again on our second trip to the fair after the 4th of July:
We had a terrific time! After the bungee jumping we got some more, dinner-like food and listened to a washboard band. Then we spent a little bit of time at the garden exhibits before moving on to the adult carnival where Katie and Emma convinced Cissa to ride the swings with them. I got some cool video of them on the ride – with the dusky sky behind them, it looks like they are being computer-generated against a special effects blue screen.
We’ll be spending a second day at the fair in July, with the girls bringing along a couple of friends whose mom is recovering from surgery. We bought them unlimited carnival wristbands and expect they’ll be on the rides all day! Friends of mine from chorus will be coming for the evening karaoke competition, too, so it will be fun to watch that as well.
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