Long Weekends

I'm a firm believer that every weekend should be a long weekend, the thought of going to work tomorrow is actually making me ill, I hate all the time that I miss with the kids when I am at work.  My work environment isn't all that great but I also feel like I am missing so much with Riley with her going to the before and after school program, I haven't seen her teacher since the first week of school and that doesn't seem right nor does it sit well with me.  And Jacob's daily "I don't want momma go to work, I want momma stay and play with me" on the way to school doesn't help my feelings either.  We took advantage of last weekend and had a good old fashioned family fun day on Sunday. 

We took a ride up to Fairfield and surprised the kids with a visit to the Jelly Belly Factory.  Jelly Bellys are a family favorite so the fact that they could have them at 9AM was even a bigger treat!  After the Jelly Belly Factory, we headed to Napa for some wine and to check out the earthquake damage, the damage was unreal!  I have grown up with earthquakes my whole life but have never seen anything like the damage seen in Napa.  My picture don't do it justice, we passed a church and the whole façade of the church was separated from the rest of the building.  The kids got cranky so we had some lunch and then headed home before full meltdown ensued. 

Family Fun Weekend

Wow, what a fun weekend.  Monday came out of nowhere and I was dragging big time at work!  Marc and I had a nice 4 day weekend, we got free tickets at the game the weekend prior to Thursday's Giants game so we both took the day off and headed to the Giants game...without the kids!  It was a fun time and a beautiful day in the city!  It's so much easier to navigate without a 5 1/2 year old and a 2 1/2 year old in tow.  The Giants lost but we got to check out the whole park, including the new garden which is pretty cool and so San Francisco.

Friday we had Riley's friend Bella and her parents and brother over to BBQ.  Riley and Bella are now at different schools so they miss each other a ton.  (On a side note, the other day we were driving and Riley says: "My friends from my old school, we're all separate now, but we're still friends. . We'll be friends forever."  It was just about the sweetest thing ever!  We really did get lucky with a great group of friends her year, we don't have the same experience with Jacob and his classmates.)  We broke our drought rules and filled up the kiddie pool and water table and let the kids splash around.  I felt a little guilty but there are literally no water activities anywhere in the area and kids still have to have fun!  We did fill the small one and not as much as normal so we were conservative.  After we BBQ we walked down to the park because its a designated "Safe and Sane Fireworks" ignition spot so we watched all of the crazies light off their own fireworks.  Some people were hardcore.  The kids thoroughly enjoyed it!

Jacob loves helping me bake...

I think he uses me to lick the spoon!

Little Dude loves Water Play!

They look so ridiculous in this tiny pool but we're in a major drought, so beggars can't be chooser!

We stepped Family Fun Day up a notch, our version of a water slide

Jacob had to get in on the action

Poor Jacob, always trying to keep up with Riley and her friends!

Besties!

4th of July Cuties!

Dublin's version of fireworks, notice the cloud of smoke!

Wheeeeeeeeee!

Saturday  we had my friend Aimee's little guys 1st birthday.  She's my friend whose husband passed right after Riley's surgery so her little guy's 1st birthday was a big deal.  All of his friends and their families came, there must have been close to 60 people there, she has a pool so we all went swimming and it was lots of fun!  Riley adores her daughter Reese, so they ran off and we barely saw her the whole party.  Both kids took like 3 hour naps so if that's a measure of fun, it was a good one!

Only picture I got at little Calvin's birthday party

Sunday we had another birthday party! This time it was our neighbor Kai's birthday.  The cul-de-sac down has a nice group of kids with siblings both Riley and Jacob's age so we spend a lot of time down there.  Kai just turned 3 and they had a water gun birthday party at their place so we all hung out, got squirted (shhh, more drought breaking) and then had pizza and cupcakes!  Then it was naps before heading up to our friend Elisabeth and Ian's neighborhood pool for more swimming with their oldest Owen and to meet their newest, Henry.  The guys had pool duty while us ladies (and Henry) sat in the shade and drank margaritas (Henry did not have margaritas for the record).  Jacob is looking out for my hydration because he came out of the pool and said "Momma, no drink wine, drink water."  Little guy is always looking out for me!

Cupcakes with the birthday boy and neighbor friends

Jacob takes his food seriously

Show me you muscles big boy!

Every day we leave a note in the mailbox at school for Riley, Jacob wanted to write Riley a note Sunday night.

We've started giving Jacob chores (vacuuming is a favorite) and in return he gets "money!" so Sunday Marc asked him to de-stem our grapes for the week.  His attention to detail was amazing and he was cracking me up.  Riley was upstairs doing her chores for her $1 so Jacob was with just Marc and myself and he was such a little ham.

And just like that, it was Monday.   What a fun weekend!

Family Day

Friday we kept the kids home from day care and decided to make a family day of it.  We took a walk to Peet's in the morning because Ri loves to ride her bike or scooter down there, put the kids down for an early nap, then out to Fuddrucker's for lunch (Ri's choice), followed by a trip to the zoo.  We've never been in the afternoon and most of the animals were quite active.  We've never seen the tigers moving around and all four of them were up and playing.  Jacob was running around the zoo yelling "baboons" because they are one of our favorite exhibits, we love the baby baboon and now there is a new baby baboon that was born in the last month or so.  And when we would move on to the next set of animals, he'd yell "bye guys!"  We also saw a giraffe running which we've never seen and quite frankly, I didn't know they could run.  They look pretty awkward running, but who am I to judge.  As always it was a fun visit to the zoo!

A running giraffe, who knew?

Bye guys!

"Baboon! Bye guys!"

And if thinking this is hilarious makes me a child, then I don't want to be an adult!!! :)

Sunday Fun Day

Sunday we woke up to a treat, Jacob naked, there was poop involved, we'll just leave it at that.  I will give them credit because they did sleep in past 7AM which is rare around here.  After our clean-up of Jacob's room we decided to head to the Oakland Zoo and give our annual memberships a maiden voyage.  We had a great time, we kicked off the trip with rides this time so Riley didn't hack us the whole time about riding the rides.  We did the roller coaster together and then Riley did the planes.  She was SO happy!  Then we went and saw all of our favorite animals.  It was a great day at the zoo!

Every trip Marc and Riley make a pressed penny together.

They love the giraffes!

Jacob loves animals

He's so gentle and excited around them

This is the first time we let Jacob in and out of the stroller as he's starting to listen better and follows directions now

Not a huge fan of sitting on the frog

She'll ham it up anywhere

This is the first time the chimp has been down

This guy is my favorite, he's always putting on a show!

After the zoo we went to Walnut Creek for lunch and then some shopping!  The ultimate in Sunday Fun Days!

Zoo!

We've decided to take advantage of all that is around us some more, that includes, zoos, parks, family activities.  Riley is still out of gymnastics, well technically she can be back but they dropped her from the class without consulting with us so she lost her slot.  Yeah, I went Momma Bear on them, so she's out of gymnastics until August 19th.  Speaking of bears, we headed to the Oakland Zoo this morning for a morning at the zoo, we got there around 9:30 (even though the website said they opened at 10AM) and found that they were opened so we ventured in.  It was a perfect time to be there, it was not too crowded and most of the animals were out and about.  The kids loved it!  Marc and I also had a great time.  They had docents all over the zoo that were very knowledgeable about the animals.  We were very impressed.  And I know it may not be a popular opinion but I almost liked it better than the San Diego Zoo, it was the perfect size for my kids and had the perfect amount of animals and all of our favorites.  We will definitely be going back!

This monkey was awesome!  We watched him for a good half hour, Marc and I could have stayed all day, he was so entertaining and Jacob loved him as well.  Riley of course was ready to move onto the next thing after a few minutes. 

At the front of the zoo, there are a bunch of kiddie rides, of course Riley just had to go on some so she rode the cars, we have some serious trouble coming our way when she turns 16 because she gets this look on her face when she's behind the steering wheel of a vehicle.  And I rode the roller coaster with her, she's my little roller coaster girl!