Central Park, San Mateo

After our big outing on Monday, we decided to stay a little closer to home on Tuesday to let the kids (and us!) recharge their batteries. It was cool and foggy on the coast, so we headed over the hill to San Mateo to let the kids play at Central Park. I lived in San Mateo for a few years of my childhood and I remember well playing at Central Park.

Nick and I on the swirly slide. See? I'm a fun mom!

Lee made great use of his camera and the location to get some wonderful shots of the kids!

Lee is the type of grandfather who says, "Yes, you can have an ice cream from the ice cream man!"

After playing and picnicking, we headed to the mall where we purchased part of Patience's school wardrobe. Mom still gets a 25% discount at Gap, so we were able to get alot for our money! She's going to look adorable : )

San Francisco Zoo

Mom and Lee took us to the San Francisco on Monday. This is the same zoo I visited as a child, only they've made a lot of changes since then! We all had a great time. Nick had so much fun that he didn't want to nap the entire 5 hours we were there!

The girls look at the giraffe.

Patience and the girafffe.

The girls check out the lion statues.

Patience checks out a gorilla skull.

The girls meet a tortoise.

Patience rides a camel (statue).

Jordyn at the playground where we had a picnic lunch.

The girls and I as zookeepers!

The girls on the geese statue.

Visiting with Dad and Edith

From Modesto, we drove west to Milpitas, where my dad and Edith live. It's fortunately only about an hour's drive. When we arrived, we met one of Edith's sons, Darby, and his two daughters. They had come to visit on the same day, so the girls had instant playmates. It was amazing to me because Darby's daughters mirrored mine to the "T." His younger daughter was slight and shy and his older daughter had a larger frame with a HUGE personality. The four girls got along famously.

Dad and Nick.

Dad and Edith live in a seniors' mobile home park, so it's a very quiet neighborhood until the weekend when everyone's grandchildren come to visit. That's when the pool area becomes the playground for lots of families. We spent the majority of the day at the pool. Edith and Cecilia brought over a lovely barbeque lunch and we made the kids get out of the pool long enough to eat.

Nick never did master the art of napping in his porta-crib : ( But he did have his longest nap of the whole vacation while we were visiting Dad and Edith...he napped for 90 minutes while I held him, and then another 90 minutes while Dad held him!

Around 5:00, Jordyn decided that she was done, so Edith took her home to get her cleaned off and dressed. Dad and I decided that we'd let Patience swim until she collapsed just to see how long she would last. She had been in the pool since 1 with only a short break to eat. At 6, she finally trudged up the stairs and said she was tired. We took her back home and she joined Jordyn in Edith's jetted tub.

Spa day for the girls!


Nick loves the fish tank!

After getting bathed and dressed, Edith took the girls to the Walgreen's where she works and said what every kid dreams of hearing, "Choose anything you want! Just put it in this basket!" And then proceeded to take them down the candy aisle, the toy aisle, the ice cream freezer. Five bags later, we went back to their home and once again loaded up the van for another drive, this time back to Moss Beach for another visit with Grandma and Papa.

Goodbye photo with my parents and the kids... unfortunately Nick had just expired : (

Visiting the Smiths

We arrived in Modesto at Heather's and spent the day with her and her beautiful daughter, Haley. The Smiths live in a very warm climate, so they get a lot of use out of their in-ground pool. They especially got a lot of use out of it when we were there, because that's what the girls wanted to do whenever we were home!

Haley spent so much time and attention on my daughters that I was able to rest and relax more than I ever imagined...thanks Haley! She swam with them for hours, played dress up, played in her playhouse with them, took them to see G-Force, and just basically did whatever they wanted or needed. I wish she lived closer : )

The Smith's wonderful pool.

Hours upon hours of swimming. Patience was in heaven...

The clever girls made a slide out of the Boogie Board : )

Patience playing dress up.

Jorydn and Haley.

The girls loved Haley's play house!

We went to their Farmer's Market which had wonderful produce and foodstuffs. Later that day Frank and Heather took us to lunch at a wonderful place called Hilmar Cheese Factory. After lunch, Frank dropped the girls off at the movie theater and Heather and I got a few hours of uninterrupted hen time while Nick napped. That was an unexpected blessing!

Nick discovered Heather's piano and was thrilled that he could make it work!

Nick playing with Auntie Heather after all the other kids went to bed.

Heather gets her baby fix : )

And Nick learns that Auntie Heather is an acceptable substitute for Mommy...

Everybody loves Mr. Smith! Especially Jordyn : )

Jordyn telling Frank a secret (ear-to-ear).

Heather and Nick.

My very reserved daughter.

Miss Haley.

Hilmar Cheese Factory is to cheese what Krause's is to berries. And they serve a very yummy lunch!

On Sunday we joined Frank and Heather at their church but left after the song service, and from there we headed back west to visit with Dad and Edith. We had a lovely 4-day visit with Frank, Heather, Haley, Nolan, and Socks. For more pics of our visit, go look at Heather's blog post. Her camera is much better than mine : )

In the beginning...

When Frank and Heather visited us in June, we had such a fantastic time that Heather and I immediately started planning our next get-together. It just so happened that Sean and Dylan would be away most of July and part of August and Don was pining for some time where he could focus on working many hours each day without feeling guilty about leaving me with the lion's share of the child-minding. So a plan was born: I would drive to California with the Littles to visit the Smiths and both sets of grandparents.

My absolutely wonderful mother offered to fly to Seattle and help me drive down. Being retired with flight benefits is a wonderful thing! She offered to do the same thing on the return trip, but when my dad heard about my plans, he offered to drive home with me and then spend some time visiting in the Pacific North West with Val's family and mine.

Of course I had trepidations about such a long drive, but I flew caution to the wind and went for it...I'm so glad I did!

Here we are getting ready to head out.

How can you resist a road trip with these cuties? Notice Nick in the background.

Of course Grandma had a strategy for kids who were hot/bored/tired of driving: suckers! She brought 33 of them and we even had leftovers : )

We drove from Canada to Roseburg, Oregon on the first day, stopping frequently at rest stops to use the washroom and at playgrounds to stretch our legs and play. We ate picnic food the entire time, going through the McDonald's drive thru only once, and that was to get ice cream!

In Roseburg, we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express and made great use of their pool, hot tub, and complimentary hot breakfast. On Tuesday after breakfast we let the kids swim for awhile before loading them back into the car for the final leg of the journey.

Next stop: Moss Beach, California, where the girls finally got to see where Grandma and Papa live! We arrived around 7:30 p.m. and the kids (and the adults) were so ready to be out of the car. After unpacking our many belongings, Lee took the girls for a walk to the beach and Mom and I got everything ready for the kids' bedtime.

On Wednesday we were happy to spend a day not driving at all. We took the kids to the Moss Beach park, which they loved, and then to their beach, the Fritzgerald Marine Reserve.

The Moss Beach Park.

The Fritzgerald Marine Reserve... home of wonderful tide pools that Patience spent hours exploring with her very patient Papa.

On Wednesday we said a temporary goodbye to Grandma and Papa and got back in the car for a two-hour ride to the Smith's home.

August...one busy month!

I haven't been blogging because there is nothing newsworthy going on...I haven't been blogging because I've been so busy doing newsworthy things! Bear with me, blogposts are coming soon to show and tell you what we've been up to!

Tip for military moms

Don't ever tell your son to call you at 5:00. Of course you were thinking 5 P.M. Of course he heard 0500. Of course he did what you told him to do. And of course it was a Sunday morning and the phone woke up the baby. Just adopt the 24-hour clock; it'll make everyone's life so much easier. And while you're at it, use military letters, too, oscar kilo?