last day of session 2

i will sure miss gabbing with karen and letty...session 3 we are all by ourselves.

Jackie

Sophia splashing with her teacher Jackie

Tom turns How Old???

We went to for Korean food in Pleasanton for Dad's bday.Max cracks an egg.

the Bday Boy

Bi bim bop(...sounds like scat music.)

the Bubbie-Q

Tammy cracking up

Is Stace really oblivious or just pretending?

The only working soul. Thanks Gabe!

Max and Tony

kayla, sophia and dominic
(missing are Bryan and Chance because Chance was always on the go
and Bryan was stuck chasing him around! Glad we are our of our 2s!)

Thanks Alana for kindly 'volunteering' your house and your 'chef' for this year's Bubbie-Q

all the way to niles

it was a beautiful day and a good day for a ride so we went all the way down to a little park in niles.

Guess who's back, back again?

Max is back, tell a friend.

Palo Alto Jr Museum

When Aly invited us to their family bbq, we discovered a great place for the kids that doesnt cost much and is pretty close by, the Rinconada Jr Museum in Palo Alto. There is a great park for the kids to play in and tables to picnic on. There is also a pool (which we didnt do). And there are interactive learning toys inside the museum and a zoo outside. It's very small, so you arent running all over the place like the Discovery Museum, but the kids still had lots of fun. They only ask for a small donation, there isnt really a set price.

Izzy, Miranda and Sophia
Nathanial, Tyler and Aly
All the kids on the rainbow bridge
The Stump Path in front of the museum was a blast, despite the hot hot sun and the fact that poor Miranda scrubbed hard!

Oakland Zoo

After swim lessons, we went to the Oakland Zoo with Miranda and Isabelle from across the street. The girls went wild!

being flamingos
coiffures to the goat
walking sticks
all aboard

Splish Splash

some one is getting better at swimming....she actually puts her face in the water, blows bubbles, jumps in, floats on her back, but most of all, she has fun! i know she doesnt look like it in the foto, but it was hard to snap a picture, next time i'll move to the other side of the pool.

sophia looks a bit sheepish, but she's having fun, really!
izzy got moved up a class, look at her go!

Los Osos

Road Trip. Katie and I drove down to see Maria and James. They are remodeling their house so we stayed in Morro Bay. We had a great time hanging out and doing a whole lot of nothing. M and J put on a big bbq Saturday. M's bro Joe and his kids were there. I was bummed I decided to leave Sophia at home... HGTV view from restaurant
katie and her strawberry cupcakes we all scarfed!
it's nice to see katie and james all grown up!

(thats a cupcake getting smashed in her face)
maria in her dad's new baby.

G and O's Digs

Gina and Oskar invited us over for dinner. they have this fantabulous house up in the Alum Rock area. It's always a blast hanging out with those guys. Gina had this fun game called tabletopics. it's like an icebreaker - there are cards that ask questions like ' whats the scariest thing that ever happened to you,' 'if you met God, what would you ask him,' 'what would you like to be famous for' and you really get to know people.



I ended up drinking a bit too much, so we crashed in an extra room. which was a good thing because the next day we got a tour of the new landscaping and sophia got to swing in the hammock

Kung Fu Panda and Super Franks

Today I took Sophia to her first movie in the Cinema. It was crowded and people kept coming into the movie (they werent leaving and coming back, the were just coming in) and the popcorn was bitterly salty, but sophia had lots of fun. she has been asking to back ever since we stepped outside the theater! i learned that you should never dump one of those crystal lite on the go things into your water if you take the kid to movies solo. since the popcorn was so stinking salty, instead of not eating it, i chose downing the crystal lite infused water...which is a diuretic and i was stuck in the dilemma of: 'do i make sophia come with me and cause a scene which we may not be able to recover from' or 'just leave her and perhaps she cries looking for me, but most likely will just sit there and not even notice im gone.' i looked to my left and right, i could see nothing but kids (no pedophiles) and chose the latter. i gave sophia a little talk about staying seated and quiet and ran all the while looking behind my shoulder to see if she was following or was crying. i was back so fast i didnt even really miss a scene, but i did endure a dirty look from a mom at the start of our row as i tried to make my way back to my seat. btw sophia didnt even realize i was gone, so whew that went well.

...and then it was off to Super Franks, which is basically like giving your kid ADD. It's sort of like Chuck E. Cheese but with fewer games and more organized activities. There is a play room with a zipline and cars, moni golf, jungle-gym tube crawling thru thing, video game room, movie room and various flat screened tv showing various family friendly shows and a snack bar with pizza, salads, smoothies and starbucks. the snack bar is actually for the adults, its a miracle if you can get the kids to eat...all they do is say can i go play now? how about now? how about now? and then run excitedly from one thing to another. sophia walked inside and had no idea what to do, she was overwhelmed...it took her a little help from the other kids to get over it...then off she went.

dominic on the merry-go-round
marina on the jumping jack game
sophia hunting ducks
kayla and sophia on the merrygoround. you are never too old for this one!

last day this session

she jumped! (and she actually laughed and smiled too).

you know it's hot when...

we can actually convince other people to come over and use the pool! The kellys and the gonzales joined us in the icey arctic today...and the pool actually felt good! karen's . the kids had lots and lots of fun!

Jason was the only boy of the group, but he still swam like a fish!
sophia, aly and catherine play mickey mouse.
karen and her little shadow
miranda and letty
miss isabelle

We must love the Cranes..

the family, not the bird or the machine. today was chandler's last game of the season, mary lou and grandpa bob arrived and holly is leaving to the england and so we went to see everyone...the game was in livermore, it was HOT HOT HOT! if we didnt like that crane family so much we would have been soaking in gung gung's ice cold pool! that is not supposed to be a picture of the fence, its chandler hitting one outta the park...
the frozen lemonades really hit the spot!
auntie holly brought along a squirt bottle and

the kids had fun squirting each other (or themselves)

sophia didnt actually see much of the game, she just played in the dirt behind the dugout.

It Must Be Hot...

...well how hot is it you ask? so hot that my mom actually got in the pool!! that is a rare occasion. we're only 1/3 of the way thru the summer, lets see if we can capture another picture of this

rare happening before the summer ends...

Cousin Steffi

Last year due to several unfortunate events, we bailed out on visiting my cousin stefanie and ray. this year we finally got to go, and we had such a nice time. the m and d came too and we had lunch at their retirement community. (its not what you think, actually its a really lovely complex that, as ray describes it, is like being on a cruise ship, but on land...here are dining areas, activities, gym, pool, and putting greens, etc.) sophia had a great time, as usual.

trying on stef's hat
feeding the ducks on the pond.
taking a rest in the shade
really cool red dragon fly we saw buzzing around the complex.