Sculpture and Stickers

This day we started in Sonoma, at Cornerstone Nursery Sculpture Garden. Last year we stopped by here, but didn't get to see all the gardens. Miles has been talking about the kinetic sculpture we did see here for a year. So we went back to see it. At first he was worried because it wasn't in the same place as it was last year, but we found them located around the grounds. Here's one:
Miles could look at it all day. We also saw Blue Tree:





giant yarnballs,











and lots of nice gardens.






We spent 2 and a half hours there, looking at everything. We had an extremely pleasant picnic lunch in the shade, and checked out the rest of the sculpture and indoor gallery.



















We took the long way home through Petaluma, and stopped at Mrs. Grossman's sticker factory. Because, you know, you can never have too many stickers....

Reading and Socks

Today was another low-key day, after the non-stop excitement and thrills of yesterday. I still have hives from head to toe, so am in a bit of a Benedryl stupor. This morning, we went down to the library book store where Mom and Dad "work" on Wednesday mornings. We picked up some reading materials for our upcoming plane rides. In the afternoon, Mom and Caroline and I went to Mervyn's on the quest for Caroline's favorite underwear and socks. They closed all the Mervyn'ses in WA, so we have to stock up when we are in the vicinity. Here is the reading pic...

Marine World, Africa USA

Oh, wait, no, it is now called Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. When I was going to school in Davis, they were in the process of moving the whole theme park from Redwood City to Vallejo, and every time I drove past, I would try to see the giraffes. Here is one now!
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Yesterday we went to the SFDK, and saw giraffes,
tigers, lions, camels, zebra, sharks, dolphins, sea lions, walrus, elephants, fish, sting rays, and of course, an orca!

It was a fabulous and long day, we were too tired to blog about it last night, plus I am inexplicably covered in hives, ugh.

We arrived first thing in the morning, and then planned our day around all the animal shows. We think our favorite was the dolphin show, they are just so cute. Although the sea lion show was pretty funny--Odie and Cecil and the Bermuda Rectangle--Miles thought there were some pretty funny lines in that one. Let's just say they were rather punny.

The kids got to pet a baby zebra...













...................The orca show was very impressive,
although we wondered why they called them killer whales the whole time. Maybe it is just a northwest thing...



Mom noticed that they have changed their focus a bit from before. It used to be that the tigers and orcas would be jumping through hoops of fire. Now they are more about splashing the audience, and educating people about the animals. They are very quick in all their schpeals to say that the animals are all technically "wild", they have just been well trained. "Our animals are not domesticated...etc etc....." Well, who knows...It was a fine day, we learned stuff and Miles took this excellent picture to put at the end of this blog post. So there it is, The End.

Golfing at McGuinness

Ah yes, the very place where we had Cross Country meets BEFORE there was a golf course, and the site of the ONLY time I ever placed in a cross country race, I believe it was 8th, in the MCALs. I KNOW, really exciting. So, now there is a golf course, and Mini golf course, and we went out today, to play some mini golf, which we all love, and have some lunch. Well, we experienced THRILLS on holes 5 and 8, TRAGEDY on hole 13, and a DEBACLE on hole 17. Who says golf is boring? Here we are before any of that.

Holes 5 and 8 are the sites of the 2 holes in one of the day, by me and Miles respectively....there was much hooting and jumping about. Hole 13 is where Miles fell over, hit his back/tailbone on a rock, and then proceeded to pass out. We almost gave up, but he is such a trooper, after some water and putting some ice on his head (which turned out to be an astroturf-burn, not a contusion) we got back on it and completed the round. We all fell apart on the 17th hole, and naturally the party behind us was standing around watching and waiting, while we each took about 3 Mulligans, and some putting liberties. Oh well, we all agreed that in the end it was a very fun day. We had a nice lunch in the clubhouse.

California, here we are...

We arrived in California yesterday after about a two hour delay at the airport. We were supposed to arrive around 5, but it was closer to 7. By the time we got here and finished dinner, it was 10:30!! The kids were exhausted and fell right asleep. Caroline wanted to sleep in my old room, so she is in there by herself, and Miles and I are sharing my sister's room. Luckily he doesn't snore or wake up early...

Today we planned to do nothing, which we did all morning. Caroline and I made lemonade, and then after lunch, dad and I went to do some shopping. Here he is with his new Prius.
It has fancy dashboard mapping device, and we plugged in United Markets, but then Dad got all rebellious and didn't turn when instructed. Well, she wanted us to go the way with more stop signs!

Mom and the kids went for a walk out at Indian valley.
They observed the same fungus they found there last year...

So far, perfect weather, cool, sunny, mid 70s.....Great day!

Rosetta Stone and Irony

I think that I got the worst grade of my life on a paper on the Rosetta Stone in the 9th grade, thank you Mr. Minick! Well, RS (the computer program) is now teaching me and my children some French! I really hope once we get there I will have the chance to discuss whether or not the horse is jumping or running, because I can talk about that a lot!

Le cheval saute!
Le cheval court!

I got some excellent French refrigerator magnets for my birthday...Maybe grandpa will tutor us. We leave for Novato on Saturday. These next 2 days are a whirlwind, of finishing laundry, packing, going to see Harry Potter (hooray! finally!) and then we leave on the 14th.

Tickets Bought!

They may have cost an arm and a leg, but they are not getting my first born child. I just like him too much!. We will be officially gone from August 2-24. Huzzah! We will celebrate not only our 12th wedding anniversary, but also Caroline's 8th birthday in Paris. We all agree that is pretty cool....