Vacation

A couple weekends ago, we headed north for a little vacation. It was fun to get away for a while!

Traveling with 2 Captain Americas!

The first two nights we stayed in Half Moon Bay so we could go to the Maker Faire in San Marcos on Saturday. It was a ton of fun!

There were lots and lots of people!

First we saw the bubble makers. This guy did this all day long. I am sure his arms were hurting the next day!

The boys LOVED the bubbles!!

This whole train and track was made from Legos and Jacob thought it was soooo cool! In fact, at the fountain the other day, he threw in pennies and made a wish for a Lego train. Good luck with that, kiddo!

There was an area with tons of cool bikes.

Fuzzy bunny bike - weird

Fire, lots of fire. Geeks like fire.

My two robots!

Mommy Monkey. I love how it looks like Isaac is ticking my armpit.

Back to the bubbles - this time to make our own bubble makers and try our hand at making big bubbles.

Is that Adam Savage from Myth Busters?

At this point Isaac crashed out in a nap in the stroller. Jacob saw this big dragon thing and that people were climbing up into it to move its tail and he was determined to do it. Alan and I were skeptical that he would follow through when the time came, but we stayed in that line until the bitter end.

Jacob proved us wrong and climbed right up that ladder, on to the red couch and happily pulled on the string to move the dragon's tail. He had so much fun and I was so proud of him!

Taking a little break in some funky chairs.

Another favorite area was the Lego jeep. I think the boys would have stayed there all afternoon if we let them!

This was truly crazy! It was called Tapagami, all made from masking tape!!

The background is all wire hangers covered with different colored fabrics.

Now it was Jacob's turn to nap in the stroller and while he slept, Isaac went to the Robot Petting Zoo. He LOVED it!! He says his favorite part of the whole trip was the push the button robots.

The next morning we started our way to Lake Tahoe. We decided to just leisurely make the the 3ish hour trip. First we stopped at the Temescal Farmer's Market in Oakland. It was awesome! Alan wanted to stop because he heard that there was a mobile pizza oven there. Since it was still mid-morning, we had the breakfast one. 

Then we did a little hula hooping. Alan's pretty good!!

The boys tried so hard!

About an hour later, we stopped at a fun little playground to let the boys run around a while and to eat our lunch of delicious little quiches we bought from the farmer's market.

Snow!

The purpose of going to Tahoe was to watch the solar eclipse so we picked up some sandwiches for dinner and found a place on the lake to watch it.

Jacob says his favorite part of the whole trip was watching the eclipse.

See the tiny little crescent on the Goldfish bag? Cool, huh? Alan made that with his fingers.

The boys had a blast playing on the rocks.

Our original plan was to get into Lake Tahoe earlier enough on Sunday to be able to explore a bit, but we moseyed a bit too long and didn't get there until late afternoon, so we decided to stay another night.

The next morning we went on a little hike. We called it a nature walk for Isaac's sake since in the past he has not enjoyed hikes. He did great!

Jacob 'vacuuming' the forest.

This is Fawn View Lake. We were standing on a ridge overlooking it and it was super windy and cold so we didn't stick around long! Very beautiful, though!

Isaac playing a 'tuba'

After our hike we went back to the hotel to take a little rest. Jacob and I hung out in the lobby drawing pictures while Isaac took a nap. Then we went to the lake to go kayaking, but it was awfully windy and the boys were just really wanted to swim so that's what we did. Well, they did. It was way too cold for us big people!

The boys did great in the car both on our way out and on the way home. Of course, there were little arguments and some whining, but overall, I think they were good little travelers.

Very fun vacation!

Catch up

I haven't blogged for a month! What?!? How did that happen?
 Isaac rarely naps now, so instead of getting a little break every afternoon where I can sit and blog peacefully, I am busy playing with the kids, going on little field trips, breaking up fights. Not blogging. And by the time they go to bed, I am either too tired to think about blogging or I am catching up on all the stuff I didn't get done during the day. So, there's my excuse. Take it or leave it!
This post is just going to be a quick little synopsis of what we've been up to this past month.

 Isaac didn't want his picture taken. I think he was pointing at me and saying, 'Go! Go!'

The first weekend in May was the Holland Festival at Jacob's school. Each family is asked to donate a pie for the lunch. I kinda put it off until the last minute and could have just bought a pie at Marie Callendar's or something, but me being the Dutch girl that I am just couldn't spend the money on it, so I decided to make something with ingredients I had on hand - a chocolate cream pie. I baked the crust and when I pulled it out, I discovered it was lopsided. One end was barely to the top of the pie tin and the other was going over the side. I tried to fix it, but the entire crust shot out of the tin all of a sudden! Then I had to try to put a hot crust back in the tin. I wasn't really laughing at the time, but now I find it quite hilarious. The pie ended up being pretty ugly, but at least I could just drop it off in the kitchen and run!

Jacob was so proud to show us the garden that his class planted!

Later that afternoon we headed to Irvine because I ran on Maddie's Team in the 10k for the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation. Alan went to UC Irvine for undergrad and so we visited the campus so he could reminisce and the boys could run off some energy.

My friend Katy ran the 10K too, with her team from the Loma Linda Children's Hospital.

There were tons of things for the kids to do and the boys had lots of fun! Here is Jacob posing in front of the 'Cookie Car' from our hotel with his balloon giraffe.

Isaac goes to a music class every Monday morning and while he doesn't love it, he is getting better at participating so I snapped a few pictures a couple weeks ago.

We've got a battered chicken! One of the other chickens was a bully and plucked all the feathers off her head. She obviously needed to be separated from the others so the boys agreed to let her use their cardboard playhouse. She's still living separately and is now in the garden so Alan doesn't have to move her and her entire house every time he wants to water the backyard. Poor girl. There were a few days when I wasn't sure she would make it through the night, but she keeps holding on.

A little Frisbee practice in their undies.

Isaac and I dropped lunch off for Alan next week and Isaac was excited to show Alan the Hulk with stretchy arms that he made out of Legos. He also liked wearing the 'cool' 3d glasses (or whatever those are).

We went on vacation last week (more on that later) and when we came home we discovered that our little pet caterpillar who had spun a cocoon had emerged as a butterfly while we were gone. Fortunately it was still alive so we set her free.

A couple weeks ago I got this Spideman sprinkler from Kohls for super cheap. The boys love it!

On Sunday we went to the park to fly a kite. The boys had so much fun and just wanted to run and run and run with that thing!

Memorial Day morning I just wanted to get out of the house, sit and drink a coffee so my mom and I took the boys to Citrus Plaza and enjoyed a Starbucks while the boys got totally drenched in the fountain. Good times!!