Happy 4th of July (and other things)

I am convinced that every weekend should be a four day weekend.  Life would be much more fun...

Before I get to this weekend, a quick update from last weekend.  On Sunday, we ventured to Tilden Regional Park, where they have miniature gauge trains.  Olin, of course, loves it there.  The train ride was fun.

After we rode the park trains, we went down to the club area, which is only open on Sundays.  As usual, Olin charmed his way into the driver seat...

Thursday was the big Alameda Fourth of July Parade.  Olin still remembered it from last year, so he was pretty excited to go.

Today we went hiking and exploring on the coast.  Olin did a great job hiking on the trail and really enjoyed the coast.  As you can see, the weather really changed from the hike in the hills to the beach exploration.

We saw harbor seals on the beach. Olin was not too excited until we saw them from the bluff above.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Our garden is really taking off.  We have been eating lots of cucumbers and zucchinis and green beans.   Daddy and Olin harvested more green beans yesterday:

Here is O posing with the lima bean plant that he started from seed with the Birthday Beans from Nan.  We have not seen any beans on it yet, but it has lots of flowers and seems like it is going to give us lots of limas.

June Recap

Hello!  We are still here - busy as always!

At the very end of May, we took a trip up to Sonoma to get a sparkling pickup (don't worry Jennifer, I will share) and to visit the sculpture garden.  I like to take pictures of Olin at the sculpture garden to compare his size and see how much he is growing.  It was almost a year to the day since we went there with Grandma, and he is a much bigger boy now!

The first weekend in June we went camping for our first two-night trip to a nearby lake.  The campground is up above the lake, and we enjoyed a nice hike down to the docks on the first morning.  We got the hike in very early, since someone in our tent was up at 5A.M. and unwilling to go back to sleep...

The hike down was fun, the hike back up was a little challenge, but we made it!

Wrestling in the tent

Kitty pinning Daddy

For Father's Day weekend, we took an extended, three night trip to a campground near Santa Rosa with a swimming pond.  Tom and O drove up on Thursday and had a "boy's night" camping adventure until I joined them on Friday after work.  We all had a great time walking along the lake, swimming the pond and using the fitness trail.

Push up time!

O really loves camping...

"Hyabob"

Here we are in the swimming pond.  Tom took him on Friday, then we all went swimming Sat morning and Sat afternoon.  These are from Sat afternoon - he was so much more comfortable on the third venture.  He kept walking out to the marker buoys by himself, tipping his head back to keep his chin up out of the water.

Sparklers on our third night.

We stopped to taste some wine (of course) on Sunday, and then stopped for a Father's Day lunch at a very fun little restaurant north of Santa Rosa called Zazu's.

Tom was gone last week working buoys, but made it home for the weekend.  In very unusual fashion for us, we stayed home and just relaxed, it was nice.  

Mai Fest

We are having a nice, easy weekend here in Alameda.  Yesterday we went to a flea market and this afternoon, we walked over to Spiesekammer for Mai Fest.  They had a german / polka band, fest foods, and a bounce house and slide.  O was loving the bouncy house!  He pretty much did not want to get out, at all...

Climbing up...

Ready to slide down...

We did convince him to take one short break to dance with Daddy.  He would not stay away long, though, and headed right back to the bounce house!

Weekday Picnic

The weather was so nice and sunny earlier this week (always really) that O and packed a picnic dinner and took the bike and trailer to a nearby park for a picnic dinner and fun on the playground.  

We had a nice time, and it was a good way to break up the weekday evenings.  

Happy Mother's Day

O and I had a very nice Mother's Day weekend.  On Friday, his school had a little Mother's Day event and he gave me a card and a little bag that they decorated.  It was a gorgeous weekend here, so we spent a lot of time outside in the garden, riding bikes and at the Spring Festival on Park Street both days.  O had a great time listening to the bands, dancing and people watching.

Other than that, we had a nice relaxing weekend at home.  O is doing really well on his balance bike - I will have to get some video of him this week.

Happy Mother's Day to all of the wonderful, loving and talented Mothers I know!  Especially Grandma (Mom) and Nan (Marian).  Thank you both for making special and lasting memories with Olin.  He talks about you both so often, and is very excited for July.  Specifically, he wants to do painting and crafts with Nan and make cinnamon bread and chose his costume pattern with Grandma.

Mom, thank you for teaching me by example how to be a good mother.  You may not have ever set out to teach the lessons, but your love and the care you put into everything you do for us kids taught me how to do this.  If I am half as good a mother to Olin as you are to all of us, he is a lucky kid.

Mount Diablo

We had another great weekend here.  Yesterday, we drove out to Mount Diablo to spend the day hiking and camp for the night.  O has been anxious to go camping again (since last weekend!), and since Tom is leaving for a couple of weeks, we decided to camp Saturday night.

Mount Diablo is just over an hour away, so it was a quick trip to get there.  Once we claimed our campsite, we headed to Rock City to check out the caves and limestone formations.  It was a lot of fun.  O did great climbing and scrambling around on the rocks and boulders.

Here we are perched in a little wind cave:

O and Daddy, scrambling up a rock formation:

One of many great views:

"Hyabob!"

After breaking down camp in a little sprinkle this morning, the sky cleared, and we went back to a different section of Rock City.

This next rock looked like too much fun for the whole family to resist.  O did a GREAT job climbing up (and back down after some sunning at the top).  He is a real trooper!

Here he is at the top of that long climb...

We found more neat little caves and formations to climb around in.  By the time we finished today, O was a pro at keeping both hand down on the rocks for stability when climbing up.

Before heading home, we drove up to the summit of Mount Diablo.  The view is amazing from up there, 360 degrees around the bay and delta.  Best view anywhere in the area!

Next camping trip is at the end of May.  We are looking forward to it already!