Cali trip part 3

We spent our day Sunday (10-25) in Santa Cruz at the beach. William had a blast playing in the water. That is definately not something that you would be able to do in Oregon at this time of year. It was a lot of fun. And well all the playing led to a nice little nap in the car.

We spent our last evening at a corn maze. Since William and I had never been through one before it sounded like fun. We went through 2 of the 3 mazes and it totaled over 5 miles of walking. It sure didn't seem like that long. Poor William his allergies kicked in and made him have a harder time with his nose.


Soon it was time to head home. It was hard to leave, vacation wasn't long enough, and William didn't wanna leave his new found friends. He was teary eyed in the airport. The flight home went well outside of some turbulance and coming home to lots of rain and cold weather.

California Trip part 2....

We spent Saturday (10-24) in San Francisco. Most of the day was spent at the Steinhart Aquarium and a few of the exhibits at the California Academy of Science at Golden Gate Park. It was amazing and William really enjoyed it. We started out by seeing the T-Rex fossils and some of the animals in the area around the Rainforest exhibit. Then we made our way inside the 4 level rainforest that took on the climate of 4 different rainforests from around the world (Borneo, Costa Rica, Madagascar, and the Amazon), not only was it beautiful, but it was hot and humid.. The kids loved seeing the different animals and all the butterflies.After that we went into the Aquarium part of the building and went through several different sections. They had many different types of fish/aqauatic life from all over the world. William loved watching the octopus climb the glass and seeing the electric eels was pretty awesome to him. The one animal that took everyone by surprise as the white Alligator they had. After the aquarium we checked out the rest of the building seeing penguins and then exhibits showing animals in Africa. The kids were starting to get worn out and definately getting hungry. So we decided we'd head off for lunch to the one place William had been talking about for a couple days.
We ended up down at the piers and had lunch at The Rainforest Cafe. William had been talking about going to that place for a while. The place is amazing and the kids loved it. The animals (all robotic) were all over and some had been dressed up. Every so often the animals would start moving and it would start raining. William enjoyed some tasty mac and cheese for lunch. It's definately a place we'll go back to. After lunch we walked the pier for a while and made our way to Ghirardeli square. We made one more stop before we left San Francisco and drove down Lombard street.. Great view... packed street... and there is no way I could live in that city, the driving alone is horrible.

California Trip part one..

William has been looking forward to this trip for weeks and the last few days before we left was particularly hard for him. He just wanted to go NOW! He was even more excited for his first time on an airplane. The early wake up call wasn't exactly welcomed well, but once we were there it was time for fun. The first day (10-22) was spent visiting the Jelly Belly factory and playing at home. He even got to meet Cam and Jaz and they quickly became new friends.
On Friday (10-22) we went in to San Jose to the Children's Discovery Museum to play. The kids were so excited and had so much fun. There was so much to do. William wanted to play in the water tables, Jaz wanted to make a corn husk doll, and Cam was down for just about anything. They got to play in a firetruck, with bubbles, water, and numerous other exhibits. The water tables were a big hit and when we left we had one soaked little boy. We tried finding a name on the tile walls outside of the building with no luck. But after no luck there we decided to head to the park. It was loads of fun! Even with Jaz falling off of the merry go round. Poor girl just slipped. Soon after it was time to head home to have dinner, play a little Wii and get ready for bed. The kids were definately worn out, but looking forward to the big day ahead.