Last Day of Summer Vacation

We decided to have a proper summer send off this year.  The day before school started I decided I wanted to make it a day to remember.  I told Natalie it was her special day.  She ate that right up.  I told her we'd make it a tradition...the day before school starts every year we'd try to have a super fun day.  She was all for it!  I also told her that when Audrey starts school, should this tradition stick, that it would become "their" special day.  She totally ignored me. 

Her one request was that we didn't spend any minutes at all of her special day at a store of any kind. Agreed.

It started with a breakfast of blueberry waffles, a short road trip to spend the morning at the cutest little amusement park for little kids in Oakland called Children's Fairyland, continued with apple pie making while Audrey napped and concluded with her very favorite dinner (roast chicken, if you can believe that) and the eating of the apple pie she had helped make.  Such a fun day.  Throw in a push-up ice cream popsicle at Fairyland, a sucker on the way home and a big girl errand next door to ask the neighbor for a sprig of rosemary from their flowerbed for our chicken and it was one awesome, gold star kind of kindergarten-eve day.

It was such a great summer...it deserved a great send off.

 Fairyland is ADORABLE. 

Perfect for our kids' ages.  Just a charming little park filled with famous characters (just the 1950s version of them), sweet little rides, trains, slides, tunnels, gardens, a park, a petting zoo, hourly puppet shows, etc.  The girls totally loved it and so did I.  Fairyland opened in 1950 and I really doubt much has changed since then (including the paint). 

It was supposedly the inspiration behind Disneyland!

 Alice's Reading Room was just this darling little house filled with books and chairs.  You can see how interested Audrey was in sitting down to read a book while we were there!

 Quite possibly the cutest bathrooms EVER.

 The Crooked Little Man's crooked little house.

 Look closely to see Audrey scaling the crooked little fence.

 Captain Hook's pirate ship

 Audrey posing with a Snow White that's more the size of one of the seven dwarfs.

 Our own Glenda the Good Witch

 And a sweet little Scarecrow

 Super cool sculpture

 This was the Miller's Mill.

Just another super cute little house the kids could go in, play around, etc.

 This whale had a name but I'd never heard of him. 

But he ate both my kids over and over again.

 It's hard to see in this picture but this is the littlest and sweetest ferris wheel

you ever did see.  Audrey agreed to go in it with Natalie and I was shocked because this is the kind of thing that tends to freak her out.  She wouldn't think twice about climbing it...but going inside a little carriage was something I didn't think she'd be interested in.  I was wrong.  She did it and she loved it!

I think she'd agree that her special day was a success.  

First Day of Kindergarten!

Natalie started kindergarten today and totally loved it. No surprise there! She's so excited to meet friends her age in our new city (and hopefully our very own neighborhood!). We plan on walking to school each day (weather permitting) and today was the trial run. We learned we MUST leave about 10 minutes earlier to avoid sprinting the last block! Corey was able to postpone a morning meeting and join us for our first walk to school and Natalie loved that! I wasn't emotional about leaving her (and she sure wasn't AT ALL emotional about being left) until Audrey asked hours later, "where'd Natalie go?" Then I got a little sad.

We're so excited for all this year will bring!

Back to the Lake!

Seriously.  We were gone almost all summer. Without Corey.  We'd come home long enough to stock the freezer with dinner options for him, buy cat food and return our library books and then we were off again.  It felt a little indulgent.  But it was a ton of fun. 

The girls and I headed back to Tahoe after we returned home from Michigan.  Corey joined us for the first weekend and then I stayed at the cabin with just the girls for the week and went to my 20 year reunion the next weekend.  I was a bit daunted to do a vacation with the girls entirely on my own but it worked out great.  I bribed them with a nightly ice cream sandwich, let them sleep in my bed and skipped bathtime until it was absolutely necessary.  We didn't do hair, we didn't eat a lot of vegetables and we went to bed way too late.  I decided to eliminate excessive arguing, nagging and complaining , we'd just go light on the rules and heavy on the empty calories.  It worked, most of the time!

The weekend that Corey joined us we went rafting down the Truckee. 

I hadn't done that since I was about Natalie's age.

The girls loved it but it was a lot of hot, mid day sun for us

and it took us all about 24 hours to recover.

You know it's been a good day when you're asleep in the car while

wearing your bathing suit.

Such a Tahoe girl...catching crawdads with her bare hands!

I'm so proud.

An older boy at the beach told Natalie she couldn't pick up

a crawdad without getting pinched. 

She threw him a look and said,

"Yes you can, my mom will show you. Show him, Mom!"

I showed him how to pick it up without getting pinched.

I felt so cool.  For a totally brief minute.

Audrey doesn't wander far from the snacks and the shade at the beach.

And when we run out of snacks, she starts begging neighboring beach-goers for theirs.

Natalie, on the other hand, barely sits long enough to inhale a sandwich

and then she's back to beach business!



What a fun summer.

We have the tan lines to prove it!

Muir Woods

After a full day of flying home with the girls from Michigan, I was a teensy, weensy bit ready for some alone time.  The following morning Corey wanted to take them for a few hours to a local state park so he could spend some time with them and I could spend some time without them.  I happily packed them a picnic, made sure they had sunscreen and sweatshirts and sent them on their way.  As they pulled out of the driveway he asked if I was sure I didn't want to join them...I was super sure.

Well, when they arrived at the park he intended to explore, it was closed. Weeds-through-the-cracks-in-the-asphalt-parking-lot closed.  So, he mapped out the next closest attraction and it was Muir Woods!  Off they went...first to Muir Beach and then to Muir Woods.  He texted me at 2 and said they wouldn't be home until dinner.  I assumed he was joking and that they were around the corner.  Well, no, they arrived just in time for dinner.  9 hours after they left the house.  It was heavenly...for everyone.  The girls saw giant trees, picnicked at the Pacific and played with Daddy.  Corey had a bit of a vacation experience during a summer when vacationing wasn't in the cards.  And I got a full day of peace and quiet.   It was lovely.  I'm sort of sad that I missed Muir Woods (the last time I was there was on our honeymoon 10 summers ago) but then I think back to my day of total and absolute quiet and I know Muir Woods will understand.

I'm fairly certain Natalie is part mountain goat.

The kid can climb!

And this one can run!

What a good daddy!

Trip to Michigan

The girls and I went to Michigan for a week and had such a great time.  It was a little weird going without Corey but vacation just isn't in the cards these first few months at his new job.  But Nana, Papa Franc, Auntie Kristen and Auntie Ammy made it a great trip for us.  There was plenty of tree swinging, lake swimming, s'mores roasting, sweet treat consuming, blackberry picking, ice cream eating, book reading, afternoon napping and Olympic cheering.  The week went by too fast, as usual.  It's good to be home but it was hard to leave. Thanks, everyone, for making it such a fun week.

 I think this is my favorite Michigan image...

a giant walnut tree that swings 2 kids and 3 grown ups!

 So happy Auntie Ammy could make it home while we were there!

 View of the lake.  Love it.

 Natalie paddle boarded like a champ! 

She doesn't get her gymnast balance from me, that's for sure!

 Audrey roasting her own marshmallow for s'mores with Papa Franc.

 Natalie doesn't enjoy cooking out over an open fire pit.

Not at all.

 It looks like Audrey's hair is sweetly curling on her shoulder. 

Nope.

It's stuck to her face with marshmallow.

 Why go through a few water diapers a day

when you can look at this fanny instead?

 Is it weird that I love taking pictures of

Audrey's naked fanny?

 The girls loved all the time they spent with Papa Franc.

 One of the MANY desserts Auntie Ammy made for the girls. 

These were rainbow cupcakes baked in mason jars.

Their poop was blue for 3 days after this.

Amber, next time we're doing this on day 1 of

vacation so you can deal with blue poop!!

 A blurry shot of Natalie but one of the only genuine

smiles we got on camera all week long.

If the attitude we're experiencing at 5 is ANY indication

of what 15 may be like...I'm a little nervous!

 Case in point.

I chose this pic because it's one of the only ones I ended

up with of lovely Nana.  Not because Natalie was

at all cooperative!

 Auntie Kristen on the carousel!

Thanks for their great hair dos all week, Kristen!

 An Amish buggy ride in Shipshewana.  Too fun!!

Bye bye Michigan!  See you next year!