San Francisco Day 1

We had the awesome opportunity to visit San Francisco and stay with some good friends of ours for a few days.  San Fran is a very interesting place.  There is a lot to see and do, but it's also very crowded and difficult to get around.  We managed to see a lot, I think, especially given the fact that we have an almost 3 year old and our friends have an almost 2 year old!  Here are some pictures from our fun trip "up north".  :)

Japanese Tea Gardens
Very pretty and very peaceful.  Cate liked climbing all the stairs, seeing the koi fish in the ponds and walking on the trails.  Everything was so perfectly manicured, it was lovely!

This was part of our day in Golden Gate Park.  A enormous park (similar to Central Park in NYC) with a lot going on.  We also played at the playground, tried out the swings, walked on some paths, and got ice cream from a food truck.  Yum!  We were all very disappointed that the carousel near the playground was closed. Luckily, we made it up to Cate the next day at Pier 39.  More pictures to come!

Easter Activities

 Here are some pictures of Cate this spring.  I caught her looking out the window like this and was able to get a quick picture.

Here she is at a friend's house.  She loves playing with her friends.

Easter egg hunt.

 Planting seedlings for our garden.

Coloring Easter eggs.  She can be a very serious artist.

 Picture with the Easter Bunny at the park during a city sponsored egg hunt.  She totally cut in line and went right up the bunny herself.  It was a little embarrassing, but they said since she was already there I should take a picture, haha.

 More egg hunting.  It was a gorgeous Easter weekend!

 Playing at the park.

 First look at her Easter basket.

So on Easter Sunday before church Cate disappeared for a while.  She was being too quiet so we went to check on her and look what we found!  Yes, that is a whole box of cadbury cream eggs from the Easter basket!  Luckily she had only gotten halfway through one when we caught her, or I'm sure she would have eaten them all.  Made for a cute picture!  Although Cate, if I were you, next time you need to hide in a more secretive spot.  haha  :)

 We are trying to teach Cate the true meaning of Easter so we put this picture of Jesus in her basket.

 Easter dinner at the cousin's house!  Cate adores her 10 year old cousin, they are such good friends despite the age gap!

So that's what we've been up to lately.  Happy Easter, Happy Spring!

Children's Play Museum

This play museum was really fun.  One whole room was a stage with costumes and a sound booth.  Here is Cate onstage singing Twinkle Twinkle.  She picked the boots, hat, and pom pom, I suggested the starry fabric thingy.  Sorry the sounds is bad, it was a noisy place.  A little boy got onstage during the song and distracted Cate at the end, but it was ok, it was cute.

Cate LOVES carousels!  If this was the only thing she got to do, she would have been happy.

Driving a real bus!  I think the steering wheel was bigger than her!

We dressed up in Korean costumes called hanboks.  Cate also wore a mask and held a fan.

In the nature room we could pet all of the real (but stuffed) animals.  They had a huge standing Kodiak bear, warthog, hyena, cougar, coyote, lion, moose, black bear, fox, badger, birds, and lots of smaller mammals.  Cate wasn't afraid one bit.  I guess she realized they weren't moving.  She actually got a kick out of standing under the lion.  "Lion jumping on me!" she exclaimed laughing.  

We didn't actually kiss the moose, just pretended.  By the way, this moose is huge.  Cate could have laid down in its antlers with room to spare!  I never want to meet one in the wild!

More pictures from the stage room.  Cate talked in the microphone and pushed sound effect buttons in the sound booth.  The older boy wasn't too happy to have another kid in there, haha.

Cate's second favorite thing (besides the carousel) was grocery shopping.  She piled that card high at least 5 times!  Then she would check herself out or Joe or I would be the cashier.  She was tickled that the cash register drawer would "pop out" when you pushed the right button.  :)

Some other things we did were play on the shadow wall, play guitars, play a Native American drum, listen to and participate in a Celtic music presentation, and drive a race car.  All in all, a fun Saturday!

ZooZoo

The next Saturday we went to a performing arts show called ZooZoo.  It's a mixture of dance, mime, acrobatics, and comedy.  We all loved it.  I highly recommend it.  It completely captivated Cate, who sat still for the entire hour on our laps.  I think she was trying to decide if it was all real or not!  The show was made up of many shorter vignettes, mostly involving animals. Our favorite were the competitive penguins playing musical chairs!  There was also a cat stuck in giant paper bag, acrobatic frogs, hippos with insomnia, and a lot more.  Above is a short preview video clip.

Cate also has been doing lots of dancing, building with blocks, and playing in the backyard.  California weather is a dream!

Griffith Observatory

We went to Griffith Observatory in the late afternoon and got to the park at sunset.  It was a very pretty walk to the top of the big hill and the observatory.  We got some great views of the sunset over the ocean and downtown L.A. 

The Observatory itself is pretty cool.  It's a small museum in and of itself.  It wasn't very exciting for Cate though, unfortunetly, as most of the exhibits were over her head.  She liked running around outside and inside and touching everything though.  She especially liked standing on the scales that told you how much you would weigh on each of the planets in the solar system.  The cafeteria food was very disappointing, but Cate didn't notice.  We won't be eating there again, but I'd love to go back and take a closer look at everything else.  Catherine was also too young to attend most of the planitarium shows so I think it would make a great date night with just Joe and I.

Saturdays in January we try to do as many family activities as possible because once tax season starts in Feb. we don't see much of Daddy until after April 15th.  This year we did something as a family every weekend, it was great!  Here are some pictures of what we did and where we went together.

California Science Center Museum

One of several children's special play areas.  Cate is dressed as an astronaut and riding in a space shuttle.

 Very large sound thingy (that's the scientific name :) You can talk in one end and hear it in the other end.

 Kelp forest aquarium tank - looking down from the top

 Airplanes hanging from the ceiling

 Lifting a truck using pulleys and levers!

 We had a lot of fun here, there was a lot to do and see.  We didn't even cover half of it.  Cate didn't understand a lot, but she wasn't bored either.  Best of all - admission is free!  I think parking cost $10 though.  We'll definitely be back.  Next Saturday: Griffith Observatory!

Angels We Have Heard On High

Here is a lovely video of our almost 2 1/2 year old singing her favorite Christmas song.  We hear this one and Jingle Bells all the time.  Cate has no qualms about singing loudly for all to hear.  :)  Sorry the video is crooked, if anyone knows a way to turn it, please tell me!