Camping

We went camping this weekend at New Brighton State Beach in Santa Cruz with some friends and family. We arrived Friday around 2 and set up camp. We were in a group campsite so it was super big. It was nicely secluded and shady and had lots of climbing things for the kids. Leslie and her boys arrived next. Then Amy and Eran and the cousins and then Ebba with her crew. Leslie did dinner Friday night and it was delicious.












(Notice the Miranda/Peter lovefest in this last picture. It was like this all weekend with those two.)

On Saturday, after a yummy breakfast by Ebba, we walked down to the beach.

It was a short walk down a steep cliff. It was perfect weather at the beach and everyone had fun playing in the waves, building castles or generally hanging out. There was a little stress at the end when Lincoln walked back with Michael and Ebba didn't know where we went. He was safe the whole time, but Ebba and Francis didn't know that.











Amy and I did dinner the second night. Hamburgers, hot dogs, corn, etc. All damn tasty. The kids had a hard time sleeping the second night and Michael almost had to flee the campground with a screaming Miranda, but luckily some time in the car alone at 11:30pm did the trick.









Ebba left on Sunday morning but Leslie joined us for a train ride in the redwoods. Actually Leslie did it first (we waited for Amy's crew and missed the first trip). It worked our well, as we were able to hang out and see all the old time-y train things, have lunch and then do the train trip. We all agreed it would have been incredible had we never seen a redwood before. Ah well. The boys then went to the boardwalk and the girls went to a park and then back to the campsite. I picked up a thoroughly disappointing dinner at Safeway and everyone went to bed early. The next morning, we all packed up and left. A good camping trip with some bad moments sprinkled in.

More Parker Pics

Parker is really getting into taking pictures. Here are some of the better ones.

Miranda in a basket.

Thursday

Thursday was the last day for the girls at their daycare. It was a field trip of sorts to the zoo with all the other kids and their parents. I was also looking after Beatriz and Ava. Some might think 5 kids at the zoo is too much, but I've done it before without problem. Unfortunately, this day was different and problems were a plenty. Parker was cranky (so much so I thought he was sick), Ava was whining the whole time, Beatriz didn't want to follow any instructions (like not to stand on the airplane ride) and the girls were just grumpy. Barbara, the director at the daycare, made a fabulous lunch that none of them liked. The whole morning sucked. For them and me.

Wednesday

It's been a while since I blogged, so I'm doing some catch up.

Last Wednesday, as Susan rounded two weeks of sickness in her house, I took her kids to Codornices Park in Berkeley aka Giant Slide Park. I picked that park because we hadn't been there in a while and Parker had been requesting it. In hindsight, perhaps not the best choice as the Giant Slide is too giant for the little ones (or so I thought) and the traffic in Berkeley was a killer. Nevertheless, the kids all had fun and really enjoyed marching down and then up the Rose Garden.










I couldn't keep the girls off the Giant Slide and by the time we left, they were pros at it. I kept telling Fletcher he wasn't big enough yet, but at the end when I was paying enough attention, he made his way up the stairs and desperately wanted to come down. I figured if he could make his way up, he was big enough to slide down. So he did. In one piece. Phew.