Sacramento Zoo with Mom-Mom & Pop-Pop

At this point we are so happy we bought a family membership to the zoo as we spent another great day enjoying the animals! The temperature was a little cooler so we had animals we had yet to see out and about - I was amazed the hyena was much bigger than I thought. The picture of Lauren and I is in the mister, though it's usually so warm it's just a cooler area of fog! The kids are still most excited about the "playground" when we first get there, then the animals and we finish with the carousel. This time Mom-Mom was generous and took them on the "train" too - though more pictures later once I get my camera and computer to get along again. For now, enjoy some of Mom-Mom's pictures of the zoo, next will be mine and some of the 4 year olds birthday party!

Keeping cool in 100+ degrees

What do you do when Daddy's away for the weekend and it's STILL 100+ degrees? Fill up the baby pool with cold hose water and freeze yourself! I must admit they only played for a half an hour, then the water got warm and Ripley was the only one who would go in. But, then they used their cups to water the corn, the strawberries, the herbs, the lemon trees, the squash, the tomatoes, the pumpkins, the watermelons, the egg plants, the beans... not sure what else dad has planted... but they watered it! I still say something is a little wacky, we had a pool in Chicago, we had a pool in Boston, but in HOT California.... we're requisitioning Ripley's pool to keep the kids cool!

Jelly Belly Factory & Zoo

We had Grandparents in town this weekend so we were busy! It's easy to take advantage of all that there is to offer in our new state when we have those extra hands here to help. We decided as we ALL love Jelly Bellys to head to the factory and take a tour. Unfortunatly the day we arrived the plant was not in operation due to maintenance, so we saw everything but not in motion. The best part was they gave us free samples! The kids did all right, Lauren really enjoyed it, the boys well - they enjoyed part of it! Unfortunatly they did not allow us to take phots inside the factory so here's Lauren outside!





After the Jelly Belly factory we headed to our favorite location the Zoo for lunch! We saw several of the animals in our race to see something before everyone turned into pumpkins as it was a long morning.










But we did enjoy our lunch, posing in the signs, the carousel and the project of the day, making masks! Ian - is REALLY into monkeys right now and does a very good imitation! Actually everytime we've gone he's done his monkey call at the chimp enclosure and one of them has come over to him... if we only knew what the two of them were saying!










Lauren made a Hippo mask for Grandma Hippo!









We had also wanted to go panning for gold this weekend, but with all the swim lessons, projects in the backyard, naptimes etc, the long weekend was over before we knew it... we'll just add it to the list of places for the next guest arrivals!

Town Square Concert

I'd say we are finally getting the hang of activities outside our house! Tonight, after a crazy week, and even crazier day, the kids had a blast at a blues concert with our new California friends! This layout was a little different from the concert in the park series as it is a shorter concert and they leave a great stage area for the kids to dance on next to the band. We are finding more fun things to keep the kids busy at the blankets, but while we have the items it doesn't mean they actually use them. This time the draw of other kids dancing was too much to keep them close by for long. We were able to get them up to take a breather and cool off as it was another 90+ degree day here, and eat dinner with us, but other than that it was dance time! Hopefully they all sleep real well tonight!









Three of the five kids out dancing... we never did get a picture of all 4 dancers. Gavin napped a little, ate a little and entertained the people around us.













Cool off time with sticker pictures, cars and juice!

We attended another concert in the park Friday night. We were better prepared this time taking with us our wagon, a better assortment of toys, food and drinks. I am not sure how much the wagon helped with the transporting, but the kids had a great time climbing in and out, having their dinner in it and finally we used it as a playpen for Gavin. This time we spent much more time as a family all at our blanket, last time one of us stayed at the blanket while the other stayed with whichever kid was in line for the bouncy rooms. But, this time the lines for the rooms was too long for their attention spans. We played go-fish, played with trucks, danced and of course once jammies were on had to put on all our glow in the dark jewelry. Thank you Grandma Hippo for the clip on glow earrings, they were a great hit! By the end of summer we'll be pros at this and maybe will be able to actually enjoy the music too!

We enjoyed the Renaissance Faire at Lake Tahoe this weekend. It was wonderful. We were some of the few who were not in costume - though they did rent costumes to wear, we did not participate that fully! The big kids received "dragon tears" (aka colored stones) from two different women and Michael and I had a blessing bestowed upon us. I think the kids were a little young to truly enjoy it. They shied away from most of the people and had no interest in sitting for a puppet show since the comedy beyond them. They did enjoy the opera singing women which suprised me and would have enjoyed the joust had it not been nap time and we were already heading out. We did stop for a couple minutes to watch them! Lauren kept wanting to stop and look at all the jewelry - how on earth did I end up with a shopper, since it's my least favorite thing to do??? Most of all though we decided Tahoe was beautiful and it definitely renewed our determination that we will camp there - hopefully this summer. The fact that we couldn't keep Ian reined in though got us a little worried about camping... he's in that, "I am a 2 year old, I'll do what I want, chase me," stage! Here's a link to the festival's website - turn your speakers down or mute them though, if you don't want to be blasted! http://www.valhallafaire.com/. The pictures are the queen and her court, Lauren and her new flower garland, Ian and his new Pirannah puppet and the view as we drove home!

Backyard adventure

We've had lots of animal visitors since moving here... we have big and little rabbits (cottontail and jackrabbit maybe) the Turkeys have been seen eating out of the birdfeeder more than once, the Redtail Hawks, and other large predators soar over us regularly, the Rattlesnakes are well scary and are being attracted by the rats and mice and Ripley found a mommy Skunk and her four babies last weekend. Today she found a little fledgling Goldfinch. He's about the size of our hummingbirds and has been patiently sitting watching us this afternoon. I am much happier about these finds than the snakes and skunks, who will hopefully stay away from him! Needless to say we need to get a good book about our new creatures so I know their names!