Sam's back, fish tanks, and angry children

I'm not sure what possessed me to do this but, on Monday, I took the kids into the city to visit the Academy of Sciences Museum. It is a brand new building, slightly less than a year old and boasts a new aquarium, planetarium, and rainforest. It is a pretty awesome place and has wonderful exploratory opportunities for children. Apparently, all of San Francisco knows this because everyone who lives in the city was present, I kid you not, on Monday.

Everywhere you went, there was a line: the bathroom, the elevator, the cafe, the planetarium, the feeding pool, the touching pool, the gift store, the aquarium exibits, the animal exhibits...In short, everything under the roof had a wait time. It was painful. Very, very painful. I knew I should have turned around when I saw the line to the parking garage but I thought to myself, "It can't be that bad." Truthfully, it was worse than bad...it was maddening. Nevertheless, I put on my "Be a Resilient Mom Hat" and took my two children, our large stroller, our diaper bag, our packed lunches, my camera, our sweaters, and my diminishing patience into that building(Note: I should have gone home).

We began our adventure at the aquarium portion of the building. Sam got to enjoy the stingrays and the tide pool. Please be advised that you will not see the front of Sam in most of these pictures...For whatever reason, I kept taking pictures of his back to demonstrate the joy he experienced with each new exhibit we came upon. Intelligent, I know. But he really was very happy to see all these things, I swear it.....

See?????? There's the happy boy....




After a good amount of time checking out the tide pools and touching pools, we ventured deeper into the aquarium. Basically, Sam would run up to a tank, take a quick peak, and then run off to another direction. He did this THE ENTIRE TIME we were in the museum. He was like a humming bird zipping from one thing to another. I found myself yelling a lot to make him stay within some kind of proximity. It was useless. I wanted to leave but guilt (plus the $29.95 entrance fee) kept charging me forward. The only time Sam settled down was when we arrived to the gigantic underwater feeding tank:

This was due to the fact that Sam was fascinated by this man:

We must have been there for twenty minutes or so. After a few minutes, Belle started to get angry. I had forgotten to feed her....probably because I was completely distracted by the fear of having my child abducted. This is what she looked like:


And this was Belle after I fed her...so pretty:



We looked at more fish and then ventured into more areas.


This bone-white crocodile is for "real". The first time we saw it, we thought it was fake but Sam watched it for an eternity and told everyone around him in his loudest possible voice when it moved and what body part had moved. Thrilling, I know.

The Academy has an incredible outdoor "living" space on its roof. It contains all kinds of vegetation that are nestled on the roof top and that provide nutrients to the various animals in the building. It's cool.


Towards the end of our visit, Sam had turned into some crazy type of disobedient child. Below is evidence of him ignoring the sign that said "Do not climb on rocks or hang on glass. Thank you."
Shortly after he ignored the sign, he decided to ignore me and ran off in a direction I couldn't find. He was missing for about thirty seconds. I was all kinds of scared. It was horrible. I finally found him and promptly yanked him by the arm and took ourselves outta there. After ten seconds in the car, he fell asleep.

I won't be visiting the Academy of Sciences for a very long time...at least, not without back up...Jedi-like back up.

The Soldier

For the past few months, Sam has been fighting the forces of evil. He protects his baby sister from the monsters that come in the middle of the night. He does this with his flashlights and with the laser that is nested in his arm. He likens his laser to that of Eva in the movie Wall-E. He loves that movie almost as much as Cars...but I digress. Apparently, fighting the forces of evil is difficult work. This is how we found him at around eleven the other night:

Our Monetary Donation to the City of Oakland

Some of you may or may not know this but the city of Oakland is not doing well budget wise. In an effort to help our friends in the bay, I took both kids to visit the Oakland Zoo. We had a great time despite the fact that the Oakland Zoo charges way too much for crappy food and rides. Apparently, they need every dollar they can get. Before I get into the picture portion of this blog entry, let it be known that Sam asked me to take pictures of some vulgar things. Although we consider Sam an articulate 4-year old, there are moments when, well, he's just a funny 4-year old. We begin this entry with some compulsory pictures of the animals at the zoo..BEHOLD:

Giraffes....

Llamas...

Lazy tigers....

And Sam's preferred method for looking at the animals....Had I known he'd be using the viewer for "viewing" pleasure, I would have brought the quarters we use for laundry.

At this point, Sam started making special requests regarding our picture taking. Hence, here is a picture of the elephant's butt. Why? Well, he had just seen another elephant take a seriously gigantic dump a moment before and he wanted to catch it on film. Nice, I know. Plus, who am I to deny him such pleasure?



We stayed with the elephants for a huge amount of time. We watched them eat their carrots and break a bunch of tree limbs. We also watch the wild turkeys in the area sift through the elephant's defecations. Apparently, elephants consume so much food that they do not metabolize everything they eat. The wild turkeys know this. Eewww! Luckily, Sam heard his favorite sound: a train whistle...and off we went to ride a train that cost me four bucks each and lasted less than five minutes. I'm telling you, Oakland is hurting. Bad. Real bad.

As an added bonus to our way-to-expensive train ticket, we got to inhale fumes from the train because Sam picked a seat directly behind the motor (Note to self: ignore Sam's choice next time). We did convince the conductor to take a picture of us so I guess the eight bucks wasn't so bad and the fumes were a necessary evil since we were in the VERY first seat. You'll notice, however, that the boy directly behind us doesn't seem to have the same opinion.

And where there are trains, there are cars. Here's Sam in his "race car":

This next shot is another Sam request...If you look very closely, this monkey is doing something most of us would not do in public.

The zoo has an entire children's area that is a lot of fun. There is a petting zoo which I somehow managed to avoid as well as this cool lily pad thing....

Isabella couldn't hop on the lily pads (for obvious reasons) and so she watched from a distance as her brother almost fell in about ten times.

Sam also managed to convince me to ride the sky lift. I hate sky lifts and this ensued another adventure that I will blog about at another time but do enjoy the picture:

We ended our visit with a nice family picture on a bench. It wasn't until I came home and realized that, directly to the left of the bench, there is a sign that mentions the group who donated funds for the exquisite bench: Triple X Fraternity. Nice, huh? I told you they were hurting.

No Cavity Club

Last Thursday, I took the Sam to the dentist. The entire way there, he was complaining about having to go. He forgets that he actually likes going to the dentist. He gets to play with toys, wear sunglasses, hold a mirror while they clean his teeth, and lick grape-flavored gloves. Yum.


As an added bonus for flossing every night, he became part of the "No Cavity Club" as evidenced by the superior sticker on his stomach.

Explanation for Two Week Blogging Absence

Ok, this family blog has been neglected for quite a while but, in my defense, we were on vacation. Plus, when I returned from vacation, I ended up needing a "vacation" from my vacation because I was tired. For two weeks I was indulged by having all kinds of assistance with Sam and Izzy B....the transition was hard, people...very hard. Anyhow, as I mentioned before, we spent two weeks visiting with friends and family. It was lots of fun. We had an opportunity to visit with folks we hadn't seen in over a year. Below are a few of the fun things we did with our favorite folks.

In an effort to prepare for our visit to Los Angeles, Isabella wore her sunglasses in expectation of the paparrazi:

One of our first stops was catching up with my old friends from Samohi....Sam was able to hang out with the Audet and Spriggs offspring....

The Zimon crew indulged moi in a visit to Islands. You cannot find an Islands restaurant in Northern California. For shame.

...not sure what was happening here but Charlotte and Sam were having a good old time...

Here, Nina Sandra indulges Izzy with her favorite drink at Chili's.

After a few days with my mom, we headed up to P-dale (that's Palmdale for those of you who are not cool) to my aunt's house. During our visit, Rey and Elan taught Sam how to appropriately apply sun block to one's body:


Tia Sonia came to visit us from Fullerton where she is getting her degree in opthomology....

We also went to Porto's, a Cuban bakery that been around for an eternity. We met up with family and here is Elan showing off his winning chocolate smile...

While there, we caught up with Bart, a good friend from high school:

More shenanigans occurred at my mom's place...there was swimming and....

Chicken fights! Elan and Rey lost. Every time. Never mind that I am significantly taller than Rey and that we are in the shallower part of the pool. They lost fair and square.

Papa would have been a good referee for the chicken fights but he was inside taking this picture:

Mama was doing the same thing...no wonder they are married:

The following picture is not my fault. Sam was running around the pool area and fell. This resulted in the following:

Below is Izzy with Abuelita, also know as "The Baby Whisperer"....whenever Abuelita is with her, she's a very happy gal.

My mom couldn't help herself....Can you tell she's Cuban? Anybody seen Celia Cruz?

Before our departure home, we spent one more day with Amanda and Kelli's kids at Seaside Lagoon in Redondo Beach.....


We also went by camp and introduced Isabella to our Tocaloma family....I've known these folks for twelve years. Crazy.


All in all, we had a great time! Thanks, Mamita, for letting us take over your house!