Pine Mountain Lake-Year #2

Two weeks ago, we came back from our annual trip to Pine Mountain Lake with the Zimon crew. As usual, lots of fun was had. We went fishing, boating, canoe riding, swimming at the lake, golfing, etc, etc, etc. Sam got his fill of mischief and Isabella got to spend some quality girl time with Zoe and Charlotte. This is much needed given the fact that she is normally surrounded by boys twice her age who pretend they are jedi warriors and just attack each other all day. It was a nice change indeed.

Here are some shots of our adventures thanks to Aunt Teri's fotog skills ('cause someone I know has some real placenta brain and forgot the camera).....

Palmdale Thunder!!!!

A few weeks ago, Sam's cousin, Rey, had a soccer tournament in Davis. We drove up for the day and watched the Palmdale Thunder in action. We all had a great time. In between games, we hung out with the team like a bunch of groupies and followed them on their tour of our State capital. While there, we took some funny candids.

But first, below are pics of the cousins observing Rey who will, from now on, be known as "Redhead":






Ever since Sam saw Redhead, he wants to dye his hair red and comb it into a faux hauk. Awesome.

One of the funniest moments of the day was watching Sandy try to park her SUV into a spot by the capital. She couldn't do it. Glenn, the head coach, offered to help. Below is Glenn, in action:




And below is a picture of how much space Glenn's mini van had in order to get Sandy's car in the spot:



Once the parking situation was resolved, we set out to tour the building. We ventured through the display halls, checked out what the offices looked like in the early 1900s and took more funny pictures of the team.

Tourist Trap Excursion

A few weeks ago, I saw a commercial about the Aquarium by the Bay in SF. Since Sam is into all things sea-like, I thought this would be a nice excursion into the city. After all, their website boasts about their underwater tunnels, their large exhibit halls and thier remarkable jellyfish collection. Having read all that, I was starting to feel kinda bad that I hadn't taken the kids to this joint before. What kind of mother was I if I didn't take my kids to our local aquarium?

Well, $118 later, I decided I was better off NEVER having gone to this aquarium because it took us exactly 20 minutes to go through their entire set up. That 20 minutes included coaxing my children to "look at the fish" in the tunnels as well as a visit to the bathroom and gift shop. Oh, and for those of you wondering why a 20 minute visit to the aquarium cost so much, let me break it down for you:

$26 = tickets
$24 = parking
$18 = gift shop visit (FYI: These toys broke at lunch)
$40 = lunch at Hard Rock Cafe (FYI: This was the only respectable place)
$10 = chocolate treats (FYI: This cost was incurred as bribery for good behavior)

And here's what I learned about our trip:

1. When I think something might totally suck, it will. I should listen to myself more often.
2. Pier 39 is a tourist trap in every sense of the word.
3. I will NEVER, EVER go by myself to tourist traps for fear of my children being kidnapped.

Despite the cost and the constant arm pulling done on my behalf because I feared my kids would be taken from me and my pregnant status would slow me down from kicking the perpetrator's ass, we still had a good time. The evidence is below...














Sidenote: I have no idea why an aquarium would have a display on bees but, alas, I took this cool shot of the little guys working on their honeycomb. I thought this was mighty "artsy" of me.



And, no visit is complete without having your children pose with shark teeth: