Happy Birthday Chris

Chris had a birthday, shout hurray! One year older and wiser too?

The kids and I had fun trying to make his day special in many small ways, we're so glad to have him!

Silas wrote the frosting words on the cake all by himself. I made Chris's favorite, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, so I had to put little carrots all over it.

Bodega Bay

It was a relatively warm weekend (mid-60s highs), so we decided to head to the beach. Obviously not quite the beach trips we had in Hawaii, but fun nonetheless. We walked about 4 miles (the kids were troopers).

We walked to one end of the beach where there were some tide pools. Not much to see there unfortunately.

We had to go through a small cave to get there.

Lots of muscles and anenomes, but that was it.

Then we flew kites all the way back to the van. The kids loved it. Chris even got himself a trick kite.

The Little Red Car

Chris likes his projects. So he brought home his father's little red car to restore. It was a pedal car that had been modified to be powered by a lawn mower motor. It hadn't run in a LONG time. But Chris worked his magic, and here it is!

This is a picture of Chris's dad, around 1955, riding his little motor car.

This is what it looked like when he brought it home. He discovered the number "8" under a layer of paint.

Of course Chris had to take a spin. The kids each took turns too.

It was really hard to take pictures of, but the exhaust smoke often came out in rings. Pretty funny.

Chris intends to paint the number 8 back on it too. What a legacy!

Happy 2nd Birthday Keilah!

Happy Birthday to my precious daughter, Keilah. She is so full of energy and delight. She's very stubborn and independent, but also thoughtful and polite. I can't imagine our family without her! We celebrated her birthday in September, so we just had a little treat and gift on her actual birth day.

She blew out the candles like a pro.
The smoke wafted over her face, but she's still beautiful.

Bay Area Visit

Thursday's adventure brought us first to Berkeley, where Chris and I met. We savored some Zachary's Pizza for lunch, then took the kids to Tilden Park's Little Farm. The kids loved seeing the animals and even got to feed lettuce to some ducks.

Then we went to the Maritime Museum in San Francisco. The kids were excited to run around the old ships. We were NOT excited about the city traffic. Ugh!
Finally we headed south to spend the night and next day at Chris's parent's house.

Old Sacramento

Wednesday's adventure took us to Old Sacramento and the California State Railroad Museum. We also walked around and looked at all the shops and picked up way too much candy at Candy Heaven on our way out.

The kids had fun walking through the trains that we could board, playing with the toy trains, and seeing the old toy train displays that were running.

Batt Party

Tuesday's fun was a Batt reunion party of sorts. Wendy, Pat & Cameron from Albuquerque were visiting Matt & Katie; Rusty & Deb recently moved to the Sacramento Area; Kathy & Greg came up to make it a reunion party at our house. We even got a bonus visit from my neice, Madyson!