San Francisco!

James and Leah on a kid-free vacation!  We found such a good flight deal to San Francisco that we decided we had to go.  We left on September 16 in the morning and were home by early afternoon on September 18, so it was a bit of a whirlwind trip.  We did miss the kids but it was so nice to get away together and see someplace new.  I think they had a really good time with Gramma and Grampa, too.

Here we are, waiting for our turn on the cable car.  We had to wait about 45 minutes!

James' view while hanging off the side of the cable car.

Riding the cable car the way it's meant to be - hanging off the side!  (I'm sorry all the vertical pictures are the wrong way.  I can't figure out how to change it.)

Coit Tower

More cable car pictures.

Lombard Street, the crookedest street. 

This was quite the sight - a gang of fearless Segway riders!

We thought the boys would appreciate this - alligator bread!

On our way to Alcatraz.

Here's what your cell would look like if you were at Alcatraz.

James kind of looks like he belongs there!

And here's how you escape!

The beautiful view the prisoners got to "enjoy."

We think we should adopt some of the Alcatraz prison rules in our own household.

Alcatraz

Golden Gate Bridge

The boys would have liked James' new friend.

After our dinner of seafood/fish and chips from the Fisherman's Wharf food stalls.

Back to school!

Sorry, I'm a little behind on the blog...let's update everything that happened in September!

September has come (and gone) so that means back to school.  Daniel is loving grade 1.  He really likes his teacher, Ms. Hurford, especially the fact that she has Harry Potter Lego on her desk that she lets the kids look at.  :) 

Adam and Sarah are excited to back at Strong Start, which is kind of like preschool only it's aimed at children aged 0-5 and parents have to attend.  Adam calls Strong Start "his school" and Sarah walks around like she owns the place!

Here are a few pictures from the first days of school.

PNE

September 3, 2011

It's time for the PNE once again.  We always go with my family but we were all very busy at the end of the summer.  The only day we were all free was the Saturday of the Labour Day weekend - a little busier than we're used to but still fun.  Unfortunately, Daniel wasn't feeling very well and spent a lot of the day in the stroller with Sarah.  We had to leave right after dinner, poor guy.  But Adam and Sarah had fun and Daniel enjoyed most of the day.  Here are a few pictures of the day.

We visited the Canadian Forces display and the kids got to try out some of the machinery and equipment.  They got to sit in a replica fighter jet but those pictures didn't turn out very well.

Next, we headed to the barns to see all the farm animals.

There's a farm display for the kids where they get to see all the different ways food is grown and how it gets to the store for us to buy.  Here they are, ready to harvest.

Planting some seeds.

Picking apples in the orchard - they should be experts at this because of the Thanksgiving Apple Squish.

Here are our three bad eggs.  :)

Fishing for some salmon.

Every farmer needs a tractor.

At the end, they sold all the food they had grown and earned $1.00 to spend at the store.  :)

Sarah loved the baby chicks and ducks.

Those baby pigs were too cute!

After the barns, we met up with the rest of my family and had some dinner and went to see the Superdog show.  Luckily, that perked Daniel up a bit and all three had a great time cheering the dogs on.  We left right after, though.  A short and sweet visit to the PNE but still a lot of fun!

Camping in White Rock

We've wanted to take the kids camping for a while now but haven't been brave enough to take all three.  So we decided to head down to Gramma and Grampa's trailer in White Rock for some "cushy" camping.  The kids had a great time!  It gave us a bit of confidence to maybe do a longer camping trip next year...

We left the house after lunch and this is what they looked like by the time we arrived at the trailer.

The three of them slept while James and I set things up, which was really helpful.  When they woke up, they had a bit of a snack and watched Daddy try to start the fire.  The boys really wanted him to start it the "real camping" way - with a flint and steel.  It took a while...

We wanted to head down to the beach to play in the sand and try out the boogie board but, when we got there, there was no beach!  The tide had come in!  But we decided to go in anyway.  Daniel had a great time and didn't mind the rocks and seaweed at all.

I wasn't planning on going swimming and didn't bring a swimsuit.  I tried rolling up my pants but it wasn't enough!

Daniel dove right in!

 After our impromptu swim, we went back to the trailer site and finally got that fire started!

Success!

We set up our new tent.  It sleeps 8, I think.  We had plenty of room!  But it took up the entire campsite!

Dinnertime!  Barbecued hot dogs!

Time for some fun around the campfire.  We brought out the glowsticks, which the kids loved.  Sarah loved hers so much that she tried to eat it!  She wasn't too impressed when it broke and she got some of the glow stuff in her mouth!  Thank goodness it's non-toxic!  But her mouth glowed blue for a while!

Jiffy Pop popcorn over the campfire!

And, of course, no campfire is complete without smores.

Yummy!

Sarah loved her first taste of smores.

Yum!

Finally, we got them all into the tent.  I was impressed they all managed to fall asleep in there, with all the excitement and sugar.  Look how Daniel and Sarah fell asleep!

The great thing about cushy camping is that we can pretend we're camping in the woods in our tent but, when we wake up and it's freezing, we can go into the trailer and turn on the electric fire place.  :)  The kids enjoyed their breakfast of pancakes and hot chocolate.

We then took a walk along the road to pick flowers and play in the mud.

Back to the beach, now that the tide was out, for sandcastles and boogie boarding.  Daniel loved that thing!

Adam, of course, was content playing in the sand.

Sarah liked both - she did a lot of digging but also rode on the boogie board (and fell in the tidepools a bunch of times!).

Just as we were thinking of leaving, a train stopped right in front of the beach, blocking our access back to the campground.  We had to stay at the beach a little longer than planned.  Unfortunately, it was noon and we were getting hungry!  And everyone had to go to the bathroom!  (We ended up letting them go in a hole in the sand and then covering it back up again - oops!)  Poor Sarah was so cold from all her falls into the water.  What a sad-looking little girl!  We ended up letting her take her wet bathing suit off and letting her sit on the beach with nothing on, trying to shade her from the midday sun, since didn't bring any sunscreen down with us.

Finally, 45 minutes later, the train finally moved on and we could go back to the trailer.  We quickly bbq-ed some hot dogs for lunch, packed the campsite up in record time and headed home.  Of course, all three kids were so wiped that they fell asleep almost immediately in the van.  Nothing better than fresh air, camping and playing at the beach!