The GGA Project -- Day #328 "Art Walk"

For years I have been wanting to experience the South First Fridays art walk in downtown San Jose.  As I mentioned in by post about the Sub Zero Festival, I neglected to explore this scene even when I was living around the corner and all it would have taken was for me to walk (quite literally) 50 paces from my front door.


Tonight, before heading to The Workout dance party at The Agenda, Nicole and I poked around in two of the museums that are part of the art walk, one of which I'd never even noticed (though, again, it was around the corner of my house).


Today's New Activity: Visiting Art Boutiki & MACLA


We wanted some time to get coffee and have a chat before I went dancing, so we didn't make it to all the stops on the walk, but these two were interesting enough for me.  Art Boutiki was displaying the art of a single artist, but the back studio space was open as well, where they were serving refreshments.  Quasimodal Quartet, a jazz band whose members I knew from college, happened to be playing there too.  What a pleasant surprise!

MACLA (Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana) displayed works from Cuban artists, including some photographs of a young Fidel Castro.  Muy interesante!

It was almost odd for me to realize that San Jose indeed has its own art scene.  There were so many people milling around who looked like exactly what you'd expect when you ponder the idea of artsy people.  I felt a little bit old at times, and a little bit not skinny enough, but mostly comfortable.  And it made me want to make more time for it when I get the next opportunity.  It would be great to see what else the creative minds out there are producing.

And following all that up with techno dancing was just great.  I guess I must have really needed to expend some energy, because I was sweating by 3 minutes into the deal and scarcely took a break from dancing during the next 2 hours or so.  Finally (and always wonderful) was the chance to head back to Nicole's house, where Maya had fallen asleep next to a wide awake Nicole, listening to Tori Amos on her computer, Raul, Brielle and Zach wandered in and out of the living room, Sureya slept soundly in her parents' room, and I tucked into a sweetly made-up mattress bed on the floor (thanks Nicole!) to inhabit my honorary space in their family.

Tonight, I'm loving life.

The GGA Project -- Day #278 "Plane Monsters"

For years now I've wondered where I could park to get the best view of the planes coming into land at Mineta International Airport in San Jose.  I even asked if anybody knew of a place in an online forum once.  One thing I never thought about is the fact that the Target down the street from there is just about as close as you can get without being on the grounds of the airport itself.  Well, not exactly true.  There is a park across the street from the Target parking lot that is juuuuuust a wee bit closer.  Nicole suggested we go there after picking up Maya from a class at that park.  That's just what we did for 


Today's New Activity: Plane Belly Watching at Guadalupe River Park


Monkey loves airplanes, so I thought he'd be ALL OVER lying in the grass to watch the planes fly overhead.  The commercial ones look huge from that close (pictures can't accurately show how close they seem).

Here's a little one.  I just like the way it looks like Nicole thought it up. 

Turns out Monkey was content to jut follow his little girlfriends around, and indulge Maya in her game of "house only without a Mommy or Daddy."  She also had them referring to the planes as "monsters," though I'm not sure what all there was to that part of the game.

Nicole was nice enough to let Monkey help her with her journaling pages.   He had so much fun choosing where to put down the cute little colored tapes.

Even though there are no toys, sand, or water fixtures in this park, I thought it was one of the best park experiences we've had.  There was sooooo much space for the kids to run, and we weren't close to any roads or anything at all that we had to worry about their getting into.  I'd say it was the first time I've ever truly relaxed while out in public with my son when he wasn't safely strapped into his stroller :)


One other thing: what a treat to let the kids run free in this lush and bee-free grass!

I can't wait to go back.

The GGA Project -- Day #254 "Better, Sweeter, Cheaper Than Plan A"

Half the reason I was excited for Monkey and I to spend the weekend at Nicole's was that we'd already be more than halfway to Gilroy and well-positioned to make a day out of what we planned for to do, which was to go to Gilroy Gardens (an amusement park that is supposed to be very good for toddler-aged kids).  And it did work out perfectly--we were down in Gilroy and at the gates to Gilroy Gardens by 12:30 in the afternoon--they open at 11 so we didn't lose much time.  Well, they open in theory anyway.  Unfortunately they were actually closed today, so we never got past the gates.  Five seconds' worth of research on the internet would have told us that ahead of time, but unfortunately I'm made the assumption that the good-for-weekdays coupons I'd printed out online were actually good for weekdays.  Go figure.


Anyway, Nicole was armed with a wonderful back-up plan, which to was revisit a little farm she'd taken the kids to a few weeks ago and which we'd wanted to come along the next time for anyway.  It was down in Watsonville, which--at that point--was only 20 minutes further on.


Today's New Activity: Berry Picking at Gizdich Ranch

Strawberries are in full bloom, so for the bargain price of the $1 carton to take them home in and $1.55/lb, you can pick them to your heart's and belly's content.  We grabbed a bucket each for Maya, Sureya, and Monkey, and got down to business.


First, however, an encounter with a freaky ass bug:

and some beautiful flowers

It was a perfect day for the outing--warm with a nice ocean breeze.

Nicole and I worked very hard at trying to direct the kiddos on which strawberries to pick (no!  NO!  Only the really red ones), and they got the hang of that part pretty quickly.

The only thing that kept the outing from being totally relaxing was a little sign at the entrance to the field that read "Sampling is okay.  NO GRAZING."  My son likes but doesn't unequivocally looooove strawberries when we have them at home, but I'm telling you every single berry he picked from those vines went straight into his mouth before I could even grab it from him.  I don't know if it was the warmth and softness to them after they'd been in the sun, or just the thrill of picking food and eating it fresh, but less than 2 minutes into it he already had a giant red ring around the entire bottom half of his face.  There was no way I could call this "sampling," but I relaxed once I stopped trying to keep the strawberries out of his mouth and resolved to just pay a buck more (thank you Nicole!) at the end to cover the grazing costs.


After the picking we visited the ranch's deli, which smelled strongly and yummily of all the 9 varieties of pie they were making and where we ate what was by far the best boxed lunch I've ever encountered (complete with soft and delicious chocolate chip cookies and freshly squeezed lemonade and apple juice--Nicole bought some cookies and apple juice to go...once was just not enough!)).


And finally, we let the kids run loose in a little grassy courtyard, where they could creep through a tunnel cut through some bales of hay (except that Monkey was too scared to actually go through) and pretend to drive an old, out-of-commission tractor.

An apple fell from a tree they were playing under and almost hit Sureya in the head.  What was there to do but pick it up and eat it?  Which is what they did together.  I LOVED watching the kids have the experience of seeing where their food comes from and grabbing it straight from the source.  It made me want to grow a bit garden and let Monkey care for it.  He's already got the watering down from helping his Nana, and obviously the eating part is not a problem.

Super fun day!!  I can't wait to go back in October for apple picking!  :D

The GGA Project -- Day #225 "Do-Over: Part 2"

I have encountered very few magical places in my life.  In fact, I can only count three.  One was San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico and the nearby village of Moises Gandhi.  One was an alleyway opening up to a small courtyard on a cobblestone street that ran alongside a church in Barcelona, Spain.  One was Flagstaff, Arizona, USA.


I suspect that my feelings about all three of these places had more, in fact, to do with my place in life when I encountered them than any magic emitted from the places themselves.  Then again, you never know...


I moved away from Arizona just weeks after graduating from high school in 1995.  In doing so, I forfeited a scholarship offered by the state and found myself working two crappy jobs outside of Cleveland, Ohio.  That got old pretty quickly, and in spring of the following year I was able to claim my scholarship after all, and I roomed with Nicole, who'd been there a semester by then and was able to show me the ropes.  I stayed one semester and then returned to Ohio with every plan to come back again in the fall.  By I got waylaid, sidetracked, and I guess--to sum it up--my then 17-year-old self was in need of a little more time in the nest.


Buuuuutttt, a single winter in Ohio was enough to turn all that around.  And one day I just jumped on a plane and headed for LA, where I knew there was sunshine and family, both of which I was counting on to lift me out of the fog I'd meandered into.


No such luck.  LA was not the place to get happy.  And yet still, slowly, bit by bit, I DID get happier there.  And when I'd shaken the gloom of Ohio completely, I got into my Nissan Pulsar and headed to Flagstaff, where Nicole still lived, now with our mutual friend Kelsi.  And *that* was when I discovered the magic that little mountain town held.


I'd only been there a couple of months when--full of the promise of endless possibility and the faith in all encounters happening in just the right timing and with just the right people--we hatched the plan to head to Mexico to serve as human rights observers in Chiapas.  The 6 months I spent in Flagstaff and Chiapas combined for one of the most formative experiences of my life, and I will be forever grateful to both places and to the wonderful women with whom I shared it.


This is how I'd thought of Flagstaff, when I did, in all the intervening years.


Unfortunately when I passed through Flagstaff most recently, a few years back, the experience was memorable for completely different reasons, none of which were pleasant.  It's bothered me that my last memory of a town I'd so cherished and adored could have been so completely tainted.  It doesn't seem like it should be possible--and perhaps I shouldn't have let it--but these things are easier said than done.


Even better than ignoring the troublesome memory anyway, was to have another go at it...another chance to take in the town of my dreams.


Today's New Activity: Memory Overwrite--Flagstaff, AZ


Of course I do recognize that memories cannot be overwritten like CDs or bad tattoos.  And it's probably for the best.  The sweet would not be so sweet if not for the sour interludes.  But it was appealing to me to have the chance to replace my most recent, sad memories of Flagstaff with some more pleasant ones.

Mission accomplished.  Monkey was so happy I could believe he'd somehow been there before.  Maybe he visited it in a dream or somehow plugged into mine.  He watched the hippies doing Jiu Jitsu and playing with hacky sacks.  Then he ran around with Sureya and Maya on the campus of NAU on the grass across from our old dorm room at Cowden Hall.  He looked as happy and free as I felt.

We also paid a visit to the Downtown Diner, a place that held some special memories for us, and Nicole and I both scored some cute wearables at the Animas Trading Company.


We weren't able to stay long, since we were due at Nika's Mama's house in Phoenix in the evening, but it was long enough for me to breathe the fresh, wonderful mountain air, and to remember that Flagstaff was still the magical place I held in my memory.  And I hope it always will be now.

The GGA Project -- Day #223 "Get Your Kicks..."

Last night Nicole and I commenced our first ever roadtrip together as Moms.  Nika and I have done a lot of traveling together, and I can scarcely imagine a better road partner.  We used to have this master plan to be team truckers together, traipsing all over the U.S. together and getting paid for it.  We had it all figured out.


But then settling down happened, and boyfriends and marriages and kids, and while I don't really think we ever would have been truckers, I was looking to recapture a bit of that freewheeling on-the-road spirit we embodied back in the day.  The question was whether or not we could do it with the kiddos.  Nicole has taken her girls on long drives to and from Arizona, and I also took Monkey (with my Mom and Aunt) out to AZ last year, but those were just direct trips...not extended days on the road.  This would be interesting...


We set out late last night in Nicole's car (since it seats 7 and the two carseats took up the entire middle bench) and landed early this morning in Bakersfield, CA, where we stayed the night.  The babies slept a good part of that trip and also slept well in the hotel, but it was yet to be seen how they'd fair for the 5-hours it would take us to get to my cousin Erin & JD's house in Lake Havasu City today.


Today's New Activity: Driving, Driving, Stop Off on Route 66, Driving, Driving


I've done plenty of driving from California to Arizona and vice-versa, but not along highway 58, which turned out to be a really nice drive.  It turned into highway 40 near Barstow, and *that* was a familiar route, but the whole trip was made different and special because of the kids.  We stopped at a super podunk little town called Something Springs (forgive me, Something Springs...I can't remember your full name and I tried to look you up but (bless your heart) you're not even on the map!) for lunch and a break, but for the most part they weathered that 5 straight hours incredibly well, with no crying or fighting or even protesting of any kind.  Maya was a super trooper, sitting in the way back and entertaining herself, too.


When we got to Erin's, the kids and Erin & JD's son Mason all got down to their diapers and cooled off in a little pool in their backyard.  They were instant buddies and formed the sweetest little Getalong Gang.

JD whipped up an awesome dinner out of nowhere, while we watched the kids play.  And I got the chance to catch up with my cousins into the wee hours.  It was a fantastic start to a week on the road!

The GGA Project -- Day #207 "Slow Food, Kinda Fast"

What a great day.  I got an early start at the gym before Monkey woke up and then managed to have us both out of the house in time to catch a 10am movie in Dublin.  The only thing that could possibly motivate me to get us to the movies by 10am is the fact that tickets were $1.  Yes, that is ONE DOLLAR, folks!  Of course, knowing that this theater is offering this $1 series on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings this summer, every other parent in the surrounding area was there as well.  No matter, Monkey, Nicole, Maya, Sureya and I still managed to grab seats for Despicable Me, a really cute movie that actually made me cry in the end.  It was very sweet.


We were all pretty hungry when we got out of the theater, so we headed straight for a little cafe-type restaurant I'd seen and been curious about.


Today's New Activity: Lunch at the Red Tractor

Red Tractor's website is pretty sparse, but from what I gleaned in the restaurant their aim is to bring some down-home cooking to fast-ish food.  The set up is pretty quaint...like maltshop meets barn.

I took the occasion to order a meal worthy of a Paula Deen episode.  I think I was answering the "how much starch can you pack onto a single plate?" question with this one:

While it was *pretty* good, I wouldn't say any of the single side dishes here were anything to write home about.  Nicole really liked the burger she ordered, but I'm thinking a hot summer day just wasn't ideal for this comfort food extravaganza.  Or maybe I just wasn't in need of comfort today :)


And I wasn't.  I was having one of those days where everything looked beautiful to me.  It seemed that any direction I glanced in gave me a peek into some tiny bit of wonder--an exchange between two people, the look on someone's face, the light through the trees, the whole mess of it.


This continued through the afternoon, as the kids played on the Slip n' Slide in the backyard and Nicole took super cute and charming pictures of them using her Retro Camera app for Android.  It continued into the evening, while I enjoyed some alone time over, first: pizza, then: coffee.  Winning combo.


I think it's important to strike while the iron is hot on days like this.  These are the days when I feel life is one big, wide open opportunity for love and laughter and success and failure and joy and pain and all of it feeding into a big ocean of experience that IS our existence.  And since I have no proof whatsoever that anything exists outside of this one lifetime, I'm just going to ride all the waves this ocean sends my way the best I can--navigate the ebbs and the flows and sometimes take to the surfboard, toes forward, arms out, head back and sun on my face....all the way to shore.

The GGA Project -- Day #199 "Small Town Charms"

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The GGA Project -- Day #198 "Swimmin' Hole"

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The GGA Project -- Day #140 "To the Moon!'"

Hoping to find another great place to take the kiddies, Nicole and I happened upon


Today's New Activity: Visiting the Chabot Space & Science Center


which is in Oakland.


I was pretty excited to check this place out after reading online that admission (which is free for kids 3 and under.  Score!) gets you tickets to one planetarium and one live action show.  One of the live action show choices was about dinosaurs, and since Chupi's been showing interest in dinosaurs lately (he even holds out the plastic ones that came in his Easter basket and goes "Raaaarrhh!"), I thought he'd probably enjoy that show and might even sit still!


The drive up to the museum was beautiful.  It's an observatory, so it was high up in the scenic Oakland hills, and it was the perfect day for that drive too.  Crazy winds last night left the skies clear and cloud free.


We got there just in time to see the planetarium show, which was about two little kids who build a cardboard rocket that manages to take off and fly around the entire solar system in the course of a night.  Pretty amazing feat.


They bring along a library book about astronomy, and this book happens to come with a talking professor, who broke it down for us about the planets, sun and moon.

I personally thought he was a little frightening, as was the trip to the sun:

but Monkey seemed to take it in stride.  He got a little squirrelly toward the end, so we left about 40 minutes into the 45 minute show, but I thought that was a decent run for an 18-month old.


When Nicole and girls joined us, we went to the dinosaur show.  I'm not sure why it was called live action, because it was just another dome movie (like IMAX), but it was pretty cool.  Both munchkins did well there too, and to my shock neither one of them got scared when two giant, very realistic CGI dinosaurs began battling on screen.  I think they may actually be too young to be scared by stuff like that yet.  The show was mostly about archaeologists' discoveries with some recreations of what they speculate happened in the days of the dinosaurs.  


Chupi and his little girlfriend Sureya (5 months older than him) took turns looking at each other and pointing to the screen throughout the show, as if trying to make sure each other was having the same amazing experience.  It's so cute to see how they communicate with each other.  Sureya is always saying "Chupi, Chupi," (she actually says this, his nickname.  I'm not even sure if she knows his real name) and showing him things or sharing her food.  I hope they will always be good friends like their Mamas are.


When that was done and we'd had lunch at the museum cafe, we went to a giant play room full of fun stations for the kids to have at.  I'm pretty sure they  would have been happy to stay in that room the whole time,

painting on rocks (I like to think he's drawing her a heart here),

playing with the computers,

and playing astronaut/gardener dress up.

The point is that they were playing, getting along and having a good time.  What more could their Mamas want?  Well I wanted to see the rest of the museum, so we dragged them out to take in more space-related exhibits, including a whole room about space travel.  This was perfect because Chupi's Nana is always joking that the two of them are going to go to the moon together one day.  It was nice he could get a look at what was in store for them.


For example, see this crazy little pod of a shuttle the Russians have used for 50 years to fling their cosmonauts back to space?  (and I do mean fling...the three flight members who are squished into the capsule for the 2-3 day trip home have absolutely no control over where the craft lands, and it usually crashes into the earth).

The Russians have lost 46 cosmonauts through the years this way, and a docent at the museum was telling me that when the Space Shuttle program is officially retired this June, The USA will begin using similar pods for our astronauts' space travels.  CRAZY!


So I'm guessing my Mom may want to rethink her space travel plans after she learns this little bit of trivia  ;)


Upstairs was a giant room all about climate change (the theory of, anyway), which was very educational in showing kids how their actions affect the climate, etc.  It was way over Monkey's head but good for the older children.


Though the museum didn't seem all that big, what I've discussed took the better part of the late morning through afternoon, and the kids were totally wiped out by the end of it...wiped out in the good, ready-for-nap time way that we parents love :)


Along with the Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose, which I've written about before, I highly recommend this one to parents of the little ones.  There was enough there to keep the interest of the toddler-types, but there were a ton of great exhibits for girls Maya's age (8) and even older.  It works well for the whole family.

The GGA Project -- Day #87 "Shady Business"

Today I went to my best friend Nicole's house to hang out with her and her daughters Maya and Sureya (Monkey's girlfriend).  Since it was such a beautiful day, we decided to go for a stroll through SJSU's campus (where, we agree, the students seem younger and younger every year, a sign of our own impending old age), into downtown San Jose.


Nicole grabbed a pearl tea and a chicken snack thing at Quickly, and then I decided to do a minor new thing I've been wanting to do for a while.  If you know downtown at all, you know that La Victoria pretty much rules the roost when it comes to taquerias.  I'll admit that I'll rarely ever go to any other Mexican joint  in the area, even though I know some of their food is far superior.  The reason for this is simple.  La Victoria sells this crazy orange sauce that brilliantly masks all the food's shortcomings and adds an amazing (if extremely difficult to pinpoint) flavor.  Something like cream-based, mildly garlicky salsa.  But not at all like that.  I don't know...it's hard to describe.


Anyway, I kind of have a love/hate relationship with "La Vic" as it's so wittily nicknamed, and I think a lot of people do.  I love them for inventing and spreading so much joy through their orange sauce, but I resent them for taking our collective business for granted and pretty much slinging whatever they want into a foil wrapper and calling it Mexican food.  I swear I am not exaggerating when I say that, a solid majority of the time, the veggie burrito I order arrives containing 10% pinto beans, 15% cheese, and 75% cold lettuce....so much of it that the cheese doesn't even melt.  Why oh why would anybody put up with this and come back again and again?!  I already told you....it's that damned ORANGE sauce.


Anyway, a couple of years ago another taqueria, Taqueria Los Gallos de Villa, opened up just behind La Victoria, and I was really pulling for it to do well...if the food proved to be good anyway.  I noticed, however, that nobody seemed to be going there, while often the line was to the door at La Victoria.  Unfair.  It was making me really mad that people weren't venturing out and giving the new kid on the block a try, until I noticed that I wasn't either.


Until today.


Taqueria Los Gallos de Villa was one of those places I love where there is a helpful picture of each menu item:

And as an incredible suggestion for an impulse buy, you can apparently rent U-Haul trucks there too.  For real...we saw one in the parking lot.

I ordered the veggie torta, which was toasty goodness and which hit the spot.  And in an added plus (when compared to La Victoria), the chips and salsa bar were free, and the chips were fresh, homemade ones as opposed to the stale, out of the giant plastic bag disks they offer at La Vic.

Alas, however, they don't have The Orange, which would have made the torta that much better.  Win-win solution will be to buy a bottle of The Orange next time ($6 well spent) and make the hybrid, San Carlos Street meets 4th street dream team super meal.  Good call!

Now, as for

Today's New Activity: Playing Shadow Tag

...it was borne from a conversation Nicole and I were having in which we talked about how sometimes, getting caught up with all the day-to-day work of taking care of kids, we can miss out on the playing, the act of simply having fun with them.  Nicole was saying that she does, in fact, play with Maya sometimes, but Maya disagreed.  "You' don't play with me.  When did you play with me?"  A question to which Nicole replied "I played shadow tag with you that one time" (which made me laugh because it called to mind an exchange in Modern Family during which Clair is lamenting to her young son Luke that she's no fun and that his dad does all the fun stuff.  Luke doesn't want her to feel bad, so he reassures her with this: "You put that potato chip in my sandwich last week.  That was a crunchy surprise."  "Nope," Clair says, "that was also your Dad.").

I asked them what shadow tag was, and Nicole said it was tag, except you tag people's shadows instead of their bodies.  Well-named game, I'd say.

So on the way back from lunch, we went back through campus and plopped down on a big patch of grass, where the babies were free to do their roaming without the danger of cars passing by, and without anything at all in sight that we'd have to try and keep them from grabbing at.  Why hadn't we found that spot sooner?!

Nicole and I talked for a while, and when Maya got tired of chasing the babies around (and she's so sweet with them, and such a good big sister...it's fun to watch her getting such enjoyment in playing with them, and vice-versa), she reminded us that we'd promised to play shadow tag with her.  The fact that neither of us jumped up to make good on this promise just reinforced for me the idea that dads really are better cut out for (dare I saw pre-programmed for?) fun in a way that moms just aren't.  It's a shame.  I'm not saying every mom is a stick in the mud.  It's just that I don't think we naturally act as silly or as playful or as energetically as dads when it comes to recreation with the kids.  Maybe I should just speak for myself (or for myself and Nicole, since we talked about this and are in agreement), but it feels true.  I can't think of any mom I know who is a fun in the sense of play-like activity as any of the dads I know.

But we did play after all.

So the rules of shadow tag are that you can't "tag back" immediately the person who just tagged you, and you can run to the shade for refuge (since your shadow isn't visible there), but you can only stay there for 10 seconds (which seemed like a long time to me, for the record).

A word to the wise about shadow tag....it's probably best not to play in the late afternoon/early evening, when each shadow is ten feet long and the "it" person needn't be anywhere near the others in order to tag them.  I don't think it's really how the game was meant to be played...me stepping on Maya's shadow from so far behind her she couldn't even hear me.

It's probably also good to play with more than three people, especially when two of them are moms who would rather be talking than running :P  We gave it the old college try though.  And I couldn't help but scream and squeal like a kid when Nicole or Maya was running toward me and I was trying to get away.  Given that we were clearly playing some kind of tag but nobody ever actually touched, the students walking by must have thought we were off our rockers.  Or maybe they *knew * about shadow tag, I don't know.

Chupi and Sureya--already loaded back into their strollers and ready to head home--watched with curiosity and big, happy smiles on their faces as their Mamas crossed back and forth on the grass in front of them, as they'd been doing moments earlier.  It was funny to see them watching our every move for once...quite a role reversal.  I wonder what, if anything, they thought we were doing.

Shadow tag and the walk back to Nicole's were nice finishes to a really, really nice day off.  Not sure I'll be playing the game again any time soon, but I would like to put more effort into being Fun Mama.  I'd like for Monkey to have those kinds of memories of me, too.

The GGA Project -- Day #66 "The Discovery"

Since I thought it was supposed to rain all week, it seemed like the perfect time to take The Monkey to a place I've been hearing about the wonders of for years now.  I called up Nicole, and she was game to bring Maya and Sureya Girlfriend along for


Today's New Activity:  The Children's Discovery Museum


What a wonderful, wonderful place.  As a long-time resident of downtown San Jose, I passed the outside of this building thousands of times.  I even used to live about a block and a half away and would go walking around its grounds for exercise.  But not being a parent or a teacher, I'd never actually ventured inside until today.


Everyone told me it was a great place for toddler-aged kids to fully explore, but I just couldn't picture it.  I am constantly trying to keep my boy OUT of things.  I couldn't imagine a place (a museum no less) in which it was appropriate and even encouraged for him to get his hands all up in the mix.


Nicole even mentioned upon entering that she was going to leave her stroller behind and I thought she'd gone insane.  I thought, you mean you're just going to let her run free?!  In a museum?!


Turned out she was totally right to do so.  They have really done the work to make this place tiny-kid-friendly.  All the exhibits are safe, fascinating, fun, and easy to use.  And since they are ALL like that, you don't have to worry about pulling the kid away from one really cool, say, oh, for example, air vent that floats plastic balls in the air, after he's been playing with it for 15 minutes, in the event another kid might want a turn (I'm just talking hypothetically, of course).  You don't have to worry about him being sad when you take him away from that cool exhibit because the next one is guaranteed to be equally cool.

And the next one, too!

By far the most fun part we got to see was the water world, where little canals full of water and more plastic balls and squirting things and vacuum magic could have easily kept these munchkins entertained for the greater part of a day.


Alas, although the museum provides genius little water aprons, all the chiclets managed to get thoroughly soaked, and too long in squishy shoes took its toll.  I wasn't prepared with an extra set of clothes, so our museum visit was cut short, but I have already decided to buy a yearlong pass so we can go back again and again.  It feels like a magic blessing to have a place just tailor-made for kids their size so nearby.


We were gonna enjoy the sun a while and see if the clothes would dry out, but that was a lost cause, so we headed back to Nicole's, which was probably for the best because it got pretty cold.


If you're a parent in the area and haven't already done so, be sure to take your little ones here at least once.  You'll be glad you did.  In the middle of the building they have a decently priced cafeteria that actually sells good food.  Imagine that.  Plus, the giant sprawl of grass on the land surrounding the museum makes for great picnicking and just plain run-around space for any squirrely moments you may encounter.  Parking is $5 and admission is $10 for kiddos and adults alike.


We can't wait to go back, and man is he sleeping like a log tonight!

The GGA Project -- Day #59 "February at the Beach"

Who knew there was a little beach just up the freeway?  My parents mentioned having found this spot a few weeks ago, and I finally managed to drag Nicole and the girls up here today for an outing:


Today's New Activity: Visiting the Shoreline in Alameda


But first we hung out at home a little bit.

Hahaha...awww, she looks just short of disgusted   :P


Then, the drive.  I love seeing those two in the backseat together.  They are so mellow back there, just hanging out and gazing out the windows.  It made me wish I still lived down the street from Nicole and we could go everywhere together.  

Not only does the monkey love to play with Sureya, but her older sister Maya is a wonderful mentor, helper, and playmate--the baby just loves being with both of them.


It was yet another insanely gorgeous and unseasonably warm day in the Bay Area. The only seasonable aspect of it was a pretty intense wind, which was nice though, because it cleared out all hint of the smog that was hanging around yesterday.  We got a bit of a late start, so we didn't stay too long, but even late in the afternoon it was still warm enough to let the munchkins take their shoes and socks off and get their toes wet.

This was only the second time Chupi's been to the beach.  The first time he was just barely beginning to stand, though he couldn't yet do it on his own, and it was freezing cold that time so he didn't get to go in the water at all.


This time he was enthusiastically and yet cautiously stepping into the water and mostly keeping his balance as the tiny waves came and went.  Sureya was much more courageous, running headlong into the waves with no fear at all.

I know it looks like child neglect to have them out there like this in the middle of winter, but trust me it was very warm outside and the water wasn't even ridiculously cold.  Anyway they didn't care.  You couldn't keep them away from the water.  Though Nicole's efforts were most valiant:

We really didn't know what to expect from this park, plus we got a late start, so Nicole and I were both a little ill-prepared in terms of clothing and all the bring-along stuff Moms plan for when they know better.  In the end, after getting unexpectedly soaked, Sureya needed an extra shirt.  And she ended up wearing Chupi's.  Tee hee.  Just like a real girlfriend, borrowing her man's clothes!

Again, this was a day meant for appreciating the wonders in my own backyard.  I can't wait to revisit this site in the summertime...what a treat, just 1/2 hour away!