Staycation!! (And a sad goodbye.)

I feel really lucky that we live in this area. I had a great childhood growing up here, and there are always things we want to do but never find the time. The Bay Area has so much to offer for families and kids! Pam had a week off work in early July, and we had wanted to visit her family in Seattle. But then we thought about the long 2 day drive with a kid who hates being in the car, and the money the trip would cost, and how rushed it would have to be, we decided to stay home and planned a "staycation" instead! A vacation to explore our own backyard, so to speak. I set up our itinerary and set to work finding discounted tickets and ways to cut costs. There were so many things I couldn't wait to do!

Up first, we went to Gilroy Gardens. It was a hot day, and I wish I had known there is a water play area there! I was mostly excited about the butterfly pavilion, I told Makena all about it, how we'd see butterflies flying all over. She wore her butterfly outfit. We got there and she wanted to see the butterflies, but we went on some rides then had lunch, with a promise of seeing the butterflies next.

 Alas, when we entered the butterfly pavilion not a single butterfly was there. I don't know what that was about, but I was SO disappointed. Way more than Makena, so that's good at least. We played in the water area for a while and cooled off. There was water being squirted from everywhere and I got much wetter than I planned! Thankfully I had a change of clothes for Makena to get wet in.

She changed back into her butterfly outfit and we went on more rides.

 Then we went on the duck paddle boats. What a work out. It was lopsided because of the weight difference, and I had to do all the leg work while worrying about Makena going overboard the whole time. And she kept wanting to steer and it was so hard to go in the direction I wanted!

We had a little visit by baby Emily! Makena loves seeing her. She randomly mentions "bay Em" all the time. I wish I had more local friends with kids for Makena to hang out with!

 We went to my parents house for a family dinner, and some kite flying at the park.

 My mom with the 4 grandkids.

 I love brilliant ideas like this! Glow bracelets in the bathtub! So fun.

The next big day out was a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I've been wanting to take Makena there for so long!! The night before when we talked about going to the aquarium Makena kept saying something that we didn't understand. She repeated herself a few times, and then got up and said, "Me show you" and brought Pam over to the kitchen counter and pointed up there. Then it hit me. She was saying Dorothy, the name of her pet fish who died a few weeks after we moved in to this apartment. All on her own she made the connection that we'd see Dorothy at the aquarium. :( It made me cry. Anyway, I was determined to go to the aquarium last summer but we never made it, so it was the #1 thing on my to-do list this summer. And we had a GREAT time!!

I was so glad Makena touched the starfishes and stuff in the touch pools. I wasn't sure if she'd be too afraid, but she loved it! Maybe she didn't realize that stuff was actually alive.

 There was a really amazing interactive psychedelic jellyfish exhibit. I'd love to go back before they change it!

 This camera was fun, I loved our family photo! Makena wanted to make a funny face in it all by herself...

She drew this jellyfish on her own, and then you got to watch it "swim" on the screen with others. She called it a rainbow jellyfish. I'm impressed by a lot of her artistic ability!

Then she wanted us to sit and take a photo.

We left the aquarium and walked around Cannery Row and found a Ghirardelli ice cream shop! Yum!

As we left the ice cream shop we saw a walkway to get to the ocean. It was cold and windy, but Pam and Makena had a blast!

Each day we came home from an all day outing Makena would cry and say she didn't want to go home. We'd tell her we had to get home to feed Donte and tell him about our day. I have no idea why she was being upside down while he ate dinner.

 We went to Deer Hollow Farm and saw some animals then went to a park for a picnic.

The next day we went to the beach, it was overcast but otherwise a nice day. Makena was so excited, then after about an hour she wanted to go home. She was cold and sandy and wet and so we packed up and left. She kept wanting to fly her kite but we explained there wasn't enough wind. She started to cry and whine so I said fine, go for it, and wouldn't you know, the kite flew beautifully!

I did a quick search on yelp and found great reviews about a nearby u-pick strawberry farm, and we went there even though it wasn't exactly on our way home. We really enjoyed walking down the long rows and picking deliciously ripe organic strawberries and supporting an awesome family owned farm! The Pacific Ocean is just on the other side of Highway 1 which runs along the right side of this photo.

After beach day we planned to go spend a day in San Francisco and visit the Academy of Sciences. But we had some unexpected expenses, new medication for Donte, and then when we woke up on Friday (Friday the 13th no less...) it was clear that Donte was sicker and in more pain than we'd seen before. We knew the day was coming, when he got his diagnoses of an aggressive tumor a few months ago we knew his days were numbered. And we knew we wanted to let him be put to sleep peacefully instead of watching him suffer through his final days. We were worried the stress of the move might be too much for him, but his health seemed to turn around for the better! We hadn't seen the strange scary seizure things in a while. He loved going out in out little back yard and laying in the sun. But then he stopped eating the hard food, and then he barely ate the wet food. And then he stopped going to the bathroom. That morning the sign we'd been dreading came. There was no longer a question of "When will we know when it's time?" It was clearly time, he was not well. I called the vet and it was awful. We went to the store and bought a plaster garden stone kit and made imprints of his paw prints. Then we prepared Makena to say goodbye, and we were all crying. When we came home from the vet without him it was terribly sad. Ever since then she sporadically asks for Donte, and she's taken to randomly sadly saying that she doesn't have any pets anymore. "Me no have no pets no more. Me want Donte back home." It breaks our hearts. :(

So we had a really great week and then a really awful end. Even though we knew it was coming it was still so hard. Pam's had him since he was born almost 17 years ago. And now we don't have any pets, and it's so strange and empty. I don't think we're ready to commit to a new lovable pet yet, but maybe we'll do a fish for Makena for now. We'll see.

Just another catch up.

We had a really lovely day on Sunday June 24th. We wanted to do something fun, so we went to the farmers market then took a short train ride to Menlo Park to a bookstore that had a story time. Then we had brunch and walked around a bit and I used my phone to look up things to do. There was a Color Me Mine studio nearby, so we went to check it out. Makena selected a vase to paint, and we all helped to paint a bowl with Makena's hand print in it. She did an awesome job! Then we took the train home, but first we had time to kill at the train station so we found a geocache while we waited. We got home and decided to wash our car, so we had fun doing that by hand.

 We signed Makena up for the summer session at The Little Gym. Once a week we walk over there and she does her gym class. It's been fun to watch her get a little more confident. She really liked her teacher but we just had to switch to a different day because she was in swim class. One day her teacher suggested everyone try a new way to walk to bed, like skipping or hopping or crab walking. And pretty much every night since then Makena has crawled to her spot on the bed, saying that the teacher wants her to "do a new way to bed!" A couple of times she even did a somersault on the bed, lol. She really loves the classes, especially these rings. I'd really love to continue enrolling her in classes, but it's so darn expensive.

Ian and Colin's grandpa did a little photo shoot of Makena for us, she was so cooperative! It went way better than a trip to the Sears portrait studio would've gone.  

She's so cute and awesome.

In addition to gym class and the aforementioned swim class, Makena's doing a mommy and me soccer class on Saturdays! We didn't pay for this class, it's the class Pam used to teach so she knows the coach and just shows up. Makena is doing great, she is learning so much and loves the time with Mama.

Colin also takes the soccer class, and they take the swim class together too. The last day for that is tomorrow. More about that in my next post! These two have been so sweet together lately. I've loved watching them grow up together. Here they were washing the car and copying each other.

We got a bunch of ollalieberries a couple weeks ago and Makena helped me make a pie. It was so yummy! She refused to try it though. Fine, more for me!

Makena loves to make her own pizza on Tuesday nights at Pizza My Heart.

I had a code to make a photo book for free, and had this brilliant idea to make a fun learning/game book for Makena. So I took a bunch of photos of her and we collected things around the house to photograph and I created a really awesome book. That week she was really into taking photos, and one day she asked me to take this photo, of two elephants on top of an elephant block. Lol.

For the 4th of July we took the train to the parade in Redwood City. We didn't think we'd get to go because Pam had work, but at the last minute she got off early. We missed the parade though, but we had fun at the festival.

I was really excited to make these bows for her. They were perfect!!

We saw my mom there, who marches with a band every year.

And we let Makena do some art and craft projects and games!

I love seeing what she chooses and creates. We had forgotten a hat for her (and sunscreen, oops) so the make a visor craft was helpful! I was annoyed that the prizes for the games were all candy. Thankfully she doesn't even know what most candy is, she would just select a random colorful thing and give it to us.

Then we had lunch and headed home, and she took a late nap. I don't normally let her nap past 2, or even after 1 sometimes, because then she's awake until 10pm. But since we were going to see the fireworks it worked out great. We went to the same spot as last year, on the lawn in front of Google across from the firework show at Shoreline, which is perfect.

We had a picnic dinner and waited for darkness. Makena and Pam walked around and found some Google bikes. I had a package of glow in the dark bracelets that were a huge hit, and we bundled up and watched the fireworks.

(Pam took this photo of Pam and I.)