Snakes and Lizards

Logan has been asking us to take him to the zoo for a few weeks.  I'm not sure where this came from, but can only imagine someone at school recently visited the zoo and now that's what he wants to do.  So, I was all set to load us up and visit the zoo one (unusually free) weekend, when I also learned about a special "Snakes and Lizards" exhibit, running through Labor Day, over at the California Academy of Sciences museum.

I asked Jon which he'd prefer to visit and he thought the "Snakes and Lizards" exhibit sounded cooler.  Logan agreed.  So, off we went to visit the Academy of Sciences museum instead.

We had a great time.  The nice thing about the museum is that there is more to do and see than just a few animals - they also have a rainforest, aquarium, dinosaur skeletons, science exhibits, etc.  We didn't see everything, but we saw quite a bit in the few hours that we were there.  Logan wanted to stay much longer, but Callum was starting to get extremely cranky and since neither boy had taken his nap yet, we thought it'd be best for all to head back home.

I caught a few pictures of our day, but not as many as I would have liked.  As it turns out, you're not allowed to take pictures of the animals - but I totally missed the sign that said that.  Oh well  :)  We got a few snapshots here and there anyway.

 

On the way out, we visited the museum store.  Logan was in 7th heaven with all of the neat little gadgets and toys to touch and play with.  He wanted EVERYTHING.  Literally, he came up to me and said:

Mommy, I want the soft yellow snake [a plush stuffed animal of "Lemondrop" the albino boa, pic below] for my bed.  I want the blue [rubber] snake for my train table.  And I want this [a pair of binoculars] to see with.

We told him he could pick out ONE toy, and only one.  He chose the cheap little blue rubber snake and was absolutely delighted.  :-P

While our summer has been extremely busy with travel and birthday parties galore, I'm really glad we took the day to just hang out as a family and do something special for the boys.  We should definitely be doing these trips more often!

Visitors Galore

We continue to have visitors in and out of the house! Grover has found a new resting spot to keep an eye on the gaggle of humans invading his space ;-)


Friday, my Aunt Pammie drove down for a quick visit with me, the two boys (I kept Logan home from school), and my parents. We didn't take any pics or even hang out at the house - just grabbed lunch at a nearby delicious new spot my parents found, and caught up on family gossip. Still, it was great to see her and have her spend time with (mostly Logan) the kids! :)

After our visit, I headed back to the house for nap time. It was a FIGHT to get Logan down for a nap, but he finally succumbed, thank goodness. I then spent the afternoon hanging out with Callum and visiting with neighbors, enjoying the gorgeous weather on our front porch.

That evening the Children's Discovery Museum had a special "Members' Only Night" to showcase two new exhibits of theirs: Bob the Builder - Project: Build It and Run! Jump! Fly! Adventures in Action. We invited my parents along to check it out and Logan absolutely LOVED it. We're going to have to return because these two exhibits were really up his alley. :)

Mix and match the tools!

"Watering" the plants with Zafu

Zabuton (with Callum), Daddy and Zafu looking on at all the craziness and fun (the place was PACKED!)....

Callum can't wait for his day to get in on all the action.

Practicing Downward Facing Dog.

Getting ready for the next boarding season! ;-)

Exploring out on the lawn in front of the museum.

Balancing and walking with Zabuton (I love this shot!).

BOO! He was playing a hide and seek game with me and my father (notice way down at the other end). He'd hide on one side of this wall and then peek out at the other end. I caught him here by surprise. :)

President's Day

Logan's school was closed today so Jon and I took the day off to spend time with Logan and a few friends. We started off the day meeting up with the Jodoins for breakfast at our favorite, Stacks. YUM!! :)

Afterward, we took Logan to get his H1N1 Booster shot (Jon is the only one left who needs an H1N1 shot, which he'll receive tomorrow since I was finally able to get an appointment with my own OB secured for him). While there, Dr. Safir also checked out Logan's ear, which has healed remarkably. Dr. Safir actually commented that it's the fastest recovery he's seen, for an ear infection that was in such bad shape as Logan's last week. WHEW!

After the doctor's office, we met with the Jodoins and the Hicksons at the Children's Discovery Museum to let the kiddos run around and play for a couple of hours. The Hicksons left first, since Molly was starting to get really tired, but we braved on with Logan, Robert and Connor a bit longer. When it was finally nap-time, we went over to the Jodoins house to put the boys down for a nap while the adults had a late lunch and played Carcassonne (another game that Jon has gotten us addicted to).

When Logan woke up from his nap he insisted I sit down with him on the couch for a bit. He often finds my belly makes a convenient pillow when we're hanging out together, so I asked Jon to snag a quick pic. I hate how unflattering the pic is of me, but it was the only one we could grab before Logan got up to greet his BBF Robert who had woken up just after. :)

As always, we had a wonderful time with our friends! If only we could have more days off to relax with the kiddos...

A few old pics

I finally had some free time tonight to post up a few old pics! The first set is from Jon's family reunion we went to a couple of weeks ago. I didn't get as many profile pics of family members that I had wanted to - I've noticed that now that I have a kid, I focus most of my photos around him. And those pics that I don't get, are usually due to me setting the camera down so I can chase after my son before he gets into some serious trouble. :) Click on the pics below for more.



The second set is from our quick visit to the Children's Discovery Museum last weekend with Jon. I just added the pics to the same page of previous CDM pics, so you'll have to scroll toward the end to see the most recent. I didn't take as many because our visit was so short, but I did catch a few with Jon that I wanted to save. :)


We have another busy weekend ahead, and a couple of busy weeks (both Jon and I will be traveling, at different times/places) after that! But I'm hoping now that most of us are over the nasty cold we caught last week (Jon is still recovering from it since he caught it last), I'll have more energy and time to post updates in a timely manner.

Finally Recovering

Logan's been down and out since the start of last week. We thought he was doing better on Wednesday morning since we didn't detect a fever, but just to be safe, he and I hung out together that morning before I took him into school mid-day, just before lunchtime. A few hours later (after nap time), I got a call from his school that his fever had spiked to 101. Funny thing is, he didn't feel unusually warm to me when I picked him up (I can usually tell when he's running a temperature since he's emanating heat!) and when I took his temp after we got home, it was at about 98-99. Nothing extreme. Still, he had started a cough and seemed more clingy than usual, so I gave him some meds and a little TLC the rest of the day.

Thursday was a light day for me at work so I stayed home with Logan for the day (school rules say a child can't return until 24 hrs after a fever breaks). We went to my parent's for lunch and although he was still a bit clingier than usual, he was in great spirits for most of the day. Though his cough was pretty bad, I still wasn't detecting much of a fever which was good. So I thought we'd probably take him back into school on Friday, especially since it was picture day and I wanted to make sure and get some new pics for the family album.

Unfortunately, Logan had different plans. His cough kept him up all night - Jon finally brought him into bed with us about 2am (later I asked him why and he thought it was 6am and almost time for us to get up anyway).... which meant a REALLY rough night for Jon and I. Logan slept better between us I think - but he continued to cough up a storm, scattered with a few punches, kicks and bolting to an upright sitting position every now and then, in the middle of his sleep. It was distracting and nerve racking for Jon and I, to say the least. And, sometime around 4am I noticed a tickle growing in my own throat as well. Yay.

So, Friday I stayed home with him again since he clearly wasn't better, and I was starting to come down with the bug myself. I got an early morning appointment with his doctor just to make sure he didn't have anything more serious than a cold, and luckily that was all that was diagnosed. Lungs were clear, no bronchitis or pneumonia detected. And nothing like swine flu to worry about. Phew! ;-)

I did have one meeting on Friday that I absolutely could not cancel or reschedule - so my dad came over to the house for an hour to distract and entertain Logan out in the front yard while I took my call. THANK YOU DAD. After that, Logan and I lazed around the house all day long sipping juice and eating fruit and watching tv and being bums.

We've been taking it easy for the rest of the weekend because of the colds. Logan and I did make it out Saturday morning to a special ribbon cutting ceremony and building dedication of the brand new El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, which opens on November 15th (I was invited to attend since I sit on the Community Advisory Board for the Women's Hospital). I didn't think about it at the time, but it was a full hour of several folks speaking about how great the team was and the community was and the staff was at creating this new building, blah blah blah, before the actual ribbon cutting event. All very boring for an antsy hyper 2-year old toddler. :(

There's a cool circular water fountain in the front of the hospital where the ceremony was taking place - which we played in for about 10 minutes before security told us to cut it out. ;-) Soooo, we ended up spending most of the ceremony walking around some paths nearby looking at ants and slugs and picking up acorns and leaves and flowers. Logan was a champ and actually did really well putting up with Mama's boring community/hospital work that morning. :) After the ceremony, the hospital was opened for attendees to do self-guided tours - so Logan and I traipsed around the brand new hospital poking our noses into every nook and cranny. The building is well laid out, beautifully designed and you can tell someone put a lot of thought and effort into it. It was also really eery to walk down hallways and around the E.R. (for example) with not a patient or doctor in sight. :)

Today, Jon joined Logan and I for a quick hour of fun at the Children's Discovery Museum. The weather has been turning colder and colder (Hello Fall!), and although Logan was feeling much better, none of us were in the mood to go out to a park or take a walk, even though we all needed to get out of the house for a bit. So, the Discovery Museum it was. We had a nice time but Logan got tired pretty quickly (he woke up at 6am, the bastard) so we headed home. Really really loving the 'in and out' membership benefits! :)

I'm still not 100% myself, but not that bad either. I think it'll just take me longer to get over the cold because of the interrupted sleep and early morning wake up calls that Logan has been giving us lately. Logan, however, seems to be much better now and coughing less and less - thank goodness! I still have several pics to upload from last weekend's family reunion and our play time at the museum today - I'm hoping to get to that this week once I start feeling back to my old self!

Children's Discovery Museum

Last weekend Logan and I met up with Stacey, Mo and their daughter Maya for a play date at the Children's Discovery Museum. I have been talking about visiting the museum for months now, but we never seemed to get our act in gear. In any case, I'm glad we finally went because we had a blast! Logan's favorite by far was the water area - when I finally pulled him away so that we could see the rest of the museum he THREW. A. FIT.


The only draw back to the day was that we went too late (post naptime) - so we only got to spend about 1-1.5 hrs before the place closed - and Logan was again, UNHAPPY about that. He thought I was tearing him away from the best palace of toys ever, never to return again.

That made my mind up - plunk down some more cash and get a membership for the year.

So today, Logan and I went to the museum again, this time with Jenn and Robert. I'm not sure if Logan remembered everything from last time or not - but he seemed to enjoy the activities EVEN MORE today, if that's at all possible. :) I think it helped that I could coax him along by following Robert's (who he adores and calls "wa-wa") every move. ;-)


We also went when the place opened - and because we're now members, we got to enter during the exclusive "members only" hour before the rest of the public joined - which was super key. The place was MUCH less hectic and more open for the boys to explore and discover. And, easier on us Mamas chasing after them every few minutes! :)


I think the water area was still Logan's favorite activity - but he also enjoyed many of the other interactive learning stations, the arts and crafts room and climbing in the firetruck and ambulance. :) We ended the day with a bit of lunch before heading out, since the boys were starting to get that glassy-eyed tired look. Logan passed out within minutes on the ride home and had a great nap this afternoon to recover from the day. I didn't take too many pics from either visit - but the rest of the collection is linked from the pics above, in case you'd like to see more of the kiddos. :)

I'm very happy we decided to buy the membership (which also allows us to see other Children's Museums across the country - score!). I can see us visiting many more times to come. ;-)