Daddy's Summer Vacation

Since Daddy got a new job, his last day at BlackRock happened to be the same as my last day of school. He had a whole month before he started his new job, which meant he got to spend it at home with us! We took full advantage of his time off and spent lots of quality family time together. In addition to our trips to Calistoga and Hawaii, we also went on some local outings.

Golden Gate Park:
Although its not that far, we rarely visit Golden Gate Park, mostly because parking is such a pain. We finally checked it out on a weekday and went to Stow Lake. We even rented a rowboat! Daddy did all the work while we got a kick out of seeing all the ducks and turtles nearby.

The whole thing made Mommy think of that scene in "The Notebook" where Ryan Gosling takes Rachel McAdams for a romantic boat ride with geese swimming all around them. It was kinda like that, but not quite.

Half Moon Bay:

Another day we went to Fitzgerald Marine Preserve in Half Moon Bay to explore the tidepools. We arrived mid-morning when it was supposed to be low tide. Only to discover that Mommy had read the wrong tide tables and low tide wasn't until afternoon! It was also much colder that we had anticipated. We ended up spending the next few hours driving up and down Hwy 1, stopping for lunch, and shopping at some gift shops for an overpriced sweatshirt so that I could stay warm. At least it's one of my favorite sweatshirts now.

When we returned at low tide, we had totally lost interest in actually exploring the tidepools and just played in the sand instead.

Great America:
We got season passes again this summer so of course we had to make a few visits there.

It was a fun few weeks are we are glad Daddy got to spend so much time with us!

Ryan's Ride Bike Race

Colin and I participated in the annual Ryan's Ride bike race in downtown Burlingame. The last time I did this race, I was riding my tricycle! I've come a long way since then and can now comfortably ride my bike without training wheels. Colin did great on his balance bike - he rode the entire route without stopping. Mommy and Daddy were super proud of us.

 

 

First Dance Recital!

I've been taking a dance class all year and we ended the year with a spring recital. It was a combo class so we learned tap, jazz, and ballet, but the instructor chose tap for our performance. I was glad because out of the three I like tap the best. We danced to Runaway Baby by Bruno Mars.

Picture day with my class/schoolmates.

Mommy took a video of the performance during the dress rehearsal.

I was excited but nervous to be performing on stage. It was my first performance ever! I ended up having a lot of fun and it showed. I've come a long way since my first dance class! 

December Fun

As usual, December was a very busy time of year, filled with holiday related activities at school, preschool, and on weekends. 

Daddy's Birthday:

We kicked off the month with Daddy's birthday! We went to Sam's Chowder House in Half Moon Bay where I rediscovered clam chowder and steamed mussels. I liked it so much that I said I want to spend every birthday celebration here from now on.

The Nutcracker:

I went to watch my friend Shaifali perform in her dance school's presentation of The Nutcracker. It was a full-length version and she was only in two numbers, but I enjoyed the whole thing. Coincidentally, it was in the same theater where we saw the Kidz Bop concert and we happened to have the exact same assigned seats!

School Celebrations:

On the last day of school before winter break, our class took a field trip to a senior housing facility where we sang for the residents. We performed four songs. It probably took us longer to walk to the residence than our actual performance, but it was a fun experience. At the end of the day we had a class party. 

Colin had a little party at preschool too, where they drank hot chocolate and decorated cookies (which eventually just meant him shoving M&M's into his mouth).

Visits with Santa:

We went to a holiday party hosted by BMC and they were smart enough to put a sleigh next to Santa for those kids afraid to sit on his lap. It worked out really well for Colin!

Colin also had a Christmas party at day care. This time Mommy prepped him beforehand and told him that Santa gives gifts, and if he wanted one he had to sit on Santa's lap and give a nice smile. It worked! In fact, Mommy was told that he was the only one out of all the kids that didn't cry! Funny story: when Santa asked Colin what he wanted for Christmas, he randomly answered "Batman." Coincidentally, he unwrapped his gift and there was a Batman toy!

Zoo Lights:

We took advantage of our membership and headed to the SF Zoo after hours. They had this special event where various parts of the zoo were decorated with Christmas lights and figures. There was also real live reindeer, fake snow, and holiday train ride. It was cold! Colin and I had fun, but Mommy's not sure it would be worth going to again, especially since most of the animals were sleeping. 

Gingerbread House:

This year's theme: Trolls!

San Jose Children's Discovery Museum:
A fun place to visit when it's too cold outside.

Colin explores food coloring and a block of ice.

They made this entire play structure out of packing tape!

Children's Creativity Museum:
After Christmas we had two weeks of winter break. Colin still had a bunch of unused days for backup daycare (a great benefit at Daddy's work) so we took advantage of that. Not that we didn't want to spend quality time with him, but there were some outings that were much easier to go without him (sorry Colin!). So while he was at "special" daycare in the city, Mommy took me to the Children's Creativity Museum. I had been wanting to come back here to create another stop animation movie, and it's the first thing I did when we got there. We spent over an hour creating clay figures and filming our movie. I was very pleased with the result!

We also made a shorter film using paper cutouts.

And I made another music video. This time I chose Cheap Thrills by Shakira. For some reason they never sent us the video though. 

Ice Skating in Union Square:

Colin spent one more day at backup daycare and we went into the city for some holiday festivities. We went ice skating in Union Square, saw the puppies and kittens in the Macy's store window, and met up with Daddy for lunch.

It was a nice way to end the year and that was just the beginning of winter break! We had a whole other week of fun ahead of us.

Halloween

Here are all of this year's October pumpkin and Halloween activities! I decided to dress up as Wonder Woman this year and to go with the theme, Colin dressed up as Batman. Good thing we had plenty of opportunities to wear our costumes.

Pumpkin painting at the library.

Pastorino's Farm: Mommy took us on a special trip after school one afternoon since Half Moon Bay gets crazy busy on weekends but she still wanted us to go to a decent pumpkin patch. They had all the usual pumpkin patch activities and we were practically the only ones there. We came home with a pumpkin for every member of the family, including Toby the hermit crab.

We are animal lovers!

Preschool celebration: Colin's preschool had a small Halloween party. The kids wore their costumes to class and enjoyed some breakfast treats. Low key but fun!

Fall preschool crafts

School Halloween Parade: It was raining so we paraded through the school corridors. Then we had a party in class and performed some Halloween songs for the parents.

Downtown Burlingame Fall Fest: Downtown Burlingame held it's first annual fall fest with vendor booths, live entertainment, food trucks and a beer garden. It had been pouring rain so Colin enjoyed stomping around in the puddles in his Batman costume. When we got there the rain let up for just long enough to watch a performance by Mister Q, who has also been an instructor for one of Colin's music classes. As you can seen in the video, Colin is not shy about dancing in public.

Pumpkin carving: This year Mommy finally trusted me enough to use a sharp pointed object to carve the pumpkins. It was harder than it looked! We gave Colin a chance to pull out the guts, but he was more interested in the carving tools.

Our carving skills are improving each year.

Trick or Treating:
Finally, the night that I had been waiting for! We liked our costumes so much that we actually posed for Mommy and let her take all the photos she wanted. Brady dressed up as a lion, inspired by the Amazon Prime commercial that had been on tv recently.

Our best superhero pose.

Colin was nervous about trick-or-treating at first. He almost didn't go at all, and we had to reassure him that it wasn't scary and that he would get treats. When someone answered the door at one of the first houses, instead of saying "trick or treat" he exclaimed "it's not scary!" 

We made it through most of the neighborhood before it started raining on us. It was a successful Halloween night and we enjoyed all our treats!