"I don't like wind"

We visited the classic Golden Gate bridge photo op site tonight in Sausalito and oh boy, it was cold! The wind was blowing like crazy. It started off well for Sydney until the wind picked up and she started saying, "I don't like wind."
Here are the pics that I froze the family for....

"I don't like wind."

Train Museum and Old Sacramento

Today we went to the Train Museum in Old Sacramento and met up with my friend from junior high Jackie, her husband Joseph and their four kids-Joshua, Kaitlyn, Ellie and Gaby. This was the perfect place to go since Sydney has really been into trains lately. Jackie's kids love the museum also and go often. The museum was fun, there were a lot of trains!
Here are the kiddos: Jackie's adorable and well behaved kids
We have some stowaways!


My daughter can find a phone anywhere...think this is going to be a problem when she is a teenager? She always has a phone to her ear.
Playing with the fun train tables
Sydney and Kaitlyn-these girls bonded over lunch at Joe's big crab shack
I love this picture-Sydney and Ellie. Ellie is 4 1/2 months younger than Sydney
The staff gets up and dances every hour and here is our waitress dancing with Kaitlyn! Kaitlyn even had a round of applause from the restaurant patrons just for herself! She did great.
Joseph and baby Gaby
So cute-Josh, Sydney, Kaitlyn and Ellie
Jackie's cute family

Our family It's just not an event without a pic like this...
Check out the girls shoes-they all had the same shoes!
Pretty girls

Trains, friends and Del Taco

Today Anthony set up the train set at Mam-o's house. This train set is pretty cool and doesn't see the world outside of the box very often lately. It was fun for Anthony to be able to set it up for Sydney to enjoy, although I am fairly certain he enjoyed it just as much as Sydney, if not more.

Sydney and the Christmas train

Mam-o and Sydney My child, err I mean husband
Sydney put blue puppy on the train and had fun running around behind him. Silly girl.
We stopped off at Pop-o's office and Sydney had her first eye exam. Contrary to the look on her face, she did very well. Afterwards she announced, "I didn't even cry!" Her eyes look great according to Dr. Pop-o.
My friend Niki was also in California visiting friends and family so we thought it would be a must to meet up! Especially since we live about 5 miles from each other and hardly see each other. It was great to meet her friend Tatum who I have heard a ton about over the years, and her adorable little girl Teagan.
Sydney and Niki
Teagan and Tatum
The girls
Tatum and Teagan
Niki and I in front of Del Taco-yes there's a story behind this. In the fall of 1999 Niki was living in Sacramento and I came down to visit her for a few days. We spent some time in Sacramento, then took a road trip to Lake Tahoe and also San Francisco-in Niki's white Jeep. (Loved that car.) It was an awesome road trip. Anyway, we spent many of our meals at Del Taco. We don't have these in our area so this was a treat! Niki and I knew that if we were both in Sacramento at the same time then we'd definitely have to hit up Del Taco so here we go....

We're feelin' the heat!

Today was HOT! I think it reached close to 104 today. I am fairly confident it has never reached this high of a temperature in all of Seattle history. I do remember one year when I was a kid it reached 100 for about 5 minutes and that was a record. It was big news and it was all the talk on the playground and the news stations. Okay okay, so for the California and southern folks, I know this is just a typical summer but I am still getting used to this while visiting family in California. Thank goodness for A/C, that's all I can say. At 11pm it's still like 84 degrees. Again, pure craziness to me. Yup, we will probably not be moving down here anytime soon. Sydney just keeps saying, "It's too hot."

Today we hit up a really cool new outdoor mall in Sacramento. Since it was outdoors we didn't last too long because of the heat. Definitely worth checking out when it's a bit colder. We went to the cutest store called, "Posh Punkin." I actually did buy a super cute tee for Sydney. I've seen this shirt before and always wished I had purchased it. (Ours is brown with pink though.) They also had True Religion jeans in Sydney's size and if it wasn't for the $128 price tag they possibly could have been ours. Well, if they were $100 less. Jessica has these jeans and they are super cute but yowzers, who actually pays that for kid's jeans? Okay, Jessica might. LOL

Here's Anthony and Sydney in front of the fountain:

We hit up PF Changs for lunch and then headed to the indoor mall to cool off, do a little browsing and Sydney did a little playing at their playground. Later in the evening Anthony, Beverly and Sydney made some "dee vee" (divinity). Here's our little taste tester after giving the thumbs up:

Everyone in the pool!

Today we swam in Mam-o and Pop-o's pool, day and night! Sydney loves the pool and she is getting less and less nervous in the pool all the time. We worked on her kicks and arm movements and she even floated a bit. She was finally brave enough to drive her boat around and she had a blast. Here are some pictures...

So excited for the pool!
Sydney LOVES this table set. Mam-o bought it before our last visit and Sydney talked about it the whole way to the house yesterday.

The pool cleaner is the funnest toy ever! (Click on the picture to check out the expressions, I love it!) Practicing our floats!
Boy that was fun!
It was 80 degrees at 9pm so we decided to go for a night swim! Sydney loved it, she thought it was so neat to swim and look up and see the moon.
The boat! Sydney didn't want this boat in the water at all earlier today. She likes to sit in it in the living room. Tonight she finally took the plunge and rode in her boat in the pool. She had a blast!
Uncle Andrew and Sydney

Our 4th of July

We made it to California just about two hours ago. What a long drive, but it's nice to spend a couple days in Oregon to break up the trip a bit. We had a terrific 4th of July in Creswell, Oregon. Anthony's parents and brother drove up from California, and we had a really nice time visiting with his uncle Terry, Aunt Mickie and cousins Greg, Bethany and Mandy. They are so much fun and such a great family. Aunt Shirley and her son Wally joined us for a while too.

So here's how our trip started:

Sydney loving up to her pal Blue Puppy on the way to Oregon

It's not a family trip without a stop or two for coffee. Here's Sydney with her "coffee." Milk in her coffee cup. She thought this was pretty darn cool.
We made it to Oregon, happy 4th of July! Here is Sydney in her holiday attire:
Playing piano with Mandy
Bethany, Terry, Mickie and Mandy
I love this picture...pretty eyes run in the family!
Walking to the parade
Bethany, Anthony, Beverly, David and Sydney. Sydney is concentrating on the parade, not the camera


Uncle Terry usually has at least ten cars in his barn that are project cars. This was one of them, for 11 years I think?
Sydney really got into running out and picking up the candy.
David, Anthony, Sydney, Uncle Terry and his son Greg
And this picture is the exact reason why I love this parade so much...old guys driving their lawn mowers through the parade. Creswell is small town USA, and we love it! Sydney wasn't thrilled about wearing her flags in her hair The day was fun, but let's head over to the fireworks!
Uhh, these guys scare me a little bit...
How cute are they? Bro and Sis. Sydney is so excited for fireworks, yippeee!!!!
Most of the group waiting for the big show. Creswell has really awesome fireworks for such a small town. The fireworks are terrific and go for a good 20 minutes or so. We are always so impressed.
Sydney five minutes into the fireworks show. She was so excited for the fireworks but it was 10 pm and she had no nap...
The next morning playing with Uncle Terry. She had a blast with uncle Terry, he's just a big kid himself.
Sydney with her Uncle Greg. She adored Greg. I am sure having the name Greg helped a bit, and she was so attached to him. She kept calling him uncle Greg. I corrected her a few times saying, "No, he's your cousin Greg." I finally gave up and we stuck with the uncle part.
And today at Harry and David. Sydney is less than thrilled about being put on a scale...but check out her weight, 25 lbs!! Woo hoo! My little girl might show up on the weight chart at her next doctor appointment!

So now we are in California for the next week with Mam-o and Pop-o. Sydney LOVES California, but how can she not? Her experiences in California involve getting spoiled by Mam-o and Disneyland.