We Went to Grandma Da's House Too

The weekend we went to Ray's we also went to my mom's house. And it was a pretty good visit. I always enjoy eating her dinners. So effortlessly makes mussels in pasta, sole, and a little veal just to round out the meal. Of course it isn't a trip to Grandmas with out nightly baths, playing with the gentle giant Bear, and a trip to Nordstroms and Target. Coen quickly figured out that grandma would buy anything he asked for- so we came home with the much begged for pillow pet and a pair of very expensive light up star wars shoes form Nordstroms. I particularly enjoyed watching Coen follow the very gay sales clerk around the store as they looked for a tie to go with his new silk shirt. Yes he is 4- it was so strange.

There was a reason for our foray out of the mountains. You see we are a little dino obsessed at our house and I had looked for a museum that had dinosaurs and the closest was the Academy of Sciences. Which conveniently Mom and Bob are BIG donors too- so free tickets. This was really good because I think I would have been disappointed if I had paid the $70 admission (for me and the boys). Just not worth the price- in my opinion. So if you want to go- go on one of the free days. We didn't do the hall of Africa- we just ran out of gas- but we will pop in later this summer and do that part of the museum. It was a glorious sunny day in the park. I wanted to go to my favorite spot in the park- rhododendron hill- as this is the best time to see it- but Mom was pretty worn out so we skipped it. I love Golden Gate Park and just driving around was so much fun. I did like how little child friendly the museum was. And here are some of the pictures I took.

So the major disappointment was that this was the only dinosaur in the whole building. So we are still on the lookout for a good dinosaur museum with out going to Vernal Utah or Manhattan. Maybe we will get out to visit Uncle Brian like we keep saying a get to go to the Smithsonian. Although- the Dinosaur museum outside of Vernal is one of my favorites. Small but so great how they built the building around the mountain with the exposed fossils soaring to the sky. And some great hikes with lots of fossils nearby. And of course giant paper mache dinos all over the town.

Well chickens are related to dinosaurs I guess.

We did like the aquarium. The boys could sit and look at fish all day long.

They had a great cafeteria. It was wonderful. Coen asked for a Vietnamese salad and the lady said "are you sure?- it has fish sauce." about 5 times before I convinced her that was what he really wanted. Beckett grabbed my pork buns and ate them in about 10 seconds. That is pork sauce all over his face- not chocolate. I now have another food he will eat. We ate outside and the boys ran around like monkeys. It was a great little break before we went into the rainforest. I forgot to mention that Beckett decided he will only wear big boy pants while we were there- and I forgot- so he had an accident during lunch. Which is really amazing that he held it that long. So I thought it was a good sign.

The rainforest had butterflies and was hot and humid. Which is what you would expect of a rainforest.

Then we went to the Japanese Tea Gardens- which were wonderful and would have been more so with out the whiney kids who thought we were going to a playground next. But the azaleas and cherry blossoms were in their full glory and we had a nice time strolling around.