Racers

Another start:

Another strong finish:

Playing in the park:

Hikers

Auntie Nichole came to spend the week with us. We thought it would be fun to go for a hike and see some nature and have her tell us what the plants and wildlife are. She and Phil read through our hiking with kids book and some park pamphlets we had picked up earlier and found the Huckleberry Trail. So, we packed up some snacks for Alex, water, sunscreen, hats, all the good stuff, and headed out. Alex took the lead, and the map. After a bit of walking, Alex wanted to stop for a snack and Zachary had a chance to enjoy the forest floor. He found a nice stick that he decided to carry for most of the remainder of the hike.
While Mommy and Alex were leading the pack, an alligator lizard(is that right, Nichole?) scurried across the path in front of us. Why oh why did I have to be in the lead?? I don't get along with wildlife and the screaming definitely helps!
Although Alex tried to tell us, we took a wrong turn somewhere and came out of the woods about a mile or so away from where we had parked the car. Phil was a sport and jogged off down the street to return with the car!

Discovery Channel

Our cat would not survive in the wild. "Oh, a giant snake? I'll just curl up with him. Cozy!"

Actually, I think our cats would be happy out in the wild these days. Alex is obsessed with them. He chases poor Boris, who is frantic to get away, yelling "Pet cat nice!". Boris doesn't care how nice it is, he does not want to be pet. Another favorite is "Move cat please". Zachary likes to pet them too. Of course when he does it, he comes away with fistfuls of fur.

Can't we all get along?

Champions

Phil had an early hockey game so we decided to go along and cheer for the Holey Whales. It seems like the only early games are during the playoffs, so we get to see the "meaningful" games. This was the semi-finals, Phil's team won in overtime! It also seems like whenever we go to watch a game, it winds up in overtime, making it that much more difficult to keep Alex from climbing the rafters. Next on the schedule was a best of 3 series. The boys and I didn't make it to those games, but the Whales won it in 2! Yay! Now when Phil and Alex watch hockey on TV, Alex yells "Go Dad!"

Party!

Two of our Playgroup moms are expecting a new level of crazy (ok, babies really) in the next few months. We thought it would be nice to get together with some of our prodigal Groupies and even some Daddies and celebrate. Karen made a delicious cake, and everyone else brought appetizers. Everything was super yummy and based on the level of destruction, I think the kids had a fun time playing. (The photo doesn't really do justice to the craziness, but every toy was out and about somewhere in the house!) Alex was so good about sharing his toys with everyone. We weren't sure how he'd handle kids playing with his toys, but he didn't seem to mind at all. Oh yeah, and back to the cake, Alex is a big fan of fondant. After everyone went home for naps, I caught him with his fingers in the side of the cake pulling off the dots to snack on!
We were very happy to be able to have a nice space to have everyone over. (And the cleanup really wasn't that time consuming!)

Strange days

Today was a day of errands and a bit of silliness. First up, we needed to document Zachary's weight at 8 months. His official appointments have all been a little bit after his actual month birthdays, so this one will be in line with the others.
Oh yeah, when he finally stopped squirming and the scale acknowledged him, 19 lbs, 2 oz!

Then we went on safari and saw this wild elephant boy. Fortunately we all escaped unharmed!

Kid Fest

One of the local gyms has a Kid Fest a couple of times a year. There are fun activities for kids of all ages and schools and other kid-centric businesses have information tables. Even though he didn't seem to enjoy the trial class we went to, Alex easily would have stayed in the Lil Kickers area all day. Every 1/2 hour or so one of the Coaches would start a new skill activity from the class. I think that might have been the difference: in the class, they moved from activity to activity so quickly that it seemed a little frantic even to me. Anyway, we met up with one of our friends and the boys had a blast kicking and throwing soccer balls, chasing bubbles, stacking and knocking over cones and playing with super soft playground balls. Here are some highlight photos.




Of course there was an appearance by the local Fire Department!

A day at the park

Brave in the face of danger!

The boys actually seem to play together now!

Busy busy busy

Grandma and Grandpa Prather came out to visit us for the week. I'm not sure who kept who jumping, but we were running here and there and everywhere. Alex and Zachary enjoyed taking them to music class and showing off their skills. On Sunday, we went to the Little Farm for a day of hiking and seeing the animals. We have heard about the Farm from many of our friends, but had never gone out there before. It was really fun. Alex was so excited to see the animals and bashfully told us what they all said. Feeding the goats was probably the highlight for him though. We hadn't really studied up much before our trip, and didn't know that we should bring some lettuce. Fortunately a really nice family took pity on Alex and gave him some lettuce to feed the goats. Then we found some previously rejected greens and coaxed a goat into eating those. Zachary found out that he was a couple of weeks older than the calf, but was surprised to see how much bigger she was than he. After a break for lunch (well, for the boys anyway), we finally began our hike. It was a bit more like a road than a trail, but we did end up by a nice lake with a bunch of turtles sunning themselves on logs. We did venture into the woods a bit and planned on having the boys sit under a big tree for a picture. As soon as we set them down, Alex decided to lie down for the photo op. It turns out we completely wore him out and he rode in the stroller for a while on the way back while Phil and Grandpa took turns carrying Zachary.
The next day, we ventured into the City for a day at Fisherman's Wharf. The boys rode the carousel and saw the sea lions. A rude clerk told me that it "Isn't enough to think about bringing your shopping bags, you have to actually do it". So la-di-dah!

But, the fun didn't stop there! Tuesday we headed off to the zoo! We were able to see the Keepers setting up lunch for the elephants and the subsequent elephant dash for goodies! The elephants actually weren't in too much of a hurry, but they did all find something yummy as soon as they were let back into their area. Of course we rode the train and didn't leave until they were locking the gates behind us!

We had lots of fun and were very happy that Grandma and Grandpa could come out to visit us.