Zoo Time

The Oakland Zoo has opened up a special Australian exhibit. You can only get there by riding the zoo train (oh the horror!) and the wallaroos and emus roam free and are often on the train tracks. Even so, this is the closest we have gotten to a wallaroo.
Here are a few fun photos from later in the visit.

Street Rides

We went to the Park Street Fair. We thought we would be browsing around for some fun arts and crafts, eating some yummy food and maybe go to the petting zoo. Instead, we found a new section that included RIDES! These boys do not know how to ignore rides. First they rode up and down the street in a little train.Then I convinced the operator that Zachary should ride the helicopter. He was super excited.


And we even managed to have some yummy food.

Fun at home

It took a while to catch them both wearing their Thomas engineer hats, but we finally did.
Zachary received two fun additions to the backyard for his birthday.

a pirate water table

and a picnic table.

And I'm sure once he gets a little bit older, he will be horrified that I've added this picture, but it had to be done.

PNW fun

Gma and Grandpa have a fun house. Alex is always talking about Gma's cars and her outdoor car, she also has one of his favorite books. We found some magnifying glasses to play with this time. The boys are ready for their new careers as private eyes!

The box the toys live in when Alex and Zachary don't have them all over the floor proved to be fun too. Indoors and out!

We had some new friends over to play too.

Desmond.........and Matthew
And we swam.

A lot.

And of course, there was the outside car.

Showing off their Thomas tattoos.

Birthday Adventure

For Zachary's birthday, we spent a Day Out with Thomas. Our time in the Pacific NW was plagued with hot weather. It was even hotter in Snoqualmie, and we look a bit wilted in all of our pictures.
Here is Zachary with his new best friend, Sir Topham Hatt. He kept asking me "where's topham hatt?" There were some fun activities in the train yard, including a scavenger hunt to have your map stamped for a fun prize.

Waiting in line for our ride

The boys with the Trainman

Hot and tired, but still having fun!

Look who's 2!

Zachary celebrated his 2nd birthday in FW with Gma, Grandpa, Auntie Nichole, Mommy, Daddy and Alex. Earlier in the day he celebrated with Thomas, but that is a separate post. Zachary applauded our singing effort, he is such a sweetie!

Then we went out to the deck to open presents. At first he was a bit hesitant, but then he got excited about all the fun presents. Auntie gave his this awesome hat!

Happy Birthday Zachary!

Discovery Park

We met Auntie Nichole at Discovery Park for a nature hike. We went up hills and down hills, and up a flight of 100 stairs. The stair case was broken into small flights with short landings. Alex did a great job trekking up the stairs, Zachary did a flight, then was carried for a couple and then climbed a flight and so on. That's a lot of stairs for the little men! Our destination was the Meadow for an awesome view and a snack. We saw a black bunny hopping around, possibly looking for a handout (he didn't get one). Then the boys conned Phil into giving them a piggyback ride. The boys also had fun collecting fallen leaves, and we all had leaves stuck in our hats by the end of the hike.
Afterward, we all went for lunch and Alex finally realized his dream of going to Auntie's house. He couldn't understand why she didn't have any cars or trains to play with, but he did find her roommates stuffed fish as substitute.

Happy 4th!

Once again, our boy imposed early mornings had a major benefit.

First we set off some poppers. The boys weren't really able to pull the strings, but they tried. Somehow, Phil and I both ended up with little burns on our fingers from them.
Then we set out early to stake out a viewing spot for the parade. We found a nice spot, set up our blanket and chairs and headed off to breakfast. The boys enjoyed having a bit of space to roam about, and it definitely made the parade viewing more enjoyable for us to have a place to sit and allow for roaming!
Perhaps the highlight of the parade was the license plate on the car of Coast Guard Vice Admiral Brown.

Happy 11

For our 11th anniversary, Phil and I took the boys to the City. Even though it was a holiday weekend, our boy imposed early wake-up time allowed us to beat the crowds, and we had fun shopping, riding the carousel and enjoyed a great window table for lunch.
I guess we took a picture of the wrong half of the family for this occasion. Oh well, they are cuter!