California Trip

The boys were so excited to ride in a plane this time. I love that we can give them these opportunities to experience these things so young.
First things first: In N Out...
Then, we started celebrating Jeremiah's birthday! We had his party this year at my grandparents house. My Grandpa had been working for a long time getting a new go-cart put together so the boys could ride in it. They had a great time! Mommy and Daddy did too!

Jeremiah's #1 request for his party was hats.
The presents were a bonus, though.
Everyone wore a hat! Whenever we tried to take them off, Jeremiah asked us where our hat was.
He was pretty excited about his Thomas cake. My mom baked it so I could just decorate it once we got there. It was a lot of help!
Jeremiah and my Grandpa share a birthday so we celebrated for them both.
Then the next day we headed to Discovery Kingdom. Phil and I rode lots of grown up rides (a really rare treat for us since it's usually just us with the boys in tow). The boys... well, they rode a bunch of rides too!
They have a Thomas the Train area there which was obviously right up the boys' alley.
We weren't there while my folks took the boys through all this, so I was a little shocked to see this picture. Can they both really be old enough to ride things like this? They couldn't stop talking about it once we met up with them again.
We made the most of an unexpected trip to San Francisco and had some Boudin sourdough bread bowls with my favorite clam chowder. Josh... not such a big fan.
We walked around a bit and took a picture with Alcatraz.
My Mom showed us this ship and I couldn't resist getting a picture with Jeremiah and the USS Jeremiah O'Brien.
Daddy got to take us through the whole thing. He obviously knows more about these things then we do.
How appropriate for Jeremiah to ring the bell on this ship.
Jeremiah hung out with Nana when we went a little too high for him to be able to come with us.
Daddy explaining things to us again.
We stopped by a penny arcade that we really enjoyed. They had a huge amount of squished penny machines so the boys really enjoyed it!
Yep. It's big because he's so smart.
Then it was Jeremiah's actual birthday. Breakfast in bed was called for. It just happened to be Nana and Papa's bed because he was already in there playing and watching Disney Channel before I rolled out of bed. We even got to use the special plate I used as a kid on my birthday.
Then it was off to Chuck E Cheese. We tried very hard to put this off on Nana, but we ended up tagging along anyway. The boys had a great time! My big secret: go right at opening and you'll be one of maybe 2 or 3 families there. Much better then the evening with huge crowds of unwatched children. Go in the morning. It's just better that way.
Josh found one game that he could do great at that gave him a large amount of tickets. This is him celebrating another victory with hand shaking.
Hm... is it possible to see the gene transfer?
When I said it gave him a lot of tickets... I did mean a LOT!
Then off to the Lego store!


Another day we went back to ride the go-carts again. Grandpa took the boys around on the tractor a bit.
Here's one of us with my Grandma and Grandpa.
I'm pretty sure there are a billion pictures of me growing up in front of this fountain in their backyard.
There were a couple days that Phil and I spent in San Fransisco that we have no photographic documentation of yet. We were part of a friends wedding in the Bohemian Club which allows no cameras. Fortunately, my friend had a professional photographer who was permitted so hopefully eventually I'll have pictures.
We got home at around 11:30 Saturday night, packed, then woke again at 3:00 to head to the airport. It was one long day Sunday getting back home to Virginia. We did find a few things to enjoy along the way, though...