Father's Day 2015

We had a great Father's Day this year. We wanted to do something new our family hadn't done yet; a place we'd never visited and Roaring Camp didn't let us down.

Roaring Camp is nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains in the Town of Felton, California. Located just six miles up the hill from Santa Cruz lies a re-creation of an 1880's logging town, operating trains every day of the year except for Christmas Day. Roaring Camp is a heritage railway with authentic 1880’s steam locomotives operating on our Redwood Forest Steam Train excursion and 1920's era Beach Trains to Santa Cruz.

We chose the Redwood Forest Steam train. The redwoods are just beautiful! And during our train ride, there was an old fashioned train robbery. They really put on a fun show. If you are looking for  fun place to take the kids, this is a great option.

Parking is $8 and you don't have to ride the trains. There are plenty of other things to do; BBQ lunch, gold-panning, see their 100 year old printing press, gift shop, blacksmith...

If that's not enough the Henry Cowell Redwood State Park is right across the train track and they have a great .8 mile hike that super easy to do. Some of the redwoods are so massive that there are little spaces (rooms almost) under them in the ground that you can explore.

Warning: Wear tennis shoes

A buggy driver and his passenger

That hole/room goes pretty far back into the tree. We tried to make a guess of how many people could hold hands around this tree. My guess was about 40 people. They were just massive!

This redwood is older that Jesus himself. Crazy!!

All in all a great Father's Day!
 
xoxo

A Week in Photos

Here's what we've been up to in the last week or so.



Noah & Elliot's 1st Swim Lession

Swim lessons were not super successful the first go around. We're hoping next week is much better.

 

A new park just opened up down the street from our house that the San Jose Sharks donated and built.

 



We recently found out that there's a mini car show in the Target parking lot by our house one Sunday morning a month. We grab Starbucks and walk around to see all the cool "hotwheels".

 

Bye bye PDI

PDI is closing it's doors in a few weeks. We took the boys over to the business park the other day because they have some great walking/running paths around the bay/park, baseballs fields and a whole bunch of empty parking lots great for running around or riding their bikes. The boys love it! And we love it because it's also so quiet and not too many people at all.

Lastly, I made a huge pot of homemade spaghetti sauce for dinner the other night and enough to freeze to have handy for some future meals.

xoxo

 



Mother's Day Weekend

We had an amazing weekend! We took the boys to the park so they could ride their bikes. Once we got there Noah surprised us and asked if we could take his training wheels off. And off he went!

Since they don't have many opportunities to ride their bikes in our area, I'm sure his training wheels would have come off a lot earlier if we lived on a slower street.

So proud of that kid!

For Mother's Day, I got to pick our family activity and finally decided on the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I had a great time and the boys LOVED it! We've gone a few times before, but Elliot was only a few months old the last time we were there. He was in awe of all the "fishes".

We're now proud members of the aquarium so we'll hopefully make many more future trips there.

 

We didn't take many photos on Sunday, but I was able to capture 1 family pic of us before leaving the aquarium.

 

xoxo

Pottery, Museums & NKOTB

Just your regular random posting of fun family events that happened over the weekend.

On our way to the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito, we stopped by Heath Ceramics since we heard they were having an amazing sale. We pulled into the parking lot about 5 minutes prior to them opening and were about 20th in line. We scored the 2 bowls above and I'm in love with their new colors. The new owners that bought the company a few years back have done an amazing job rebranding and reinventing themselves. The new colors are so bight and fun. We bought a full set of dished years ago before we got married and still use them daily.

We had never been to the Bay Area Discovery Museum and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed our time there. The boys LOVED it, especially Elliot. It's really tailored to 2-3 year olds I think.  The small café they have onsite offers some pretty health options for you and your kiddos too.



Not sure this view ever gets old



After the museum, the boys still had a ton of energy, so we fed some baby Canadian geese with some bread scraps I'd brought and then walked over to the spot where a few years earlier we'd taken our holiday photos. Boy has Noah grown since then.

The same wall we took our first real holiday photo when Noah was 2.

Noah getting some camera tips from Daddy

At his request, I took this photo of him. Pretty handsome!

Such a great day!

 

On another note......this happened.

 

Please don't go girllllllll

 

Hey Joey

 

Such a great night with this girl! Thanks Cara for the invite!

xoxo

Recent Silliness

Just some random pix of the boys recently. Not sure if I could love them any more than I already do. I I mean, look at the cuteness just exuding from them.

 

Playing pirate dress up

 

Asparagus Festival | This is his "cheese" face.

 

Asparagus Festival | Ice Cream! He was so excited!

Our Target just got these in. I couldn't resist!

xoxo

Birthdays, Castles, Ice Cream & Silliness

7 months of no blogging, YIKES!. Work insanity = no blog time... I'm hoping things will be back to normal now.

(Blog warning: This post if heavily loaded with photos.)

We recently came back from a family vacation in Santa Barbara for my Dad's 60th birthday. It was also the hubby's birthday and I surprised him with tickets to the Dodgers opening day game. He's been a life long fan and had never attended a game at Dodger Stadium. I wish I would have gotten a photo of my Dad and B.I.L., Bart. They were dressed in head to toe Giants gear. (Giants weren't even playing)

We ate at McConnell's Ice Cream 3 times! It was that good! I highly recommend the Sea Salt Cream and Cookies. To.Die.For.

There was also lots of silliness going around...

 

Visited Hearst Castle which was so beautiful. We also stopped in Solvang on the way back to S.B.

 

Ice Cream in Solvang

The hubby and I took the kids to the zoo one day. Lots of fun animals to look at and the zoo is right on the water. Just beautiful.

Waiting for our food at the zoo

Some random Santa Barbara shots during our stay.

We found an amazing Gluten Free Patisserie on State Street.

Happy 60th Pops!

xoxo