Bucket Lists and Biking the Bay Bridge

Years ago I made a bucket list of things I would like to do and biking the bay bridge from Oakland to Treasure Island was on it. Alas, we had never done it. We found ourselves with a kid free day on Saturday and decided to do just that. We parked at the Cal Trans parking lot at 210 Burma Rd. From there it is just half a mile to the start of the bridge, so each way from our car to the end of the bridge was 3 miles. I was nervous about biking up the bridge. After all, the whole way is up and that looks like quite the incline. Well, I am happy to say that "slow and steady wins the race". I may have biked it as fast a a guy ran it, but I managed to do it without stopping and without wearing myself out. I was proud! If we do it again, which I would totally be up for, I think I would pack a picnic lunch and eat it at the end where you have a beautiful view of the bridge. Going down was where the true fun was. It felt fun to go fast and feel the wind. It also felt so freeing. So, so freeing. I loved that feeling. 

After doing this, I decided to look up the bucket list I made years ago. There are a couple things on the list we have done and a couple that made Ian and I chuckle. For instance, I put take the kids to Sea World. We have gone to San Diego twice and I didn't feel the need to go there. But apparently when I wrote this list I did. We are still talking about Australia. Ian says Willa has to be a bit older, as toddlers on a long plane ride are no fun. But we are planning for maybe in 2.5 years. I would love to take one of the kids to NYC, as a special trip and walk the High Line. As for snorkeling, I think Willa and Callum need to be a bit older to do a real snorkeling expedition. Now to just not be lazy and go watch a sunrise one of these days...I am not exactly a morning person. 

Walk/bike across the Bay Bridge

Go kaiking

Walk on the High Line in NYC

Ride in a helicopter

Visit Treasure Island

Go to North Carolina

Take the kids to Sea World

Go to Australia

Take the kids snorkeling

Watch a sunrise

Stay on a boat in Amsterdam

Take the kids on the Durango-Silverton Railroad

Visit New England in the fall

Let me tell you a funny story about the train in Durango, CO. We didn't end up riding it because it was a several hour journey and we didn't think the kids were up for it. But we parked along the track to take the kids to smash pennies...something I did with this very same train as a child many times. So, imagine this moment. I drag all of us to the train track to smash pennies. I have told the kids how cool it is. We lay the pennies out and step back. I get the kids set up to wave at the train. About when the train was even with the kids, it started honking its horn. The kids freaked. Isla ran and tripped over Connor. Both were on the ground, trying to get as far away as possible, as quick as possible. Ian said the train conductor was laughing. I am sure the passengers thought we were horrible parents. Thankfully, the kids quickly got over it and were excited to search for their smashed pennies. 

I wish this was my only parenting fail like this, alas it was not. Connor still talks about him and I digging up a crab on the beach in Hawaii and it jumping at us, sending him and I running away screaming. I digress. The good news is, I don't think taking your children on the bay bridge would cause any trauma! Well, maybe some complaining riding the slope up. Haha!

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Bodie State Park

This is another one of those stops that was made because it's in the middle of nowhere and one wonders when they will find themselves in this particular part of nowhere again. Bodie State Park is a ghost town that was abandoned mostly intact. What remains is actually only 5% of what was originally there. It was a town created because of gold mining. It is 12 miles off the highway and the last 3 miles aren't paved. Not paved! The park worker said it is to get you in the spirit of 100+ years ago, haha! 

It was actually pretty neat to look around. The schoolhouse, which stopped operating in the 1940's, still remains pretty full inside. Most of the buildings were not. For instance, the post office had some cubbies and things inside, but was mostly empty. Connor was excited to show us the site of a murder...actually marked for people to visit. Callum picked up a stick off the ground and played with it for a while, before getting in trouble by a park worker for it being an "artifact". That one cracked me up. He got it off the middle of the road. Sometimes I wonder why workers at places have to be like that. It just makes kids not want to go when they can't even play with dang sticks on the ground. To each his own, I guess. It was still a neat place to visit and wander around. 

^^ Callum holding said stick...and in the picture below, he is playing with it in the dirt.

^^ The mine that cost more than the amount of gold that was found and what appears to be the reason the town was abandoned. 

^^ The site of a murder. I'm assuming only one ever happened in the town, given it was marked. 

We went here on our last day of driving home from vacation. So, that's the end of our road trip. In case you missed my other road trip posts - we stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats, stayed in Park City for a week and stopped at Zion National Park for two days. 

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Universal Studios

I haven't been to Universal Studios since I was a kid myself. But with the Harry Potter area, I have been itching to go. With the kids getting a three week winter break, we decided to go to Universal Studios during the third week. On their website, it said it was a middle level of busy (there are three levels) and I was pleasantly surprised with how mild the crowds were. 

We started out in the Harry Potter area and it did not disappoint. Though, I must say that the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride was quite scary for kids. But, I would say that was the case with most of the rides at Universal. It's definitely a place for older children, rather than younger. However, we went into Ollivanders Wand Shop and that experience was just amazing! Connor and Isla were chosen to be fitted for wands. It took about five minutes and was so fun. After they let the crowd out of the room, they called us forward and offered for Callum to be fitted as well, but he was hesitant, so we said no. I thought it was cool that they offered to do it to him too, so he wouldn't feel left out. We ended up buying the interactive wands and that was a cool experience. Making fire come from a chimney, a door unlock, tea pour, etc. Definitely a highlight. Makes me want to go to Florida where there is an entire park dedicated to Harry Potter. 

Some of the other highlights were the "real" dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park area. You could interact with them and they would respond to you. The kids really liked that. There was also a play area down there that was a big hit with the kids. We did the studio tour. It is longer than I expected, just over an hour. But it was highly entertaining. There are some scary parts and Isla definitely wasn't a fan. There is also a play area and a couple smaller kid rides in the Despicable Me section, so we spent a fair bit of time over there. Callum really just likes playing anywhere there are kids! 

Given the ages of our children and that Universal and Disneyland are basically the same price, I would do Disneyland over Universal. Though, that hurts my heart a little because the (small) Harry Potter area was so cool! Also, the parking situation at Universal was better, there was Starbucks IN the park...along with other chains like Panda Express. And, their characters did an amazing job at interacting with the kids. Frankenstein playing peek-a-boo with Willa was a highlight. But Disneyland is significantly bigger, so yeah.

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Columbia

The kids had spring break last week. Having a newborn and it being Ian's busy season, I knew we wouldn't do much, but I at least wanted to do something. Well, then Callum got super sick all week. It made it next to impossible to leave the house. But, on Friday, we left Callum with Grammy and went to Columbia. There was so much whining, complaining and fighting that went on in my house last week and I am happy to report that my kids literally did none of those three things on our trip to Columbia. 

We started off gold panning, which both the kids loved. Connor ended up finding several little pieces of gold and he was excited. Isla collected the gemstones (or colored rocks...?). Then we walked around the main street before stopping in a place for lunch. Both kids had ice cream and I had the most amazing fresh snickerdoodle cookie. Then we walked around some more. The kids wanted to go back to the gold panning, so we did that. It worked out perfect because I could sit and nurse Willa right by where they were gold panning. Then they climbed the big rocks for a bit before Isla ended up covered in mud...and when I say covered, I mean had to strip down for the ride home covered. And that was our sign to head home! 

It was seriously such a nice day, just watching the kids enjoy themselves and not complain or whine all day. It made me realize that they are often quite happy when we are out exploring and we should probably make sure to do it more often! Though I will admit, it's hard to do with Ian working so much, but we are on the count down...busy season is almost over!!!

^^^ A little gold on his finger than he found all by himself

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Ice Cream for Lunch

I've become really good at blogging like maybe once a week. Alas, I will trudge on, as this is how I keep our memories going. After we went to the Pacific Pinball Museum (a little over a week ago!), we crossed into San Francisco to go to Salt and Straw. This was the reason for the trip anyway. And it was obviously destined for us because first there was literally no one at the toll booths to get on the bay bridge. I've never seen it like this before. It was crazy. Then, we head to an ice cream shop in the middle of San Francisco and manage to score street parking right in front on the first pass through. WHAT?! The ice cream was obviously meant to be!!!

Even though it was past lunch time and no one had eaten yet, we basically used ice cream as lunch because, well, everyone got a lot of it! The ice cream itself was quirky and fun. I got a gingerbread cookie dough one and it did not disappoint. All the flavors were quirky and sometimes things like that can throw the kids off, but they liked it. Of course, I think the ginormous waffle cones Connor and Isla got helped! They ended up with ones way bigger than me somehow...all because they "split flavors". Apparently the 50 cent up charge for splitting flavors for a single scoop really is code for getting two scoops. It was kind of crazy.

It was a fun little stop in a cute area of San Francisco - Hayes Valley. We've never been to this particular area before, but would definitely go back and explore more as there were just so many cute shops all around there.

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Pacific Pinball Museum

This past weekend was Ian's last holiday off until the end of busy season. It felt appropriate to do something fun as a family. We were going to go to the snow, but found out the snow level was rather high and decided to scrap that...we were hoping more for an experience like last year. Which apparently, now looking back on that, it was in March. So there is still hope for a really good snow for us to go play in. But I digress. Ian and Isla had read about a new ice cream place in San Francisco recently and we decided to go there instead. Except, driving to San Francisco just for ice cream seemed a little bit wasteful. So, I started searching for something fun to do. We have done tons of Bay Area activities over the years, so I was kind of looking for something we hadn't done yet. That's when I stumbled across the Pacific Pinball Museum. 

To be honest, I wasn't sure how much the kids would like the outing. They always seem rather bah humbug about leaving the house. But they were actually on board...even though I'm not sure they were fully aware what pinball was. When we got there, they were totally excited. You pay a flat fee to get in, then all the pinball machines are free play. They start with the oldest machines, then get newer as you wind through the museum. The old ones are pretty neat because they are wood and you actually have to load your own balls. They also apparently used to have some gambling involved as well and say "minors not permitted" on them. The last room with the newest pinball machines in it was just crazy busy. Too busy for me, even though I did want to try my hand at the Monopoly and Back to the Future machines. But the added chaos (my kids were enough for me already!) just wasn't worth it. So we stuck to the other machines. And to be honest, I was plenty entertained by all the other machines and so were the kids. 

We stayed at the pinball museum for a couple hours before heading to get ice cream. But I could totally see going for a couple hours, then leaving and getting lunch or something, then going back in, as they have in and out privileges. It was a fun stop, one I am sure we will hit up again sometime, as the kids really enjoyed it. 

^^ My kids are total and complete suckers for those souvenir penny machines and of course walked away with a couple. 

^^ Callum was by far the most animated about the pinball machines. Which the museum had step stools for the kids, which was awesome. 

^^ Callum was very serious until the ball went in at the bottom, then would get super excited. 

^^ Loading the ball in one of the old machines.

If you are looking for something unique and entertaining to do with your kids, I highly recommend the pinball museum. 

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A Weekend in Monterey

We went to Monterey for the weekend. We went not because of the holiday weekend, but because Ian was going to run a half marathon. It was one of those weekends that had some really great memories made, but also had some low points. A great memory would be Callum loving the lighthouse that we drove around at night and was still talking about it the next day. A low point would be our back window being smashed out on the van while we were playing at the park with the kids. Another high point was stumbling across the worlds largest doughnut...actually, I am sure there are bigger ones out there, but this thing was massive! And, a low point would be Ian's half marathon being cancelled the night before due to the air quality from all the fires in California right now. 

While in Monterey, we got an annual pass to the aquarium and went on both Saturday and Sunday. It was oh-so-busy, but the kids still had lots of fun. Including Callum unexpectedly pulling a crab out of the water in one of the touch areas. I think he thought it was seaweed, as that's what he kept playing with, but he got a surprise! My favorite part of the aquarium is forever and always the jellyfish. I swear they should have those massage chairs you see at the mall set up in front of the jellyfish and let people just pay to sit there and stare at them. There is something just so therapeutic about being in a dark room, staring at jellyfish slowly moving around. I can't be the only one that feels this way, right? Because of my love for the jellyfish, please excuse ALL the jellyfish photos. I just can't help myself. 

After the aquarium on Saturday, we took the kids to play at the park for a while. The park is huge and a lot of fun. The kids did a ton of running around and playing. But it was definitely a downer to go out to our car and discover the window gone. I joked to one of my friends it was because someone was mad that we literally got the front parking spot at the park ;) Thankfully we called our insurance and were able to get the glass replaced on Monday, so all is well in the minivan world again. And, it wasn't nearly as loud to drive home without the window as I expected. We obviously had it taped up, but I still expected it to be loud. 

Saturday evening we went out to dinner with some other people from Modesto who were running in the half marathon. It was at the end of dinner that everyone was notified that the race was cancelled. Whomp, whomp, whomp. 

Sunday we went back to the aquarium for a bit before hitting the road for home. And the best part about the trip had to be that the kids didn't have school on Monday, so we had a day to recover (i.e. do the laundry, grocery shop, get the busted out window replaced, etc.) instead of just jumping back into things. 

^^ said extremely large doughnut

^^ This merry-go-round contraption is crazy, especially at the times when it was so full it was standing room only on there. But the kids played on it for what felt like forever and had such a grand time. 

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