Brownies & Pizza

This afternoon was spent cooking. Bill made a HUGE lasagne, as soon as it came out of the oven Ben and I made brownies - the best part of the baking process, licking out the bowl.







Then, Bill made homemade pizza - which was da best!

Climbing up, and up, and up

Friday morning, while Ben was at school, I took Jonathan to one of our local parks. He had so much fun, and the highlight for him was climbing. That's all he wanted to do, climb, slide, climb, slide, climb slide.

The Little Park

This morning we went to the local park (the "little" park). The boys took balls with them, the plan was for us to play soccer....but instead, the playground area was more fun.

Jonathan loves the swings...



Then he saw Ben on the slide, and it looked like fun, I didn't think he'd want to go down the slide because on Thursday he'd taken a header down the school slide. He was a little apprehensive at first, but as always, Ben was a great big brother to him and sat with him so they could ride together.




In no time at all, Jonathan would land at the bottom of the slide, say "more, more, more", climb up the steps and slide down by himself.

Building

Jonathan loves blocks, he can happily sit building towers, oblivious to whatever is going on around him.




....and the best part....he cleans up once he's finished playing. Today, I was unloading the dishwasher, the last time I'd checked I'd seen the above photos, I could hear him in his bedroom. When I checked for a second time, he was busy putting all the blocks away in the bag - hmmmmm - wonder which parent he takes after????

Edward Peterman Museum

Yesterday we went to the Edward Peterman Museum, otherwise known as the model train museum in Santa Clara. Because both boys loved the Lego exhibit last weekend, we were sure they'd love this too - wrong. After about 20 minutes they were both completely bored, Jonathan didn't want to be held, didn't want to walk, he just wanted to whine. Ben would stand patiently waiting for a train, and look at us with the "this is boring" face. I have to say though, I had more fun watching the model train enthusiasts - it's hard to know exactly how to react when a fully grown man, walks by you, model train in his hand - and - he's making train noises.






Oh well, maybe when they're older we'll go back to the museum. At least once we left, it was cute to see both boys hand in hand walking to the car.

Museum of American Heritage

Today we headed to Palo Alto to the Museum of American Heritage - they had a Lego exhibit. After standing in line in the cold it was finally our turn to check out the Lego. Both boys loved it, even though the Exhibit was small (and....it was free....so I guess you can't expect anything major) there was plenty of stuff to check out. Trains, boats, cranes, planes, etc.




They also had a small area of 'machinery from the olden days'

Here's the Ross men checking it out....

California Academy of Science

Yesterday we went to San Francisco's California Academy of Science, unfortunately, half the Bay Area had the same idea. Bill bought the tickets online, despite leaving home 15 mins later than we'd planned, we made great time on the freeway - everything was looking good, until about 2 miles before the museum. The traffic ground to a halt, we slowly inched our way towards the parking lot - and arrived 2 cars too late - lot full. We drove around and found free parking on the street and set off walking (in the rain) to the museum. There was a very long line of people, Bill suggested we wait in line and he'd go and find out where we'd should go with our e-tickets - it turns out - the line was were we needed to be. We stood in line for about 30 minutes (and remember, it was raining) - ugh! Once inside though, the boys LOVED it.

Here's Jonathan at the aquarium....



Ben checking out the stingrays....



Because the place was so packed there were a couple of exhibits we didn't see (the lines were at least an hour long) - but we promised Ben we'd check them out next time.

On the way out, we found a play area - both boys played for a while before heading back to the car.





Once in the car - within about 15 minutes, I turned around and this is what I saw...