San Jose 2014

We finished the school year in May/June and everyone took a big exhale. I let the boys start playing their DS's or iPads almost anytime they wanted. They'd turn on the TV first thing in the morning to watch PBS. No homework. Not much picking up toys. Pretty much we all took a giant break from routines. I tried to workout still, but even that wasn't as regular.

Five+ hours of someone using me as their personal arm/shoulder/head rest

A month into that, we went down to San Jose for a visit. I had all these great plans of working on blog posts and writing stuff while we were down there, but somehow none of that happened. We did a bunch of fun stuff and kept relaxing, but couldn't get inspired for any serious stuff.

The boys and I spent time with my parents; mini-golfing, going to the Tech Museum, kayaking and peddle boating at Vasona. Also getting lots of treats and going to all the restaurants we had missed.

It was the first time I had taken the boys to Golfland. Besides an instance of Peter getting accidentally whacked with a golf club, everyone had a good time. But they were also more than ready to go after 18 holes. It was really hot and sunny, even first thing in the morning when we went. Towards the end, the boys were nearly running to get from one hole to the next so they could rush through and get out of the heat.

We had plans to go to the Gilroy Botanical Garden theme park. Even Boris and I had never been down there before. But after the heat experience at Golfland, I decided it wasn't worth it to drive down there and be too hot to have a good time.

The Tech Museum was a lot of fun for the boys this year. They made robots again; Peter put his together before I even made it out of the bathroom and was ready to snap a picture and move on. Grady was also really into the building of the robot. He understood how to get everything working together and didn't want any help. The museum had an electronic music section that was fun and they had some cool space and robotics sections.

There was an IMAX show playing about the sea life in the south pacific islands that they boys wanted to see. We had popcorn and watched the movie and the boys both seemed to like it. No scary parts, even if it was a little loud.

The day we went to Vasona was also pretty hot. We stopped at the store first because Grandma needed a hat. Peter went in to get one too, but Grady stayed in the car with me. All of a sudden, Grady got out of the car yelling "wait, I need a party hat". He came back out a few minutes later with a stack of party hats and basically wore the gold one every day we went anywhere. People were asking all the time if it was his birthday and we'd say "nope, he just wanted to wear the hat". Everyone was amused. Peter got into wearing a party hat for a little while, but not with the same vigor.

Five minutes after arriving at the house

The boys wanted to try peddle boating, but they also voted for kayaking, so we split up and did half and half. Peter and Grandma started out on the kayak while Grady and I did the peddle boat and then we switched. The peddle boat was a little tough for Grady to reach, he got tired of it pretty quickly. Peter seemed to have fun with both, but he got hot and was ready to stop after 15ish minutes.

We also did a bunch of shopping in the bay area: Fry's, a few bookstores, mom and I even went down to the Gilroy Outlets. I had plans to take the boys a couple more places during the week, but they were pretty exhausted. One day we just stayed at the house and the boys were so relieved to just sit around and watch TV and stuff. They went out to breakfast and did some stuff with Grandma and Grandpa while I went out running too. It was a fun, mostly relaxing, time and Boris came down to join us for the long July 4th weekend before we all drove back together that Sunday.