Day trips-ice skating, SF, hiking, Oakland

      As life has finally settled a bit for me to catch up on my photo organization, I wanted to get the past two weeks of activity up on the blog before the new year.  This has been the craziest fall ever, the clear indicator being me currently working on photos from way back in September for my yearly photo books.  I just haven't had time to commit to that.  And I'm working on being okay with that.  New year's resolution for me, perhaps?  But catching up feels pretty good too.

    Anyway, I'll start with the week of Christmas when my mom was in town.  We spent one evening ice skating and it was SO fun!  The kids all want ice skating birthday parties.  :)

  This one was wild on the ice.  She eventually got the hang of it!

Poor Ava had to watch, but she loved seeing us and waving to us all.

   Breaking rules, sitting on the barricade and throwing snowballs.  They were so oblivious to the person over the loudspeaker that was speaking to them.

  This boy did such a great job.  Thank goodness for the buckets!!  He would have never left.

   Went into SF one of the days and here they are waiting for a cable car.  My way of making them stay put and relatively quiet.

My mom took them out for ice cream and somehow Joel's ear also had a taste.  And jam on his face from his sandwich.  Always!!

  Christmas Eve we were back by ourselves and we took the kids on a hike.  We knew there was a chance of rain, but I had no idea how cold it was!!!!  It was SO frigid.  Brrrr!!  Totally reminded me why we didn't hike most of the year in the PNW.  We probably would have been better prepared in the PNW though (like Mike wouldn't wear shorts, lol!), because there would be no question of the weather.

  We are def coming back in the warmer months so the kids can climb all over these rocks!

Yesterday, we went into downtown Oakland.  

  I follow a couple shops on Instagram and wanted to check them out.  They were super cool as expected.  Local handmade art, paper goods, leather goods, pottery, clothing, etc.  Bumping Lauryn Hill.  If there is a better small shop for me, I could not possibly find it.

  Facial expression experimenting while waiting for Daddy to come pick us up! 

  "Sleeping" in the car so he didn't have to take a nap when we got home.

  He is 100% cuteness and silliness and I want to squeeze him all of the time!!

We are all day-tripped out for 2015.  So fun while they lasted.  Eventually, more to come in 2016.