My Week with the Kiddos!

Picture it, if you dare:

4 Kids

1 Dog

1 Auntie

8 Days

Last week, I spent 8 days (192 hours) taking care of my 4 nieces and nephew (2 of whom are tweens now and pleaded to not be photographed and put on the internet) while my sister and hubby took a well deserved vacation.

Here's a glimpse of half of the gang:

Of course, DP came along for the adventure:
While the parents were hanging in Mexico, the weather turned viciously hot right here at home and I had to improvise with some "cool" play tactics:
...and so we headed to Rite Aide, where I spied a 90% clearance rack with kiddie pools!!
$3.00 for the bigger one and $1.49 for the smaller one!

All went well until two rambunctious ten year old boys started throwing action figures at each other in the pool and managed to split the side of the bigger pool wide open. Here you see the 3 year old pathetically attempting to stem the gushing tide of water while auntie was kicking the boys' asses!

But never fear! Auntie had purchased many more of the smaller inflatable pools (Note to all aunties out there - DO NOT leave the pools out overnight! Raccoons tore up the first inflatable one!)

Here the toddlers do a little light fishing while the older kids were in school (god bless school days!!)
Now, from the very start, Auntie had a plan:

Wake kids up

Get older ones off to school

Concentrate on wearing out the younger two for naps:
my evil plan worked:
I put DP on the nap patrol:
After naps, time for some imaginative play, or as I like to call it...lets make a mess withPlay doh!!
I made this all myself:
YES, as a matter of fact, that IS an elephant!!

The searing heat kept Auntie, kids and dog outside every day - here the girls are taking a break from the pool to graffiti the yard with stick figures and such:
Since auntie does not cook, I left the menu planning and dinner time labor to the girls:
Baths to wash off the remainder of dinner:
Bedtime stories - IN THIS ORDER:

* "Rikki Tikki Tembo No Sa Rembo Chari Bari Ruchi Pip Peri Pembo" - 1970's classic!

* Curious George Goes to the Hospital - classic, teaches not to eat puzzles

* Bear in the Big Blue House - a classic still, even though he's not on TV anymore

* Very Quiet Cricket - lots of interaction in this one

* Runaway Bunny - damn, that mom is a STALKER - let the kid go already!!

* Good Night Moon - classic

Here are the girls, awaiting their nightly books while the older two are doing homework:
....and repeat this cycle for 8 days. Add in things like:

* Picking up the 10 year old from school when carpool didn't work out

* Football practice prep

* Walking the dog and kiddies after dinner

* Laundry

* Organizing the INSANE AMOUNT OF TOYS these kids have

...and OH YES, did I mention I had sprained my ankle the day before this adventure began?

Despite this ankle injury, I managed to get the toddlers off to bed by 8:30 (every night mind you!), then spent the remains of the day checking homework with the older two. The highlight of the homework checking can be seen below (you may have to click on the photo to see it a bit larger):

The object of the homework was to answer question #7 with the following choice: "Human Interaction with Environment" - I just had to photograph his answer before correcting it!!

Here are some highlight photos from the week:

Popsicles in the Pool!
The 2 year old poser:
The three year old poser:
Isn't this one cute??
she's such a ham:
and here we have Harley, the world's most patient dog, who was in a quandary here: Nap, or continue to eat the snack Auntie brought me? Why choose, really?
The tween girl presented me with the following award for all my services that week:Sorry to all you other aunties out there who presumed to be "world's best". Too bad!!

What I did for Summer Vacation

Now that "summer" is over (still foggy here!) and Labor Day has passed, it's time to share (as the millions of schoolchildren do each September) what I did over the summer.

Generally, I worked.

Or took care of a motley assortment of nieces and nephews

And watched old movies at the Stanford Theater.

But summer is supposed to be about "trips" and "vacations" - well, faithful readers will remember the Disneyland trip from June. That don't count.

So here I give you "what I did over summer"

I saw Trees. Big Trees.

Yes, this is Muir Woods, on a sunny day in August. A Saturday. During Tourist season. This is a mistake I will not make again.

For before the lovely photo above was taken, we endured:

* An hour of traffic getting to the GG Bridge.

* 90 minutes of circling a one mile radius of Highway One in the pathetic hope that someone, ANYONE, would leave Muir Woods and allow me to park.

* One front row seat to a screaming fight between two grown adults over a parking spot (shamefully, I must admit I actually sympathized).

But once we parked (and really, I kissed the ground when I did) - Muir Woods was lovely, all peaceful and woodsy:

Of course, you know who snuck in (can you spot him?):

We were all set to head out on the trail when I saw THIS at the trail entrance:

OH HELL NO! I almost turned around, then I remembered the whole car parking drama and decided to brave it.

Giant Trees:
Giant clovers:
More Giant Trees:
and this weird looking "Monster Stump":
I caught DP annoying the local wildlife:
In September....we headed to Ft. Bragg for the Labor Day Holiday. This trip was lovely on the way up - no traffic, sunny skies along the way, and easy parking once we arrived.

However, once in Ft. Bragg, we realized a couple of things:

* The Fog that was suffocating the coastline we live by was also suffocating the coastline we had just driven 4 hours to visit.

* The cop cars we we seeing all over the tiny town were actually on a manhunt for an armed and dangerous murderer that was roaming the streets.

* Apparently, we were not the only people who thought Ft. Bragg would be a nice place to visit on the holiday weekend.

So here is the much talked about "Glass Beach":

and here is the proof that we managed to find "Glass Beach" - GPS system be damned:

The path to the beach was surrounded by wild blackberries. I didn't eat any. There was no packaging around them and it made me suspicious:

We had been told that "Glass Beach" was a rare spot boasting sands covered with polished beach glass due to centuries of landfill dumping in years gone by.

We saw a beach covered with unpolished tourists, picking the sand clean of the glass:

After a brief call to a friend to get further information about less known areas, we found the "hidden" glass beach down the cliffs:

ummm, yeah...not so hidden this holiday weekend! But, look at the glass:

closeup for you:

DP was duly impressed:

It was just a BIT chilly

Here's me, denying the cold and trying to look like I am on a "summer" vacation:

Now, since we ASS U ME d no one else would be in Ft. Bragg this HOLIDAY weekend, we ended staying at the "Bend Over and Pay the Outrageous Fee, tourist!" motel, which boasted a lovely view:

Yes, as a matter of fact, that is bird crap on a window overlooking a dirt yard with a shovel, clippers and some sort of "weapony" looking rock (oh, did I tell you they never found the armed and dangerous murderer?).

ANYWHO....the next day we decided to head home via Highway One.

Here's DP at one of the several vista points we stopped off at:

So, after three hours of driving what can only be described as "Satan's Highway" - a road with so many twists and turns that you forget which direction you are actually driving in...I unclenched my hands from the steering wheel and decided to get out of the car in this lovely little town:

Such a lovely place, little houses..cows....and THIS interesting building up a side street:

Yes, that is me (i.e. tourist, movie fan, nerd) standing in front of the famous "schoolhouse" from Hitchcock's "The Birds". It's in Bodega Bay, not in the main part of Bodega Bay - it's on Bodega Lane off Highway one, about 2 miles south of the main Bodega Bay downtown area.

Of course DP had to get in on the fun:

At first I thought these were bee hives, then I zoomed in...THE BIRDS are still there!!! They've taken over the house!!!

Well, to make a long story short - the house is closed up, the owner is sick of people looking at the house and has "do not trespass" signs posted everywhere (but she lives in a house behind this house!), and there is even a guard dog within the confines of the fence. A very friendly guard dog.

We spent some time looting the local antique store of ViewMaster reels, old thread spools, milk glass chickens on a nest, and I think an old photo or two. The owner claimed the church in the following photo was in the movie as well:So yeah, after THAT ( and a lovely seafood lunch at "The BoatHouse") we headed back out to "Satan's Highway" and spent the rest of the day attempting to stay out of the way of asshat drivers hellbent on getting in front of any car that also happened to be on Satan's Highway.

KARMA SIDENOTE: To the asshat in the silver volvo SUV that practically ran me off Satan's Highway - yes, I actually did enjoy laughing at you as I passed the car accident you were part of about 30 minutes down the road. Hope that front end damage isn't too expensive to fix. ASSHAT.

One last photo op before we hit the GG Bridge:
and that, my fair friends, is what I did for summer vacation!