Month: December 2011

We arrived late, and the car rental took over an hour, by the time we were at the hotel it was past midnight. Leilani slept past 1pm:

I think that photo has a wrong datestamp. That’s at the San Bruno Library and I’m too lazy to figure out where it should go.

I think the first day we did nothing except buy lots of stuff at Trader Joe’s to mail home, buy shoes for me and a belt for Andy to wear for Andy’s Company party and visit Lily who was nice enough to babysit Leilani during the party and keep her overnight.

Andy’s Party was at the winery on Treasure Island. At the actual party we didn’t take any photos, but on the way there we did:

There had been a storm the day before we flew in, and it had cleared out all the smog, the views of the city were spectacular

And since I forbade Leilani to yell out “That is surely photoshopped” whenever she sees a photo of anything spectacular, I ask you to not do it either, please :-)

First we picked up cake, then Leilani and Jay and a little bit later Ana and drove to the Coyote Point park and played on the playground while waiting for Oliver to be dropped off






The girls were very fascinated with this solar powered aquaponic system and wanted their picture taken

Inside the museum the vortex seemed to be the favorite this time. I’ll have to post a movie…





We had lunch and then cake


ANd then we tested Andy’s back… it held!

We played a little while…

… and then went back to visit Lily where we baked cookies and had pizza

We had a polarizer on the camera and it messed up all the photos. if you think they are bad now, you should have seen them before I worked on them. Probably spent more time on these than on the rest of the trip together…

Megan, Ethan and Ella



San Francisco Views

Silicon Valley and Mount Hamilton

In the evening we were invited at Ana, Jeanne and Dave’s house for a great dinner


We were invited to watch a play.

Leilani met her friends Mariana and Narnia at Millbrae park. In California Kindergarten seems to be 3-4 hours at most schools, not 7 like here and the kids are a lot happier with that arrangement. But I should not complain, I’m quite happy with our homeschooling.

Later we went for a walk along the bay:

In the evening we went to the San Bruno library for story time and crafts just like when we lived there.

We first tried to go to the Legion of Honors, because it was free and Leilani did like the sculpture garden quite a bit, and seemd interested in the art inside, but the minute Narnia showed up it was over. They behaved like 6 year olds… or worse :-)

We gave up and drove to the Exploratorium. On the way there the iphone got me lost. I get lost a lot more now, that I don’t have paper maps anymore.

Leilani loved it enough that I got a membership.
This exhibit had a green pained room in the little house and a white room with green light. One could stick an arm in and see the different light. If that was too boring there was also a train going around that could be watched by the less scientifically inclined…

Big bubbles…

And lots of fun computer stuff

Velcro building shapes!

And blocks for patterns…



We actually built that catenary arch!

We met Andy at the Moma, which was free that day as well and walked around for the last hour. Leilani asked why they put up young people’s paintings and didn’t quite believe that famous adults painted that stuff.


She really liked that one though…

We went to see Union Square and the Westin and the Swarofski Crystal Shop, and Leilani pestered us to go ice skating. It was really cold and we promised to come back for ice skating the next day.