Da Keiki Blog

Friday we went to SF again. We started out in Chinatown, walked a long way, bought some gifts and a lot of tea, had a vegetarian lunch and then walked even more to the Cable Car Museum. Leilani admired the big wheels, but was not too impressed.

We then took the cable car all the way to Market street, and walked another mile or so to the Asian Art Museum. My iPhone ran out of “iPhonejuice”, just quit on me and I was lucky to find the museum. I don’t really like to ask for directions, but I remembered it was right next to the city hall.

Leilani really liked the puppets. We took a guided tour about the development of pottery, but Leilani was thoroughly uninterested, it was too scientific. One exception was, when she heard that the Chinese had also put things into the grave for the afterlife. She asked about mummies, and was disappointed at the answer. (Even though the docent tried to point out some similarities with ancient Egypt)

We got to make our own art too.

That was right in front of the gift store. I need to remember not to go to museum gift stores, at least not with Leilani.

Leilani was really interested in fabrics and I got to see all of the Himalayas and we stayed until it closed, and then we played right next door and then walked to the Bartstation to call Andy (who had the car) to pick us up.

Leilani in front of a deity in front of the City Hall.

We went shopping at Blick Art Supplies, at Rainbow, and dined at the Cha-Ya Vegetarian Japanese Restaurant in the Mission.

OK, I found a few more forgotten photos. But this time I had Andy QA it.

Posts that got more Photos now: Hula, Food

Completely new: Alder Creek Camping Day 1 and Day 2

And here is the rest:
We have an almost tame squirrel living next to our house. Leilani feeds it with nuts and almonds

A while ago we had a playdate at the Burlingame Village park

Leilani and I went to visit the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose. First we looked at the garden, sphinxes, obelisks and a statue of Cesar among many other interesting things and plants.



The museum is beautiful from the outside

Leilani really enjoyed it and we stayed almost 2 hours

For our picnic lunch we sat right next to the peace garden and then Leilani played at the pond for a little while. We went to the planetarium, but that was rather boring and we left a few minutes before it was over. There were 2 beautiful dragonflies, I managed to snap a picture with the iphone


We went back and took a guided tour into the tomb – Leilani was really scared at first, but then said the tour had been her favorite thing.

We drove to the Winchester Mystery House and walked around in the gardens before taking another one hour tour. As soon as the guide said to raise the hand if we had any questions Leilani did. Her first – of many – question was “How did Ms Winchester die?” (Old age, Leilani seemed disappointed, the audience suggested a gunshot…) Leilani was the youngest – there were a few young teenagers, mostly adults, Leilani had to stay next to the guide all the time, and be the first through every door sometimes before the guide… The guide was not really annoyed, but slightly surprised, more so that Leilani kept it up for the entire tour. She told me she had never before seen a kid “stay with the tour” for more than 20 minutes, often the parents had to leave…

We ended the day at the beautiful and solar-panel thatched Vegetarian House and rolled ourselves a lot of fake fish spring rolls, and also ate heavenly salad.

Two things have happened for the first time on this blog: I am up-to-date with all photos (I might have one or 2 photos on one of the cameras) and I made 35 posts this month—and it is not even halfway over (2nd strongest month ever was June when I had started to catch up, and July still had 24 posts).

I’ll put a few movies up in the next days and then hopefully stay current. I have been managing that well with my email inbox lately…

Keith had the great idea of doing a hike-in brunch at the West Point in on Mount Tam (in Marin county, north of the Golden Gate). With all the times we’ve been there, this was still a new trail for us (there are dozens of trails covering 200 miles easily). The bonus was that we found mushrooms and huckleberries to eat.

Flowers too. Montbretia:

and Pink Broom:

Leilani showed Kelby and Belen all the toys she had brought on the hike:

We started in the fog and then the weather turned beautiful. We still saw the rolling fog from the Inn:

The pancake brunch is really popular, hundreds of people hike and bike in on the various trails to enjoy tasty pancakes on the deck of the historic building. Kelby volunteered to deliver orders to the tables spread around the building, and Leilani was so impressed she followed him around (and even got to carry the tray back several times). We also watched them make the pancakes on a griddle.

Hiking down after the brunch, East Peak (with the fire lookout tower) in the background

One of the areas with young redwoods growing everywhere. They must have been planted, because they’re roughly the same age, and there are no mature redwoods nearby:

Short break to read Thumbelina. Leilani had brought 2 books, speculating that Belen would be nice enough to read to her, and she was right.

Leilani played the monster chasing Kelby:

Despite the age differences, Kelby and Belen always played nicely with Leilani, joining her games and involving her in theirs. I think their more mature play (less sillyness) is a great example for Leilani: