Pismo Beach Camping and sandhill fun

Friday April 25, 08

It's a beautiful day and we are all excited to camp 2-nights at the Oceano Campground at Pismo State Beach. We met up with the Bienert's at their home in San Ramon and caravan(ed?) down the coast. The Bienert's got a new trailer and the Thomas' (us) got the Eurovan that we were gonna sleep in for the first time.

I think somewhere in the back I had stowed Kai with the rest of the camping gear? After a rest stop and about 4+ hours of driving we made it to the campsite and met up with the Greger family who were doing their first camp trip of the year also.


Kai holds Lukas' hand as we walk the trail between the campsite to Pismo Beach. Lukas was already missing his mommy and kept looking back for her (they were still setting up their trailer).


The boys got pulled over by the park ranger and were given a citation (of park stickers to wear).


As I was taking this breathtaking photo of the beach and silhouette of the boys...


...suddenly the tide comes in and gets us running! Kai gets his pants leg wet but poor Lukas trips (the first of several this weekend) and gets soaked. My pants are also wet from pulling him out of the water


"Hey Kai- look at that woman strangle that man!"

Huh? That's just Ute who is afraid of heights!

Kai is immediately attracted to this sand hill and starts running, sliding, jumping, rolling off of it. The fun is over when the mosquitoes start to feast on us as we run back to camp for cover.

~

Video: Pismo Pano and scary woman.

Video: Arleen's sandhill jumps and tumbles

The boys kick back and congregate at the campsite.

Rolf daddy (aka Rachel Rolf) cooks us a mean dish of grilled salmon. And for dessert we have strawberries and whip cream over angel food cake. Not your typical camp food, I know.

And despite Joel and Marla buying some wood for the fire, and me donating a boring work manual to use as kindling- we could not get that fire stoked! We headed in for an early night- it was already getting cold.

Scooter Berkeley Waterfront, Ute Crashes Her Car

April 23, 2008 Wednesday
Kai and I met up with Ute and Lukas at IKEA in Emeryville for a delicious (and cheap) meal of Swedish meatballs and mac-n-cheese for the boys. After spending a couple hours there chasing after the laughing and screaming boys through the toy department, we headed out with our buys.

Kai scoots under the pedestrian bridge in Berkeley along highway 80, with lollipop in mouth.
I waited for Ute in the parking lot so that she could follow me via car, to get some fresh air at the Berkeley waterfront. And she showed up with a long face and was quite upset. She had backed her car into a garage column detroying her driver's side mirror, and part of her car door frame and front-side quarter panel. She had a difficult time trying to see through her dark-tinted minivan windows and crashed as a result. I tried to be optimistic for her that she hadn't hit another car or a pedestrian!
~
Woo hoo! I also told her she was part of my club now- you know, The Mommy's Who Rip Their Side-door Mirror's Off Their Minivan Club.


We let the boys loose to throw rocks into the water, which they really enjoyed. It was a good idea to have them wear helmets because they're not quite straight-shooters.


Looking for the perfect rock or garbage to throw.


The ice plants are in bloom! Look at our little pansies! Uh- boys!

Lukas gives Kai a kiss good bye. How sweet!

Despite short attention span... he is learning!

Tuesday April 22, 2008

Meet Ms. Renee, Kai's instructor at the zoo-phonics class he's been attending every week this past month. I was happy to share her joy when she showed me the plaque "You Make A Difference Award" that she recently received for also helping special needs children. This woman travels all around the Bay Area to work with children, and I would say she was very patient and talented in getting Kai to participate and learn to identify quite a lot of the letters of the alphabet. There is some proof with the video below! I'm impressed with every class!

With several kids and adults watching Kai, he didn't buckle under the stress! He did match the Sammy Snake "S" amongst all that confusion!

Video: Letter placement


On the way back driving past St. Joseph's Cemetery, this caught my eye and made me pull aside. My first thought was they were pulling a body out of the grave! No such luck- but this was what was resurrected instead!

BEWARE of POOP golfing!

April 19, 2008

I may have posted this picture before but Kai has this thing about shoving his hands in his pants if his butt is itchy or if he poops. We've been trying to deter him from this bad habit, however I was told recently that he was pulling down his pants in daycare to show his "pee-pee" or "penis" to others (he will say both words). In this case, he was trying to tell them that he needed to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately they could not assist with the potty training as there were too many kids to tend to there.


So Kai, again got all excited when he peed (checking it out to make sure it is really pee), and was extremely excited when he produced his first poop here too.

Unfortunately, this was just the beginning of something bigger he produced, which I did not take seriously his warning...and he missed his toilet session because of me ...bad mommy!
~
I thought Kai was just goofing off on his toilet and I lost patience and told him to come find me in the bedroom when he was finished, where I was just beginning to pass-out from exhaustion. In my half-asleep state, I could hear Kai saying out loud "Poop! Yuck!" followed by thud!, thud!, thud! and then the same thing over again. I remembered in my mind's eye he had a plastic golf club that Lukas had given him for Easter.
~
I jolted out of bed. And sure enough, Kai was crouched over with his golf club swinging at the little poop pellet out on the hallway. Nope none of the poop made it into the toilet... at least not until I had to pick them up and then spend time on my knees scrubbing carpet cleaner in.


So to assist Kai with the ease of taking off his diapers, I bought him pull-ups which he quite enjoys the cartoon boy Diego on it. Greg made the mistake of putting the other diapers on him, which Kai through a fit. I guess the comfort is just not the same, plus Kai knows it as "big boy pull-ups".
~
So what's in store for me next? I'm somewhat concerned...

Urban Ore Scavenging in Berkeley!

Saturday April 19, 2008

Having seen the Eye On The Bay tv show, featuring the Urban Ore scavenging/recycling warehouse in Berkeley, I convinced Greg to go out there with me the following day. Also described as "splendor in the trash" it was a place for eco-savvy shoppers who want to not only just get good deals on junk (which one person's junk is another person's treasure), but a place to also drop off your junk instead of heading straight to the landfill.

There were thousands of square feet of doors, windows, desks, bookshelves, tubs and toilets, gates, rock, and just about anything if you looked for it. Greg pointed out the coolers with the biohazard symbol on it, perhaps there was a kidney in it for you too?


Do you think I'm reinforcing potty training Kai just a little too much? If he doesn't like that one, we can always try the yellow or pink one there...if that helps to get his bowels going.

Dead things hang off the forklift here...

You can also buy a Homer, and a hippo with a saddle to ride on-

-or buy 2 giraffe's, a cement dragon, and a huge pigeon with a cigar in its beak.

Wanna purchase the Milky Way? You'll have the whole world in your hands- plus more!

Kai found Henry (from Thomas Trains) for 50 cents while I was shifting through old camera equipment and movie reels.

Siblings? Michael Jackson and E.T. - after all they are both out of this world.

Kai's been pushing this hot rod throughout the store and occasionally making shoppers move aside.

Hey! Where's Santa when I need to tell him what I want next?

Yes, I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my...( can you see what the mirror reads?)

And you can even find Jesus in the oddest places, like in a box of RCA tv tubes here.

Kai takes a ride on the Sphinx...

...and then gets excited by screaming out "BOOBIES!" on these part female, part lion statues known as "purushamriga" in India.
~

Well we walked out with a lot of goodies, like a tub of sidewalk chalk for $1.35, a coin organizer for a $1.75, and air filters (to hopefully help my allergies), and your Xmas gifts this year (haha!)

Locked Out of my car!

Thursday April 18, 2008

Kai has been more difficult to keep up with. Since he has learned to open the doors to childcare, he is good at escaping. Just as I got him out to the car after work, Kai runs up this hill and starts to swat at the wasp trap hanging there. Then when he was bored, he slid down the hill leaving pine needles for me to pick out his pant bottom.

Spring is in the air, I had caught this blue butterfly and to my surprise Kai absolutely did not want to touch it. He would only look at it from a safe distance.

While I was distracted with the butterfly, Kai took hold of my car keys and into the ignition. I immediately grabbed him at the moment and secured him in his car seat, and shut the sliding door. Then I realized what a mistake that was- I couldn't open the driver's side or any of the doors also. Kai had locked the car doors from the key fob. I started to panic a bit because it was pretty hot in there and Kai was starting to yell for me.

I remembered Greg had tied an emergency key underneath, but it took me several minutes to find it (it was pretty well hidden) that I had to crawl underneath on my back to get to it and cut it out with my knife, which I carry with me at all times.

Thank goodness I was prepared. Maybe that's why I store water, extra clothes, a huge first aid kit and car battery charger in the trunk. I'm trying to prepare for the worst, as a mother, I guess.

Kai and I, who is suspicious of what he will do next. I am such a geek; reading up on a software program I recently purchased, while Kai innocently peers up at me from reading his book.

So Kai has done some odd things lately, like carry his "SLOW kids playing" sign out to the street, set it up, and then play on the driveway. Cars do drive by cautiously...

Of course that peaceful moment didn't last that long- Kai got my camera and started taking pictures again...

Mud slinging and getting stuck in it.

April 12, Sunday

It was in the 80's this weekend and so we headed out to Pinole Shores just to get out of the house. We had a lazy weekend and pretty much stayed at home until now.

Kai brambled alongside the train tracks with his box of crackers.

And we set up camp with daddy hiding in the shade already.

It was low tide and Kai and I had to go out quite a ways to reach the water's edge. Kai immediately started a mud-slinging war. He's a good shot! I ended up with muddy clothing and spent half my time running from him. Of course I had to pelt him a few times also. You could be standing there and you would suddenly sink to your knees. I almost lost my flip-flop had I not dug in to retrieve it! The mud just sucks it right off.

Kai was in awe as the trains passed by...

I guess this is how Kai will look when he's older with the 5 o'clock shadow?

Video: Mud slinging boy! And I get stuck in mud!

Can you guess what he's trying to do? Hmmm?

Yippee! A little bit of sunshine and air freshening to the booty is good!