Looking for animals, we found avocados.

Jonah has been asking for several days to go "see animals". We've made a few trips over the past few weeks to Rancho San Antonio's Deer Hollow Farm and he thoroughly enjoyed watching/chasing the goats, chickens, etc. Today, I decided to go explore Blackberry Farm and the neighboring McClellan Ranch. I visited several months ago and remembered a nice walking/biking trail in the area that went by fenced-in farm animals.

It was a beautiful winter day-- in the 50s, sunny, barely a breeze. Here are my three youngest boys all ready to go. They have sand toys to play with at Blackberry Farm's playground:

The ride there was pleasant, but-- because of the mostly slight uphill-- quite slow. With three boys plus car seat, diaper bag, etc. and a 100 lb. bike, I figured out I'm probably pedaling around 200 or more pounds. Whoa! That doesn't make me feel so bad when nearly every biker I see passes me.

After riding around a little bit to find an entrance to the park (I was going by my not-perfect memory), we rode the little bike path by the farm. Looking closer I learned that it's actually part of a 4-H club and not open to the public, but we were able to kind of see a few goats and a donkey through the fence. Even that little glimpse of animals made Jonah happy. After the animal viewing, we went back to the playground where we settled in for a few hours of play and snacks. Nathaniel took a long nap in his car seat in the bakfiets. I moved around from picnic table to picnic table to stay in the little bit of sun the wooded area provided. While enjoying the calm and quiet of one kid sleeping and two happily playing, I kept noticing something falling from a huge tree behind me. I poked around the ground to investigate. I'm 99% sure they were avocados falling from an avacado tree. Here's the tree:

And the fruit:

I stashed some in the bike pannier and will let it ripen on the counter and-- maybe with another opinion confirming what it really is-- eat it! I noticed a couple of older women grabbing a few fruits as they walked by too. I didn't get a chance to ask them if the fruit really was avocados since I'd moved to the other side of the playground by then; bummer! The thought of finding free, yummy fruit is wonderful-- like a little secret that few others care or know about. While living in Chicago, we ate juneberries from the park across the street and mulberries from another park. I looked forward to doing that each summer, but-- considering that the berries were never totally picked-- most of the rest of the city apparently didn't.

After a while at the playground, we tootled around on a bridge over a creek-- dropping leaves into the water, playing with sticks, etc. We then headed over to the sunny sand-volleyball courts and Jonah and Joseph put their sand toys to good use while I nursed Jonah and took care of his leaked-everywhere very poopy mess.

I really needed a peaceful, outdoorsy morning like today. I was only sad that the rest of my family-- at school and work-- weren't there to enjoy it too. I especially thought of Gabriella. She had ear surgery last week and must not run or jump for five weeks in order for everything to heal (biking should be okay-- soon). I am extremely grateful for the good surgeon and modern medicine that have prevented what would have eventually caused total hearing loss and possibly neurological problems, but it just breaks my heart that something so pleasant as freely running about in the wild (or as close to that as you can get a few miles from home!) has to be temporarily restricted.

Our return trip was mostly uneventful-- a little fighting between the big boys and a sand toy (old yogurt container) dropped in traffic that I refused to try to retrieve, but a wonderful downhill on the home-side of the pedestrian bridge over the freeway.

And, as a finale, here's a few more photos from our morning:

Lots of sticks to play with.

This was actually pretty tricky to climb up on. Joey is proud of himself.

Very fast slide!

Sandbox fun.

Joey saved the chocolate pieces from his trail mix, and proceeded to make little designs with them. Here you also see the wonderful marker tattoo he adorned himself with this morning.

The boys spent a while looking at/dropping things in the creek. This evening, Jonah asked "see water?" (meaning,  "I want to see water".) It may be his new request, replacing the daily  "see animals"?

10 miles to donuts

Last Saturday, I was itching to go out on a family bike adventure. I had in mind a hiking area about 5 miles away up in some hills. The rest of the family was interested in the bike riding part, but not so much the destination. Jeremy suggested a visit to Psycho Donuts instead. Despite the seemingly tons of candy and junk food we've been eating lately, I acquiesced. The kids were pretty excited and got dressed and ready pretty quickly. Gabriella even French-braided Daniella's hair:

I had no idea she could do this and it came out pretty well- -much better than I can do.

As is the case with bike adventures, we saw and stopped at lots of interesting things along the way. We saw/did:

1) Picked up Jeremy's new glasses (with transition lenses that turn dark in the sun). Here is Jonah happily waiting (holding a fan Daniella decorated last summer):

2) While stopped at an intersection, we saw a guy spray-painting fluorescent orange markings on the street. The little kids really liked this. (Sorry, no photo.)

3) About a mile from the donut shop, the girls insisted we stop at "Dolphin Pet Village". The girls have a thing for dolphins. There were, of course, no dolphins in the store (the girls, I think, understood this going in), but there were tons of fish and a few parrots.

4) Our third stop was the original destination of Psycho Donuts (about 10 miles from home). This was a totally weird (and a little pricey) store, but fun and yummy. Donuts had names like "headbanger" and "cereal killer" with all kinds of strange toppings/ fillings (like cereal). The lady behind the counter was dressed up in a 1950s era nurse outfit. When we walked up to the counter, she handed each of the kids a little chunk of bubble wrap to play with (very cool). There was also a little "insane asylum" area with a pile of dress-up clothes and all kinds of other wonky "psycho" kitsch.

The kids liked this sign.

5) After stuffing ourselves with donuts for lunch (it was about noon when we finally made it to the store), we spotted another bakfiets way down the road. A traffic light momentarily stopped us, but as soon as it turned green, Jeremy insisted we go "chase the bakfiets". We couldn't catch up and Nathaniel wanted to be held, so I stopped on a quiet street in a beautiful neighborhood full of fall colors while Jeremy and his two stokers (Joey and Joshua) and the girls on their own bikes went around a few blocks to see if they could find the bike. They couldn't, but had a nice look around anyway.

6)With the bakfiets chase over and a still fussy Nathaniel, we stopped at yet another park we've never been to before.

Leaving the park via a pedestrian overpass (over an expressway). 

7) And then we stopped at REI. At this point, the kids were a little cranky, but we really wanted to get a few things for Daniella's bike. We decided to just get the repairs done there while we waited.

Joseph watching kids on the climbing wall while we ate a snack in front of the store.

8) Since we never had a proper lunch, we stopped at Trader Joe's for real (as in, not donuts) food.

Big kids in front of Trader Joe's.

9) We brought the food and picnicked at a park we've been to several times.

Rainbow Park. It was getting chilly!

10) And, at dusk, we rode peacefully home-- enjoying the gentle downhill.

It was a wonderful outing. It wasn't about just getting donuts, but about the stops and sights on the way there and back. I'm wanting to go on more adventures. I'm still eager to try out some real hills with bakfiets and to see how I do!

Bike adventure with my girls

I'd been feeling like my girls and I needed some quality time together, so I set yesterday aside for us to do something special. We spent the previous few days trying to decide what to do, but never came up with anything more than "go out to lunch" and "ride bikes somewhere". With those vague ideas, we set off yesterday on our bikes a little bit before lunch. Here are my happy girls all ready to go:

We pedaled toward the Stevens Creek Trail-- a multi-use walking/biking trail that leads to the marshy southwest edge of the San Francisco bay. The weather was perfect (in my opinion) for biking. It was in the low 60s and overcast. A few layers of clothing and we were set. Nathaniel (the little nursling who always comes with me) was snug and warm in his carseat in the bakfiets under the rain/wind cover. He (making up for poor sleeping the night before?) slept nearly the whole trip.

After several miles down the trail, we went down a major street for a few blocks to find lunch. We decided on a sushi restaurant, but it was-- unfortunately-- not open until dinnertime, so we opted for Subway instead, which we brought to a playground by the trail. Here are my lovely girls at the playground:

As I watched them play, I thought about my fifth grader and how in just a few years (or less?) playgrounds may no longer hold much appeal for her. I thought about how I felt at age 11 or 12-- sort of a kid, but sort of an adult. I remember very much wanting to play on playgrounds, but sometimes holding back because I felt clambering around on play structures was "babyish".

After our lunch break, we rode the trail (or rather one of the many trails in the marshy area) far out into the bay where it dead-ended . It was peaceful, but not totally silent. We could still hear some very distant traffic, a few gunshots from waterfowl hunters, and an occasional plane landing at Moffett Field. That far out though, there weren't too many people and we stood alone for a bit watching birds. Here are photos of the area:

Something about the lighting and the contrast of the orange bike and brown surroundings really struck me here; the photo, unfortunately, didn't quite capture what I wanted.

A llittle while later, we backtracked a little inland and took the Bay Trail south-- still going through the marshy area. These trails in the marshes were unpaved, but were firm dirt or gravel that was easy  to ride on at our slow pace. The only trouble we ran into was on a short (maybe 10 feet or less) but very steep uphill. I couldn't make it up with the bakfiets, so got off to push, but couldn't get a good enough grip on the loose gravel with my feet in order to get the bike up. I planted myself at a standstill on the hill and then asked Gabriella to help by pushing on the back of the bike and we made it up easily.

One of the highlights of our time by the bay, was looking through these binoculars:

Next to the binoculars were a few signs showing the different types of birds living in the surrounding area. One interesting thing I learned was that the ponds weren't natural, but were old salt evaporation ponds that are now part of a wildlife refuge. A little googling brought up the site http://www.southbayrestoration.org, which explains the recent (starting in 2003) project to restore the ponds to a wildlife habitat. Not all salt ponds in the bay are being restored, though. You can see lots of them flying into the San Francisco airport, brightly colored because (according to Wikipedia) of various types of algae.

After some bird watching (I think we all liked the big cormorants), we went to another playground-- quite deserted because it had started drizzling. The girls thought it was super-cool because the spring riders were super boingy and they could rock them hard enough to touch the ground. This was for them a highlight of our trip; it was the first thing they told their brothers about when we got home. It was also here that Daniella went to the bathroom and walked out wanting help getting foamy soap out of her eyes. I had to restrain my laughter as I helped her wash it out. I still don't quite understand how soap that was difficult to dispense (her reason for the soap disaster) got on her face, but oh well... Here are a few pictures from the park (not spring riders or soapy eyes, though):

Snug in the bakfiets (and fleecy frog costume!)

After this stop, I decided it was time to head the 7 or so miles home. At Jeremy's suggestion (he's biked the area more than I have), we headed over a couple new pedestrian bridges, stopping just once at a playground to fill our water bottles (and climb the play structure for a minute, of course, too). We got home about 5:30. Jeremy was cooking dinner (a real treat!), and I was happy to see the rest of my family and chat. We had the usual dinner craziness of spilled food, yelling, eating with hands, standing on chairs, but also some nice family time, including a talk about math. Joshua (recently interested in division, but still learning) asked about dividing π. Daniella had a cute sassy answer about how the answer "depends on how thin you slice it." Jeremy-- in his random way-- then started to explain how to calculate the area of a circle and eventually explained that the r in πr² is a spoke on a bicycle wheel. The kids understood. And so ends our wonderful adventure...

Lots of biking miles

Yesterday, our family put a lot of miles on our bikes. Big kids: 3.5 miles. Jeremy: 20. Kimberly and little kids: 16. Jeremy rode extra because of another off-site work conference. I rode so far because it was just too beautiful a day to stay home and do nothing. So... I loaded up the little kids into the bakfiets and we went on an "adventure". I had as a general, possible, final destination Happy Hollow Park and Zoo, but instead we stopped at the Rosacrucian Egyptian Museum. It wasn't too kid-friendly, but we did get to walk through a replica of a tomb and I enjoyed an exhibit on giving birth in ancient Egypt. The boys liked best watching the lift that carried several elderly visitors down a set of stairs (oh, well-- a little young for the museum yet). Here are the boys as we left the museum-- next to the cool "open" sign:

And here is a picture of the front of the museum, inspired by an ancient temple:

On the way home, we cut through Santa Clara University and found a little environmental/green living sort-of fair going on. We bought a few baked goods (look closely at the kids' hands), the proceeds going to saving ocean life:

We also stopped at a park we've never been to (always a novelty):

I decided our visit was over when Jonah threw sand at a little girl. He's been doing things like this (always to girls just a little smaller than him) a lot lately-- no amount of talking about it (or time-outs, or leaving the park) seems to help.

The rest of the way home involved some poking, a lot of whining from Joseph, a fussy Nathaniel who eventually fell asleep and a potty break at another park. I guess life on a bike isn't always perfect :) I enjoyed the journey, though. I grew up in the SF bay area, but have no memory of ever visiting the museum and the surrounding neighborhood. I'm excited to go on more bike adventures in that direction.