Jack O'Lantern Jamboree!!

While Halloween is technically a day away, we got to don our costumes today and celebrate Juno's birthday in style at the Jack O'Lantern Jamboree at Children's Fairyland in Oakland. All week we've spied Yee-Ma busy working away with spray paint, a glue gun, duct tape and other tools to create special costumes for me and Jasper. Jasper called a couple of weeks ago and asked her very very nicely if she would make costumes for us and she agreed. What do you think? Jasper is a JetBlue pilot. He even picked out the specific tail design he wanted.

And I'm Lightening McQueen! Well, I wasn't so excited about putting on the costume at first...

But then once I figured out what was going on, I LOVED my McQueen costume!

The birthday girl was a puppy dog. Isn't she cute?

We met Keira and Coufou inside where we picked up treat bags. Fairyland is a pretty cool place where there are rides and storybook sets from our favorite stories. I spent some time with the Three Little Pigs.

Finally safe inside the house made of brick!

All around the park, there were treat stations set up where we got to fill our bags with goodies. But first we had to go up and down this long slide...

And then we had to ride the ferris wheel - Juno and Keira in one car and Jasper and me in another car.

There was also a jump-jump. Jasper, Keira and Juno seemed to have a lot of fun inside. They were bouncing all around like silly little monkeys, even doing some somersaults! 

I wanted to check it out so I climbed in with them. I'm not so sure that was the best idea. I didn't know what was going on!! I also didn't quite move from this position for the three minutes I stayed inside.

Last, but not least, we rode the train. Bye bye Fairyland! Thanks for having such a great Halloween party!! Happy 3rd Birthday Juno!! We're so happy that we're here to celebrate with you! I know that Juno already blogged about her birthday party, but we have more to share about how we helped Juno ring in a new year. More on that later...

Thank you for our costumes Yee-Ma!!! We love them!

San Francisco Duck Tour

A couple of weeks ago, when we were planning our itinerary for our trip to San Francisco, Keira mentioned that there were all these different things that she wanted to show me and Everett while we were here. Since she knows that we are carousel connoisseurs, she wanted to take us on a double decker carousel at Pier 39. She also wanted us to sit in the spinning teacup. While Keira and I seemed to enjoy it, Daddy and Everett - not so much.

Afterwards, we went to tackle another item off Keira's to do list - the Duck Tour! Apparently, she's been fascinated by the duck tour amphibious vehicles and has been itching to check it out. We boarded our car-boat right across from Fisherman's Wharf. As we climbed on board, they made sure that everyone had a quacker. We, of course, immediately tested them out to make sure they worked. And proceeded to quack quack quack for the rest of the 90 minute tour.

We drove along and got a pretty nice tour of San Francisco and learned a bunch of about the history of the city. We drove through North Beach, Chinatown and Union Square before crossing Market Street to head towards China Basin. 

That's when things got interesting. Right across the street from Benji Biu Coufou and Sandy Biu Couma's house, the car-boat turned left right towards the Bay!! Splash! Into the Bay we went for the second part of the tour - a water tour that took out into the Bay and back behind AT&T Ball Park.

Once we got into the water, the driver decided it was a perfect time for him to take a break. What??!?! Who was going to drive the boat? I bravely stepped up and took the helm.

When I started to get tired, Keira took over for me. But Keira thought that instead of taking everyone on the designated tour route, she would drive everyone across the Bay to Oakland to see Juno! The driver had to step in at that point.

But we were treated to beautiful views of the Bay Bridge and both San Francisco and the East Bay.

Then we headed back towards land, drove down the Embarcadero and back to Fisherman's Wharf to conclude our tour. What a fun ride! Now, I just have to figure out where did Mommy hid my quacker....

Afternoon with Daddy

We're having such a fabulous time in San Francisco - the weather is beautiful (all the more so considering how cool and rainy it seems to have gotten back home in New York), we're getting to spend lots of time with our cousins, and of course, we're doing great morning and afternoon activities, as we always do on our trips. While Jasper and I like to do most of our activities together, every once in a while we split up - or to be more accurate, Mommy and Daddy split us up (something about having to preserve their sanity...)

Anyway, yesterday was such an occasion - while Jasper went to swim class with Keira, I got to spend the afternoon with Daddy, who took me to a great playground we had never been to before, right in downtown San Francisco, at the Yerba Buena Gardens. The playground is a little jewel hidden in plain sight, but perhaps because it's right in the middle of the city, not many people seem to pay attention to it, and it was not very crowded. All the better for me to have lots of fun with Daddy.

There were all kinds of activities, like a big sandbox, with water fountains you can activate yourself with a special switch, and other fun elements, like this ball/barbell thingy that you can rattle around but never quite remove from its hole.

 

There is also a big jungle gym, a maze and lots of fountains, but he highlight for me was the giant tube slide. At first, I wasn't quite sure what it was...

 

But then Daddy explained that we had to climb the big staircase and get in from the top. Whoa! You want me to get in there?!

 

Ummm, are you sure about this Daddy?...

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

Like I said, it turned out to be the highlight of the playground.

We ended the day with a couple of rides on the park's great old-time carousel. There were lots of animals to choose from to ride on - camels, lions, zebras - but I decided to go with the traditional horse for my first ride -

Then mix things up with a giraffe for my second ride -

And not only that, but I had such a great time with Daddy yesterday afternoon, that today I decided to bring Jasper to the same playground to show it off. He loved it, and dived head first into all the activities!

Since I knew what the giant slide was all about now, I asked Daddy to go extra fast this time around - and he did...

Jasper seemed to enjoy his giant slide ride just as much as me.

 

Though Mommy didn't seem as enamored of my play in the sandbox mixed with fountain water as much as Daddy was yesterday...

 But it was another great afternoon nonetheless, and I think you can guess how we decided to end it once again.

 Can't wait to see what San Francisco has in store for us for the remainder of our stay!

Pumpkins

It's almost Halloween time! Do you all have your costumes ready? Ours aren't quite ready yet. Today, I had to go over to Yee-Ma's house in the afternoon to supervise the creation of my costume and make sure that she got it right. I can't wait to show you all. Since she was hard at work helping me, Everett, Juno and I decided to help Yee-Ma decorate her house for Halloween by painting pumpkins. Everett and I each picked our pumpkin...

Everybody had to wear smocks and I helped gather the paint brushes. 

Then we all set up shop along the wall in Yee-Ma's front yard/porch area and got to work painting!

We had so much fun, especially Everett. He kept marveling at his pumpkin saying, "I paint so much!" We also painted our faces. It was like a regular fall festival at Yee-Ma's house!

Dinner with Maile

On Sunday night, Jasper and I headed over to our friend Maile's house for dinner. Maile's one month older than me and the daughter of one of Mommy's friends. We haven't seen each other in a while so we had a lot of catching up to do. But first, since Maile had such a great kitchen, I decided to help cook some dinner - smoothies and doughnuts-on-a-garbage-truck. Yummy!

While dinner cooked, Jasper read Maile a story about sharing ice cream with our friends. I think that he was trying to give her a hint...



Then we set the table and it was time to eat! Yum! Ravioli, broccoli and meatballs for Jasper and Maile and Taco Night for me!



What? We're hungry.

Planting a Winter Vegetable Garden

For quite some time now, I've been telling Mommy that I want to plant a garden and grow our own vegetables. She keeps reminding me that we live in an apartment in Brooklyn and don't have a backyard. Some of you might remember that we experimented with some container gardening last year and grew some pretty yummy tomatoes but, since we were away so much this summer, we didn't get to plant anything this year. So, you can imagine how excited I was when Yee-Ma called and asked if we would help her and Juno plant her winter vegetable garden while we were in California. First, we had to get all decked out in our gardening clothes. Since Everett and I didn't have any of our own, we had to borrow some of Juno's hats, boots and gloves.

We started in the upper garden and planted cauliflower, broccoli and sugar snap peas. After scratching the soil and digging a trench, I helped Yee-Ma plant the sugar snap pea seeds. Yes, I know that I'm wearing Missoni for Target rain boots and a pink hat. I know. I wasn't too happy about it but rules are rules and I wanted to garden. Mommy kept saying something about being a lucky boy to get to wear the Missoni for Target boots - apparently there was some crazy shopping frenzy to snag these products.

After we planted, we had to water the new seedlings and seeds to help them grow.

Juno, Keira and Everett quickly lost interest but I stuck around and helped Yee-Ma plant the lower garden too. Well, at least one plot of arugula.

Xiao DD decided to watch all the action from the porch and supervise. Oh, and here are some other pictures of our gardening escapades from Juno's blog.

After I finished in the garden, I moved on to trimming the hedges. Yee-Ma sure has let them grow crazy! There was a lot of work for me to do to get them back into shape. 

Meanwhile, everyone else was busy having fun in the sandbox, decorating the house for Halloween or discovering all of Juno's toys.

I can't wait to see how the garden grows. Yee-Ma promised to send me pictures of the garden and our bounty.