Dog Days Giants Game

Every year, the San Francisco Giants hold one game where fans can bring their dogs.  We finally got ourselves organized enough to get to the game, along with three other Leo families (one couple with two Leos just happened to be there, without knowing ahead of time that we had organized a group to go). 

It turned out to be a beautiful day - sunny, but with a lovely breeze that kept it from getting too hot.  I took the girls and Zatarain up to the park on my own since our son had his first baseball game of the the fall season the same day.  He and Mike planned on meeting us at the game after his game finished.  We met up with the Leo people outside of the park and we all lined up to participate in the dog parade before the game.  The San Francisco SPCA had provided water bowls and wading pools to keep the dogs cool and there were people coming by as we waited to give out swag, keeping the kids happy, too.  One of the families has two girls who have become good friends with our girls over the last couple of years, so they were all excited to spend the day together.  It was a bit like herding cats trying to keep track of the four girls plus the dogs, in addition to answering the inevitable questions about the dogs, but we managed to keep from losing anyone or causing irreparable damage with tangled leashes.

When the line finally started to move, we all got to parade around the warning track with the dogs.  We had our moment of fame on the big screen as we passed by the cameras.  A couple of Arizona Diamondbacks players were warming up as we passed by and one of them handed our youngest a baseball; she was beside herself and refused to let anyone else carry it for her until we were done with the parade.  There were a few people in the stands who recognized the dogs as Leonbergers and were excited to see them walk past.  It was fun for all of us to get to be down on the field, although we got less air time than we thought we would.

We all headed to our seats and enjoyed the game.  We took turns taking the kids to the bathroom, watching them play on the slides, getting food, standing with the dogs in the shade, getting water for the dogs, and just generally trying to make order our of chaos.  Every time the crowd cheered, the dogs in the stands would bark and bounce around, adding to the excitement.  The kids ate tons of junk food and were thrilled about it.  Since our seats were right below the slides, the older girls were given the freedom to play on them on their own, as long as they checked in with us occasionally.  They loved that and were very good about stopping by every once in a while.  It definitely made the game more enjoyable for them since they didn't  have to sit in their seats being bored by the game.  That, in turn, made it much more pleasant for the adults as well!  The little girls went back and forth between the slides and the seats with one of us and made friends with all of the dogs and people around us.  The game was actually exciting and the Giants won, making it an even better day.

Mike and our son got to the stadium just as the game ended, so they got in line for the "Kids Run the Bases" and we met them there.  The moms took the 5 kids back onto the field while the two Mikes waited outside with the dogs.  Our son took off for a true run around the bases, the two older girls trotted around together, and the little girls walked behind them.  They all had a great time, although our son lamented the fact that he had to miss the game because of his (which they won 14-7, with him pitching the final inning, getting two strike-outs).

When we met back up with the guys, we said our good-byes and headed off to the cars.  It was a fun day and amazingly well-organized.  We found out later that there were about 800 dogs there - I never would have guessed there were that many!  I would definitely do it again next year, and our son said next year he's going no matter what else is happening that day.

End-of-Summer Getaway

Early this summer, friends of ours invited us to go camping up in the wine country. Our first camping trip came about because of that invitation, since we didn't want to look like complete fools when we went with them.  We felt pretty good about how we handled things the first time, so we were ready when the day finally arrived to meet up with our friends and one other family.

Leading up to the weekend, Mike managed to get sick, so we weren't sure if he was going to join us. I planned on taking the kids no matter what, but he rallied for the trip and we all went up together.  The traffic going up was terrible, so it took us about an hour and a half longer to get there than we had planned.  We still had plenty of daylight, though, and got ourselves set up and settled without too much trouble.  Our friends were making dinner that night, so we were able to hang out and chat while they cooked and got things ready for all of us.

Between the three families, we had seven kids ranging in age from three to nine.  We were the only ones with girls, so there was quite the pack of wild boys running around the whole weekend.  Our son and one other boy brought toy light sabers (I have no idea why), so the main game for the entire weekend was a roving Star Wars battle.  Our campsites were just up the hill from the Russian River, so the kids spent a lot of time battling the forces of good and evil on the banks of the river.  We were all pretty relaxed about letting the big kids take off on their own as long as they let us know where they were going, so we didn't see much of them for most of the weekend.  They were thrilled to have that kind of freedom and took advantage of the opportunity.

We had a lovely dinner together and after cleaning up and waiting for the logs to burn down, everyone gathered around the fire for s'mores (mainly just the marshmallows, but there were some ingenious attempts at putting pieces of chocolate between the marshmallows and toasting the whole mess together).  Our kids finally collapsed into bed and immediately fell asleep, while we lingered a while longer around the campfire at our own site.  Mike and I were not as lucky with regards to sleep as the kids - our air mattress had a very slow leak and we ended up on the ground (and in pain) by morning, with very little sleep in between.

Saturday dawned gray and cold, but a hot breakfast and a nice shower perked me up at least.  We all moved pretty slowly that morning, so by the time we were cleaned up after breakfast, it was late morning and we still didn't have a specific plan for the rest of the day.  The kids, of course, took off on their own adventures, with a game of baseball and a scavenger hunt sandwiched in between their battles.  We realized that morning, as Mike was going through the cooler, that I had forgotten to get the ribs we were planning on making for dinner out of the freezer, so a trip to the grocery store had to happen at some point.  As all of the adults sat around chatting, we realized it didn't make any sense to pull the kids away from their fun to pack them back into the car, so we gave up on any plans for exploring the area and decided to stay at the campground.  The men all headed for the store and we moms eventually made our way down to the river to see what the kids were up to.

When the guys got back, Mike took our kids swimming in the river since the skies had finally cleared up and the air had warmed up a bit.  I did my darndest to try to find the leak in our mattress while they were gone, but had no luck.  It was our turn to make dinner, so while we got started on the cooking, one of the dads took their younger son on the hayride, which passed right by our campsites.  It was fun for the little guy to pass everyone and get to do something special while his big brother looked on.

We had a successful dinner and pulled out the s'more stuff for dessert once again.  One of the other moms also brought glow sticks, so the kids had a really fun time putting those together to make jumpropes, hoops, necklaces, and bracelets and they looked really cool as it got darker.  Our little one collapsed from exhaustion, so I put her to bed before dessert (she actually fell asleep in the car when I took her along to try to find cell service so I could check my voicemail and make sure there weren't any problems with the cats).  The other kids went to bed and we stayed up to do the dishes and put off the misery of sleeping on our mattress for as long as possible.

We did eventually go to bed and it was awful once again, but it meant we were up early and able to get a jump on packing up.  We had an easy breakfast of doughnuts and muffins and while we packed, the kids did their own thing.  There was a group of boys who arrived the day before and were riding around the sites on their bikes (Mike referred to them as a primordial biker gang) and our boys and theirs were having issues.  Our kids couldn't seem to understand that standing in the road and staring after them simply invited them to return and continue bugging our kids, so I finally had to tell our kids that the next time they interacted with the other boys in any way, they would all have to sit on the picnic benches until we were all ready to leave.  That convinced them to leave well enough alone and it was relatively peaceful until we left.

Since it was lunch time when we pulled out of the campground, we decided to stop at Korbel Winery and have lunch at their deli on the way out.  The food was really good and it was a lovely last destination for the trip.  We all said our goodbyes and headed for home from there, hoping to get back mid-afternoon and have time to unpack and relax since school was starting the next day.

No such luck.  We hit horrific traffic due to a wildfire and construction early on and then hit even worse traffic after crossing over the bridge.  In all, with a stop for lunch and two stops for the bathroom (one of which was in the scariest Walgreen's I've ever experienced), it took us six hours to get home, when it should have been just over two.  I made the kids a quick dinner, got them cleaned up, and put them to bed as early as possible.  I'm still trying to get through cleaning, sorting, and storing all the gear a week later.

Aside from the miserable trips up and back and the fact that there was only one bathroom in our part of the campground and it was about a quarter of a mile away (I swear I walked about a million miles over the course of the weekend!) and only had two toilets and two showers and a number of other negatives, we had a really good time.  It was a lot of fun to camp with these two families, the kids did really well together, and it was great to be able to just let the kids run around outside and do their own thing for long stretches of time.  We'd love to do it again - just somewhere else next time.

Birthday at the Ballpark

One of our son's birthday presents was tickets to a San Francisco Giants game.  Mike chose this game in particular because the give-away that day was orange jerseys for the first 7,500 kids.  That's one of the coolest things they've given out, so we made plans to be there for the game.  It also turned out to be a game with the Giants' biggest rivals right now, the San Diego Padres, so it was a popular game for multiple reasons.

We got to the stadium as soon as the gates opened, since we weren't sure if the kids would get their jerseys if we got there closer to game time (it would have been fine).  The lines to get in were huge - unlike anything we'd ever seen before - but once the gates opened, they moved quickly and there were plenty of jerseys to go around.  We had about two hours before the game started, so we headed for the batting and pitching cages to let the older kids try their hands at those.  Our daughter managed to hit a good number of balls in the batting cage - I think that was her first time in a cage and she wasn't at all intimidated.  Our son loves to throw in the pitching cage because they have a radar gun and he can see how fast he's throwing.  His fastest so far is 47 mph, but Sunday he only managed 37 mph.  Still seems awfully fast to me!

We then headed up to the slides, where we discovered the down side to the the jersey give-away - all the kids looked exactly the same and it was incredibly difficult to find our kids in the sea of orange.  I had written my cell number on our daughters' arms (I forgot to put their ID bands on before we left) and it turned out to be a good thing.  When the two older kids got off of the slides, they couldn't find us and we hadn't seen them come down.  They stood in one place looking for us and a kind lady noticed them alone and asked if they wanted to borrow her cell phone to call us.  Our son knows my cell number, but having the number written down gave them confidence to call me.  We were only about 20 feet away from each other, but with the crowds we just didn't see each other.  I walked over and found them and thanked the woman for helping them out - she has kids, too, so she understood - and we met back up with Mike and our youngest to find our seats.

The game itself was uneventful.  The Giants lost, unfortunately, but our son enjoyed being there anyway.  We made about a zillion trips to the bathroom over the course of the game, making me completely insane.  We did end up leaving at the top of the 9th inning to make our way down to the field.  After Sunday day games, they allow the kids to run the bases, so we wanted to get in line for them to be able to take their turn.  It was a highlight for all of them to run around a major league field, so we were glad we made the effort.

Our son said it was a great birthday gift and he really enjoyed himself.  I'm not sure his sisters enjoyed it quite as much, but it was a fun family day out, the weather was beautiful, and it's truly one of the greatest ballparks anywhere.

Round-To-It Recommends: Produce Bag

Like a lot of people, I started carrying my own shopping bags a while ago (remember to clean them out after carrying meat!), but I didn't have a solution for carrying my produce. I had tried just piling everything into a bag, but stuff was getting smushed and it took the checkers forever to sort it all out when they were ringing it up. There are bags that you can buy, but that would just add to the pile of bags already in my trunk - there had to be a better solution.

I finally hit on an idea a couple of weeks ago that has been working really well, and it uses a bag that we already had hanging around. It's a divided wine carrier bag! The bag has 6 sections, each of which is large enough to hold two or three apples, pears, or peaches, a bunch of green onions, a bunch of broccoli, or just about any other produce we buy. It's easy for the checkers because the same items are stacked together and all the food is protected and easy to carry.

I now manage to use plastic bags just for meat, which I don't buy all that often. If I could find a bag that was really easy to clean, I'd stop using them for it, too. Maybe my insulated cooler bag would do the trick...

Sweet Mustard Roast Beef

I was at the grocery store this morning, standing in the produce section (one ear cocked for the sounds of my kids screaming at each other as they did their part of the shopping - more on that later), and trying to figure out what the heck to fix for dinner that we hadn't eaten in the last week.  I was paging through one of my go-to blogs, "A Year of Slow Cooking", and came across this recipe.  Sounded easy enough and I was definitely in the mood for a crockpot dinner, so I gave it a go tonight.

Wow.  This was REALLY good and super easy.  It took about 3 minutes to prep, 6 hours to cook, and no time at all to serve.  I used Stephanie's suggestions of mashed potatoes and green beans to go with the meat and it was the perfect combination.  Mike got home a bit late, so the kids ate first and they devoured about 2/3 of this.  All three of them loved it!  Mike and I ate after they went to bed and found we had just enough for the two of us.  I would probably use a little bigger roast the next time, knowing how much we all enjoyed it.

Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:

3 large russet potatoes
2 Tbs. butter
2-3 Tbs. sour cream
1-2 Tbs. green onions, thinly sliced
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Wash and peel potatoes. Cut into 1 inch cubes.
Put potatoes into a pot and add enough water to cover by 1/2 inch.
Boil potatoes until tender, 15-20 minutes.
Drain potatoes and put into a bowl.  Mash to desired consistency.
Add butter and mix until incorporated (add more if desired).
Add sour cream, salt, and pepper to taste.
Add green onions to taste.
Let potatoes sit for 5-10 minutes to allow onions to flavor potatoes; reheat if necessary before serving.

You could also use this recipe (see Topping) if you prefer a lower-fat version and like the flavor of parsnips.

Round-To-It Recommends: Walden West

Our older kids just finished a week of camp at Walden West Science Center in Saratoga, CA.  It was an incredible experience for both of them and they both said they'd love to go back next year.

Their main camps are day camps (they do offer backpacking trips for kids 12-16), the summer camp for kids ages 7-12 and the Wild Things camp for kids ages 5-7.  Both are held at the Walden West facility in the Saratoga hills, with buses taking the kids from a local elementary school and returning them in the afternoon.  The older kids have the option of camping out on Thursday night, if they choose.

The focus of the camps at both levels is environmental awareness and providing an outdoor experience.  So many kids today spend the vast majority of their time indoors and these camps hope to counteract that by showing kids the beauty and excitement of the natural areas that are so accessable to us.  Most of the activities are traditional camp activities: hiking, gardening, swimming, arts and crafts, games, songs, climbing wall, and ropes course.  The camp songs are a bit different from most of those that I've heard since they focus on things like the importance of worms, banana slugs, and scat, but the silly actions and enthusiasm of the counselors and campers are exactly what you'd expect!  There is a good balance between planned group activities, like hikes, and individual choice, where the kids have a number of options for how to use their time.  Our kids spent a good amount of time in the pool, but also tried archery, crafts, and group games that they had never played before. 

The older campers all chose nature names for the week, to go along with the nature names of all of the counselors.  Our son was "Python" and his counselor was "Big Brown Bat".  Our daughter's counsleors were "Clam Chowder", "Aurora",  and "Poppy", to name a few.  According to a friend, whose sixteen-year-old daughter has been going to Walden West since she was nine, the kids often keep their nature names from year to year.  Her daughter has been "Blue Jay" for the last seven years.

The two big events for our son this week were the climbing wall and the campout.  He had never done either, but wasn't particularly nervous about them.  His group did the wall on Wednesday afternoon, spending the whole afternoon giving the kids the chance to try climbing multiple times.  His only disappointment was that there was no way to actually climb on top of the wall when he got there - apparently there wasn't any place to put his hands or feet when he tried.  The campout was the first time he had spent a night away from home - not for any partcular reason, he's just never had the opportunity.  It was also the first time he'd slept out under the stars, which he didn't speak so highly of.  It was pretty darn chilly last night (maybe 50 degrees) and really damp, so everything was pretty wet during the night.  They woke up to ground fog, making the morning "freaky", in his words.  He did enjoy being away for the night, though, eating with the group of kids in the lodge, and just generally being responsible for himself.

Our daughter's week was less dramatic, but she loved the experience and true to her nature, got to know absolutely everyone in the program.  She also liked the fact that they got to choose their afternoon activities and often tried multiple things in one afternoon.  This afternoon when we asked her how her day was, she replied, "It was okay."  That was a luke-warm response compared to the lengthy explanations we had been getting, so we questioned her about why it was only "okay".  She said, "It was only okay because it was the last day and I won't get to see my friends any more."  Testimony enough for us that it was a great experience for her, too.

I went up for the evening program on Thursday night and it was very clear that there were many families whose kids had been attending the camps there for years.  That spoke volumes to me about the quality and draw of their programs and I definitely see us being in those ranks as all of our kids make their way through the programs.  For them, it's less the importance of getting time outside since we do spend a good amount of time doing outdoor activities.  It's really more the traditional camp experience of goofy counselors, meeting new kids, and experiencing a good amount of independence that make it a really worthwhile week.

Our Son Is 9!

I can't believe it was nine years ago that we had our very first little bundle of joy!  It was all so surreal and so new and overwhelming.  Now it's nine years and two additional kids later and he's incredibly far away from being that little baby.  He's tall and skinny, with red hair, crazy teeth, and freckles.  He's gone from an obsession with waterfalls as a toddler (made our trip to Kauai when he was two a lot of fun!) to obsessions with airplanes and baseball.  He spends his free time building baseball stadiums in his room; reading about the history of the San Francisco Giants; drawing detailed pictures of baseball stadiums; reading about the history, design, and engineering of aircraft, especially the 747; drawing detailed pictures of aircraft and aircraft carriers; and playing baseball.  One of his most recent passions has been learning to pitch, so he got a book at the library and memorized the different grips, which pitches they produce, and how they are supposed to be thrown and has been practicing them. He has absolutely no control over them yet - they're as likely to go three feet wide as they are they to go over the plate - but he's determined to figure out how to make them work.

So happy birthday, kiddo!  We hope it's been a good one, we wish you much love as you head into your next year, and we look forward to the new adventures you'll bring to our lives as you head into fourth grade.

The Second One Is Out

Our older daughter lost her first tooth while we were camping about 3 weeks ago.  The tooth next to it was getting loose, too, but we thought it would be a while before it finally came out.  Wrong!  She woke me up at 4:15 this morning with her loud whisper (she's incapable of speaking quietly, no matter what the circumstances), "Mom, I lost my tooth!"

It took me a bit to process that information - it's not what you typically hear from your child in the middle of the night.  Apparently, she woke up and was wiggling it with her tongue and it just fell out.  We weren't able to find it in her bed at that point, but she wasn't bothered by that. She went back to sleep and shared the excitement with everyone else in the morning.  She and her brother searched for the tooth again in the morning, and they did manage to find it tucked down next to her mattress.

So the tooth fairy will be paying a visit again tonight.  Luckily, she doesn't have any others loose, or it'd be pretty tough for her to eat! And the tooth fairy would be needing to take out a loan to keep up with her.