Summertime is...

Well, I've made it almost a month without killing or selling any of my children :)  We spent two weeks in San Francisco, courtesy of Jared's work.  He was acting as back-up to another scientist on a military unit based in Northern California, so he had to ... WORK ... while we were there.  And I could write an entire essay on all the fun things we did, but I'll limit myself to pictures.  You can thank me later.

We spent time at different beaches- this was at Half-Moon Bay. Each of my kids decided they were too cold, and then buried themselves in the sand to get warm. Then they complained all the way back to the motel that they were itchy. Wow, that's a big surprise :)

We also spent a day hanging with my SIL, who was in California the same week we were. :)  We went to the Aquarium (awfully small for the large admission fee), then wandered around the city and found a neat little Japanese stationery/toy store.  I may or may not have bought several of these kits there:

They're addicting! And the kits come with instructions, mostly written in Japanese, with lots of pictures and arrows (good for the non-Japanese-speaking customers).  They are also a great distraction for long car trips (say, from San Francisco to Salt Lake City), and you can make 3-D things with them.

This is our family on a hike we took through Coyote Hills.  Notice that Walker is almost as tall as I am.  He really is, too.  *sigh* I have exactly 1/4" of height on him, but I'm betting that will not last out the summer.  Darn it.  I really thought that, given my height and Jared's, my children would stay shorter than I am for quite a while.  I am doomed to disappointment in this area, it seems.

***interrupted to take kids to karate :) but I'll finish up in the next post...