Camp Mama Day 5

I started the day exhausted from the week and totally out of ideas for what to do today.  But, Grandma Lee Lee found a great option and joined us for a day at the Roaring Railroad Camp in Santa Cruz.   It was one of the few weekends a year that Thomas the Train comes to visit, and they set up a ton of kid friendly train activities around their large property.   All three kids had a great time, especially on the 30 minute train ride on Thomas through the redwoods.  Many thanks to Grandma Lee Lee for the fantastic find and for joining us on our great adventure.  The kids will be talking about Thomas for weeks to come.

 

 

 

Camp Mama Days 3 & 4

Well, Camp Mama day 3 was officially a FLOP!  After three days without a nap, C & A woke up cranky and never really ever recovered until about 5pm yesterday.   We decided to skip the long car trip yesterday, and beat the crazy heat with a fun day at La Petite Playhouse which is a fantastic indoor play space near us.   The  tantrums started with C once we got in the car and just never really let up.   I even stopped at a store on the way to the playhouse so that the kids could pick out their back to school backpacks, and the horrific behavior turned into insane screaming and kicking, so we left every single thing at the cash register and walked right out of the store...there is no way that I was going to reward this behavior with gifts!  This was extremely unpopular as you can imagine, so I was that Mom trying to hold two convulsing children in my arms, screaming bloody murder and hitting me while I exited the store.   I've never received so many scared looks before as people wondered what in the world was wrong with my children.  The looks continued as the ear piercing screams continued as I drove out of the parking lot and down the road.    Uggg.....completely frustrating for poor Jake and I!!!!

Day 4 has been better, although C really is in a verrrrryyyyyy long, extended Terrible Threes period.  We headed to the San Jose Children's Museum for the day, as there is a large exhibit of Dora and Diego, two of their favorite characters.  Jake really enjoyed the adventure too thank goodness.

 

Mama Camp Day 2- Jelly Belly and Stickers!

I've got all of the kids home with me this week for some Camp Mama time.   Coming home from two days of intense sunshine, I opted to take the kids for a trip today's adventure.  We headed to the Jelly Belly Factory first, as I've been meaning to give it a try for ages and of course the kids were excited about it.  The tour is free, and we arrived early so we basically went right in.  The tour is a little too impersonal in my opinion, but seeing the multiple rooms and miles of machines and jelly beans is truly quite a great experience.  You're given little samples along the way which kept the kids happy of course, and then little bags of real Jelly Belly's at the end.   I was surprised at the attention span and interest by all three kids, as the tour was 45 minutes and there was very little complaining which is a miracle.   We of course had to get a big bag of "Belly Flops" which are all of the misshapen, or oddly colored jelly beans that are highly discounted.  Ever since we hurried out of the factory the kids have begged multiple times and hour to go back!  

 There are mosaics all over the entire factory made entirely of jelly beans...so amazing!

 

After jelly beans, we were off to Mrs. Grossman's STICKER factory!   We visited this factory last summer, and the girls were a little antsy and young to understand what was going on.  This time all three kids were again very interested in learning about the process, machines and of course receiving the multitudes of free stickers along the hour long tour.   Sifting through all of their stickers kept everyone busy for a good 45 minutes of the drive home too, which was wonderful.   And unlike last year when I opened up the van doors to find nearly every sticker stuck on my car seats and windows, this year not a single sticker had been removed from their pages as they are true treasures now. 

 

 

 

 Jake has confirmed that today was one of the best days yet of summer....so, what do I do for Mama Camp day 3 tomorrow?????

First Camping Trip!!!

Back in January I booked us a campsite at my favorite camp grounds just in the off chance that we felt everyone might be ready to give easy camping a try.   Even in January all Saturdays in the summer were totally booked up, but there was this past Sunday available so I booked it!   We prepped the kids over the last few months, building our tent in the backyard and making s'mores at home and reading lots of camping books.   By the time Sunday morning came around, we were all very ready to give this camping thing a try, and it was an absolutely SUCCESS!!!!   New Brighton Beach campgrounds are set up on a cliff directly over a great beach in Capitola (just south of Santa Cruz).   It makes for great camping because you can have a ton of beach time during the day, and then walk up to your campsites easily for meals and some fun under the trees.  The second site I booked wasn't so great, so Tia Erica and Hassan set up their tent on our site with us, and it worked out well. 
We headed to the beach first for nearly five hours of fun-  introducing Hassan to baseball, playing in the water, sun cakes, etc. :

 

 

 
Dinner at the campsite was yummy too.  We roasted hot dogs and corn on the cob over the campfire, and of course...everyone made their first real S'MORES!

 Tia likes her marshmallows charred black...yuck!

After dinner it was still incredibly warm out, and it was too light to go to bed, so we went for a sunset walk back to the beach.   It was a wonderful end to a great day!

 

 

 The sleeping went REALLY well too...Josh read one story, but the lack of nap, darkness, and quiet put everyone to sleep quickly.   It wasn't the most comfortable night's sleep, but the kids really did sleep and so I'm not going to complain about a thing!

 The morning was a little tough, as we had a family of five (parents with three young kids) right next to us, but they didn't wake up until 9:00am (WHAT???) and our kids were up at 6:30 am.   Trying to keep everyone quiet was a challenge, plus Josh actually got up and went to work, so we had to take everything down and pack the cars super early.   Warm oatmeal breakfast gave us lots of fuel for a second day of fun though.   I have been meaning to take the kids to some good tide pools for ages now, and I heard about a great area for kids in Pescadero, so I figured, why not give it a try on our drive home?   Wow....all parents in the Bay Area must go and try Bean Hollow Beach in Pescadero.  There are endless low, smooth, easy rocks for climbing and exploring, with multitudes of sea life between each rock.   There is also a small area of the beach covered in tiny pebbles...my kids love to collect rocks, so they could have sat there all day looking through all of them.  It was a terrific end to our great camping adventure.  There is no question we'll be going camping again soon, yipppeee!!!