Summer Vacation

Howdy, Everyone! We had a few days where the fog gave it a rest - so Lucie got a chance to wear her little summer dress. In fact, she got to wear several of her warm weather ensembles, as she drools so much she often soaks through her first outfit by lunch time.If it's nice in San Francisco, odds are that it's even nicer just across the bridge at the Discovery Museum. So I hosed the kids down with sunscreen, grabbed the hats, and set out early, because this place is a complete zoo by lunchtime.
If you look closely, you can Lucie's hard at work at soaking through her sweater. She's cutting teeth at an alarming rate - she's up to 6 now (4 top & 2 bottom) - so I think she gets a pass on the drooling.

The fog was not really gone, of course - it was just sitting on top of the bridge, biding its time, waiting until enough people go out for the afternoon without an emergency scarf... But that's OK, I had another evasive maneuver planned -

Father's Day in Healdsburg!

Day trips help, but as all 2 of my readers know (hi, Mom!), eventually the San Francisco summer becomes so relentlessly NOT summer-like that I freak out a little bit and insist on leaving town. Another annual thorn in my side is the Fillmore Fest, when the street where the Animal Hospital That Will Not Be Named is located closes for 2 days of "art" in tents, various food items on a stick, and drunks pretending to tour the animal shelter so they can use the bathroom. We're either incredibly slow, or incredibly busy with the sort of lunatics who won't let a street closure stop them from coming. After a mere 5 years, I've figured out that San Francisco is the last place I want to spend July 4th. So we took our little circus on the road - first stop, Milwaukee:

Well, first stop, technically, was Chicago, where we learned useful things about airline baggage handling. Specifically, that when your bag does not appear on the luggage carousel with everyone else's from your non-stop flight, try to wait until the next round of bags, because there's a good chance that bag was hiding in a back corner of the baggage cart or was almost-but-not-quite reloaded on to your plane. Then it was onward to Brookfield to visit Grambo & Grandpa. We had a fun trip to the Milwaukee Zoo, with carousel rides, and a train ride without tears, although not entirely free of trepidation:
Lucie enjoyed navigating, and says the map had a bouquet of kettle corn, with a nice chewy texture and woody finish.
We also visited a water park, where Bren went down the little kids' slide about 50 times and discovered the tremendous hilarity of sitting directly on top of a water jet. My guess is it's less hilarious when one isn't wearing a swim diaper. But some of the best fun was at home:
Then it was time to head over to Michigan. The North American continent must be expanding at an alarming rate, because the whole Chicago-to-Fenton drive used to be much shorter back when I was 22. But it did allow a pit stop at Shelton Fireworks in Indiana, so I could introduce Brennan to a fond memory from my childhood: watching my dad set off a big box of illegal-in-Michigan fireworks.

This was actually part of the town's official fireworks show, but it's fun to pretend it was ours. Other July 4th fun included the Fenton Freedom Parade, which could of used less slow cars advertising local businesses and more candy. Also it needed a marching band. Brennan was disappointed that there was no tuba.

We had a lot of fun in Michigan, too - there was swimming at great-aunt Bridget's pool (for Lucie, too), a boat ride, fireflies to chase, airplane knick-knacks to rearrange, and Lucie practiced sitting in her special Pillow Palace and chewed on a nice dolly.

And there were Big Cookies with Sprinkles (!) at the French Laundry.

We had an early flight home, so we spent our last night of vacation at the Westin O'Hare. Luckily Uncle Gavin had to be in Chicago that night, too, so he joined us for some deep-dish pizza. He and Brennan had a strong-man contest.
Still, it's good to get back home. Roux missed us, and was getting a bit of a sunburn from all her time in the "back country" play area at Pet Camp. (really - all that white on her face doesn't provide much sun protection). Lucie had to get back to some important baby projects: starting solids and getting up into the crawling position. Brennan was excited to go back to school to see his friends, and work on his conversation skills. (He recently started making Yoda-esque announcements when something really gets his attention, eg. "So windy it is.") And the grown-ups were looking forward to sleeping in their own bed, ideally without any small, kicky additions.