San Francisco Zoo

On Thursday, Ella and I went to the San Francisco Zoo with Cayla, Cammi and Max.

Ella brought her new umbrella from Gavin, in the hopes it would rain and she got lucky when we had some sprinkles for about 10 minutes!

Little zookeepers!

Just like earlier in the week, Ella was thrilled by feeding goats. This was so funny because Ella and Cayla had a little crew of goats following them around and we were all laughing so hard - at one point, one of them gave Ella a little shove and she ended up doing her little robot dance in front of them. 

 
 
 
 
 Ella and Cayla pushing Max together

While we were at the zoo, Steve, Craig and Gavin had some guy time at an Oakland A's game

Union Square and Chinatown

Wednesday was the day of Craig's conference and presentation, so he and Steve were gone most of the day together, and Ella and I spent the day with Jackie and the kids. Cayla and Cammi were excited for Union Square so they could go shopping. I thought Ella might be bored and I'd need to find something else for the two of us together to keep her occupied, but I was so wrong - she had a blast! It was a day of many, many laughs - she was just so silly when we were shopping and Cayla, Cammi, and Gavin indulged all of her silliness, so it was such a fun day.

At the flagship Old Navy store 

Enjoying the sunshine during our lunch break at Union Square

We got to go prom dress shopping with Cayla and Ella didn't understand why SHE shouldn't be also buying a prom dress -- so the girls found the smallest dresses they could find and let this silly girl try on prom dresses.

They were just so sweet  and it was quite a sight - all of them in the dressing room together, Jackie helping Cayla and Cammi helping Ella :)

And most importantly, Cayla found a beautiful prom dress in the midst of Ella's prom dress trip :)

We went to Chinatown in late afternoon and met up with Steve and Craig for dinner.

Ella at the entrance to Chinatown

Ella got to go into several of the souvenir shops with the kids and thought it was the coolest thing that they got to go by themselves 'with no grown-ups.'

We went to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory where they make fortune cookies. We got to see how they make the fortune cookies and ate some right off the press that weren't folded up yet.

One of the sweetest things was that when were going up and down the streets in Chinatown, Ella really wanted a bamboo / fabric umbrella that she saw in the stores. Gavin used some of his own money and went back and bought one for her. It was just adorable and she treasures it.

The Petrified Forest

Our last stop in Napa Valley was to visit The Petrified Forest, which is a Redwood forest where the trees were petrified by a volcano many years ago.

One of the many neat looking trees we saw

The forest was really quiet and peaceful and we had the trail all to ourselves. Ella loved the adventure!

This is the natural state of the petrified tree trunks

And how they look after being cleaned off

This shows one of the excavation sites and the process they go through to dig up the petrified trunks

My awesome little explorer!

What a great day we had in Napa!

Old Faithful Geyser

After Sterling Vineyards we stopped for lunch, and our next stop was Old Faithful Geyser of California.

I learned that the 'of California' distinction is important because there are three geothermal geysers in the world that are active enough to be considered "old faithfuls" - the famous one in Yellowstone, then this one, and another one in New Zealand. 

It went off every 10 minutes or so, so we were able to see it erupt several times. 

I thought it was so neat and could have watched it all afternoon. But, Ella had enough of the geyser pretty quickly and was ready to move on, when she discovered these little goats. After all of the great things we did that day, and she told me that feeding the goats was her favorite part!

 

Sterling Vineyards

On Tuesday, Steve, Ella and I were on our own for the day while Craig and Jackie took the kids to visit a few colleges so that Cayla could check them out.

We went up to Napa Valley and had such a fantastic day. The drive was about two hours and was so beautiful.

A few pictures from the drive up -

 

 We drove through Napa Valley up to Calistoga, to Sterling Vineyards. I had picked Sterling Vineyards because I had read that it was a good pick for kids, but we drove past several different wineries on the ride there, and the road was lined with vineyards. 

 Sterling Vineyards is unique in that the winery is at the top of a big hill so you ride a gondola to the top. 

The view from the gondola ride -

Once we got to the top, we did the winery tour and wine tasting. 

Ella was thrilled with her sparkling grape juice

 

Winery tour

The view from the very top was incredible, I've never seen anything like it!

There was a mechanical issue on our ride back down the hill so we enjoyed an extra long ride back down 

Happy girl back at the bottom of the hill