It has been a long time since we have been up to the city.  Both Michelle and I got tickets to the Aquarium of the Bay, so we made plans for our families to go up together today.  We left the house slightly behind schedule, and made it to the parking lot at Pier 39 just after 10am.  I was so excited once we stepped out and saw the Fisherman’s Wharfs, and it was a beautiful sunny day there. The Kaos joined us shortly after at the aquarium.  The kids (Mckayla, Marcus and Connor) were fascinated with the fishes as soon as we entered, Logan might be a bit less interested than the others.  The huge tanks of jelly fishes and the long underwater tunnel did catch everyone’s attentions.  It was very cool to have sharks, stingrays and huge schools of fishes swimming all around us.  Connor was a bit scared, so he wanted me to carry him through most of the tunnel, but he kept smiling when I pointed things out to him.  On the upper level, the kids may not have enjoyed the tide pools as much.  Logan touched one of the starfish, but I did not find out how he felt about it.  Connor did not want to touch any of the creatures, but he was intrigued standing by the pool and watched.  Logan, for some reasons, started being a bit grumpy at the end of the exhibit; he was crossing his arms while we walked. 

    We were hungry after the aquarium, so we found a restaurant with a good view to have lunch.  Logan was even more grumpy then when we got to the table; he did not want to sit down and said that he did not want to eat lunch.  Stuart had to take him out for a talk while the rest of us ordered our foods.  The foods arrived quickly and they were delicious.  Logan did come back to a somewhat better mood and enjoyed the meal with all of us.  After lunch, we took a walk at Pier 39, checked out a few stores and did a quick boat watching.  I wanted to take the boys to see the Golden Bridge, and so we said goodbyes to the Kaos as they were leaving to go to the Ferry Buildings.  By the time we got out of the busy garage building, Connor had already passed out sleeping.  So by then, we decided to head home instead.  Logan fell asleep shortly after too.  After getting gas for the car, we accidentally entered the freeway to cross the bay bridge, we ended up having a drive through the entire bay area this morning.  As Stuart and I both lived in the east bay for some time in our pasts, we had a nice little reminiscing chat while driving home.

     By the time we arrived home, both boys slept for a little over an hour and were rejuvenated.  We spent a little time at home, changed into shorts, and headed out to a local park to let the boys do some running and playing at the structures.  We also had a picnic snack there in the shade which was very nice and relaxing.  While the boys were snacking, Stuart and I were throwing a football to each other for awhile.  At one point, we stopped to look at the boys.  They were talking to each other, smiling, pointing to things and using the fingers to count, then laughing.  We wished we knew what they were talking about.  We stopped by the grocery store on the way home to pick up some essentials, and by then, Stuart and I were tired.  We planned to move up the evening schedule to put the kids down early, but one of the neighbors ended up stopping by to play and chat with us in the front yard for awhile.  The kids finally went to bed a bit later than usual.  Stuart and I are both exhausted now and enjoying putting our legs up to relax after this long packed day.

     It was a hot day today.  We had considered going to a Children’s faire or a children’s art show this morning, but last minute, we decided against both of them.  We needed to run an errand and exchanged the library books, so we did those instead in the morning.  Rohan’s mom called me to ask for a get together, so I suggested them joining us at a local park after nap at 4:30pm.  By then, it was still very hot, so we invited them to our house to play instead.  Logan was excited; he said “Rohan is my friend”, and he wanted to show him his toys.  The two big boys played well together, and Connor followed them in everything they did.  All three of them went around the house a lot, chasing each other.  They had a blast, and I had a good chat with Vrinda too.  We stopped for a snack which they enjoyed, then resumed playing.  We decided to invite them to stay for dinner with us, and Logan was happy about that.  We ordered in some foods and we had a good meal.  Toward the evening, Connor must have been tired and became upset easier when he could not get a toy from the big boys.  After playing some more, it was finally close to bedtime that we said goodbyes to our guests and started our bedtime routine.

      We started noticing some rash in Connor’s groin area on Monday night.  We initially thought that it was related to the diaper rash Connor had from Sunday.  Last night, we noticed a small amount on his chest, and this morning it had spread to his legs.  At that point, Connor was not having any other symptoms and had not been exposed to any changes, so I had a feeling that the rash was related to the mild cold Connor had on Sunday.  So I emailed his doctor to report the situation in the morning; she wrote back to confirm and report that viral related rash is very common in kids.  At noon today, I got a call from one of the teachers to discuss Connor’s rash.  She requested a letter from the doctor to allow Connor staying at school.  I finally got the statement from the doctor and faxed it over at 3pm.  I ended up talking with the director from school afterward.  She was quite adamant initially that Connor had to be seen in person by the doctor as it was the state requirement.  After some discussing, she decided to take a look at Connor’s rash again.  Fortunately fifteen minutes later I got a call back from the school’s admin, and she said that the statement from the doctor was sufficient.

     Tonight Connor’s rash might have been lighter on his legs, but it has now spread to his arms too.  Other than that, Connor is doing well, eating well and playing well as usual.  Tonight the boys were playing with a huge set of cave building blocks with many dinosaurs and cavemen that were passed on from Ian.  When Kathy gave the set to me, she told me that Ian agreed to share the toys with Logan and also said “Logan is the brother I never had.”  Ian is such a cool boy!  Both Connor and Logan had fun playing with all the dinosaurs, and Stuart was intrigued putting the caves together which he finally accomplished.

     Logan always likes bubble bath, possibly since he was as young as Connor is now.  But Connor did not care for it the past couple of times we tried him in it.  They were a long while ago, so we decided to try again tonight.  As soon as Connor saw the bubble, he did not want to go into the bath.  Even after Logan showed him how to play with them, Connor was still not interested.  We had to push all the bubbles to Logan’s end of the tub before Connor was willing to go inside.  But the whole time, Connor was watching the water to make sure the bubbles not floating back to him.  He was still quite upset and wanted out of bath quickly.  Since Stuart was going to basketball tonight, he was going to put Connor to bed as reading to Connor takes shorter time.  But poor Connor wanted me instead, so after being sad the entire bath, he then cried even more sadly for me while putting on PJ.  He finally calmed down as Stuart started reading to him.

    On my way home with the boys today, I was driving on the carpool as usual.  I witnessed an accident from the start.  There was a car whose driver must not have been paying attention, suddenly sped up then realized that the traffic ahead of it was very slow.  Unfortunately the driver realized it too late; despite braking, it crashed into the SUV in front of it with high speed.  Since the SUV was hit with high impact, it was pushed into my lane.  My car was immediately adjacent to it, and fortunately I managed to merge to the left and dodged the hit.  I continued driving on passing the accident, but I was all shaken.  I could not imagine what could have happened to us.  I finally calmed down as Logan said “I did not see it, I want to see it again”. 

     We had Kasey’s 3rd birthday party to attend on Saturday morning.  It was at the Jungle Island which was close by our house.  We got there right at the start of the party, and Logan did not hesitate and started climbing up the huge indoor climbing structure there.  He was inside the structure for a long time; most of the time we just knew that he was crawling above us somewhere without knowing exactly where he was. Connor and I went to the baby area to play; he played inside a tub of balls and with some large building blocks, he was quite content for a long time.  I eventually took Connor up to the big kids structure to crawl around too.  Later Logan joined Connor playing in the baby area until it was time to break for pizza.  We went to the party room to have lunch and to sing birthday song to Kasey.  After eating pizza, Logan and Stuart were ready to return to the playroom while Connor and I stayed to have some cake.  After cake, everyone received some tokens for arcade games in the big game room.  Logan enjoyed playing driving games while Stuart helped him holding down the pedal on the bottom.  Connor and I had fun playing with some pressing and tossing games.  After 3 hours of fun time, we said our thanks and headed home for a nice big nap. 

    After the kids went to bed that night, I went out for another ‘girls night out’ but with a different group of friends this time.  There were 4 of us (one out sick) meeting up at a restaurant in Los Gatos at 9pm.  We had a nice drink, shared some food and had some desserts.  We had a nice chat for a little over two hours, then it was time to go home to end the night.

    The weather on Sunday was so beautiful that we spent most of the time outdoor.  We were at Happy Hollow for 3 hours in the morning.  Logan is now into climbing structures and he asked to go to the huge one in the park first.  We spent a long time there along with taking a break for a snack.  Logan had fun running and crawling around inside. Connor was less interested to play compared to his usual self; he asked to be held a lot and sometimes even put his head on our shoulders.  He also had a slight runny nose; so he must have been under the weather.  We then took a stroll to see the animals before having lunch while watching the puppet show.  Both boys were content and enjoyed the show.  We played at another structure for a bit longer before returning home.  We had yet another nice long nap, and Connor seemed better in the afternoon.  We played at the front yard for awhile and took a walk with the boys in the buggy.  Stuart and I even had a chance tossing the football around while the boys watched us.  We then spent some time talking with and watching one of the neighbors working on their yard.   The boys seemed to be intrigued in what they were doing.  After dinner and some dancing with music, both kids were tired and went down to sleep easy.