Two out of three ain’t bad. (Part 2)

As I was saying, we heading to the next festival on our short list and that was the Chocolate and Chalk Festival in the Gourmet Ghetto in Berkeley. As we walked down to Shattuck Ave to look at the chalk drawings that folks had made on the sidewalk, we spotted this awesome VW bus and had to take a quick shot!

Clearly my model was as excited by this old vehicle as I was. Ha!

Then on to what turned out to be the big surprise of the day. Kiddo is a total natural on a pony. He just loved it and would have happily spent the rest of the day there. Guess we’ll have to take him to visit aunt Hil in Wales as soon as possible! At first I walked right beside him but he soon asked me to step away and let him do it himself. So I took pictures instead. I was so giddy and proud.

He even got all comfy and didn’t hold on for a minute.. which made me nervous but he was absolutely confident. It was sweet.

After saying goodbye to the ponies, we saw a sweet man making balloon animals etc and the kiddo asked him for a pink sword for himself and a black one for mama. And we had sword fights all the way back to the car.

After that, we headed to Cameron at The Potters’ Studio, to find out how the first day of Open Studios had gone. We found him outside, making pots!

You know what happened next!

Chésaweh was totally covered in clay and happy as a clam. And this is why I carry a change of clothes for him in the car. At the drop of a hat, he’s wet, head to toe so I try to be prepared.

As excited and energetic as he was, he still fell asleep on the way home.

But he woke up as we neared, and asked to visit his favourite park. It seemed a nice way to end the day. So we did.

Two out of three ain’t bad. (Part 1)

We had a busy day on Saturday. Packed with fun. We went to the Family Fun Festival, the Chocolate and Chalk Festival and then, too tired at this point to consider going to Habitot Children’s Museum for their Facebook Fan Day, we just stopped in on Cameron at The Potter’s Studio to see how Open Studio was going and he was sitting on the wheel outside, making pots. And for an awesome surprise, a friend we hadn’t seen in years was sitting there too and we got to catch up for a minute. She came ‘cos she saw my post in FB and was in the area. Power of social media, y’all! 😀

You should be warned. There’s a lot of pictures coming this way.

First of all, I have to say how much I love this kid’s independence. He walks around like he owns the place. Sometimes it’s terrifying because he doesn’t feel the need to stay close, but mostly I love that he’s so confident and curious.

So first,  he did a little climbing.

Then we went to look at the small petting zoo. I was way more excited than he was and wish I’d had more time to shoot each of the tiny animals. As it was, this is all I got.

So, THAT’s what those are for!

Next, we got our faces painted and then played with the hula hoops for a while.

We people watched. And then strolled through the farmer’s market.

And then we went to the next festival…

Bay Area kid events

So you may have noticed that ‘local family events‘ tab up there near my header. The long and short of it is that I have a super energetic 4 year old and I want him to experience as much as he can handle of the Bay Area and everything there is to explore around these here parts. Part of it is also that I know we won’t always live here and I don’t want to look back on our time here and wish we had done more.

Over the summer, I want to make sure that we do as much as we can handle of my two favourite things- hiking and going to festivals! There are lots of other kid friendly events out there though, and lots of sites telling you all about it. The Bay Area is so gorgeous and now the weather is glorious and warm, how can you want to be anywhere but outside?

Inevitably, I forget where I saw what info and I keep wishing there was just one calendar I could check. I think Red Tricycle does a good job of listing what’s happening out there, and I especially love their weekend listings. 510 families is another great site for finding stuff to do for the kiddos and yourself, right here in the East Bay.

I decided to create my own though with a smattering of stuff from everywhere. And that’s what that tab is. A calendar of family friendly events that I’ve seen somewhere and would love to attend. You might find something fun for you to do there too and hopefully we’ll see you there!

Here’s the ever growing list of sites I’m getting these events from. (There’s also a link to the event URL for every calendar entry).

http://www.bayareakidfun.com/pages/events.html

Bay Area Kid Fun

http://visitberkeley.com/what-to-do/festivals-events

http://millvalley.patch.com/groups/ronnies-blog/p/bp–ronnies-awesome-list-april-2013

And then there’s my growing list of stuff I’d like to do or places I’d like to go, with the kiddo of course. Hmm. Looks like I better just sit down and make a list of things i’d like us to do this summer. And yes, the Gilroy Garlic Festival is so going on that list. So is lying under a tree and watching the leaves rustle in the breeze. 😀

http://redtri.com/san-francisco/robot-fun-bay-area/

http://redtri.com/san-francisco/the-bay-area-amusement-parks/