Happy Belated Birthday!

Since we moved into our house the day before Bradley's birthday we decided to wait for a few days to celebrate. He had a great time with his cousins and never knew that his birthday had been postponed. Here are some random pictures of the party.

Bradley 3rd birthday cake
Bradley and Anna digging the sand out from between the bricks. This is better than a sandbox!
Everyone was excited for cake and ice cream.
Unwrapping presents can be a group activity.

Thanks for the motorcycle and Thomas the train book!

The Dads were hiding in the back-Andy & Scott



Mom finishing the cake.
More presents...
Cool McQeen outfit!New PJ's

We were so glad our cousins could come celebrate with us. Bradley always has fun with his cousins and has a special place for Anna. He really likes her and yells "Anna" when ever we see them.

The Duck Pond Park

We found a really cool park while we were staying on base. There is a duck pond, fun play ground and a walking/running path. The boys really had fun at this park. Here are some pictures from a couple different visits to the duck pond!

It really is a beautiful park.
The park wouldn't be complete without big rocks to climb. Isn't that cute? Flowers for Mom.
Occasionally Bradley goes on kicks where he has to have his sunglasses. I love'em!

You gotta love the static electricity!
Cheese!
These are very comfy benches.
Bradley always finds comfy places to relax!

This little zip line was lots of fun.
I just love this one!
Peek a Boo!

Daniel loved the Canadian geese. He chased them and said "Oooh!" It was so cute.
We also saw some little beavers swimming around at the park. They are so cute.
The beaver is sitting in the water just in front of the group of rocks. We also saw some turtles and a big frog. Unfortunately it jumped in the water before we got a picture. There are a lot of really great parks here. We have really enjoyed them.

The Jelly Belly Factory

We actually went to the Jelly Belly Factory twice. The first time was during the middle of the day and there was a really long line. We didn't think the boys would be happy waiting, so we took a couple pictures and left. The second time we went was for our anniversary. We went first thing in the morning and got on the first tour of the day. It was really cool to see how they make the jelly bellys and they gave us free samples. I have combined the pictures from both trips. Enjoy!

Front of the Jelly Belly Factory
They have several murals made of thousands of Jelly Bellys.
They are very patriotic!
Cool Jelly Belly Motorcycles! Bradley thinks that every boy needs one of these.

I personally liked the Jelly Belly van. I would be the coolest soccer mom if I had one of these! (Or if I had anyone who played soccer.)

Regan was the one who really got Jelly Bellys going. He loved them and took them with him to the White House. They would pass a bowl of them around before they started any of there meetings. After that they really of popular.
This is Mr. Jelly Belly himself. We didn't want to wait in line so we took a picture of him with some random fans of his.
I gave Bradley the camera and let him pick a few things he wanted pictures of. I think he did a pretty good job with these two pictures.
This is the family with our way cool Jelly Belly hats that they make you wear on the tour. Bradley still likes to wear his hat!
What is an outing if you don't get to climb the trees in the parking lot?
We were glad to have our Dad with us to supervise the monkeys climbing the trees.

The tour was lots of fun, and did I mention that it was FREE! Bradley still talks about it. I know he would be more than happy to accompany any of you who felt the need to come visit!

Aug. 16, 2008

A trip to the Pacific

One of the first weekends we were in California we decided to take a drive to the beach. We thought it would we fun to drive the famous High Way 1. It was a beautiful drive! However, if you get car sick at all I suggest only driving on it for a mile or two. You get the idea of what it is like, but hopefully you won't get too sick in just a mile or two. Here are some pictures of our adventure to the ocean!

The fog was really thick in some places. It was really cool to have clear skies and then you turn a corner and there it was!
I love how it hangs to the tops of the mountains!
Here we get our first look at the ocean.

This is the little cove we went to play at.
Part of the beach was sandy and the other part was rocky. They boys liked the rocks the best. Bradley kept telling me that it was slippery on the sand. He isn't used to walking in that much loose sand. It was pretty cute!Our family with the ocean in the background. This is the really ocean. We went just north of San Fransisco Bay and over to the ocean. It was a beautiful drive.
A little closer look at the beach goers. We had to be careful because every once in a while the waves would come in higher and splash you if you didn't pay attention.

It you look closely there is a red star fish on the middle rock just in front of the big rock.
It was fun to watch the waves crash into the rocks. Bradley was spell bound by it.
The boys played in the rocks for a long time.
Daniel thought he was so big! He would walk around and pick up rocks and turn with a big grin to show us his newest rock. He is getting so big.

These are a couple of my favorite pictures from that trip. I could sit and watch the waves crash against the rocks all day!
We also saw a harbor seal swimming around. Unfortunately our camera doesn't have zoom that works, so you can't see it in the pictures. It was fun to watch him though.

Daniel trying to climb some of the rocks.
Bradley climbed up this rock. He was very proud of his rock climbing abilities.
Here are some of the crabs we found. Andy tried to catch some but they stayed back in the cracks and crannies. It was fun to see them though.

This is a view of the drive on Highway 1. You can see the fog over the bay we were at. We drove in and out of the fog all day.

This is driving into the fog.
There were some really big tress on the side of the road. We had to stop and get a picture of this one. I could have stood in front of this one with my arms out and that is how wide the part is you can see.

We went to see a light house on Point Reyes National Seashore. The fog was in really well when we got there. This is looking down from the path leading to the light house. You can barely see the water.
Can you find the blue Binky in this picture? I was standing by the fence looking over when Daniel took his Binky out, reached over the fence and dropped it! I watched it like it was in slow motion. I couldn't believe he did, and it was right there just out of reach. The slope was very steep so we opted to leave the Binky as a memento that we were there! (We did have a back up in the car.)
Bradley doing a little more rock climbing.
This is the skull of a blue whale. Apparently you can see them around the point from time to time. Unfortunately we didn't see any.

This is looking our over the ocean from the light house. The fog was beginning to clear a little.
The boys at the light house!
This is in front of the shed where the generator was.
This picture shows how steep the cliffs are around the light house. It was breath taking.
These are the steps down to the light house. There are just over 300 steps. They don't look like much going down, but you feel them coming up!

As the fog rolled out we were able to see more of the beach and surrounding area.
If you look close there are a couple of deer grazing on the hillside. There was so much fog when we went out to the light house that we couldn't see the top of this little hill. On the way back we realized how much wild life we were missing.
These trees were cool. The path was dry except under these trees. They were covered in moss and dripped big drops of water. We had to run so we wouldn't get too wet.

On the way home we drove through the famous NAPA Valley.
Vineyards for miles! They were beautiful.
We are rapidly coming to love the wide variety of fun things to do here in California. There are lots of beautiful places near by and fun things to see and do. This really is a great place to visit!



August 9, 2008