Evie and Ellie explore some hands-on scientific concepts..

One of the girls' favorite stops in San Diego was the Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park.  We headed there with Jen and Justin on Tuesday and the kids had such a great time, we ended up there on Wednesday morning as well. First stop was Kid City where the girls loved the conveyor belt at the shape factory. 

Justin and Evie let loose with the vacuum balls and turning the gears to keep the balls rolling. 

Exploring the wattage...

... and the gravity pull exhibit. 

Tuesday night we stopped by Seaport Village for the lovely historic carousel. Ellie was delighted to find a horse with a purple saddle. Meanwhile, Mommy was feeling a little nauseous going around and around. 

Daddy and Evie are flying around so quickly, Mommy luckily catches a smile. Alas, the horses did not leave the carousel like in Mary Poppins. 

Evie practices her pirate grimace! 

After an artisan cheese and taco picnic, the family topped off a delightful night with a fro-yo stop. 

The next morning we were back to the Science Center!  The girls had fun standing in the path of a tornado. We also tried the hurricane machine and could barely hear after being in 80 mph winds! 

The kids also loved creating marble runs in the Tinkering Studio. 

And, of course, we couldn't leave without some dancing in front of the Balboa Park fountains!

We packed up and then picked up Daddy to head over to Belmont Amusement Park at Mission Beach.  Evie got a kick out of imitating the faces at the Tiki Golf course. 

Daddy celebrates his hole-in-one! 

Ellie was not in a mini-golf mood but she enjoyed dancing around the masks and picking up our golf balls. 

Mommy too got a hole-in-one! 

Next stop was the bumper cars with Daddy!  They had the whole area to themselves, so Daddy bumped into a pole. 

The girls could not resist the waves even though our swimsuits were packed. 

Ellie didn't mind getting sandy and wet!  

The girls and Daddy take flight over the waves! 

 That night we joined Tanja, Jimmy and Audrey for a delicious Mexican meal at their house.  Audrey impressed the girls with her magic tricks! 

Evie and Ellie on Safari

On our last day in San Diego, Jen, Andrew and Justin took the family to the Safari Park.  Evie took some amazing pictures on the tram ride through the Southern Africa habitat.  She helped with this blog post and provided the captions below:  First off, flamingos, in my favorite color - pink!

The balloon is big and fat and the bottom is a circle. 

These antelopes had long horns and are brown. They are my American Girl doll hair color. 

The giraffes have yellow spots and brown bodies.  Their neck is really tall.  

These are white storks. They have beaks. 

This is a buffalo with a lot of white spots. 

California Livin'

It was off to San Diego to enjoy our family vacation this past week! We arrived last Saturday and after checking into Dad's hotel, headed over to Jen and Tom's.  The girls had a great time playing outside with Andrew and Justin, taking advantage of the glorious weather to ride bikes and play with bubbles on the patio.  Ahhh... this is the life. 

Ellie loved Aunty Jen's stylish hat and was not shy about jumping on the rocking horse to wave her hat like a cowgirl.  I'm not quite sure where she picked that up...

The next day was a glorious beach day and we hit Coronado with the Paul family.  Everyone had a blast playing in the sand and jumping in the waves. Evie and Andrew were great at practicing their surfing stances in the waves.   

Everyone was a little tired after a couple of hours, but gathered up the energy for ice cream, of course! We headed out to MooTime Creamery. 

The kids got up close and personal with the cow, and amused everyone in line by milking its udders...

...and picking its nose/cleaning out its ear wax.  

Later that night, we had dinner with Tanja, Jimmy and Audrey.  Ellie slept in the stroller the whole time but Evie was able to make it through most of the dinner, and some of that delicious mac n' cheese. 

On Monday we headed over to the New Children's Museum where the kids donned their smocks to do some painting and sculptures with clay.  Evie demonstrates the proper brush stroke here.  It seems as if Ellie was not paying attention as later she would dip her two hands completely into the paint.  She looked like a green-handed leprechaun!

The girls had a blast swinging on these wacky ropes.

Ellie checks out the rain house before the girls explored the bouncehouse made out of fruit.

Ellie gets a closer look at some orange segments in the fruit bowl soft playroom.  She found out that a slide of cantaloupe makes a great rocker!

Evie makes some giant bubbles outside with the help of some pipecleaners.

At the sound kitchen, the girls let loose on their pots and pans.  

Ellie particularly loved standing on stage and singing into the whisk microphone!  No stage fright for this little girl.  More pictures from Tuesday-Friday to come shortly...

The Great Escape to the Corcoran

The family headed downtown to celebrate Family Day at the Corcoran Museum of Art today. The theme of the event was The Great Escape and Evie and Ellie proudly took their passports all over the world - Paris, the Wild West, and New York.  After taking our picture by the Eiffel Tower, we headed over to the Wild West to make some dreamcatchers out of yarn and feathers. Evie's dreams shine through her artwork. 

Then the girls created some mosaics using various shapes. I thought Evie's mosaic was a robot pig but was told that I was mistaken. 

Then we headed downstairs to create some masquerade masks. The girls' masks kept getting more elaborate with jewels and stickers as the event progressed. 

Look at Ellie's expression under her funky mask. She particularly liked her snail nose and apple sticker with feathers added a certain panache. 

Evie's mask was sparkling! 

Finally, we checked out the "Tinker Toys" activity where Daddy helped Evie construct a statue using marshmallows, straws and toothpicks. Ellie was a fan of smushing the marshmallows into one big lump. She's really putting her back into it! 

Evie poses in front of her masterpiece - it was a little tipsy, but still kept standing through the transport. What a fun day! 

Celebrating a big birthday for Opa!

It was a big day for everyone as we gathered to celebrate Opa's 70th Birthday. The girls created a wonderful banner earlier this week using our spin art machine that was a masterpiece! 

The family got all gussied up in our finest for a night out on the town. 

We were off to Marcel's for a delicious four-course menu.  It was all quite tasty as everyone dug into scallops, foie gras, lobster ravioli, filets - the best French food one could have, although Opa reminisced fondly about his beloved liver (liver to eat, that is, not the affect of his favorite libations on his actual liver). 

Ba was a little happy after downing a Manhattan!  

We were so lucky to have so many people to celebrate with us!  Karl and Amy had traveled all the way from Florida, Bebe and Popi from New Jersey, and Aunty Karin had come up from Yorktown!  It was a lovely dinner!

At home and reunited with the kiddos, we brought out the cake.  Popi surprised us by printing out the German lyrics to Happy Birthday and as you can see Opa really got into singing to himself in his native tongue!  There was also a goofy birthday song where a line was about "Marmalade in his shoe!"

We got a delicious and authentic black forest cake and the girls loved the whipped cream! 

Ba gives Amy a big hug. Amy and Karl's next baby - a boy! - will be arriving in July!

Dia excitedly watches the action as Opa digs into his presents.  

Evie unveils the pieces of art she and Ellie had created for Opa - gardens full of 3-D butterflies!  It was a lovely night - Happy Birthday Opa!