Birthday weekend!

Mr. R turned 7 last Sunday, but we made a whole weekend celebration out of it because Grandma and Grandpa came to town. It was hot (of course!) but we started the weekend off with an ice cream sundae party for relatives and our new neighbors. Rob had a blast. You can see some of the toppings and food items made available at the party. Jokes were made about the jimmies. I made a dark chocolate hot fudge sauce out of Scharffenberger chocolate which was quite decadent, and a lovely homemade caramel sauce as well. It was not a good weekend for dieting, but we had a great time. We played several games of Blokus, a new game Rob got for his birthday. What an awesome game! If you haven't tried it, I highly suggest it. It's a great strategy and spatial relationship skills builder game, kind of like an anti-Tetris. Rob received a Millennium Falcon Transformer toy from our neighbor which he immediately told me was "the best toy he ever received." We went out for pizza that night per his request and then went to San Francisco for the day on Sunday, his actual birthday. He wanted to take the ferry, so we took the Alameda/SF boat and that was a total blast. It's a whole new way to see the bay and it was such a gloriously warm lovely day. We mostly walked around by the Ferry Building and a fishing pier as well as the trolley museum. There was some kind of crazy get out and exercise fair thing going on along the Embracadero which made things a little crazy. We met up with Jon, had some lunch and then ended up taking the ferry home rather than waiting around another 4 hours.

On Monday we went to Dow Wetlands to find the elusive river otters, but they were nowhere to be found (just their droppings!) but we saw lots of birds and other cool things. It's a nice discovery of places to go in our new home town. We have had so many home towns, but most of them seem to be near a river, which makes everything seem a little better. Grandma and Grandpa flew home on Monday evening.

The chickens have hit maturity!

Yes, the girls are really growing up. One laid a first egg on Labor Day, Sept. 1 and we've had one a day since. I think they are each laying once every other day, because the first and third eggs look the same, dark brown with speckles, and the other is just plain dark brown. They are such lovely eggs and we have eaten the first one...yum! It is so fun to have laying hens. I enjoy looking in the nest box for eggs each day. They have managed to lay the eggs in the right place despite not being able to keep the golf ball nest egg in the nest box.

In other news, the kids started up school again last week. Both seem to really like their teachers. The young one is in a combined K-1 class with 12 kids and took to it like a fish to water. He's already bossing the other kindergarteners around. :) My 2nd grader says he liked his class this year. I think the school is probably a better fit for him than the last, though the other had higher test scores and more prestige in the community. Test scores aren't everything.

Mr. R is now 7 years old too. We celebrated his birthday with a ice cream sundae party on Saturday and a trip to San Francisco on his "real" birthday so we could take the ferry from Alameda to SF. It's a great ride, though too short for my liking. The Embarcadero area was VERY crowded and crazy so we didn't stay as long as we planned, but it was still fun. The weather was quite warm as well.

I've posted a few new pics of the "girls", well, just Corsair actually (Ginger wouldn't cooperate) and their handiwork.