Dicken's Fair

I heard about the Dicken's Fair (Charles Dicken's world of 1851 London) from Judy and Sophie and decided to take the kids today. I had never been to the Dicken's Fair but it is like a Rennaisannce Fair except it is indoors at the Cow Palance (large convention center like warehouse space in south San Francisco) and it is Victorian England. I recall wanting to go to the Renaisannce Fair so badly when I was a child/teen in Honolulu and my dad took my brother Darren and I once and it was fun. I also recall going to a Rennaisannce Fair in the early to mid 1990's in Napa Valley area and I recall it being dusty and hot.



I made the kids wear some period-like clothes…which for them is pretty limited. Both boys wore their vests and long sleeved shirts (Ant's shirt and vest are from the Apple Valley Days of 2nd grade and were originally used by Ramsey 5 years ago) but I let them wear jeans/pants. Ant's pants are super small, short and tight. It's time for him to get some new pants. He is really growing.



There were a lot of actors in period costume walking around. There was a robot/machine (man in a suit) walking around behind Ram and Ant.



We watched a few short plays. The one above is Queen Victoria and her children (I believe she had 8!) decorating a Christmas tree brought home by her husband Prince Albert. The kids in the audience were invited to decorate the tree also and Ram and Ant went and then they went to shake the Queen's hand and got a British flag.



We watched a super funny magician called Jim Chimney and waited around for the next magic act (above) which wasn't very good but Ant did volunteer to help with the acts.



There was a wall of cutouts to pose with in the children's area. Ram (naughty) poked his head through and as soon as he saw me with the camera phone, he would pop back in. Think whack-a-mole except whack-a-Ram!



There were these beautiful carved candles for sale which were being hand made as we watched. Beautiful.



The boys decided to dip their own candle ($8 for 2) and Ant originally picked a teddy bear but they were all out of those so he picked a sheep. They each dipped one but after we finished I found out these are ornamental only…the wick doesn't go all the way through.



Posing with sheep...



We had a fun time and stayed for 4 hours. Hen went to work to complete a presentation for this coming week…he has been procrastinating all holiday (Thursday, Friday and even Saturday/today morning) about doing it. I'm glad the boys and I went to the Dicken's Fair and perhaps it's time for us to read some books by Charles Dicken's.

Day After Thanksgiving

 



Ant had a rough morning. We stayed up until 9:30 last night at our friends' house so Ant is tired. We had to cuddle on the couch together along with Fuzzer and his new furry blanket (and Ram has one too) and then he felt better. Notice all those boxes behind the couch filled with stuff? It's all from the hardwood-floor-water-damaged office (which there has been no progress on since October).



I'm not sure you can tell but in this panorama, you can see San Francisco (left) clear down to San jose (right). We went hiking at Windy Hill Open Preserve with the deCardy family today. It was a 3.5 mile hike straight up to the top and then 3.5 miles down (hard on the knees!).



There was frost near the top…cold and windy.



At the top we could see the Pacific Ocean (behind us) on one side…and...



…there was a glider guy taking off (we watched for 30 minutes) on the other side (the view from San Francisco to San Jose).



We at a late lunch (at 2:30pm) at the Lobster Shack…the same place we ate at on New Year's Day 2015. Ramsey did a coloring page -- isn't the crab cute?



In the late afternoon, the boys played HOURS (at least 3) of Minecraft with Michael.

Thanksgiving 2015

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While I was cooking yesterday, the boys played a game of Monopoly. You have to watch the video -- Ramsey won and was so happy to have beaten Hen who wins 99% of the time! (Edited -- argggh! I thought I had a video of Ramsey prancing around being happy with the win but I didn't get that video…!)



There was a lot of wrestling and snuggling between the boys yesterday. You can see Ant's legs and feet but Ram is right next to him under the blanket.



We went to Thanksgiving dinner at Gary, April, Katelyn and Andrew's house. We had an absolutely delicious dinner of curried squash soup, mashed potatoes, turkey with stuffing and gravy, salad, green beans and dinner rolls. We had apple pie, pumpkin pie and kabocha pie for dessert. I spent most of the day cooking at home -- salad, dinner rolls, apple pie, pumpkin pie and kabocha pie and I really wish I took pictures of these! I roasted the kabocha, pureed it and made it into pie. The apple pie and pumpkin pie (with mom's pie crust recipe using olive oil instead of corn/Mazola oil) were yummy as were the rolls but the kabocha pie was disappointing...



This morning the boys spent a lot of time tummy down doing screens together in our bed. Ant even decided to take off his shirt even though the house is 55 degrees inside!

Gingerbread Turkey, Grocery Shopping, Haircuts and Duck Pond Visit

Aunty Annie gave the boys a Gingerbread Turkey kit when we saw her on our San Diego road trip about a week and a half ago. The boys wanted to make up the turkey on Tuesday evening and I let them do it while I cooked dinner. It's so much less messy to let them work on a project than just even a year ago! Yay! Sure, they are messy but last year I would have had 50% of the candy and icing on the floor rather than on the table. Anthony tried eating the icing and he said, "Yuck, it tastes bad!" The icing is one egg white (not included) and a whole box of powdered sugar!



After dinner on Tuesday  night, I volunteered to take Ramsey to his NJB All-Net practice 7-8:30 at Menlo School. My plan was to get him to the gym, go grocery shopping and then come back for him. We didn't know but his practice was cancelled (we found out when there was a volleyball game at the gym and we called Hen who got an email earlier in the day that the practice was cancelled…) and instead Ramsey went grocery shopping with me at Trader Joe's and Draeger's. I had so much fun with him! I made him pose in the cut out gingerbread man and elf board in front of Trader Joe's (ha ha, so cute!) and he did it happily. He found the monkey Joe Joe in the store -- the employees "hide" the monkey for kids to find and if you find him and let an employee know, you get a lollypop. Ram actually said, "I'm gonna tell somebody and get my candy. Wait, I really don't like candy so I'm not gonna get it." Ha ha, all grown up huh? However within 30 minutes we were at Draeger's and he *LOVED* the candy area there! He didn't ask for anything though. I think he just likes to look.



Wednesday Ramsey went to SVBC basketball camp from 9-12:30 and he was one of 4 "big" kids there. We came to pick him up and Ram and Ant went to get haircuts. Ram was supposed to get a bento for lunch from camp but it wasn't delivered by the time we had to leave for haircuts so he was *STARVING* while getting his hair cut. I went to the Hong Kong Bakery down the street intending to get them sweet buns but they were all sold out so I got them pork buns and chicken tail buns (which had more custard like filling rather than crumbly filling). Ram devoured his pork bun in less than a minute but didn't really like the chicken tail bun because the inside is mushy. Ant ate both. Here is a before pic of Ant, though I didn't get a before pic of Ram.



After the haircuts, we went back to the SVBC camp to pick up Spencer and Ramsey's lunch (which he devoured in the car) and took them to 7th grade basketball practice. There were only 3 kids there so instead of being 2-4pm it was 2-3:15pm. On the way home, we stopped by the library. After picking out books, we had to visit the duck pond. Ant took 85 pictures of ducks with my phone! I'm only posting 1 duck picture but imagine 84 more of these duck pictures. I asked the boys to take a picture together and I managed to get one before Ramsey stood on his tiptoes to look taller than he really is.