The Salvateenies: Labor Day Weekend

For Labor Day Weekend this year, we decided to play tourist. On Saturday, Uncle, Wendy, and I packed the kids into the van to head out to Pier 39 and use our half-price tickets to the Aquarium by the Bay (thanks, Grandma). What could be better than going to THE most touristy of SF locations on the last big weekend of the summer?

The Aquarium itself is small, but impressive nonetheless.

Everyone got paper crowns as we entered - here they are checking out their first tank.

Fascinated by jellyfish.

More jellies

It has a couple of tunnels you walk through where you are surrounded by fish and we even got to see a diver feeding the fish in one of them (he waved at the kids, to their great delight).

The "Exit" sign was a big hit!

There was also a big hands-on area to touch rays, little sharks, sea stars, and anemones, but the kids were too short to reach many of them. They did like touching the "slimy" star and the "bumpy" stars, though, and splashing the water when the ray swam by.

In other parts of the aquarium there are tanks with kid-sized tunnels underneath and a bubble they can stand up into to see what's going on. Here, Uncle went in with the kids to show them what was what.

The main attraction for us was the new River Otter exhibit, but sadly the otters were sleeping when we got there. All three kids took turns calling to them to try to wake them up, but the most we got was a raised head as one moved for a more comfortable position.

Where is Daniel leading Caroline?

Wendy and Caroline look for otters

Uncle and Daniel look for otters.

After the aquarium, we had the most harrowing part of our day - getting food! We got popcorn shrimp and fries and somehow avoided having everyone have a complete meltdown, though many partial meltdowns were endured.

We then walked along the side of the pier to check out the sea lions. Caroline developed a pretty good sea lion impression, while Max announced they were stinky and Daniel suggested the boy sea lions needed to stop fighting.

Everyone was so well-behaved, we ventured back up through the center of the pier along with throngs of out-of-towners and got ice cream. Caroline wanted "pink", so I got her strawberry. Daniel chose chocolate. And Max chose birthday cake flavored ice cream!

On Sunday, Grandpa and Grandma came over, and Uncle and Wendy joined us again, and all eight of us went off to Cayuga playground, a newly refurbished playground and park area over in the shadow of highway 280 and the BART tracks. The kids spent at least an hour and a half exploring all the parts of the play structure.

Max really liked the bumpy slide.

Caroline and a new friend head down the bumpy slide to a waiting Max

Uncle helps set up a race

Three's company!

Whee!

A lot of the new playgrounds in town have these elaborate rope climbing structures for the kids, putting, as Grandpa commented, a great deal of faith in kids' ability not to kill themselves. Caroline really, really wanted to climb it, but the different ropes were spaced too far apart for someone of her size, so she needed a little help figuring out where to put her feet and what to grab onto.

Uncle coaching Caroline

Uncle pushed the boys on this merry-go-round (after Caroline went flying off of it!)

After nearly exhausting themselves on the play equipment, we went for a stroll through the real attraction - the sculptures. The caretaker of the park, which for years was underused and forgotten by many, would collect dead pieces of wood and carve them into people or animals. These painted statues now inhabit a walk around the upper grassy area as well as a few winding paths through wooded areas the kids called "the jungle".