The Salvateenies: Filling the free days

This summer, I crammed the kids' weeks full of swimming classes (Mondays and Wednesdays) and gymnastics (Thursdays), leaving time to go to Grandma and Papa's house on Fridays and see the movies or zoo or other attractions on Tuesdays or the weekends.

Which meant I needed to focus on what to do on those Tuesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. At first, I had lofty plans like going to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk or Gilroy Gardens. But in the end, we tended to do things closer to home like the zoo, aquarium, or playgrounds.

For months, the kids have been seeing TV ads and bus billboards for the Disney Planes sequel, "Planes: Fire and Rescue"and asking when they were going to get to go. It opened on the 18th, the day we left Tahoe, so we made plans to see it on Tuesday the 22nd at the Balboa Theater near our house. I got a text the night before from a friend from work asking if we had plans that day, and since we've meant to get our kids together to do something for the past two and a half years or so, they decided to come up to the City to hang out with us and check out the movie.

Uncle came with us and so there were our five and their four and we ended up representing about half the folks in the theater. Which was good because, as we could have predicted, Daniel freaked out and couldn't stay in his seat for much of the movie. I think at other theaters he might grit his teeth and make it through while hugging onto an adult for dear life or covering his eyes with his hands, but the Balboa has a big, old-fashioned lobby with cool posters to look at, glass doors that allow for sidewalk people-watching, and a comfy leather couch.

How Daniel spent the movie

Taking selfless in the lobby

Max and Caroline came out a couple of times to check on him and Uncle and I took turns so that I saw the beginning of the movie and understand why Dusty became a fireplane and Uncle watched the end and got to see him save the day. So we probably paid for 2 tickets that didn't really get used, but on the other hand we got full use of our refillable soda and popcorn.

After the movie, we went for a walk down to see the turtles at Spreckels Lake and then over to see the Bison in the Park. The kids, who I always brag are such good walkers, were determined to disprove me, whining almost every step. In their defense, it was hot out and we hadn't warned them they'd be walking. But still, it was mostly flat and not that hot. Come on, kids! We bribed them with the promise of a milkshake at the end and went into a bubble tea establishment to get banana milkshakes and watermelon coolers. Sooooo yummy.

Max apparently thought we needed a frame-by-frame accounting
of Daniel eating the leftover popcorn

And that took care of Saturday!

For Saturday, we ventured out to Flax Art Supply for their "Medieval Children's Craft Fair". Flax is a great store with all manner of supplies for real artists and 2-year old finger painters. The Fair was a free event for kids with craft tables set up throughout the store where they could try their hands at different projects and take them home. It was hot inside and they got cranky at times, but once we'd watered them appropriately, they seemed to be really enjoying themselves.

They made magic wands out of dowels, paper crowns with sticker gems, painted rune stones, shrinky-dink medallions, braided thread bracelets, iron-on banners and tie-dye scarves. They also got to play with some cool building clay (and bumped into their friend Dagny from school) and paint a big castle, which was perhaps their favorite part. I'm sure there was more they did that I'm forgetting.

No, wait, their favorite part was the dragon!