We even got 2 smash cakes for Gavin. He didn’t really dig in too much, but he was definitely messier with the second. Something about the frosting just didn’t jive with him.

Owen "helping" Gavin play with his toy.

Not too sure what to think of the candle. But he did try to blow it out.

Silly Uncle Steven

We had a great time, and Gavin got some cool toys. His favorite is a dinosaur ball ramp thingy  .

You can see all the photos here

Saturday Nov 17

We left on Saturday the 17th at a reasonable hour (not 4am or 5am as Tammy’s Parent’s are known to do). Thanks to the DVD player and DS the boys were actually really good for the whole trip. The last hour got a little rough when all the boys together decided that they no longer cared to be in the car. Owen and Braeden expressed this by hitting and fighting each other, Gavin resorted to monotone talk/yelling over and over. But fortunately we had a nice GPS (thanks Mom!) that could give the boys updates on how close we were to getting out of the car (we still averaged 3-4 “Are we there yet?”s per hour, but it could be easily deflected by pointing at the map.

Sunday

Attended the Vacaville Stake Conference and afterwards took a nice walk at Lagoon Valley on the West Side of Vacaville. The Owens have 3 dogs, so with the addition of our Winston, we had quite the pack of dogs/boys going through the park.

Monday

I took Winston out “hunting” at Dad Owen’s hunting club. Bill wanted to see if Winston was gun shy so we had him out on a leash. Once it was established that he wasn’t gun shy we hit the field. For a city dog he did ok, but the best part was when Starr flushed a pheasant while Winston was falling into a ditch. I heard a yelp, and saw him pulling himself out of the ditch soaking wet, while Starr brought back the bird.

After hunting we took a trip to the Jelly Belly factory. We had a great time looking at all of the many different robots and belts that produce some great Jelly Beans.

Tuesday

We went into San Francisco today and spent the day at the Exploratorium. That place is HUGE! We all got to do a bunch of fun experiments. One of the boys favorite was the bubble wall where they could make some massive bubbles. Even Gavin was having fun, even though he couldn’t get down and dirty like the boys, he still was having fun watching everything that was going on.

After the Exploratorium we went to Ghirardelli Square to get some ice cream. With 5 hungry boys we ordered 2 “Earthquake” plates. 16 scoops of ice cream total! and those boys DEVOURED it! As you can see from the picture, we were the entertainment for the onlookers that night.

After ice cream we went over to Pier 39 to walk around and see the Sea Lions. Got some great pictures of the boys and Tammy (smoking hot I may add).

I wanted to get a bread bowl with clam chowder, delicious.

Wednesday

Took it easy, did a little shopping to prepare for the big meal.

Thursday

Had some great Turkey and delicious cheesecake.

Friday

Tammy and her mom braved the Black Friday mob and actually found everything on their list!

Saturday

Went to Chris and Erin’s house and then over to the Northstar Christmas Tree farm to help Mom and Dad and Chris and Erin pick out their Christmas Trees. There was a merry go round for the kids and we all went on the wagon ride OF FURY!! (read: nice and slow to start, but scary fast in the middle/end portion)

Sunday Nov 25

On the road again! Now packed in twice as tight with the presents that Tammy and Mom found on Friday. Once again the DVD and DS proved invaluable for the entire ride. We even visited a Redbox in Elko and got another movie for the boys for the ride home. Not too shabby.

We had a blast in Northern California and can’t wait to go back again. It’s always fun to see the family that you don’t get to see as often.

You can see all the pictures we took from the trip on my flickr account

Christmas tree farm

Pier 39

Exploratorium

Lagoon Valley

.: UNEASYsilence :. » Blog Archive » Giveaway: Limited Edition iPods

We had a good time on Saturday at Wheeler Farm. We were able to walk around a pumpkin patch and the boys found two good pumpkins. Then we made some scarecrows and went on the ever popular hay ride (sans hay).

The sky opened up right as we were leaving, so it was a perfectly timed event. The boys had a great time and we have some pumpkins to carve.