Beautiful Southern CA day

I really have nothing much to say, so here are some pictures. Today I had lunch with my Dad and then came home and laid down for awhile. Now I have a sinus thing going on. I swear, it's always something with me. It has been very windy here the last couple of days so I think it's allergies.

Anyway, after laying down for a bit I suddenly had the urge to see the sun set. I have no idea why. I was laying in bed and then all of a sudden I was like "I want to watch the sun set"!

I had to wake Joe, who was napping because he works tonight and told him I wanted to watch the sun set and I wanted to see it at the beach and we had to hurry because it was going to set at 5:19 p.m.(I goo.gled it. There is nothing you can't find on goog.le. Nothing), and it was 4:30 now.

He was like "Okayyyyyyyyyy.................let me change clothes first".

He is so accommodating to my strange urges. He got up immediately out of a sound sleep, got dressed and drove me 20 minutes into Laguna beach where we arrived just in time to watch the sun set. He's a good guy.

It was beautiful! A nice diversion from the constant worrying that I have been doing lately. But we're not talking about that. It was 80 degrees here today. It's so weird to read about all of the snow and ice going on in other parts of the country. I keep forgetting what month it is too! No complaints. Just a but surreal. It is unseasonably warm, even for us.

















I hate uploading pictures to Blogger. It's such a pain. I wish you could upload more that one at a time, like on Face.book. Soooo much easier there. That's why most of my pictures are there instead of here. We went for a hike in Laguna Canyon on Wednesday and I'm too lazy to post them here because it takes to long. Hate it.

Okay, I'm back from my break.  I think.  I'm pretty sure.

I really like blogging.  I miss it when I'm not posting.

So I have decided that I will keep posting but I will not post when I'm feeling really down or overwhelmed because that's when I start to write things that are too personal.  At those times I will step away from the computer.

A couple of people had mentioned going password protected, but I don't really want to to do that right now. I have a whole bunch of reasons why but I'm too tired to form coherent thoughts on it right now.  It is a possibility in the future but for now I'm going to stay where I am.  And try not to post too much personal info.  I have some friends inside the computer that I have been emailing and private messaging with on Face.book  and that has helped me get a lot of what I want to say out without having to post it here.

Thank you friends inside the computer!  You rock.

So let's see, what's been going on around here since I left?

Not a lot.

Joe has not found a job.  Ugh.

I got the termination notice for my health insurance.  Double Ugh.

I was feeling kind of down.

O.K., I was feeling really down.

I am feeling slightly better.  I still have my moments.

We're doing everything we can to stay in our apartment, at least for the immediate future.  We are in a lease, after all, and it would cost money to get out of right now.

I signed up with an agency to do some babysitting on my time off.  I have had two offers already.

The price of babysitting certainly has gone up since the last time I did it!  And because of my extensive background in early childhood education I find that people are willing to pay me at the top of the wage level.  

Which is good for me.  But dude, how do you people afford to go out?  I'm pretty sure when Sophie comes home Joe and I will not be going out much.  Between the babysitter and the price of a movie, we wouldn't be able to afford it!  Forget about dinner.

So if you live in Orange County and are looking for a babysitter, I am available. 

I am CPR certified and background checked and fingerprinted.

Heck, I'll even give you a discount! :)

I have not been feeling that great for the last few days with this sickness that I can't seem to put my finger on. Headache, sore throat and nausea.  The nausea is what's bothering me the worst. Sipping a coke is the only thing that seems to make it better.  And I don't usually drink carbonated beverages.  But the nausea!  Yuck.

And please don't ask me(like 2 of my co-workers already have)

"Hey, maybe you're pregnant"?

Because in case you forgot

I don't have a uterus.  

Or ovaries for that  matter.

So I'm thinking we can rule out pregnancy :)

I was thinking it could have something to do with my hormone patch, but my body has been feeing kind of sore and I had a slight temperature on Sunday.  

So maybe the flu, but a less severe version of it?  Because 2 years ago I had the flu and I thought I was going to die, that's how bad it was.

I don't know.  But I'm sick of feeling sick.  It is seriously cutting into my Wii Fit time.

And I had lost 3 pounds already.  

I'm off to sip a coke and see if we have any crackers lying around.

Gung Hay Fat Choy

Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day of the new year and ends on the full moon 15 days later. The 15th day of the new year is called the Lantern Festival, which is celebrated at night with lantern displays and children carrying lanterns in a parade.

The Chinese calendar is based on a combination of lunar and solar movements. The lunar cycle is about 29.5 days. In order to "catch up" with the solar calendar the Chinese insert an extra month once every few years (seven years out of a 19-yearcycle). This is the same as adding an extra day on leap year. This is why, according to the solar calendar, the Chinese New Year falls on a different date each year.

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are celebrated as a family affair, a time of reunion and thanksgiving. The celebration was traditionally highlighted with a religious ceremony given in honor of Heaven and Earth, the gods of the household and the family ancestors The Chinese New Year's Eve meal is the most important dinner of the year. Typically, families gather at a designated relative's house for dinner, but these days, many families often celebrate New Year's Eve dinner at a restaurant. Many restaurants require reservations months in advance. There are also some families that hire a professional chef to come cook at their house. Chefs are often busy running from one home to another cooking dinners for different families on New Year's Eve.

Chinese New Year is a 15-day celebration and each day, many families rotate celebrations between homes of their relatives. The festivies are day-long and sometimes, a family ends up cooking two meals for their relatives, once at lunch and once at dinner. These dishes used to be all made from scratch, but now people can easily buy them prepackaged at the supermarkets.

Traditional New Year Foods:

• Eight Treasures Rice (contains glutinous rice, walnuts, different colored dry fruit, raisins, sweet red bean paste, jujube dates, and almonds).
• "Tang Yuan" - black sesame rice ball soup; or a Won Ton soup.
• Chicken, duck, fish and pork dishes.
• "Song Gao", literally translates to "loose cake"- which is made of rice which has been coursely ground and then formed into a small, sweet round cake.
• "Jiu Niang Tang" - sweet wine-rice soup which contains small glutinous rice balls
• a sweet soup made of cut-up fruit: Cut fruit is added into hot/warm water which has had a thickening agent (like cornstarch).

The Year of the Ox

1913, 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997

People born in the Year of the Ox are patient, speak little, and inspire confidence in others. They tend, however, to be eccentric, and bigoted, and they anger easily. They have fierce tempers and although they speak little, when they do they are quite eloquent. Ox people are mentally and physically alert. Generally easy-going, they can be remarkably stubborn, and they hate to fail or be opposed. They are most compatible with Snake, Rooster, and Rat people.

27 Months

Good Bye

I'm going to go away for awhile.

Maybe for a long time this time.

I promised myself I wasn't going to post too much personal information here anymore and that I was going to try and keep it positive.

But every time I come here I find myself constantly editing what I want to say and trying very hard not to write depressing things.

So it's probably a good time for a break.

I have to find another place for us to live and my husband has to find a job and I can't write about how all of this is going to affect the adoption because there are some not nice people out there in the Internet and I am not going to make us vulnerable to them.

I cannot thank enough those of you who have left kind, supportive comments here.

They really do mean the world to me.

I'll still be reading you all, and hanging around on Face.book.

I will most likely be back, when I can see things more clearly.

So it's goodbye for now, but not forever.



I heard the song that's playing right now in the movie "Bri.de Wars" that DeAnn and I went to see last night and I fell in love with it.

It's a beautiful song. Although it does make me cry every time I hear it.
It's called "Dream" by Prisc.illa Ahn"






Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. – Philippians 4:6

So you know the plan that I mentioned in my last post? The one about staying calm and not freaking out because it wouldn't help the situation?

Yeah, that lasted about a day. Since then? I have done nothing but freak out.

Last night at 3:30 in the morning when my husband came to bed and I got up to go to the bathroom we started fighting.

Or I should say I started a fight with him.

At 3:30 in the morning.

We live in an apartment. With upstairs neighbors.

Sometimes I can be a bit nutty.

So after fighting with my husband in the wee hours of the morning I went out and cried, I mean slept, on the couch.

Except there wasn't a whole lot of sleeping going on.

So yeah, I have been up since 3:30 this morning. Which means I should be very, very tired right now but as you can see I am not. Because it is 10:45 p.m. at night and here I am, posting to my blog.

See what I mean?

Nutty.

Today was not good. I cried on the way to work. Then I fixed my makeup as best I could and pretended everything was okay.

But then I cried on my lunch break.

But then I fixed my makeup once again and pretended everything was okay. That's one of the reasons I love my job. I work with a very good friend and we were very busy and I find it is easy to keep my mind off of things.

But then I had to come home.

And think about stuff.

More crying.

I have been looking for another place for us to live. I know it seems hasty but we can't afford the rent that we're paying now if Joe is on unemployment or can't find a job in the next month and a half.

More crying.

I don't want to move.

I really don't want to move.

I hope we don't have to move.

I think I'm gonna go cry some more.

One of my New year's resolutions was to give up the sleeping aide that I had been taking.

I guess I can say I lasted 16 days.

I tried.


Thank you so much for the wonderful, supportive comments and e-mails. A couple of them made me cry. Where would I be without you people? Seriously? Where?

The Post in Which I Couldn't Think of an Appropriate Title

I have been struggling with this here blog lately.

You probably couldn't tell, because I have been making an extra effort the last few weeks to keep things upbeat and positive around here and less gloom and doom.

Sometimes I have a tendency to focus on the gloom and doom.

That comes as a surprise to many of you, I'm sure ;)

The truth is that the last few months have been very good. Yes, we still have have problems and issues that we are dealing with. Everyone does.

But for the most part life has been good. We're getting by. My health is good. Our marriage is good. My job is good.

I was just starting to get to the point where I was worrying less about stuff and trying to enjoy more of my life instead of being stressed out most of the time.

Of course you know this is the part of the story where everything goes to H** in a hand basket, right?

Except it isn't a story. It's my life.

It started last week when I found out that I was going to lose my health insurance at my job.

Budget cuts. I didn't mention it here(although I did have a mini meltdown over on Facebook about it) because I was trying to keep up the positive vibe over here, and also I promised myself
I am not going to worry so much.

And no, I cannot go on my husband's insurance because he doesn't have any right now. His part time job does provide health insurance but he was not eligible at first and in the meantime we missed the enrollment period. So this development had me a teeny bit panicked. I have a major disease. I cannot be without insurance.

But my husband and I talked about it and we agreed we could probably find a way to afford CO.BRA for few months until we got things situated at his job with his insurance.

I soldiered on, telling myself to think positively and everything would be okay and we would work it out.

Then yesterday my husband got up to go to the first day of the new classes at (one of) the colleges he teaches at. Before he could leave he got a phone call from the Dean of the college. The Dean was calling to tell him that his 2 classes had been given to a full time instructor due to budget cuts and low enrollment.

He came to my work and told me. I was in shock. And scared. Those classes represent half of our monthly pay. How would we get by without it?

Then he went on to tell me that he had received an e-mail from the other college he teaches at later in the day, and it said the same thing. Both of his classes were given to a full time instructor because of low enrollment.

My husband is out of a job. Effective immediately. Completely and totally out of work. He has no other schools to fall back on.

The only sources of income we have now are the one that comes from my job, and his part time job that he works at night.

Neither of these is enough to cover our rent and monthly expenses.

After hearing all of this information and letting it digest for a spell, I did what any normal person would do in this situation.

I went into full freak out mode. Now keep in mind that I found out this information while I was at work, and aside from shedding a few tiny tears when my co-workers found out what was wrong, I managed to hold it together until the end of the work day.

So I should say I waited until 5:01 p.m. yesterday before I went into full freak out mode.

It started on the phone with my husband in the car on the way home and continued when I got home and into most of the night. I even forgot to eat dinner. That's how much I was freaking out. We're talking hyperventilating here. There was crying. Lots of crying. And asking of questions like "What are we going to do"?, which my husband had no answers for.

I cried myself to sleep last night. Today was my day off and when I woke up(with red, swollen eyes) I laid in bed for awhile pondering the situation when suddenly I came to a realization.

You know what?

All that freaking out? The worrying and the stressing and the crying?

It isn't going to help the situation. Not one bit. Not even a little.

So I have decided that I'm not going to do it. Okay, maybe that's a little ambitious. I'm going to try very hard not to do it.

And once I made that decision I felt a sense of peace wash over me. That doesn't mean I am going to be cool as a cucumber at all times during this period. It just means I am not going to waste my energy on things that won't help the situation.

And just because I have decided not to freak out about this doesn't mean I'm not scared. Because I am. Really scared.

We could use your thoughts and prayers during the next several months as my husband looks for another job and we figure out our living arrangements(if it comes to that).





Tomorrow my husband will go to the unemployment office and see if he qualifies. The last time his classes were canceled he was told that he did not qualify because he was considered a "temporary employee"(they call it "adjunct") and also because he had a part time job that was providing some income(as is the case now).

****I am very angry at the way our state community colleges treat their adjunct faculty(disposing of them like trash when they don't need them after 8 years of employment), but that is a post best left for another time.*****

Lastly, that song that's playing? My theme song right now. For sure.

Tagged

I was tagged by Kylie's Momma to do this, so here goes:

Here's the deal:

Open the 4th photo folder on my computer and then post the 4th picture in the folder and describe what's pictured.


So I went to IPhoto. And I chose the 4th folder. And then I chose the 4th picture, which was this one:



It's the castle at D-Land! What a shocker! :)

This one was taken at the Choc walk in October. Although honestly, we spend so much time there that I probably could have opened any folder in my pictures and this would have been the fourth picture. Heh.

I'm supposed tag four more people but I'm not sure who I would tag, other than DeAnn, so if you'd like to play along, then I tag you!



Oh, and feeling soooooo much better today, so whatever it was it was a 24 hour bug and I am over it now. Thank Goodness!

Random Monday Blog Post

O.K. so you know how I said in my last post that I had been using my Wii Fit every day? 

Well I haven't used it since then. Figures. Maybe I jinxed myself. Thanks for all the answers to my questions. As soon as I get back to using it I am going to try some of the suggestions you left.

And why have I been such a slacker, you ask?

Well Saturday I was out of the house from 8:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m.

Busy.

On Sunday I had another sore throat and was so tired from Saturday that I just plain didn't do anything.

Then today I woke up with a monster headache and as the day progressed felt increasingly crummier and even ended up leaving work an hour early because I felt so yuck. And it had nothing to do with the sore throat because that's mostly gone. I have been having some stomach issues all day.

I have been in my pajamas since 4:30 and am lying in bed as I type and am feeling a little better now. I'm afraid to eat anything though. But I'm hungry. Maybe some chicken broth is in order.

I have been making my camping reservations for our vacay in June and I am getting excited about it and it's still 6 months away.

Hopefully this trip will go better than the last one.

I mean there's no way that could happen again.

Right?

Last year I was reading about the fires and do you know what they said the chances were that there would be a lightning storm in June in Big Sur that would start a fire the likes of the one they had?

Do you?

Zero. Percent. Chance.

With odds like that it's a good thing we didn't go to Vegas.  Ha!

My stomach is growling so I need to go see if we have any chicken broth lying around in our cupboards or I may have to send Joe off to buy some.  He'll be thrilled, I'm sure.

Happy Monday!(If there is such a thing)

P.S.  Would you think badly of me if you knew that my Christmas tree was still up and decorated?  I'm not saying that's the case.  I'm just asking hypothetically, of course.

For the Wii Fit Experts Out There

Or Wii Fit Geeks, like me.

I have been using my Wii Fit almost every day since I got it. I am really liking it.

But I have questions.

Perhaps you guys can help me.

I took a body test the first day that I opened it. No, I will not tell you the results. They were bad. My Wii Fit age was old. My BMI was bad. My weight was bad. Working on it, ok?

Anyway, I took another body test a couple of days later. I was hoping I could improve my score. Little did I know they were going to give me different tests. Heh. That's what I get for trying to cheat.

When I went to exit the body test screen and get my stamp for the day, it said

"Don't forget to come back and take a new body test every day".

Really? I'm supposed to do the body test every single day? Why?

Also, the second time I took the test(when it gave me different tests), my Wii fit age was really good! Younger than my actual age and much much lower than the first time.

Why is that? How could it differ so much from one day to the next, simply by giving me a couple of different body tests?

Also, every time it weighs me and does my BMI, it goes up! According to it I have gained 1.7 pounds and my BMI has increased slightly over the last 6 days.

But my scale in the bathroom has stayed the same.

Is the Wii scale reliable? Should I disregard the weight on it and stick to the bathroom scale?

I'm trying to lose weight, by the way so it really bothers me that it keeps saying I gained weight.

O.K., now for some of the games

On the Ski Jumping, do you have to go all the way on to the tips of your toes to go long distances? Because it hurts! And I almost fall over when I'm doing it. But if I don't do it, I either fall flat on my face(on the screen) because it says I didn't extend, or I don't go a very long distance at all.

Just wondering.

Here's another one.

When doing the step aerobics, I am finding it hard to get "perfects". I mostly get "OK's". At the end it tells me to try stepping on and off more slowly. I have tried that, to no avail.

Perhaps I just have no sense of rhythm? At all? Because I can't seem to get better at it. And trust me, I have tried.

And Stacey, forget the clapping in the advanced version. It ain't happening. I don't even try.

And lastly? Hula Hooping is hard. Who knew?

I think that's all for now. If anyone can enlighten me on any of the above topics, I would be very appreciative.

Thanks!

P.S. Gizmo wants to know

"Does this sweater make me look fat"?
Thanks Auntie DeAnn for the cool sweater!

Good News from the Doctor and Birthday present pics

I saw my nephrologist today. It was just a routine 3 month check up so I wasn't expecting anything out of the ordinary but I did have a whole slew of blood work done(twice!) a couple of months ago and was anxious about the results.

I have mentioned before how much I love my(new) kidney doctor.

Today I found out that he donated a kidney to one of his brothers who was in the end stages of renal failure.

And then I loved him even more.

Not only because that is an awesome thing for him to do, but also because that means when it comes to kidney transplants this guy knows his stuff. I mean he knows. From both sides. Not that we are thinking that far ahead or anything(okay, my brain is constantly thinking that far ahead, but it was just a cool thing to have found out about him).

Anyway, on to the test results. Drum roll please..................


Everything is good!

Let me rephrase that.

Everything is PERFECT.

Every one of the test results is within normal ranges. Even the protein leak in my urine is down to the lowest it could possibly be for someone with my type of kidney disease.

What does this mean?

It means that the kidney disease is in total remission.

Total. Remission. That means that there is no further damage being sustained to my kidneys right now. It means a lot more years added before the possibility that I might need a kidney transplant.

A lot more years.

The doctor is quite astonished actually. And happy.

And so am I. So very happy. And relieved. Hugely relieved.

And did I mention happy?

I don't have to see him again for 6 months. And even though I love him, it makes me very happy that I don't have to see him again until July. :)

Here's some more stuff that has been making me happy!

Today I finally got around to taking pictures of all my birthday loot so I could show you all.

Gosh, I got a lot of stuff and I love every single thing. So here it is:

My sister got me this charm bracelet from Brigh.ton and I love it. She hand picked all of the beautiful charms. (Please ignore my beat up, scarred wood coffee table. We need a new one. Badly)
She chose a cupcake, because it was my birthday

And an M and a J, for obvious reasons :)



She even added a tiny little "S"! So cute.

These pretty little flower beads capped off the ends. And I can go online and choose more beads for it too. So cute!

Lisa also ordered me a few thing I had asked for from Land's End. I can't usually afford to shop there but I love their stuff and they are having an awesome winter sale right now.
This fleece sweatshirt is so cozy. And I love the color. It is actually more of a teal green in person.

She also got me this blouse that I wanted. I love the colors in it as well.

She even got me a pair of shoes I had asked for. These are going to come in handy, as one of my goals this year is to be more active! Joe and I are going to try them out hiking this weekend in Laguna Canyon(where I will NOT need an ambulance ride when we're done. LOL!)


Let's not forget that my sister also got me the Wii Fit, which I am loving, so she went way overboard on presents for my birthday this year!

I got some really cool things from my friends at work too. DeAnn got me a gift card to my very favorite restaurant(they have the best fried chicken evah) AND some movie tickets!


She also got me this beautiful plaque. I love the saying on it and I am going to hang it where I can see it every single day.


Mr friend Liz got me this beautiful scrapbook kit. I have to admit I have been a slacker on the scrapbooking lately but I made a resolution that I am going to scrapbook at least two pages per month and fill up this book.

Beautiful flowers from DeAnn


Beautfiul flowers from Joe

One of the many balloons I got(this one from Joe). Love Charlie Brown and Snoopy.


Lastly, I bough this at the Dis.ney Store with the gift card I got at Disneyland. Isn't he cute? I love Dumbo! I was leaning towards Tinkerbell but decided on Dumbo. In his trunk he is holding the "magic feather" that he believed allowed him to fly. So cute.



So those are all my fabulous birthday gifts. Thank you so much to every single person who helped make my day so special. It truly was an awesome day and I am still on cloud nine because of it.

Best Birthday Ever

Yesterday was my birthday.

I totally forgot to post about it here.

Sometimes I don't like my birthday. It's right after Christmas and people often forget about it.

We don't have a lot of money around my birthday because Hello, it's right after Christmas.

I usually get time off around the holidays and my birthday always falls either right on or around the time I have to go back to work.

Then there's the whole getting really darn old and still not becoming a Mom thing.

But this year my birthday was awesome. I am so fortunate to have such wonderful friends and family to shower me with love and good wishes. Oh yeah, and presents. :)

This is what greeted me when I first got to work yesterday:

My co-worker(and friend) DeAnn totally decorated my desk! So sweet. She also had balloons, and flowers, and a cake waiting for me too. So nice.

Here we are together



Around 11:00 a.m. a delivery guy came to the office and delivered this from my sister(whose birthday also was yesterday)
Oh my gosh, this was soooooo beautiful and so yummy too. And huge! The entire office said to say thanks to you Lisa, because we all enjoyed eating this so much.

DeAnn also got me a plaque with a beautiful saying on it(that I will take a picture of and post later), plus a gift card to my favorite restaurant, Lucille's AND movie tickets AND lip gloss. Way too much stuff! Thank you so much DeAnn. You rock!

Then DeAnn and my other co-worker Liz took me out to lunch where Liz gave me the most beautiful scrapbook kit(again, will post pictures later).


Later Joe brought me more flowers and balloons and a giant chocolate chip cookie!

When I got home from work there were two packages waiting for me from my sister.


She got me a Lake Tahoe sweatshirt, plus a long sleeved T-shirt, a Brighton charm bracelet which I will HAVE to post pictures of because it so so beautiful and she chose the charms herself, plus a pair of shoes and a blouse I had wanted from Land's End. Too much stuf!!! I am so lucky!


After all of that fun we headed to Disneyland! Did you know you get in free on your birthday during 2009? Well you do! And since I already have a pass, they gave me a giftcard for $69.00 to spend as I please! How awesome is that? We spent two hours at Disneyland before heading home for cake and I passed out soon after.



I also had many, many birthday wishes on Facebook and I loved reading every single one of them. Thanks so much everybody!


It was one great day and I am very very blessed.

Picture Palooza

I am way behind on posting pictures. I took a ton over the last week, so here goes.....


On Sunday Lisa and Scott went to Fresno to visit Scott's side of the family and Joe and I took a drive North to meet up with this fun Bloggy couple.

Our LID's are 2 days apart and there is a chance we will be in China at the same time. How cool is that? Thanks Cyndi and Dean for letting us come and hang out with you guys! We had fun!

They live in a picturesque little town and we had fun wandering around Old Town.



Can you tell it was a mining town? :)


On Monday night Joe and I picked the kids up early from Day Camp and went into the city. In rush hour traffic. Yeah, we're not that smart. It was crowded, but we still had a good time.

Joe and Cameron went to his(Joe's) favorite record store while Grace and I went to my favorite bath store

Gracie pretending to sleep in the window while we wait for Uncle Joe and Cameron. Doesn't she look like she's really sleeping? That's what she kept asking me "Aunt Shell, doesn't it look like I am really sleeping"? Yes Gracie. It does. :)

I had to hide outside the window and take this with my zoom because they don't allow photographs inside their store. They said it is because other stores try and steal the "recipes" they use to make their hand made soaps and bath bombs. Alrighty then!Cable car. They were all packed to the gills with people hanging off of them. I always wonder how many of those people ever fall off.
On Tuesday we went to the California Academy of Sciences Museum. We were supposed to meet up with Stacey and fam but it was totally insanely crowded and I only saw Stacey for 2 minutes before they decided to leave and come back another day. We stuck it out. It was crowded but we saw most everything we wanted to and had a good time.


The line to get in. They sold out at noon. Good thing we got there at 9:00 am!
Alligator exhibit
PenguinsNot sure what this little guy was doing. He(she?) was sure cute though.

Rain forest exhibit. It was this dome that you started out at the bottom and followed this ramp all the way around it to the top and then take the elevator down to the bottom where the aquarium was. This was by far my favorite exhibit except that it was hot and humid in there and towards the end I just wanted get out!

The outsideView from the inside
They had butterflies flying freely around inside and they would just land on you. Cool!Uncle Joe "caught" one too.
Pretty butterflies
Poison dart frogs
Mist inside the domeViews looking up towards the ceiling


Jelly fish in the aquarium exhibit outside the dome. The whole bottom floor was an aquarium
They had some interactive games where the kids answered questions by tapping on the screen.



This (fake) flower was set up with "smell-o-vision" so that when you put your nose up to it you could smell the scent it gave off in real life. Uncle Joe smelled it, then got grace to smell it, who said "EEwwwwww!", who then got Cameron to smell it, who almost gagged. Then he turned to me and said "Now you smell it, Aunt Michelle"! To which I answered "Uh, no thanks. I'll pass".
I was already feeling a bit woozy at this point due to the crowds and the heat and the unfortunate news I had received earlier.

The living roof. This was cool. I think it was Joe's favorite part of the museum.






Views of Golden Gate park from the living roof


Looking into the food court from the main level.







That's all I have the energy for right now. I have more from New Years that I will post later.

Today we have a funeral to attend(so sad) and Joe has to work tonight.