Down From Astoria

Kai, Dana, Barritt, Indi, and Jude left rainy Astoria December 26th around 9pm, traveled south through the rainy night, and ended up in rainy Sausalito at 8am on the 27th. After we gave them a tour of our apartment (this lasted about three minutes since they pretty much looked at two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a common kitchen/living room/dining room), we exchanged little gifts and the cousins played indoors the rest of the day while the adults made lattes and sat around. Although it rained hard and the wind howled all night long, we woke up to a clear day on Wednesday--a perfect day to spend at the Bay Area Discovery Museum (BADM).

We took our time getting started, and ended up at the BADM around 11. It was the busiest Mick and I had seen it (holiday crowd, of course), so we parked in a far-off muddy lot with a gorgeous view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Converting part of old Fort Baker into an expansive indoor/outdoor children's museum was a brilliant idea.

For the next three hours, the cousins painted, sculpted, dug for treasure, jumped on "lilly pads," dressed in career clothes, ate turkey sandwiches, and harassed seagulls.


(First six photos:)
*Kids and GG Bridge
*Barrit, Indi and Aubrey in career clothes at Berenstain Bears exhibit
*Dane building the "city" full of structures Grandad would be proud of (Barritt and Indi built these with him)
*Barritt and Indi paint and squeegee the artroom windows




*Rolling balls and stamping animal prints in the sand/wax






*Jude and blocks







*Kai pays tribute to Donnie Darko








*Running the pipes at Fort Baker







Will post more on the visit soon...