Tricycling the bay, Gator Golf at the mall, and Gymbo!

The past few weeks have been pretty chaotic in the non-kid areas of life.  The whole house was very sick, I presented at a conference, had standard work write-ups, and I also put in a few hats to sell at the local consignment store. Busy busy!

This week, though, is very nice and relaxed :) So time to catch up on what's been going on!

First, we've been trying to do weekly playdates with another family from Blue's school. The first week, we met up at Mission Bay. The girls played on the play structures and then rode on the bikepath for awhile with their tricycle and scooter. Mission Bay is such a great place to spend the afternoon with the kids - numerous open grass areas, playgrounds, and of course the actual bay. It's also great for kite-flying. But, the bay is windy and cool. With the time change and falling temperatures, it was just too chilly and dark to resume the playdates there in the late afternoon. So our weekly play-dates moved to the friend's house, where the girls played while the moms crocheted. :)

We've also been doing more walking to the mall. It's only a city block away from us, and there is a nice walkway that avoids all the main streets.  The weather has been cooler at night (low to mid 60s in the evening) which makes the walk so much more pleasant than the heat we had been experiencing. Jackets, cool air, and getting to watch the leaves fall - it's nice! We even stopped at Starbucks the one evening and picked up a cakepop for Blue - who has only had them a few times. She took one bite and declared she was done lol

The mall has also been renovated this year and has a new playground as well as putting greens! So it's nice to walk down there just to windowshop and enjoy some of those amenities. We even brought our Gator Golf clubs the last time we went :) 

Finally, we enrolled Baby Bear in Gymboree! Blue started Gymboree when she was about 10 months old and just loved it. Aside from all the developmental benefits and small things like taking turns, transitioning activities, and sharing - it is just a great one-on-one thing to do with them. Our Gymboree offers "Open Gym" (free play) six days a week, which really maximize the value you get for the cost.

Baby Bear LOVES Gymboree! And we are so very glad we enrolled her. It's nice to have something to do with just us and her while Blue is at school. We do gymnastics with Blue and now Gymboree with Baby Bear. I think it's nice to have that dedicated time with each, though of course we could do it in other ways as well.