A Slight Distraction

If you've been trying to keep up with my trip, you might have noticed a "momentary" lapse in posts. (If you're looking back now, you won't see it, as I date my posts to the time they occurred, to keep things in order.) These past few weeks have been scatter shot with illness, jet lag recovery, and other distractions.

My primary distraction? My decision to open an Etsy shop. You may have seen my post on Facebook about it. I decided to turn the journal pages I created for Kai, for our roadtrip - you can see videos of it here. And here are some photos of my finished products:

This is way out of my comfort zone, but I decided to give it a try. I've enjoyed making pages for my own journal and I had a great time creating these pages for Kai. If you want to look at what I've got, check out my shop - PuzzlePrintables.

If you're interested in a customized page for a trip, like the page I made for Kai's book with a map and weather, contact me through Etsy, by email, or on Facebook.

Sunnyvale, CA - all the parks

Before our trip, I had made a list of possible activities surrounding the area where we were staying. But other than our two trips into San Francisco, we only visited public parks. The girls enjoyed playing in the parks so much, though!

At this park, Daniella insisted she could use the "big girl" swing. With Court keeping a close eye on her, Daniella did indeed manage to stay in the big kid swing. Both girls had such a good time!

Kai insisted that I take this picture of her on the elephant.

And I got this picture of Daniella when she wasn't looking:

We had a really good time exploring the parks in Sunnyvale and the surrounding area. The only complaint I had was finding parking at some of the parks. But a large part of that problem was that the GPS would not necessarily take us to the parking lot at each park.

Pier 39

For our second venture into San Francisco, we were headed to Pier 39. After our usual morning routine, we set out. This time, we had packed all the activities for the girls - binders, journal, and magnets. Court lamented that the girls may expect activities every time they get in the car from now on, which might be a hassle. We also checked Waze, but that proved unnecessary. We made the trip in about half the time.

Arriving near Pier 39, we found a parking lot that was $30 for three hours or $40 for all day. Parking the day before, near the Exploratorium had been $25 - it would have been $20 if we'd gotten our Exploratorium tickets in advance. Uncertain how long we were going to stay, we opted for the all day option.

Pier 39 was not as kid friendly as the Exploratorium, which is designed with children in mind, but we still had a good time. The highlight was seeing the sea lions. I got a picture of Court and the girls:

We also stopped to watch a street performer. If you asked Daniella about her favorite part of the day, she would say it was watching the man eat fire. The street performer did eat fire, but I don't think the little one even watched this part of the show. I stood with Kai, who was fascinated by the entire show, while Court chased Daniella in and out of the surrounding shops.

We got lunch on the pier. Court and I got clam chowder in bread bowls, which was our main goal for the day. We wandered into some shops, but we didn't find the perfect souvenirs for the girls.

The girls really wanted to ride the carousel, so we made our way there. It was $5 per person or $10 for three. We tried to get the 3 for $10 deal, but we couldn't make the machine work. So we paid $15. Then, somehow, I ended up on the carousel with the girls. Kai found something to ride and I stood next to Daniella on another moving animal.

Do you know how well I do on spinning rides? I won't even ride the teacups with Kai at Disneyland. The last time we went, I made myself sick just trying to take pictures of Court and Kai on the teacups. So why was I on this carousel? I don't know. I held onto Daniella and hoped for the best. We made it through and I took a few minutes to recover.

We went on to a cookie dough store that Court had read about. I couldn't find ingredients, but I didn't really feel like eating after the carousel anyway. So I skipped on the raw, edible cookie dough. The girls seemed to enjoy it, but it was sugar. From Court's comments, I'm glad I skipped it.

Exploratorium

One of the things I knew I wanted to do in San Francisco was visit the Exploratorium. I had gone with Craig on an earlier trip and I was dying to take the girls. So after a quick breakfast at the hotel, we all got in the car and went to the doctor's office. While Court was there, I took the girls run an errand at the bank. We picked Court up and were on our way!

For Kai, we brought both her binder and her journal, because she had enjoyed them both during the long road trip. For Daniella, we brought the magnets, because she had enjoyed them. But, of course, on this trip, Daniella wanted her binder, which we hadn't brought. We vowed to bring it on our next trip.

The really unfortunate part about this trip was that we did not use Waze to map our route. We relied on the car's navigation. Ordinarily, this might not have been a problem. But neither of us knew that it was the Giant's opening day and that our route would take us past the Giant's stadium. So that added an extra hour to our drive.

We got parked and went inside. Because it had taken so long to get there, we had to get lunch before we could do much of anything. There wasn't much around, so we ate there. It was overpriced and not that great. But then we were off exploring all the hands on exhibits.

Both girls enjoyed all the optical illusions and mirror displays. I think Court and I enjoyed the auditory exhibits more than either of the girls. Or maybe they just couldn't appreciate it because they could actually hear everything. One of the activities was basically a self-administered hearing test. I was able to hear the least of any of us - possibly because of all the ear problems I had on my trip.

Daniella finally fell asleep in the stroller, leaving Kai and I free to explore more of the museum. Kai found the magnetic sand and played there for a very long time. When Daniella woke up, we had time for a few more exhibits before it was time to go.

But before we could go, I wanted to see if the girls would try to recreate this picture I had taken of Craig at the Exploratorium:

Kai was initially very suspicious. But she finally agreed to pretend to drink for my photo. In the process, she got the water on her face and discovered that it was perfectly good drinking water.

Twister

Despite staying up late talking, I woke up at 4:00 in the morning. I eventually went back to bed, but I was unable to fall asleep. When the girls woke up at 7:30, Court got up and turned off the monitor thinking she would let me sleep. But I was still awake, so we all got up and made our way to breakfast. The breakfast included with the hotel was very nice, actually.

Court had her first appointment that morning, but I elected to stay at the hotel with the girls. The doctor's office was only a few miles away, but honestly, I was nearly as tired of being in the car as the girls were. The hotel had a basketball court, where the girls and I played for an incredibly long time. We played tag, Simon Says, Follow the Leader, Lava Monster, and Twister. In this picture, Kai is running at a Simon Says command, which Daniella has decided to join in on.

If you're wondering how you play Twister on a basketball court, let me explain. There were two white lines painted on the green court. I could call out something like "left foot on white" or "both feet on green" and Kai would arrange herself accordingly. I added things like "left hand on right knee" or "both hands on your head" for variety. Finally, Daniella reached the end of her patience with us. I gave my last call to Kai, "put your left foot on your head". She nearly fell over laughing at the impracticality of this.

Later that night, in the hotel room, Kai discovered that she could put her foot on her head! We played additional games of Twister in the living room, using the sofa, chair and floor as markers. Kai even made a Twister "board" out of the memo paper in the hotel, with different drawings on each page. I did manage to get a picture of this version of the game:

Road Trip!

I woke up early, even after staying up way too late the night before. But I still needed to pack! And I had so many other little tasks around the house to complete. I managed to get most everything done before Court and family arrived.

We had a quick egg hunt for the girls, but Daniella wasn't really that interested in finding the eggs. She found a couple before settling on the sofa to eat the goldfish out of a few eggs. From there, she dictated where Kai should find more eggs.

Court and I quickly packed the car. We managed to wedge our bags around the stroller in the back. We had a bag full of activities for the girls in the back, where Kai could reach it. We also had a bag full of snacks for the trip, which Court had prepared ahead of time.

The road trip went about as you might expect, with two young girls. Kai seemed to enjoy both the binder and the journal I had made for her, keeping herself entertained fairly well. Both girls enjoyed the magnets I had picked up on a whim, with the cookie sheets Court had picked up at the last minute for them. I had read about this on Pinterest, but hadn't had time to find the cookie sheets - I'm so glad Court found the time, because this was the one thing the little one seemed to enjoy.

We put off stopping for lunch a bit too long, which caused a minor melt down in the back. Then, Court and I struggled to actually find a place to stop. We missed the first place because we didn't see signs for food until after we had passed the exit. Finally, we found a place to stop for a quick lunch and fuel. It was here that I finally managed to take a picture:

Post-melt-down, Daniella has the iPad. Kai is
still enjoying her journal and binder.

Although that last 26 miles was a little rough (did I mention that it was 26 miles from the place we missed to the next exit?), the girls did recover a bit with lunch and we got back on the road. In the end, I'm probably glad that we had lunch so late because the remainder of our drive felt so short!

We arrived at the hotel and got checked in. We had a two bedroom suite. The only obnoxious thing about it was that both bathrooms were ensuite. And really, when that's your main complaint, things aren't so bad. From left to right in this picture: the open doors lead to the bedroom I slept in; the next door is to the outside; behind the desk is the door to the other bedroom; beyond that is the small kitchen. The only eating area is two barstools at a small counter.

The hotel staff brought a crib for Daniella, but it was a very small crib. We called to have it removed, but we were told to leave it outside because the housekeeping staff had gone home. A picture Court took of Daniella in the crib:

Rather hilariously, this picture showed up in my TimeHop, proving that this is a bad day for this family and beds:

We drove to Panera for dinner. Then we went to a Target we had passed on the way, hoping to pick up a Pack N Play to replace the crib. But Target was closed for Easter. So we had to drive across town to a Walmart, which was very busy, probably because so many places were closed for the holiday. By this time, the girls were very done with being in the car.

We got back to the hotel, set up the Pack N Play, put the girls to bed, and collapsed on the sofa. Court and I stayed up far to late talking. My jet lag probably didn't help.

A Few Hours at Home

I only had a few hours at home before we would leave on our road trip. But I had plenty to do to occupy the time. First, I had to deal with the mail that had collected in our absence. Luckily, we've had someone bringing the mail in for us and sorting it a bit. If you look closely at this picture, you'll also see that Court had stopped by the house and set up the Easter Egg Hunt for the next morning.

Next, I decided that I would deal with the slight disaster left from the last minute installation of bookshelves in our bedroom. I moved the books onto the shelves and emptied our old night stands into the new drawers. I can't say that anything is particularly organized, but at least it isn't on the floor.

Finally, my big project before leaving on our road trip was putting together Kai's travel journal. I took a short video of it.

I had also made a version for Court, as a surprise for her:

I had ordered dinner in, thinking that waiting for my food would help me stay awake. I eventually ate dinner and worked my way through the DVR, clearing a few shows. I laid out my clothes for our road trip and started putting together the things that I will take back to Abu Dhabi. Unfortunately, somewhere in there, I got a second wind and had trouble going to bed. I finally got to bed sometime after midnight.

Road Trip Prep - Kai's Activity Pages

In addition to the bullet journal like travel journal I was making for Kai, I wanted to include some activity pages. I spent a couple days scouring Pinterest for printables. I found some dot-to-dot puzzles, including a crazy symbol style dot-to-dot, which I've also printed out for myself and Court. I found a set of alphabet mazes. I also found a variety of logic puzzles, which were my favorite as a kid. And I found different versions of road trip bingo and road trip scavenger hunts.

But I wanted to make a few pages of my own, of course. I love puzzles, so that was my basic theme for these pages. I had seen some A to Z bullet journal spreads and decided to use that as my starting point for this A to Z: About Me puzzle.

I made another page that was inspired by the sort of "introduce yourself" pages that you complete at the start of the school year.

Continuing on that theme, I made another page that focused just on "favorites".

Finally, I made another puzzle with larger pieces that can be filled out with information about the people in her family.

After all the work I put into these pages, I decided that I would like to duplicate all this for my little brother's girls. I only had to make a five-piece family puzzle, because he has three girls. I don't think it's quite as picturesque, but the pieces would fit together if they were cut out.

As an added bonus, I have another project for when I get home! Making two more journals to send to my brother!

Road Trip Prep - Kai's Travel Journal

At the first of April, I'm going back to California to take a road trip with Court and her girls. I'd made the girls binders for this trip, which you can read about here. But in my last week in Abu Dhabi, I was focussing on a second, computer-based project. I wanted to make a journal / activity book for Kai.

I've always kept a travel journal. I started with spiral bound notebooks and bound journals, but none of those stuck around. After law school, I found that I loved using notebook sized legal pads - special bonus if they were punched for a three ring binder. (Most of the pages are tucked into the back of photo albums from those early trips, or stashed in file folders in a box of memories from childhood.) I've kept journals in computer files and you could say I keep a travel journal here.

But two years ago, I decided I wanted to try something else. I kept seeing bullet journals on Pinterest, but I don't have the patience or handwriting to create the spreads I really enjoyed. But I did have a new set of Illustrator skills, thanks to my fashion classes. I'm on my second binder system (proving that I really cannot settle on a single thing), but I've kept many of my original pages. And I still love using Illustrator to create and print my pages. I wanted to create something like this for Kai.

My journal begins with a page where I record my travels for the year. I write the date of the trip and color in the state. I decided to make a more generic map for Kai, so that she could track all her trips in one place.

Every trip in my book begins with a page that describes the trip. Kai's would be no different. I always include a route map - this one shows her house, my house, and our eventual destination. At the top, I list where I am going, who is going along with me and where I will be staying. I changed the labels on hers and added a "how I will get there" field. Like I do on my own, I filled in a few things when I made the page.

In my book, I have pages that I can fill out for each day. I made two simplified versions for Kai. The first has space to draw about her day. The second has lines so she can write about what she did that day. Both have spots to show the weather, write about her favorite thing about the day, write something that she wants to tell her dad about the day, and write something she learned that day.

I remember reading road maps on trips when I was a kid. So I put together a page with an old-style road map with places to make notes.

Since we are on a road trip, I thought it might also be fun for her to think about other trips that she might like to make. In my journal, I have a version of this page where I can write notes about future trips, before I make my final journal page. This is basically a blank version of her intro page.

In my journal, I keep track of the books that I've read. I made a slightly larger version for Kai, to accommodate her larger handwriting.

Finishing out the bullet journal aspect of her journal, I made her a habit tracking page (using a list of "habits" that her mother provided).