Alameda County Fair

We went to the fair with Erik, Deanna, and the kids and had a great time. The highlight of the trip was that Katherine and Olivia both won family passes to the Monterey Bay Aquarium! We'll be making a family outing of it I'm sure.

 Ride tickets!!!

Music of the World Tent

Trains! Noah was excited that this exhibit doesn't have a thunderstorm like the one in Walnut Creek does. It always scares him.

Fun on the Footsie Wootise

(video)
Singing and dancing while listening to a band.

Jumping Cousins!

 He played with this marble run for at least 30 minutes straight. 

 It's supposed to go on your fridge door, but I think that's just asking for marbles under the fridge.

 Markus and Olivia worked on balancing all these nails on the one nail on a stand.

Fun with carnival mirrors!

 I think this one is my favorite.

 What?!

Back to the Footsie Wootsie. This time we actually put money in. Good times for just a quarter.

Petting Zoo area

 The deer had just attempted to nibble his hat.

 The coolest sink ever. Here he's washing his hands with water coming from the milk carton, the soap was under a flowerpot, and to dry your hands you stuck them in a chicken coop with a dryer in it.

Also a huge hit, the solar powered cars. You had to study a display about solar panels and take a quiz about it to be allowed to drive the race cars for free.

Fire truck

Another fire truck

Swimming Lessons

Noah took two weeks of swim lessons at the end of June. It took him a few days to warm up to his teacher, Maddie, but he did great by the end of the session. He's been asking when he goes back, so I guess we'll sign him up for another session.

Phone Pictures

Just a sampling of what goes on in life when we don't bring a camera along.

Fireman Todd can color.

He's very talented.

Noah's been taking swimming lessons. Somewhere, we have more pictures of this.

Noah has also been doing some zoo duties lately. Here he is going with Victor to pick up some salamanders in the ZooMobile.

Shark towel

Of all the toys he could choose, he picked the cleaning set.

Cooling off on a hot day.

PBJ fish in a sea of blueberries with crunchy green bean seaweed.

Pastor Kerstin got married. She wanted to take a picture with Noah. He just wanted cake. He was concerned that she couldn't see because she wasn't wearing her glasses (she was wearing contacts instead).

Ice cream stop on a bike ride!

Olivia needed to go to the dentist and Noah came along. He sat for an hour being a perfect child and the dentist rewarded him with a sticker and some wind up teeth.

Noah's First Necropsy

I didn't see a line in the baby book for this, so this milestone should go on the blog. The vet staff at The Marine Mammal Center was doing a rare Sunday night necropsy and Noah wanted to check it out. A Northern Elephant Seal pup and a California Sea Lion are both on the table. Noah was not afraid at all and it was perfect timing because we've been talking a lot about bones and different organs lately. 

Life...