| We had a joint sleep-over with Casey and Venice - went well, and both had a marvelous time. Casey got into finger painting, and shed his aversion to "getting dirty" and had a ball, at least this time. We visited Lawrence Hall of Science with this three-some, and Venice got her first taste of this magnificent hall dedicated to science - ok, it was more fun and games for both, but they had a delicious time in the walk-thru maze. AND, Nana and Geepa made their quarterly visit, and Casey assisted Geepa in putting together a Radio Flyer wagon - big brother Casey then took Teiya on the maiden voyage to the corner christening the wagon...! Then mid-month the Berkeley and Alameda clans made a vacation-exploratory pilgrimage to Oregon to check out possibilities for a mass move of the Northern California Nagai-Beyer-Bailey families to that state....We started out on a Monday morning with a tour of the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, where the temperature was 105 F...!!! |
We then trekked north on Hwy 5 to Redding for a lunch stop where the thermometer topped out at 110 F...!!! - A local denizen said it was supposed to be 120 F the next day. Farther north we made an afternoon stop in Shasta City and made an informal tour of a fish hatchery where Casey and Teiya took in the varying-sized fish in their tank-troughs. We stopped for one night in Ashland, and then on to Eugene, where we promptly got lost just getting to our hotel. Granny and Jiichan stood child-care watch part of the time while Tori and Paul made a thorough grid-search of the Eugene/Springfield area - we took in a couple of parks, and this one was a magnificent tribute to the ingenuity and commitment of local city fathers and mothers - WOW, what a park. Casey and Jiichan took in the Science Factory, a modest science education program where Casey went bonkers over 2 gravity kinetic exhibits. We ended the northern tour with a partial day in Rocklin visiting Casey's cousins, Venice and Xander... |
