le blog d'eustache & aéma & augustin: 07/01/2008

Symphony at Dolores Park

Sunday 7/20 in Dolores Park, the SF Symphony gave a concert, led by James Gaffigan. There was a Haydn trumpet concerto with soloist Allison Balsom. Eustache had a play date in the morning with his friend Edward (at lil'sis Mary and parents Susannah and Jeffrey's house) and they join us at the park, where Aéma and I had claimed a spot while Yoriko was watching the quiche cook. The musicians of the orchestra came out and let the kids look at their instruments and let them blow in the cornet and the French horn and play with the cello and violin.

North Beach Play Ground

At the North Beach community center

Cheerleader training: the human pyramid

Augustin & Aéma in the Kitchen.

Still, 7/13/2008.

Eustache, Photographer.

Eustache will take pictures of your parties, weddings, bar mitzvahs, birthdays. 7/13/2008.

Happy Augustin.

Augustin's First Solid Meal

Well, not exactly solid, more like pureed. 7/13/2008

4th of July Camping Trip.

After Lemos Farm and HMB parade, Eustache and Aéma took off with their daddy for some camping at New Melones Lake. We were at the Glory Hole campground. Quite a busy 4th of July.

Our camp site was the last one available upon reservation, but turned out to be quite scenic. Lake water level was pretty low though, California is not out of the drought.

Eustache and Aéma had no trouble sleeping. Plus, we had a new tent with more leg room!

We tried to go swimming in the lake, but the swim beach area was closed, since the slow sloped area to swim in was not under water. It did not seem safe to swim at Osprey Point, despite the ranger's recommendation, so we just took the pictures and left. Upper left picture is the Glory Hole marina & boat launch.

Actually, we saw a herd of deer swimming across the lake! At least six of them. Can you imagine the water skier explaining how he got hurt? "I hit a deer."

So we decided to swim at the Calaveras Big Trees State Park, a beautiful park up highway 4 after Arnold. We swam in the Beaver Creek. Eustache took the picture of Aéma and myself.

Then we did the South Grove hike, which led us among humongous trees to the Palace Hotel tree. Click on the collage and try to find the human reference (aka. Eustache) to see how big these trees are.

Then we dipped our legs in the Stanislaus river.

We had dinner in Murphys at the Murphys Grille, which we'll recommend, in a no-nonsensical kind of way. The day after, Sunday, we first went to the Moaning Cavern. Aéma got a big claustrophobic going down the steel spiral staircase, but she and Eustache enjoyed the speleologist helmet.

There were gold rush themed activities outside of the cave, and we dipped our toes in the river in Angels Camp, right across from the fire station. Angels Camp is a cute little city, where we had a bbq lunch at Utica Park before driving back home.

All the driving was done with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret read to us on audio CDs, which is a good way to keep Eustache quiet during the drive (3 hours with the holiday traffic, a bit faster otherwise).

Half-Moon Bay Independence Day Parade.

Click to enlarge. We had a nice meal on main st in some bakery after the parade. We also did our usual shopping at the Ink Spell bookstore, which the kids love for the toys area. Augustin got to ride his pony too!

4th of July means... Lemos Farm!

It's the 3rd year in a row we do that. As long as the kids are less than 65lb, we can go back!

So we went down to Half-Moon Bay, first to Lemos Farm.

Eustache fed the goats. Aéma was shy.

This year, both Eustache and Aéma got to ride a pony. This is where the 65lb threshold kicks in.

Then the trip on the choo-choo train.

And onwards to the Half-Moon Bay 4th of July Parade.

Elias's Birthday

Elias turned 4 and celebrates at Precita park. It's Elias cutting the cake (with mom Joanna), and Simone hanging upside down, friends of Eustache from school.

6/29/08.

Japan Airlines Training Center in Napa.

Japan Airlines has a training center at Napa County Airport. They pick this place so that there pilot could learn English, and fly more in the better Napa weather, and the real estate was cheaper than Japan to build a school and fly planes. Also, the airport is pretty quiet, except on Friday evenings, when the private jets come in to deliver their load to spend the week-end in Napa.

Japan Airlines invited the Keio Alumni Association of the Bay Area to visit the center on June 28th 2008. First, playing outside of the center, waiting for the visit to start (Napa County Airport was closer to home than expected!)