We had another good day at Golden Gate Park
Our morning routine was a little off in the morning. I had a call at 7, and I usually wake Bella up at 6:50 when this happens so there’s time to get her up and her material is usually laid out and ready. This time she didn’t wake up. I tried two more times, but no deal, and I ran out of time, so she just kept sleeping and missed her ELA class online. I thought that would be a problem, but it actually wasn’t. When she did wake up, she just got started on what she could, logged in late and followed along, then caught up quick through the rest of the morning, and was pretty much done by around lunch time. There were also a few sheets I needed to print, which I didn’t have time to do until late morning, but she did great, didn’t freak out, just did what was ready, and when I printed the sheets, she got right into it and got it done. It was awesome. I love those days. There was one episode of trouble, when I was doing some work and Carol was helping Bella while also making lunch, Bella was not listening well and Carol was frustrated and just yelled at her.
Bella then just went into her bunk and close the curtains. She stayed there for some time without anyone going there. Eventually, I had a break and Carol had left to get the laundry, so I went to talk to Bella. She had built a “wall” with pillows and sheets and divided her bunk in half, and was behind the wall. hahahah… I talked to her, and she was upset that she got yelled at, but we talked about how it happened and she was out of there in a great mood pretty soon after that, so maybe she had a 30 minute window of not so great, but recovered extremely well. 🙂
Bia did her usual, got things done quite quickly, and had a good amount of spare time at the end of the morning, so we had her reading her book. She loves reading, so she just chewed up another book.
Carol was determined to get out of the “house” today by 1pm to go to Golden Gate Park again and stay there longer, picnic, etc., so she even got up a bit earlier than usual. She wanted to make lunch, so there was some extra stuff to take along. She went grocery shopping mid morning, and even took Bia along since she was done. They got supplies for lunch, and also for our picnic later.
Carol decided to make empanadas, all by hand. She made the filling and the dough, rolled them all, then I got the grill ready and she baked them there.
While doing all of that, she had also gone to the store to get supplies, and did a load of laundry. Then after we ate, she prepared the cooler and bag with our picnic supplies. We actually got to the park by 2pm, which was pretty good.
Bella wanted to make her own empanadas as well, so she rolled the dough, filled them and we bake them later.
She loves empanadas!
I had a work call right away at 7am, and had a lot of stuff to do (still do). I had done a ton of website work yesterday, and made one mistake this morning before my call, which cause a website to break. Crap! We had to restore the site to yesterday, and lose all the changes I made. Fortunately, I had copied all the text I used to a word file and was able to redo everything within a couple of hours. But, that was a couple of hours I needed for other stuff. I have a lot of writing to do for a client, and was behind of posts. Once I was done getting the site where it needed to be, I got working on a little bit of each hahaha.. Got a post written, got a page on my report written, then posted a post from a week ago, then wrote another page for the report… and so on.. until we were ready to eat, then ready to leave. It’s a bit tough to be constantly interrupted, but it’s what we have to deal with in a small space. When we were done with lunch and the bags were ready, I got ready, packed everything into the truck, and moved the girls along. And off we went to Golden Gate Park.
The plan was to go to the same playground as we had gone yesterday, so as we drove there, we passed the Japanese Tea Garden, and Carol decided we should stop there. We were able to park pretty close, the park was not full at all, with lots of parking spaces available pretty much anywhere. We all got out, and Carol brought Maggie along. As we walked towards the gate we saw the sign with the prices, that’s the first “hold it” for Carol, it was not too bad at $11 per adult and $3 per kid, so after some thinking, Carol decided to go for it, so we walked in. As we were at the paying booth they saw Maggie and said no Dogs were allowed, even if in bags or being held, so we back tracked and did not go in.
We walked around that area instead. We were right by the Ferris wheel, so we just walked towards that and enjoyed that park in front of it. It’s a super cool area. The trees are crazy looking, very knotty, almost look like miniature versions of the big trees that attacked Harry Potter in one of the movies. Hahahahah….
There are some fountains in that area of the park as well, and it looks like the buildings may hold music related events. We started walking back and as we got closer to the truck, Carol decided she wanted to go to the Japanese Tea Garden by herself and so I took the girls and Maggie to the playground.
The girls were anxious to hit the playground, and when we got there they almost just ran out of the truck hahaha… but first, Bia wanted to grab a snack, so I got a chair out of the bed of the truck, and a snack for her. We left Maggie in the truck for now since they don’t allow dogs in the playground. I found a spot near where we were yesterday, set the chair and just hung out there while the kids played. I almost didn’t see them for like an hour, meaning, I could see them, but they didn’t come back to where I was. Carol was actually back sooner than I expected. I guess the Japanese Tea Garden was not all she expected, and she said it’s not even close to the one downtown Sydney (Australia). With Carol back, it was my turn to go for a run. I came ready, with my running shorts, running shoes and all.
I had a nice 4.5 mile run through the park, was able to see a good amount of the park and it is very nice.
Lots of big trees, lots of open fields, quite a few different buildings where they have arts expositions, music events, etc. The park is quite big.
I passed a water fall area that was to the right of where I was running, and the water ran towards the ocean area… the sidewalk eventually went down a steep hill while the water that was running next to it stayed on a path that seemed to go uphill… it was pretty crazy, the effect of the sidewalk going down steep and the water likely running just straight, maybe a very slight up on the ground made it look like the water ran up.
I saw a few kids doing soccer drills as well. Lots of runners, people biking, with skateboards, and roller skates. It was not too busy, but had enough people to see different things. Most people had masks on while running or biking, or at least had the mask on their face and would cover their faces when getting close to others. I did see a couple of people with no masks at all… TURDS! Anyway, I had a good run and got some nice views of the park.
When I got back it was almost 5pm and it was getting dark. The sky was looking awesome. The girls played a little more, Bia eventually went down the slide and loved it. As it got dark, we left the park.
From there, we stopped at a store that Carol had researched and knew they’d have these shoes with wheels that Bella wanted for her birthday. I stayed in the truck and they went to the store. They came back in about 20 minutes with a box… Bella was super excited and doing her happy dance. hahahaha.. Carol got her the shoes, they are “Heelys” hahaha. Now she has to wait until Sunday. She’s counting the days, more than once a day. The new stopped at Safeway for some groceries and went back home.
Dinner was leftovers and sandwiches, it was quite late already, so we focused on eating quick, and getting the girls ready for bed. They read for some time and we got them to bed around 8:30. I did some more work, I got a lot piled up now, so am a bit behind.
It was a nice day at the park.