Weekend Fun - June 5th & 6th

My pregnancy hormones kicked my ass on Saturday, June 5th. Fireball 2 was making me positively miserable. I was puking, my body was achy, and I was totally drained. Not only did I miss our very good friends' joint graduation barbeque, but I also ended up missing the "Debutante Cotillion" that SFSI throws for the new grads.

Bummer.

I didn't see any pictures posted for the cotillion and I can't post them anyway. However, here are a few pics that John took of the cubs at E and T's grad BBQ.

Boo wants to be a skater...

Niki having a blast

Kevie :)

Nikiface

Boo "Shooting" his Daddy...

Kevin saying "Peace"

By Sunday I was in desperate need of fresh air. I stayed in bed all day on Saturday and you could see the paleness in my skin.  I still wasn't feeling 100% up to par, but if I didn't get off my ass then it would have taken even longer for me to recuperate. It's hard to coordinate a last minute family outing so John and I decided to keep our trip as local and low key  as possible. I read about Tilden Park on the San Francisco Chronicle's baby blog -- The Poop. After reading more reviews on Yelp, we decided to check it out. 

Tilden Park is hidden in the nooks and crannies of the Berkeley Hills. The drive was confusing even with the almighty GPS to guide us. Parking was decent, but I wouldn't say it was worth the walk to get to the Little Farm. Don't get me wrong, the farm was adorable, but the cubs got bored very quickly. To my surprise, the farm was pretty clean. We fed the animals some lettuce, took a quick peek at the educational center, played at the mini play structure, and that was it. The place isn't exactly a petting zoo so we called it quits in less than an hour.

Frankly, I called it quits the minute I smelled the farm animal shit.

Boo looks like how I felt that day -- totally blah.

Tilden Park also has a carousel and steam train among other things. However, the downside is that the various attractions are all located in different areas of the park. That means that you have to drive and find parking all over again. John and I decided to skip the carousel because parking was absolutely wretched.  The steam trains are located on the complete opposite side of the park. Maybe it was because we didn't know any shortcuts, but it took 10 minutes to drive to the steam trains from the Little Farm.

It's a nice scenic drive, but I wasn't very impressed. The uphill drive made my stomach lurch on multiple occasions. Fireball 2 has also made me a little grumpy so take my review with a grain of salt.

 

The steam train area is really cute. Boo is in love with trains so he was thrilled when he saw the station. The train rides are super cheap and the wait wasn't long at all. The ride itself is about 15 minutes and the kids had a blast the entire time. Before we went home, we stopped off at Wienerschnitzel in Alameda for some of their awesomely "derlicious" chili cheese dogs. Niki devoured an entire corn dog and fell fast asleep. Kev got car sick and puked everywhere. And Boo whined about the puke smell the entire ride home. Kids, gotta love them! (Thank goodness my SILs were with us. They helped clean up Kev while were stuck in traffic.)

All in all, I would definitely visit Tilden Park again, but I'd save it for a weekday when parking would be presumably better.