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Showing posts with label East Bay Vivarium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label East Bay Vivarium. Show all posts

Friday, 30 January 2015

52 Weeks: Week 4

Week 4: Cookie

This week has been a quiet one for our family. All three girls have been sick with a nasty bug so we've been pretty much housebound all week. No swim classes, no playgrounds, days off school... I'm sure the girls don't mind that last one!

With three snotty noses, three pairs of bleary, red eyes and three tired little bodies I didn't think I'd have any photos to share this week. But then the girls decided to build a Duplo fort for Ava's pet gecko Cookie and I knew I had to share it.


Cookie was Ava's birthday present last year. With her birthday coming up next week that means Cookie has been living with us for pretty much a whole year now. He has definitely grown a lot in that time. You can see how little he was when we first got him here.

Monday, 21 July 2014

A Berkeley Staycation

With ten and a half weeks of Summer vacation to fill each year I'm always on the lookout for ideas to keep the kids occupied. With San Francisco so close (I can literally see the city out my lounge room windows) we tend to find ourselves crossing the Bay on a regular basis to explore the city.

The kids and I absolutely love San Francisco and enjoy spending time there but sometimes it's nice to stay a little closer to home. This got me thinking about all of the fun things that we can do right here in Berkeley. Our little city is full to the brim with a wide variety of fun activities and adventures for the kids.

So instead of hopping on BART and heading across (or rather, under) the bay to San Francisco, let's spend a little time here exploring our own backyard with a Berkeley staycation.

To make it feel more like a vacation, I've come up with a five day itinerary for the kids and I. Each day is filled with fun activities in one particular area of Berkeley. As we don't have a car I've tried to keep the activities relatively close to each other. Most things are within fairly easy walking distance (or bus distance) of Downtown Berkeley.


Day 1: Gourmet Ghetto, Live Oak Park & Indian Rock Park

Yes, you read that correctly. Berkeley has a neighborhood called the Gourmet Ghetto! I've always found this name a little odd, but as you can probably guess it's a neighborhood filled with fine cuisine. One of California's most famous restaurants, Alice Water's Chez Panisse, is located here along with many other well known establishments including Cheeseboard and the first ever Peet's CoffeeChez Panisse may be a little out of our family's dining league but Cheeseboard fits us perfectly. In fact, because it's right around the corner from Ava's school we go there almost every day!

Start the day with a late breakfast or brunch at one of the Gourmet Ghetto's many cafes. We quite like Saul's Delicatessen. Then head to Cheeseboard to stock up on sourdough goodies for lunch. Our favourites are bialys, asiago schticks, zampanos and brioches. And don't forget the cheese!

Sunday, 9 February 2014

A Reptile Birthday Party

Yesterday was the big day that we've been looking forward to for weeks: Ava's 7th birthday party!

After petsitting her class gecko over the Christmas break (which you can see here), Ava has been a little obsessed with reptiles. When she found out that our local reptile store, East Bay Vivarium, has a traveling reptile show that can come to birthday parties she knew exactly what she wanted to do for her party.

So a reptile themed party it was!

As well as the reptile show we had a reptile themed birthday cake, reptile themed party bags, gummy snakes and frogs, pass the parcel with a reptile prize in the middle and "pin the tail on the lizard".

Cute reptile cake
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