Thursday, August 18, 2011

Adventures in Outside Lands



Outside Lands comes and goes and we always think how fun it would be to go but ultimately never pull it together. Go figure, that this year, the year that we have a small child to take care of, we got free tickets for one day at Outside Lands!  Of course, we didn’t want to pass it up! 

But, oh yeah, we have a 7 ½ month old baby.  Who we’ve never got a real babysitter for.  And it’s gonna be a late night.

Time to call in the reserves!  Lucky for us, we have amazing friends that jump at the chance to practice their baby raising skills on our little guy.  {We try not to use and abuse our friends for this kind of situation.} So now that Cubbie is all set to spend the evening with his Aunties and Uncles….

Let the adventure begin!!

We’ve always heard parking for this event can be a real pain in the butt .  SF doesn’t exactly boast a plethora of parking in the first place.  But we decided to drive and park on a familiar street about a mile from Golden Gate Park {the venue}.  We found a parking spot insanely fast but there was an hour limit, until 6pm.  Okay, it’s 5:50pm.  Let’s walk around for 10 mins, come back to the car, and fill up the meter.  Check.  Good to go.

The *mile* to Golden Gate park seemed like a lot longer than that, and by longer, I mean it took half an hour to walk!  When was the last time it took you half an hour to walk a mile?  Yeah, it was waaaay more than a mile.  We trucked our way through the “panhandle” and were filled with joy to see a sign welcoming us to Outside Lands with an arrow pointing straight ahead!  We’ve made it!  However, we’ve seen soooo many parking spaces right at the entrance to Golden Gate Park. 

WTF?! 

Why didn’t we try to park here first?  FF a few steps and we see another sign informing us that the box office was just a mere 30min walk….further! This is where we stopped to make a crucial decision, weighing our assumptions: 

1 hour in ≤ 1 hour out.  MUSE closes at 10pm + 2 hour walk to the car {additional hour for extra crowds, confusion, darkness, and finding our way back} + 1 hour drive back to San Jose.  Uhh….our poor friends.  We’ve already asked enough of them and I promised we’d be back around 11pm! 

The other option;  walk back {30 mins}, get the car, drive the car to the park and park closer, but not too close so as to get stuck in the masses, and walk another 30 mins in to the venue.  We went with the latter. 

About this time, I was getting grumpy, as I do. So we threw in Option C. Option C was a clause to address the particular case in which we retrieved the car, but could not find closer parking.  Option C allowed us to forego Outside Lands entirely, find a restaurant, and enjoy a nice dinner a la San Francisco before heading home.  Luckily, we did not have to resort to Option C because there was PLENTY of parking inside the park by the time we drove back.  So much parking that we wondered if it was really okay for us to park here.  But we decided to take our chances.

As we’re getting out of the car, a young {and super high} man stopped to ask us if this was the way to Outside Lands.  When we gave a vigorous “Yes!”, he proceeded to tell us the story of his own adventure in getting to the festival.  He was on a bus with his friends and had almost reached the venue when he realized he had forgotten his ticket!  He ran all around town trying to find a computer to print his tickets out on.  Oh man, his troubles and tribulations had been much greater than ours, and yet, he was just as happy as can be that he had made it, with his box of 30 glo-sticks in hand. Then we watched and he ran the rest of the way to the gate....which was a long way. This man shone a little light on our day and we shed any negative feelings about our long walk back and forth through SF.  At least it was a beautiful day, and now I can eat anything I want at the concert because I burned enough calories for a feast!

A 30 min walk to the box office was like, extremely optimistic.  We finally made it in {after wading through many a strange folk camped out along the way}, just in time to hear the last song played by The Black Keys while we grubbed on some samosas and chicken tikka masala from the food court.  Then we had about half an hour until Muse started.   We went to find ourselves a nice spot where we both would be able to see at least a little bit of the stage, and if not the stage, at least the big screens.  We probably should have brought a grungier blanket.  I felt kind of bad putting our nice knitted one on the ground.  O-well.

After getting situated, we got a few minutes to take it all in, and we thought what a fun time it would be to actually get to spend the whole day here.  There were all kinds of booths filled with free activities and freelance artists selling headbands and knitted beanies and face painting {sorry, we need to get better about taking pictures....maybe if we had iPhones like the rest of the world}. Of course, we missed out on all of that.  Maybe next time.

Then Muse hit the stage. They didn’t disappoint.  Although I wish that they had some new songs to play.  I can’t say it beat the first time we saw them {probably nothing ever will}, but at least I didn’t get beer or wine spilled on me.  I must be getting old because when I go to a concert, I don't want to come out drenched in other peoples' sweat and beverages.  Anyway, they still rocked.  And I’m pretty sure that Taylor Swift CD in my car {or wait, is it Rock-a-By Baby} will have to move over for one of my Muse mixes!  Rogér will be happy about that.

It took us a ridiculous amount of time to walk back to the car, even though we parked relatively close, and we got back later than we expected.  SORRY!  I feel so bad for extending the “sitters’” watch.  I really do.  Not our intentions at all.  We owe our friends big time, and I’m sure they’ll be calling on us when they have kiddos of their own.  Of course, we’ll graciously offer our help when they need it!

You know, I think we'll hit up Outside Lands again when we have a little bit older kids.  We'll slap some noise reducing headphones on them and make a big day of it.  I also have to point out, that it was our first time truely in Golden Gate Park, and it is so beautiful!!  We have got to go back to experience just the park itself one of these days.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Eten! Eten! Eten

Cubbie LOVES to eat.

Pretty much anything {except carrots}

He's grubbin' it up!

I was really looking forward to making Rowan's food from scratch {not knocking the prepackaged stuff.  We rely on it sometimes as well, but I really really thought making baby food would be fun}

*not cupcakes*

I use our Mini Cuisinart Chopper to puree all kinds of goodness, including:

-Zucchini
-Beets
-Lentils
-Peas
-Squash
-Yams
-Spinach
-Apricots

Almost anything goes!  And it is fun.  But kinda messy.

I pour it into silicone baking cups,

 Freeze,

Then  store in double Ziplock freezer bags.

Ready to warm up and eat whenever someone's tummy needs a fillin' 

 Yumm-may!

 And for his daycare snacks, I just fill up cleaned and reused baby food jars.

Of course, this kind of food won't last like the stuff you buy in the stores {no preservatives and no canning process}...so I keep track by writing the date on the inner ziplock bags.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Under-Cabinet Lighting

And have under-cabinet lighting!!  Woohoo!

That's something to get excited about!  Since the kitchen is about 90% done, and fully functional, that last 10% just seems to linger. 

But we try to eek in a small project here and there. 

And I guess it makes every task that gets done seem like a major triumph.  Thank goodness we did the majority of the work before Rowan came along!

To get this mini project done, we used:

-Flourescent under-cabinet lights (2)
-Ikea under-cabinet moulding*
-Drill
-Screwdriver
-Chopsaw

We placed the lights as close to the front of the cabinets as possible, as recommended by the lighting manufacturer.

*Tip:  Use caulk to close any gaps in your undercabinet moulding.  Applied to just one side, it blocks the light from shining through!

Friday, August 5, 2011

Stripping



No, not that kind of stripping, pervs! Although we could always use the extra $$$, I think I'll stick to the only kind of stripping that I might have a shot at {and that's debatable} - diaper stripping.
Let's see, it's been a little over a month since my cloth diapers suddenly went waterproof. After doing some internet research, I tried dishsoap to rid the diapers of diaper rash cream {the prime suspect}. 

The jury's still out on whether or not it actually worked. 

{Sorry, I wish I could be more helpful}

But, I mean, it's hard to tell, since we didn't really experience the issue very much to begin with.  

I have a feeling only a few inserts fell victim.  I never pinpointed which ones.  And now daycare is doubling up on the inserts {I have also been providing Gro Via Booster Pads, which work great!}, so they don't really have a problem anymore either.  Though, I really don't think they need to be doubling up......I think they need to change him more often.  This has been politely suggested, but I'm pretty sure the teachers have selective hearing.

When I get around to it, I think I'll give stripping another try.  I think I'll use a hospital nail scrubber this time to help.   



Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Oh, His Eyes are Blue...Grey...Green...Brown!

Rowan, July 2011

Like many parents-to-be, {I think}, we spent a lot of time during our pregnancy wondering what our little guy was gonna look like when he finally showed up.  Who's nose will he have?  Will he have hair?  What color are his eyes going to be?  These are fun surprises to anticipate, because, really, there's not a lot of chances for disappointment!
Little did we know that he was going to make us wait a little longer until he answers many of our long awaited questions!

He's cute as a button, but his features are not exactly prominent in one direction or the other.  Some people say he has my cheeks.  Others say he looks just like his dad. We, ourselves go back and forth on this topic{Rogér and I are *fairly* similar in our features as well, so it can be hard to guess who he's looking more like}.

In the end, who really cares?! Right?
But.....we {and by we, I mean mostly I} are having a little trouble when it comes to Rowan's eye color.  I have {very light} hazel eyes and Rogér has {dark} blue eyes.  Can you tell we were in for trouble in the eye color classification category??
 
When Rowan was born, he had blue-ISH, grey-ISH eyes.  Okay, we thought, guess we're gonna have to wait and see which way they end up. 

Well....we're still waiting. 

At Rowan's 6 mo appointment, his doctor said that his eye color had probably set.  But Rowan's now 7 months old and my brother nailed it last weekend {his first introduction to Cubbie}, when he announced "Oh, his eyes are blue..........grey...green...brown!"
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