Squirrels, Ducks and a big green Turtle

Finally my mum and Ruby's mum got their act together to take us out on a proper adventure today, we've had too many Fridays of hanging around apartments because of the wet weather or just going somewhere local. Today the sun was shining so we all went out in my car to Golden Gate Park.

Our mums took us to the lovely childrens playground first to check out all the different things we could do. As I'd been a good girl and taken my first nap without any problems I was allowed to go and play in the sand which was very different to the sand at the beach but just in case I decided to taste it anyway - not quite as salty. My pal Ruby is still practicing her army interrogation skills and even though it was gone 11 o'clock by the time we got to the playground she still hadn't napped and was holding out despite her mum's best efforts to make her sleepy (the hat blindfold, the dummy / pacifier gag, the blanket restraint everything!). She's going to be excellent soldier when she grows up. Anyway Ruby wasn't allowed to play so our mums packed us up and took us for a walk through the park. It was a beautiful day today, lots of sunshine which makes me sleepy (but not my pal Ruby!). I dozed off somewhere in the Botanical Gardens and woke up to find our mums finishing off their little picnic - not fair!!! Ruby was still going strong so they gave us some food and put us down on our blanket to explore the park. Ruby wasted no time in finding a daisy to eat:

and when Erika and my mum were busy taking photos of Ruby I ate a dried leaf:
- not very tasty but I'm getting very fast now at picking things up and hiding them in my mouth before mum notices. My mum gave me a stick of cheese to nibble on to keep me off the leaves but what she didn't know is that I'm pretty good with my two new teeth and where I used to just suck on things I can now bite pretty well and I can bite big old chunks of cheese off and hide it in my mouth very well. I think this annoyed my mum a little bit because she shoved her finger in my mouth to take the cheese out and then took my cheese off me. Well this was really really unfair so I showed her one of my other new developmental milestones and threw my head back and screamed the place down - that's what I'm going to do now whenever anyone takes something off me that I don't want them to have so they'd better watch out!!! I think she was a bit embarrassed about my shouting because she picked me up and tried one of her distraction techniques - this was a really good one though, she showed me this little fella that was scampering across the ground with a big bushy tail. He came right the way over to us so I stopped shouting because I didn't want to scare him, he sniffed mum's knee then scampered away - very cute.

After the picnic Ruby had decided that she'd practiced her awake skills enough and decided to take a nap. It was a shame really because we were going to go to the best bit which was to feed the ducks. My mum has been making duck noises at me for a couple of months now but I'm still not ready to say it back to her - I'm sticking with my favourite UUgghh noise for the time being. We walked up to Stow Lake and I saw some moor hens and a couple of ducks - they were brilliant! Mum threw them some bread and then it seemed like every seagull and pigeon in San Francisco came to visit. Now I don't know if you know this but I love birds, I mean really really love birds so I thought this was just the best. Mum held me while I flapped my arms like a bird, shouted 'Ugghh' at them a lot and did my best spit gargle sound for them. It was brilliant! Here are some photos Erika took of me having the best time:
Poor old Ruby missed all the excitement but I think she was just saving herself for the playground. We went back down there just as Ruby woke up, we decided to start off with our favourite park activity - swinging. As we're both pretty big now our mums pushed us really high and we both giggled away. Once we were done with swinging we went over to play with this guy:

He didn't move much but my mum told me that they can be very slow. Ruby moves much much faster and crawled all over the place. I did my best but I still haven't quite got the hang of it, I'm not sure if I'm doing it right:


for some reason I still keep going backwards but I'm getting pretty quick so I don't mind too much. My mum followed me the whole way trying to feed me at the same time which was very funny. We finished the day checking out this really cool sculpture:
you can't really tell from this but it's a big wave that the big kids were running through. Mum reckons it won't be too long before I can join them. Anyway after all of this I was pretty pooped so Mum decided it was time to go home. I had a really fun, smashing day, I hope this is the start of more adventure Fridays to come.

My Asian Food Adventure

I'm sorry I haven't had the chance to write in a while, I've been very busy during the week when I go to my friend Jessica's house to play with her and our lovely new nanny Izabela so I can't get to my computer as often. This weekend was a long weekend so I got to see my mum and Dad for 4 whole days which meant plenty of time to try out some of my new tricks that I've learned like shouting every time either one of them sits me down on the floor on my own, climbing (I'm getting very good at this) and I'm still trying to work out that crawling thing - I've been watching Ruby and I do all the right movements but for some reason things seem to get further away from me and not closer together. It's very frustrating!

Now that I'm very good at sitting in a high-chair Mum and Dad are taking me to lots of different places to eat, it's great because I've mastered a way of telling them that I want to try their food without having to resort to grabbing it off their plates. I just stare and stare and stare and once eye contact is established I raise my eyebrows and they get it!

Here's me in between Mum and Dad at Yank Sing which is a lovely Dim Sum restaurant where you can sit outside but you're still inside (a little bit confusing at first). Look at all that food they ordered!




Here's me and my Dad with my friend Ellie and her mum Ranee. I think Ellie looked very cool in her tracksuit. I taught Ellie the same food mind-trick and we both got to try tofu for the first time, I thought it was just OK but Ellie loved it.




Today I met up with my BFF Ruby and her mums and we went to a Thai restaurant that's very close to where I live. They only had one high-chair unfortunately and as I walked down to the restaurant with my Dad and Ruby had her stroller I got to sit in the high-chair which usually I don't mind but today I wasn't that keen.

They tried to keep me quiet with some food, I tried cucumber which looks a lot like gherkin which I love but it didn't taste anywhere near as good. The eyebrow trick didn't work too well today so I tried to grab some of Mum's yellow curry, it was mainly liquid and I wasn't quick enough to grab one of the big chunks of potato or tofu before she pulled my hand away.


I think Mum thought she was going to teach me a lesson by giving me the chunk of lemon from her drink but I thought it tasted great and ate it all up:

There's my lovely friend Ruby and her mums, Ruby was allowed to try some rice but she told me that it was much more fun to play with than it was to eat. I was a bit worried about Erika and Natalie, I thought maybe they'd got something wrong with them but Ruby told me they'd spent the weekend in LA and apparently everyone smiles like this in LA.


Got to go now, I have to pretend to go to bed so that Ruby can call me on her new phone.