Part 1: Fun Things for the Kiddos to do in the Bay Area

When you have toddlers, every weekend is consumed with finding ways to keep their thirst for learning quenched. RJB and I have actually become quite adept at "changing it up" every weekend with something new and fun for them to experience. So I figured I'd blog about it and share our faves here, as well as share places we've heard or read about that we hope to check out soon. This is Part 1 (since there are sooooo many places to share, it needs to be broken up into parts - this is why I LOVE Cali!).

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Monterey Bay Aquarium

* GET THE MEMBERSHIP!!! It's $150 for the whole family. Go twice and the membership has paid for itself. Plus you get to partake in special events only offered to members, the aquarium opens earlier and stays open later for members only, and members get to experience sneak peaks at new exhibits.

* It's perfect for toddlers - they can run, explore, and touch. There are many fun activities to keep them busy and engaged, plus several different play areas with slides, things to climb on, tunnels to walk through. There's even a little gated toddler area where they can don water-proof aprons and play with toy fish in the water. This area also has a waterbed-like thinga-ma-jig where they can jump and bounce. Fun - I wish I was a toddler :)

* Jack's favorite exhibit: The Outer Bay

* Nora's fave: The Kelp Forest

* Taylor's fave: The Jellies

While in Monterey, check out the following:

Cannery Row

Rip Squeak and Friends Gallery Monterey

Ghirardelli's Ice Cream and Chocolate Shop

Nestle Toll House Cafe

I LOVE this!

Coloring Pages

A while back when my creative juices were really flowing, I created a few cutesie little whatevers. I realized today that I could turn my artwork into coloring pages for J&N. I share them here. Stay tuned for more! Oh I have more; much, much more.

Download Cat (click here)

Download Dog (click here)

Download Starfish (click here)

Download Sand Dollar (click here)

In case I haven't touted it enough.......

I work for Adobe. I love the products. They are not only fun to use, they enable productivity-challenged people like me to be productive. Anyway, Acrobat.com is THE best in the West! I can't get enough. You can create documents (much, much sexier documents than what you create in Word) and share these documents with your friends and colleagues, you can convert documents to PDF, you can share your files with your peeps, you can collaborate and share your computer screen with ConnectNow, and you can store files. Very cool.

So if you haven't heard and you haven't checked it out, what the H are you waiting for??? BTW, did I mention it's free??

Bear Feet Shoes

I share again another find on the ol' internet - Bear Feet Shoes! I really like it. I really do. It's awesome. All of the shoes are made right here in our very own country - nice. And they're all made of buttery soft leather. Makes me wish I were a toddler so I could have a pair. Oh, and I forgot to mention that they're C-U-T-E CUTE! They also make accessories - I love, love, love accessorizing Miss NoraSephora.

Anyway, below are a couple of cutesie little cutie cutes I'm contemplating getting for Nora:

These are called "SkullyJanes" - way too cool!

"Punk Janes" - with Nora's black Paul Frank Angel Monkey tshirt?

"Flower Power Bracelet" - powerful bayyy-bee!!