Solemn day for Contra Costa Firefighters

Last weekend, two firefighters died while rescuing a couple in the city of San Pablo. They were the first fallen firefighters in Co. Co. County in more than 30 years. A memorial for the firefighters was held today at the Pavillion. More than 100 Firetrucks came to be part of the memorial service. There was a procession from Sun Valley Mall up to the Pavillion. With 100 firetrucks, the procession took close to two hours to make its' way up to the Pavillion. We missed the procession this morning, but after stopping by Station 5 (the station was being covered by Santa Rosa) near Sequoia, we found out that the service was expected to end around 1:00. The girls and I grabbed our flags and headed up to the Pavillion to show our support. When we got up there, we were taken back seeing all the firetrucks in one place at one time. We camped out across the street from where the trucks left the service. I was touched by how thankful the firefighters seemed to be when spotting the girls waving their flags. We were passed by trucks from as far away as LA. There were different agencies present, too. To show their appreciation for the girls' support, the firefighters chirped their sirens, honked horns and either mouthed or yelled out their windows "thank you". From one truck that went by, from the loud speaker we heard "thank you, thank you so much". Firefighters reached way out of their trucks to wave to the girls. Ainsley started playing a game to see whether or not each trucks' shield would have the black band. Finally, after seeing that every truck had a black band, she would wave extra big because of the black band. Seeing how well the girls "act of kindness" was received will have a big impact on the girls as they reflect back upon our day. We were only out at the stoplight for about 1 1/2 hours and it was really hot. When we were heading back into Concord, Ainsley said she wanted to go take Station 10 Popsicles. We decided we would run to Trader Joe's to get some. On our way, we stopped by to pick up Erica. She helped us decide on flavors for Station 10. Right as we were walking up to the station, the firefighters from that station arrived in their trucks. A station from the City was covering for them while they were at the service. We rang and rang the bell. When the door was answered, the firefighter (we forgot to get his name, but he sure looks familiar) just lit up when he saw the girls bearing Popsicles. We told him that we'd been up across the street from the Pavillion, waving our flags and he said he knew...that he had seen us. We then said we knew they'd be very hot coming back...so here was something to cool them down. He seemed very happy with the Popsicles. We then went back to Erica's where we painted with watercolors outside, in the shade provided by their really big tree. What a rewarding day we had today.

Soccer girls

Kaley and Ainsley are both doing soccer through Walnut Creek Park and Rec. Ainsley starts her PH/Martinez soccer league August 2. Anyway, the girls love Coach Nick. He is really good with the kids. In Ainsley's class, there are only two girls and in Kaley's class...maybe four girls. Two of Kaley's fellow girls teammates are Naomi and Kacey. I've enjoyed my time with Aimee and Terri. Zeph (Zephyr) is in Ainsley's class. She talks non-stop beforehand about playing with Karl and Zephyr while the little sisters are in class. It is nice for each of the girls to have playmates while the other sibling is in class. Keeps everyone busy at the same time.

Kaley and Kacey
Guarding her Goal


Ainsley decided that she would bring stickers for all her teammates. While still in session, I wondered why the "team" was following Ainsley....she had decided that it was time for stickers. Considering that she and another girl are the only two girls on the "team", it made me giggle as all these little boys were crowding around for "Princess" stickers. Even Coach Nick picked out a sticker. Kaley, helping out...as usual

Elepant Pharm and Farmers Market.

Today, we got the "bug" to get outa town. Going to Berkeley seemed like a fun thing to do. We ended up at Elephant Pharm, where the girls participated in a Yoga Storytime. The instructor read stories and then the children acted them out using yoga positions. Much of what we do is on a "whim" and the three of us take off and go...but today, we wanted friends to go with us. One call to the Stevensons and they were game. We loaded five carseats into Michaels truck and off we went. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and the girls made friends with two little boys from Danville. It was fun having Erica, Clara and Melissa (and Jennifer, too) with us. Following Yoga, we came back to Concord and walked the Thursday night Farmer's Market. There was a Farmer's Market, which looked like a good one, at the end of Shattuck and Rose..but we decided to go local, instead. We bought Michael Lumpia for dinner. The chicken was good....could've gotten the entire order in chicken instead of Pork and Vegetarian as the girls really liked the chicken ones

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Train #14- Coast Starlight

While Michael was in Atlanta for work (yes, Macys has their technical support in Atlanta an d while he is not directly involved in systems, he needed to attend the meetings to see new software options for staffing which effects finance), I took the girls to Oregon to visit Poppi, Nana, Uncle John and Auntie. Here are some photos of our trip.

Our train to Eugene was scheduled to leave at 10:54 p.m. Saturday night. Due to some unfortunate events, the train was delayed outside of Santa Barbara and finally pulled into Martinez at 5:22 a.m. Sunday morning. Around 5:45, Michael helped us quietly board the train and off we went. The girls were up at 3:30 a.m. and were quite excited by the time the train pulled in. We were able to settle in and after a bit, the three of us fell asleep. We woke up around 8:00, changed into our "traveling clothes" and proceeded to the dining car for breakfast. When we sat down at our table for four, we all squeezed into one side, opening up the other side. Another couple, Sheila and Mitch were seated with us. They were very nice and we enjoyed meeting them. They took time to show us their sleeping car and were just very warm and friendly. The train ended up running four hours late, which meant we were on the train for seventeen hours. The girls were a dream!!! We kept busy making and playing with clothes pin dolls, reading lots and lots, writing in our journals, drawing with the water color pencils and just relaxing in the lounge car. We enjoyed our special time together and the whole trip was memorable. I am really happy that we were able to travel throughout the day as we saw some beautiful scenery. The landscape from Klamath Falls to Eugene was breathtaking and I am glad that we were on the train when we were. We had lunch in the lounge...cheese pizza and dinner was taken care of for the entire train by Amtrak- beef stew. We met some nice people along the way and despite running late, are starting to think about where we want to go next.

At breakfast- dining car


The girls and Miss Sheila -
Our train was very long- as we traveled around a bend, here is the engine.
Finally crashed after our lunch for a couple of hours.
Two very sleepy girls- Kaley and Ainsley. The conductors were very pleased with how the girls behaved and gave them these hats.

Monday- Ratatouille movie and dinner

We needed to do something low key on Monday. We decided to see Disney's movie, Ratatouille. For dinner, we decided to make pizza (Nana's specialty- so this was a treat) and Ratatouille. We all enjoyed the movie. We thought it was a cute movie and Ainsley really liked it. Later that night for dinner, the girls helped Nana make pizza and ratatouille. Poppi liked the ratatouille, but the girls weren't fans. They didn't even try it. I think it was the association with rats....