Today at my aunt’s baby shower, my cousin Gianna watched the girls for me! She’s the best! Today while watching the girls, she recorded them each singing a song. Gianna later e-mailed me the videos 🙂 They’re super cute!
Olivia singing her ABC’s
Olivia Singing the ABCs from Sarah Barnes on Vimeo.
Jillian singing Number Rock, a song she learned in pre-school.
Adrian and I decided that our first long distance trip with the girls would be up north to visit our friends Jason in San Rafael and Sydney in San Jose. We flew into San Francisco and the girls loved it! They were very well behaved on the plane (a lot had to do with having the iPad). I was concerned that their ears would be hurting but they were champs!! (I also gave them lollypops to suck on during the decent, I think it helped).
We had a slight melt down when we got our car rental. Adrian rented a mustang convertible and Olivia was a little disturbed  because Adrian just plopped her in the car and walked away, haha. She also had a melt down with the orignal car seat that we picked, but once she picked her own car seat all was well in the world according to Olivia!
On the drive from San Francisco to San Rafael, the girls were not thrilled about the top being down. It was a bit windy, and frankly, it was COLD! They warmed up to the idea while we drove through San Francisco a few days later.
It was great seeing Jason and his family! We ate at some interesting places and we visited the Farmer’s Market (2 of the 3 pomegranates I bought were delicious). We ate a wonderful home cooked meal at Jason’s house, the girls had such a blast playing with Jason’s nephews!  Adrian had mentioned I wanted to see Redwoods (it’s on my 30 before thirty list) so Jason took us to John Muir Woods. It was fabulous!! It was so peaceful along the trail and I loved seeing how large (and old) these trees were! One more thing to check off my list, yay!!
Our drive down to San Jose took us back through San Francisco. We decided to stop at Fisherman’s Warf to check out the sea lions and have lunch. We drove down Lombard Street in our little convertible, the girls loved it! We also had to go see the Russ Building. While helping Sam with a homework assignment last year, I went through old files of my grandmother and found that the Russ Family were my distant relatives from my paternal grandmother’s side. It was really neat seeing the photos I have in the file hanging in the window of the Russ building.
In San Jose, we visited the NASA Ames Research Center. Jillian says that she wants to be an astronaut when she grows up, so Adrian and I have done all that we can to keep her interested in this high aspiration. The Ames research center was really cool, it’s too bad it’s so far away, it would be a really cool field trip! Jillian and Adrian were very excited 🙂
Unfortunately when we arrived in San Jose, our friend Sydney’s dog became sick. She needed to take him to the vet so we were unable to meet up. I was able to find a trampoline place nearby and the girls and Adrian jumped for an hour. It was great because there was hardly anyone there, so they practically had the room of trampolines to themselves. After jumping up a storm, it was time to eat!. We found a delicious Korean restaurant in San Jose. Yelp had amazing reviews and I would have to agree. We got lucky and got in before the dinner rush 🙂  After that we headed to our last hotel for the trip.
Overall it was a very pleasant trip, the girls did a fantastic job!! They were great travelers! In a few years we might consider something with a longer airplane ride… maybe Disney World.
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We’re expecting Baby Barnes #3!!! We are so very excited!! We are looking forward to adding one more to our family!
I took an impromptu trip to Disneyland with the girls. I did not pick the best day since it was extremely hot! haha I also had an insane notion that I wouldn’t need  a stroller. haha I parked in Downtown Disney, we hopped on the monorail, and headed to small world. Then the return trip back to the car. In the heat, by myself, was not a good idea!
haha at least the girls had a good time!!
Here we are in the very front of the monorail.
The Endeavour Space Shuttle was being transported to its resting place in LA. The space shuttle was able to be seen around Southern California. Since I was at school, my mom took the girls to see Adrian at work.  They were able to see the Endeavour being flown by! This was so great for Jillian because she says that she wants to be an astronaut when she grows up. 🙂  We just happen to have these great astronaut helmets. I bought these a few weeks back… Jillian was scaring me by putting a plastic bag over her stuft animals saying it was it’s space helmet. I decided it was time to buy one for her so that a plastic bag never becomes hers or Olivia’s helmet.
This picture was taken at dinner that night. Olivia was demonstrating how the space shuttle piggy-backed on the larger airplane 🙂
We decided that a game of miniature golf was in order. It was great because Felix and Amanda were in town and willing to join us. Adrian and I were thankful that they were there! The girls had a blast! We had them travel ahead of us so we were all  able to enjoy playing!
Jillian was so very excited to return to school!
The very first day was a “get to know you” day. The parents and students were able to “play” in the classroom for an hour. I was bummed I missed her first day, but I’ll get to take her once I’m on my Fall break.
Here she is on her first official day of the school year.
Adrian, the girls and I traveled down to San Diego on Labor Day. We met up with our friends Felix and Amanda and spent a fun day in the sun!
 
 
