August

I know it has been a long time since we posted anything. We went from 2 cameras to no cameras in a week so we haven't been able to document any of our fun activities. 

In August we took the Oakland youth (boys and girls) on a lake trip for the day. I don't think any of them had ever been on a boat before, in fact 90% of them didn't know how to swim. We taught some swim classes for the Wednesday activity before we went to the lake. We wanted to teach them to float and tread water so they wouldn't panic in the water. They all loved the water and did pretty good. At the end of the night we couldn't get most of them to get out of the water. 

Saturday morning we went to pick them all up and half of them came in their jeans and tee shirts (they don't own bathing suits). They assumed they wouldn't get in the water. I told them it was going to be 100 degress at the lake with no shade and I was sure they would be in the water by the end of the day. We had about 13 youth there which was a great turn out especially since they typically don't like water. 

We had two boats - a master craft and a ski sanger. Little did these kids know they were cruising around the lake in style with two top of the line ski boats. We found a beach area where we set up food and chairs etc. and then took kids out from there. We spent the day tubing and knee boarding. The kids had the time of their life. A few even tried waterskiing. Sure enough the kids who thought they weren't going to get in the water were tubbing in their jeans and shirts. They didn't want to get off the lake. We ended up staying on the water until about 7 at night. I took pictures with my camera (the non waterproof one) since our waterproof one was being borrowed. When I got home from the lake it didn't work, so sorry no pictures of the kids on the lake. 

The next weekend (labor day weekend) Rick's sister Jessica, Jeff and their 3 kids came to visit us for the weekend. We were excited to have visitors. We pitched the tent in our warehouse for the kids to sleep in but they didn't actually want to sleep in it so we used it to store bedding during the day. We have plenty of space for 7 people in our place, however, it is just one big room so there isn't much privacy. Good thing we all get along well. 

Things we did:

Met up with Ricky for lunch on Friday in the city

Toured Pier 39, watched the sea lions, went to the video game museum, enjoyed salt water taffy on the pier, went across the golden gate bridge, visited the army forts in Marin (by the bridge), ate at Ghiradelli square, had a bbq at Alameda beach and went to the Jelly Belly Factory.

Again no pictures - my camera was broken and Rick's was still being borrowed - sorry.

A few days later we went to Seattle. We bought a disposable camera for our trip so we actually have some pictures of this weekend. Post to come soon. It was pretty funny watching peoples response as we asked them to take our picture and then handed them a gray plastic camera.