Easter 2016

Easter has been and gone for another year, and although it was only a few days ago it already feels like it was weeks ago. Well, maybe not quite, but as we're busy with Spring Break at the moment Easter is no longer on my mind. Before we move on from Easter completely I want to share our Easter Sunday with you.

As usual, Ava and Lola were up pretty early and keen to find out if the Easter Bunny had visited. Mathilde wasn't sure what was going on but heard that there might be chocolate so she was keen to get out into the living room too!

As you can see from the trail of sparkly footprints (DIY here) and the dining table covered in goodies, the Easter Bunny did indeed visit our home.

Macy's Flower Show 2016

On Friday Mathilde and I took a trip into the city to see the Macy's Flower Show at the San Francisco store. 

Each year, Macy's celebrates the arrival of Spring with an amazing flower show held in several of their stores around the country. This year's flower show marks the 70th anniversary of this beautiful event and the theme, America the Beautiful, couldn't be more fitting.

Easter Peeps Bunting

Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. 

Having spent most of my life in Australia, Peeps are a strange and mysterious thing to me.

I had never seen these brightly colored, sugary marshmallows blobs until our first Easter in America four years ago. I couldn't bring myself to buy them for the kids back then (Easter is for chocolate eggs, not marshmallows!) or in subsequent years, but this year I finally gave in and decided to embrace this American Easter tradition. Well, kind of...

You see, I didn't buy Peeps for my kids to eat. I bought them to decorate with!

After seeing bunny shaped Peeps in the supermarket I thought they'd look cute strung up together as bunting. So I purchased a couple of packs and the girls and I spent the afternoon getting creative.

USS Midway Museum, San Diego

When we travel I like to try to add a little variety to our vacation. I'm not a fan of doing the same thing every day when we're away - we get enough of that at home! On vacation I like to fit in as many different experiences as possible, without making our days too busy, of course! I like to make sure that we visit places that will to appeal to everyone in the family. Obviously, that's not always easy, but I've found that if just one person in our family is excited about a place we're visiting, their enthusiasm rubs off on the rest of the family and we all end up having a great time. Well, most of the time. Sometimes toddlers can take a little more convincing! 

Anyway, our Southern California road trip over the Winter Break was a great example of a trip full of variety. Over the course of almost two weeks we visited many different places. While we all enjoyed every place we visited some were definitely more geared towards the kids. Think Legoland, San Diego Zoo, the beach and national parks. While a few places were more up my alley like The Broad Art Gallery, Hearst Castle and the Madonna Inn. Then there was one place that was at the top of Kim's must see list: USS Midway Museum in San Diego. 

We Love the Library!

When I was a kid I was a big reader. I read a LOT. There was nothing I liked better than climbing up a nice big tree and settling in with a book for a few hours.

Visiting the local library was always something that I enjoyed as a kid. I grew up in a small country town, and our town library and the school library were one and the same.  Whether I was visiting the library with my Mum on a weekend or going with my class at school, the library was a place where I really felt at home.

I have so many happy memories of my time spent in the library as a kid. Rainy lunchtimes spent with school friends reading together or playing board games in the library. My brother and I borrowing the same Disney book over and over so we could trace over the pictures. My friends and I checking out the card in the back of embarrassing books to find out who had borrowed them!

The library was also a place where I felt so grown up. It felt like such a grown up thing to look through the library catalog cards to find a book. Or to look through the non-fiction books to find a new book about horses - I was a bit obsessed! I'll never forget how grown up I felt when I was given permission from the librarian to borrow books from the high school section even though I was still in primary school.

I'm pleased to say that all three of my kids have a love of books (even if two of them can't actually read yet!) and enjoy visiting our local library just as much as I did as a kid. Times may have changed and our local library may be a little more high tech than my childhood library, but that feeling of joy when finding a good book is still the same.

San Diego Zoo

Spring break is just a few weeks away and I've been busy planning an exciting trip to Nevada, Utah and Arizona. I'm so excited about it, but before I focus on our upcoming trip too much, I feel like I really should finish sharing our Winter Break trip with you.

Back in December we took a road trip down to Southern California. I've already shared a few of the places that we visited in Los Angeles and San Diego (including The Broad, Legoland and The Queen Mary) as well as a couple of general posts about our trip (which you can read here and here) but I still have plenty to share with you. 

So let's get back to it and have a look at a bit more of our Winter Break vacation starting with our day spent at San Diego Zoo...

Planes, Trains and Cable Cars

The San Francisco Bay Area really has something for everyone. Whether you're visiting or you live here, there's no end of amazing places to see.

If you've got kids that are into "things that go" - or even if you are yourself - the Bay Area has got you covered. From the Cable Car Museum to Oakland Aviation Museum. From the USS Hornet to San Francisco Railway Museum. There's something for everyone.

Today I'm sharing a round up of our favorite museums dedicated to "things that go" in the Bay Area.

Cable Car Museum
When you think of San Francisco, what are the first few things that spring to mind? Chances are, one of them will be the iconic cable cars. San Francisco's classic cable cars have been carrying locals and tourists alike up and down all of those steep hills since the 1870s. But just how do they work? Well, if that's a question that you've ever wondered, the Cable Car Museum is the place for you. Not only is the museum home to interesting vintage cable cars, tools, and paraphernalia, it's also home to the actual cables that run the entire system! It's pretty amazing to see. The cables are attached to giant wheels that spin continuously. This keeps the cables moving throughout the city. The cable cars themselves are not actually powered. Rather, they grip onto the cable and get dragged along. When it's time to stop, the conductor pulls the grip to release the cable. Pretty cool, hey?

The Cable Car Museum is always one of our favorite places in San Francisco to take visitors. There are plenty of ways to get to the museum but the best way, of course, is by cable car! All four lines go by the museum but I always recommend taking the California Street line. It's not as popular with tourists as the other lines so there is never a queue and the views over the Bay are pretty amazing.

The San Francisco Cable Car Museum is located at 1201 Mason Street in San Francisco.  It is open daily (apart from certain holidays) and admission is free. You can find more information about the museum and San Francisco's cable cars at http://www.cablecarmuseum.org/