a Day on the Bay

The other day we headed up past San Francisco to a place called the Bay Area Children's Discovery Museum. We stopped on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge for pictures. The museum was a lot of fun, and had so many things that were perfect for toddlers. Naturally, the battery on my camera died, so we had to rely on Ernie's cell phone for pictures and we didn't end up taking nearly as many as we should have. Here's Vita on a little water bed type thing, with walls of bubbles and real fish swimming around up on top. Vita was really into the fish, as you can see. But she also had a lot of fun trying to balance and walk on the squishy water mat. There was a play stream outside with play frogs and fish and things, and a whole bunch of little kids splashing around making a huge mess, with big smiles on their faces. This fish moves around if you turn a wheel. Vita also got a good look at some beautiful California Poppy's.

In other news, we had a big milestone this weekend. Ernie and I went out to a party... and Vita stayed home with a babysitter! It's amazing to me that it has taken us so long to do this. But Vita gets plenty of time with other care providers at daycare, and after she was so sick as a baby we decided we wanted to wait until she was a year old because we just weren't ready. So we started looking for a sitter back in December, and met or corresponded with a bunch of complete flakes! Anyway, we finally found someone who is a licensed child care provider, has been through all the background checks, and that Vita loves. What a relief!