A full Saturday! Vasona Park & a Sleepover

July 13, 2013

It's Saturday, therefore it is Explore California Day.  Art's new push for the weekends is that we head somewhere new either Saturday or Sunday (or both - oh horror for homebody Zachary!) and get to know where we live.  Today is my choice.  I have been wanting to go to this park for a long while now, and especially for Art to come with us.  I had read about it in a few local parents magazine and one mom also recommended it.  It has a carousel, and a train that takes you around the park.  Unfortunately, we spent a little too long laying in bed and taking our sweet time with breakfast, so that it was after 11 when we finally left.  Not ideal for a picnic in the park and explore day.  Also, ca 17 was a huge traffic jam headed to Santa Cruz, but luckily we were able to get off one exit early and avoided the crazy.  Then parking was an issue.  You could park at the lot by the playground for $6 or opt for free, albeit a hike, parking on the neighboring streets.  This normally would not be a huge issue except that the park is down a hill in a valley, so the walk there was long, and the walk back was worse.  Still worth it.  

We arrived so close to noon, that we had to eat lunch right away.  Luckily we found some shade under a tree and had our picnic.  There were many many families there having birthday parties, and some large groups having a BBQ.  This place was huge.  After lunch and sunscreen, the first stop was the playground.  There was a real fighter jet on the playground and our kids were dying to get on it.  UNFORTUNATELY, it was roped off for maintenance.  And the playground equipment was just too hot.  Scrapping the idea of the playground, we decided to head straight to the good stuff.  A short walk took us to the line to buy tickets to the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad.  Pretty cheap really, at $2/ea, and Yannick is free.  And the line was not too bad.  They cut the line off at us, so we were the first in line for the next trip, which was great because we got to pick the exact place the boys wanted to sit.  Unfortunately, the place ZW wanted to sit was also the loudest place, right behind the engine.  Yannick has been very sensitive to noise since the fireworks.  We are hoping this is not an injury.

Here is our engineer on the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad

ZW excited to be behind the engine

Uh oh, our little guy is not thrilled with the noise level of the whistle blowing

Art trying to keep the sun off his neck, and poor Yannick worried about the noise.

Unbelievably, sometime during the ride, Yannick fell asleep while holding his ears.  It was nap time for sure, but I never would have thought he would be able to fall asleep on the train!

Here is the engine getting turned around on the turn table

here he is perpendicular to the tracks.  Very cool.  What you can't see is that this is done manually by a girl pushing the turntable until he locks into place.

Amazingly, this guy stayed asleep at the park, for the long walk back to the car, in the car, on the way home, into the house, back into bed.  When he awoke hours later, his first question was "where's the train"?  

The big boys were not thrilled to have to leave after the train ride, but it was getting late, and Yannick was obviously down for the count.

After dinner, it was time for Art to finally get a haircut.  He had wanted one before we left for our East trip, but we never got around to it.

Looking good!

Then, the promised sleepover!  The boys had the idea that instead of mommy and DaU sleeping on the mattress on the floor, they wanted to sleep there.  First it was decided that I would sleep on the top bunk, and Art in the bottom bunk with the three boys on the mattress.  Uhhhh, ok.

Three boys on the mattress seems like a crazy idea.

So they made it even crazier!  They decided that it should be ALL BOYS on the mattress...including Art, and mommy sleeping in the bottom bunk.  HA HA HA HA.  I was totally for this plan!  A whole bed to myself!

Oh yes, this looks like a great idea.  :)  And it actually was for them!  Art ended up sleeping the other way, cuddling Yannick, and Wyatt was the only one who's head was at the foot of the bed.  I would not say that Art got the best sleep of his life that night, but they boys sure loved loved loved it!  I don't adore sleeping in Wyatt's bed because the mattress protector is plastic, and crinkles when you move.  Still, we all slept, and they still allowed Art and I to stay in bed the next morning until around 8am.  Apparantly each boy at some point in the morning got up to play then came back to the mattress.  Yannick got up to play, went back to his bed, then went back to the mattress.  All starting around 6:30am, even though they had all gone to sleep pretty late after the Little Bird, Pipe, and Wyatt story!