An exciting month of July so far

4th of July, camping, etc... It's been quite an exciting couple of weeks for us :-) July started off with my dad arriving from Malaysia on 4th of July, and then we parked at the Foster City Osh Supplies store's parking lot to watch some fireworks display.

It was a cold, cold night. It was fun with the kids playing with some 'fireworks' of their own (just pop-pops and some other little things) whilst waiting. It was Chloe's first time seeing fireworks, and she was scared at first. But by the end of the night, she was loving it and watching intently. Even giving us some oohs and ahhs every time they came on.

But if you have ever been to Disneyland, I think, no other ones will compare to Disney's because there is something magical about watching the fireworks display over Sleeping Beauty's castle in Fantasyland.. Sigh.. Will have to go back soon.

Then the next weekend we were off for 2 nights of camping out at Big Tree Calaveras State Park. It's 3 hours away from our home, but the kids did well on the drive. We went with Chloe's godparents and their 2 boys and had a fantastic time!

The weather was nice and cool even in summer because we were under the big redwood trees. They had shower and bathroom facilities. Most importantly the showers had hot water. Ah!!!!!! Those who know me will know that I have to take hot showers and absolutely hate cold showers. I was prepared to just clean myself with an amazing number of baby wipes :-)

But anyways, the campsite even had running water from a tap, a barbeque grill and a food storage bin to keep the bears out. They must be around, but we never did see one. Just lots of squirrels and birds. We spent the time there exploring, doing short hikes and playing in a small creek. It was very relaxing.

However, the only advice I will give is that the next time we will camp, we definitely have to bring more air bags. Haha! I had one because that was my condition of joining them on this trip. My memories of camping from Girl Guides was of hard and lumpy floors. So dear hubby brought our inflatable air bed there and blew it up for me when we were there. So I was the only one with a nice cushy bed, whilst the others had bad backs at the end of the trip :-)

And another funny thing that happened was that our campsite was slightly sloping, and so by 3am in the morning, my parents, hubs and Kathryn had slid down about 3 feet from their original position down to where I was. LOL!!! We started giggling at 3 in the morning, because we found it so hilarious!! And btw, the night sky at that was amazing - beautiful stars filled the sky.. Something we don't get to see in the city..

Anyway, here are some pics of the trip for you to enjoy. Hope to write again soon.



The girls walking to one of the hiking trails


The kids having a snack on the portable chairs we brought. Very imortant as well...



With one of the huge redwood trees that was purposely cut down in the very early days of the park.


Chloe at Beaver's Creek.



Hubs and Kat with one of the big redwood sequoia trees.