Camp Contini

Hunker down people, this may be a bit of a long post! Rather than break things up, I am going to throw it all up here.

Last Sunday, August 2, 2009, was the"opening" of Camp Contini. We had invited my cousin Kelly to come visit us for a week, after having so much fun with her in Deer Valley. She was to arrive on Sunday and we had a full week of activities planned, starting off with a day trip to San Francisco to visit Alcatraz.

But she missed her plane. We were so disappointed! She wasn't able to get another flight until the next day. We had already purchased tickets to Alcatraz, so went ahead anyway.

We started off by taking the ferry over to the island.

It was a beautiful, clear day in San Francisco. The approach to the island was stunning.

We all did the audio tour. The kids really loved it, especially Zachary. In fact, part way through he realized his headphones weren't completely plugged in and that was why and it was making his staticy and hard to hear. After fixing the problem he returned to the beginning to start over.

Despite my many threats of leaving the kids in lock down as punishment for all the bickering in the car, I didn't follow through. Thought about it though!

One of the great ironies of Alcatraz is that it has some of the most incredible views of San Francisco. If you can get past the whole living in a tiny cement cell aspect!

We missed having Kelly with us, but it was a great family day.

Kelly did make it in on the first flight Monday morning, and the kids immediately picked up right where they left off back in February. Kelly and Joey are only 6 months apart, so those two were two peas in a pod.

We had a fun, activity filled week with her here. Of course there was daily dips in the pool.

Kelly got to join us for the Wednesday night social at our pool. All the neighbors come and hang out at the pool for dinner and swimming. We even celebrated a birthday for one of the neighbor kids.

Of course we took Kelly to our favorite, serve yourself yogurt place. There was also a trip to Chuck E. Cheeses (brought by the nanny. I would rather poke a stick in my eye than go there!) Pete brought the kids to a great indoor jumpy place, called LOL. He also brought them to a minor league baseball game one night (San Jose Giants). Sounds like Joey and Kelly had a total blast at that.

On Saturday we all hopped into the van and headed into San Francisco. It was a typical August day in San Francisco--cold and foggy! Out first stop was the Golden Gate Bridge.

I didn't realize how freaked out Pete was by heights. He wigged whenever any of the kids stood by the railing. He had no desire to go look over the side.

I did coax him a little closer for a group photo.

After the bridge we headed over to Ghiradelli square for lunch, followed by the worlds best ice cream sundae.
I thought Peter was crazy to order each kid their own sundae. They were huge! I just sat back and waited to eat the leftovers. The sundaes were delicious, but we did have a couple of tummy aches after!

After the sundae we wanted to hop on a cable car. The line was an hour long, and by this point in the day 2 of the boys were down with fevers. We thought it best to cut our losses and head home. Overall it was a fun, busy day.

Good bye Kelly! We had a blast with you. Don't forget to sign up for Camp Contini next year!

Hopefully I didn't send her home sick. While she was here Christopher was down with fevers on Moday and Tuesday, Joey was throwing up with a fever on Thursday, and Zachary and Vinnie were sick with fevers and vomiting on Saturday. Needless to say the motrin and zofran were passed out like candy around here last week!