Hills of Hayward

Our front lawn has been steadily been dug up by what seem to be gophers. Initially, it was only a single hole in the ground, and over a year and a half, the entire front lawn has become home to 20-30 gopher holes. Admittedly, I have let this problem fester for far too long.

After purchasing a set of gophinator traps, I set out to find a gopher highway to place my traps on.  The first day, my traps remained empty, but on the second, I caught my prey.  When I figured out that I actually caught something, I was so ecstatic I jumped up and shouted for Christine.  She later told me that she thought something horrible happened to me.

So far, no new holes have been created in the last week.  Could just a single gopher wreck my yard?  The evidence increasingly seems like that this is the case.  What amazingly productive (and ugly) animals.

As you can probably tell by the increased number of photos, summer is here.  Christine and I are also enjoying using the used Canon G9 we bought ourselves.  It is no SLR, but it sure is fun and convenient to use.

Today, we started off with brunch in Oakland by Lake Merritt.  We had a good meal of eggs benedict and eggs escapade at Lynn and Lu’s Escapade.  Ander’s refused all of our food, but enjoyed his banana.  His loss.  We noticed a lively and energetic farmer’s market down the street.

After some quick shopping in Oakland Chinatown, we wound up at the Sand Sculpture Contest in Alameda.  At almost every sand sculpture we stopped at, Anders was excitedly pointing, and wanted to add his own sand to the completed works.  On the drive home, the little guy passed out in back of the car.

Anders made a park buddy.  Her name is Maury, and we went to her little birthday get-together at the park with two dozen cupcakes.  I know.  Such a parent thing to do.  I am beginning to think we will become very adept at making cupcakes for all the children’s events.

Graphic artists and musicians gathered for the Chalk and Chocolate festival.  The crowd was bordering on being light.  I rejoiced as I never enjoyed crowds.  We enjoyed the chocolate chili gelato, raw chocolate mousse, mexican hot chocolate, and pizza.  It was a relaxing afternoon with plenty of  sights and sounds to remember.

We also signed up for an organic vegetable program who delivers to zipcodes.   We signed up for a large box of organic vegetables to be delivered every three weeks.  What made this program interesting was that you were able to customize the amount of vegetables, the frequency, and substitute out hated vegetables for others.  Looking forward to this experience.

We took a quick trip to Santana Row to enjoy some Kara’s Cupcakes, listen to some live music, and walk around.  Anders was especially active that day.  Usually he isn’t very cooperative as a model, but this day was different.