California 2022 - Day 4/6

If you haven't read California 2022 Days 1-3 blog posts, you'll want to go there first to get the full story!

Hanging out at Home

Jeremiah and I kind of slept in on this day. We both were snuggled in on Giovanna's bed, a twin-sized bottom bunk, but we had slept rather well. Maybe we were just exhausted.

We went out into the rest of the house where my father, Jeff, was sitting on the off-white sofa doing stuff on his laptop. Elizabeth and Jacqueline were in the playroom working on accepting an offer Jacqueline had received on a property. I decided to sit on the sofa with my dad. Jeremiah sat in the same room on one of the red leather arm chairs.

San Francisco Zoo

My parents, Jeremiah, and I all left the house around 10:00am for to go to the San Francisco Zoo. First, we stopped for coffee at Java Cafe, which is located across the street from the zoo. They had good coffee! My dad decided to stay behind at the coffee shop, while my mom, Jeremiah, and myself went to the zoo.

We couldn't get a paper copy of the zoo map, so Jeremiah downloaded it onto his phone and took charge as the leader.

The first area we went to was a farm animal exhibit. There were goats, mini donkeys, mini ponies, rabbits, a llama, and more that we couldn't really see. We weren't allowed to pet any of the animals, which was a bit sad. We've been to several other zoos where petting the farm animals is allowed, so we were kind of surprised at the lack of interaction.

In the next area there were prairie dogs. There were even a few babies!

I spotted a hummingbird up in the leaves of the tree above this area of the zoo. Can you find it?

We saw a lot of animals during our time at the zoo. The highlights would include the penguins, who were actively swimming in a loop or resting in their little cabanas.

An otter was napping inside a burlap sack, which was adorable.

We saw orangutans go down these ramps like they were going down slides at a playground - one was even wrapped up in a blanket!

We also got to witness an anteater and a grizzly bear play in their water pools.

We went to the gift shop at the end and found a blue monkey hat which we purchased for Zander, our nephew.  We also got a penguin mood ring for Orazito, a sloth mood ring for Giovanna, and a purple and green giraffe figurine for us to take home. Jeremiah also purchased a gold souvenir coin.

China Town

My dad met us at the gift shop for the zoo, and we loaded back up in the car and went to China Town for lunch. We parked and walked down to the infamous arch that was the entrance to China Town.

We had lunch at Far East Cafe, where we were served very large helpings of delicious food.

Red lanterns were hanging high up across the street.

After lunch we stopped in a souvenir shop and bough a nice set of chopsticks to use at home.

Pool Party

It was time to return to the San Jose area. My parents stopped at a Safeway to purchase ingredients to make an apple pie, which was my request for my birthday dessert. We all returned to the house.

Jeremiah and Rebecca immediately went and changed into swim suits and hopped into the pool. Orazito got super excited that we were in the pool and decided to join us. We engaged in water-gun battles, tossed a pink ball back and forth, as well as a football, and had races up and down the pool.

Pre-Birthday Shenanigans

After each of us had a chance to shower and get cleaned up after the pool party, my mom had Jeremiah and I open up Peter Rabbit figurines she had purchased for us. 

​We returned to the bedroom we were staying in and found that Jacqueline had put together a giant Happy Birthday sign, about three feet by eight feet, made of tissue paper. She also had found two rainbow gnomes that she gifted to Rebecca, a guy and a girl, who were birthday themed.

It was so thoughtful!

Uncle Jeremy

At the end of the night Orazito was a smidgen upset that we were sleeping in his room, so Jeremiah went and read him a bedtime story.