Costco is Great and a Visit to S.F.
Saturday was an errand day. Simon is anxious about turning four and suddenly being a "big kid" and we're anxious about Simon turning four and providing him with an impressive cake. As you may recall, last year's cake was a spectacular creation by our friend who is a pastry chef. This year she moved to New York and left us alone in the world of fantastic cake creations. I had convinced Simon that a Mickey Mouse face would be a fun and appropriate choice for his Mickey Mouse themed party. Matthew (who will be punished with rolled fondant and toothpicks) showed Simon a few cakes featuring three dimensional Mickey Mouse Clubhouses. Guess which cake is now required? Not the one with the easy three circles. So we spent some time in Michael's coming up with a plan. We'll see what happens...
And then we went to Costco and I just have to spend a moment here appreciating that wonderful store. Yes, there is the obvious appreciation: it has provided us with thousands of diapers and wipes over the years. The less obvious reason to love Costco? Samples. Simon has discovered so many new foods by trying samples at Costco. This weekend he discovered chicken salad on wheat; five small sandwiches later, we were allowed to leave the store (once we promised that canned chicken can be purchased in smaller quantities elsewhere). We heard about it all evening. Our family slogan: chicken salad, it's the new meatloaf. Knowing we would miss our Sunday trip to the farmers market we also picked up a bunch of good looking apricots, blueberries and pears. What do you do with 20 apricots? Puree most of them into baby food and make the littlest Kagle boy pleased enough to slumber for ten-and-a-half hours.
Sunday we took a trip into San Francisco to spend time with Aunt Arlene (Matthew's Dad's Sister - another A.B. Kagle) and Uncle Jerry (middle name also Bernard). It was a lovely day in the City so we took a walk down to Pier 39 and along the way saw S.F. Fire crews raise and lower a ladder to check out the roof of the Rainforest Cafe. A fireman watching us watch him walked over to meet Simon and let him wear his hat which would have been great if it wasn't terrifying for our suddenly shy boy. And then we turned around and watched the bakers make sourdough animals at the Boudin Bakery. Simon wanted to take all the bread animals home. We didn't let him. Once on the pier we watched the sea lions, the carousel, had lunch, and watched magicians in a magic shop. What a great day! At the end of it, Simon wanted to take Aunt Arlene and Uncle Jerry home. Maybe they could stay in his room and sleep in his bed? He was up a good portion of last night due to fear and loneliness. Having Aunt Arlene and Uncle Jerry in the bed would have helped also maybe a sourdough bread lobster and crab or a sourdough crocodile.