The Baylands

The Last Installment of my Mommy & Me Weekend

You do not know how long I researched and researched to find the best place to take her to see birds.  I am not an outdoor person and dread doing any hiking or exploring especially in places that I am not familiar with. I mean... the only times I wear tennis shoes is when I go work out at Curves... and that's it! But this is for my oldest daughter so I will do my very best to find yet another place to see birdies!

The Baylands... "bounded by Mountain View and East Palo Alto, the 1,940-acre Bay lands Preserve is one of the largest tracts of undisturbed marshland remaining in the San Francisco Bay. Fifteen miles of multi-use trails provide access to a unique mixture of tidal and fresh water habitats. Many consider this area to be the one of the best bird watching areas on the West Coast."

"One of the BEST bird watching areas of the West Coast?!?!?" I am so there! This is the place I need to take my bird-lovin' daughter! And it's just 20 minutes away from our house! Oh joy!!

But where do I go? It is literally 1,940 acres of land?!? I was freaking out! I am not very good at following maps and even with a GPS I really don't know how to get to those secluded marshlands which are mainly on hiking trails. PLUS I had to learn how to use my husband's mongo-huge camera (since it IS the best one to use to take GOOD pictures of birds). Oh boy.. I am really going out of my comfort zone here! Normally when we go birding Matthew takes care of all the logistics of how to go and where to go.

But I had an idea.. this mother-daughter weekend doesn't really say I can't invite others to join us on the 'fun' outing... and Emily did say she missed her daddy and sister. So I asked Matthew to bring Hannah and come join us.

We met at the Baylands Visitor Center (a great meeting point and I was able to get GPS directions to it). Emily was happily surprised to see her Daddy and sister and I was thrilled to see them also. I gladly handed over the mongo camera back to my husband (which Emily immediately told her Daddy to "Take a picture now!!.." of the shorebird). I was an immensely relieved wife when my husband got into the driver's seat and took us to the other two places I wanted to take Emily to see (but didn't know how to get to).

Now don't get me wrong, I love seeing the birds. I have enjoyed learning all about them and being able to identify them and appreciate their beauty in nature. And did we see birdies! Lots of them and many different kinds. I especially enjoy seeing shorebirds since they do settle in groups and you can see them quite well. Raptors, (birds of prey and other flight birds) are harder to see and find and you'll need binoculars to hunt them down.

At the visitors center, there is a catwalk (about a 1/4 mile) that takes you out to an observation desk where you can get nice views of the Bay and surrounding marshlands.

We saw many beautiful snowy egrets...

lots of black neck stilts

a snowy egret in flight

Afterwards we headed to Duck Pond Loop where you can see (and smell) lots of ducks in a pond..

Here is one big domestic farm goose that we saw at the Duck Pond

There were huge palm trees surrounding the pond and if you look closely.. way up high... you can see some occupants.

A domestic farm goose, Canada Goose and Gadwall Ducks

After Duck Pond we ventured to the Charleston Slough where we walked along the trails in search for birdies..

These are barn swallow nests

Barn swallows

At the slough, there were a slew of gorgeous shorebirds.

We were really lucky to see this Great Blue Heron just a few yards away.

American Avocet

A Party of American White Pelicans

Watch out below!

My Birder in her 'element'!

At the end of the trail at Swift Crossing

It was a very successful day of bird watching! My daughter was very pleased and so was I!

The Mommy & Me Weekend

Continued from my previous post:

I had the three days (Fri afternoon to Sunday afternoon) all planned out and scheduled by the minute. We had a lot to do and different places to go for this 'memorable' weekend.

First we stopped off at my sister's home. It is one of Emily's favorite places to get.. treats! Yep.. candy. My sister always has bowls of all kinds of candy out for everyone to grab and eat. Plus I had to go check out her newly designed and landscaped backyard which she is immensely proud of. And it was on the way to our second planned stop.

Stop #1: At E-ee's (for you non-chinese folk that means Mother's only younger sister Auntie) backyard... Gorgeous!

Stop # 2 was to Barnes & Nobles. Emily loves reading and books but unfortunately there are none that satisfies her back home so we have to come all the way down to my sister's area to shop. She loves historical fiction right now and got two books about World War II.
 

Emily loves the grilled BBQ chicken Korean style...

Stop #3: Dinner at Olleh Sushi and Tofu House.

...while I enjoyed the BBQ rib stone pot

After dinner and on the way to the hotel, we passed by this unique street name... can you see what it says? (Sorry, it's hard to take a picture and drive at the same time)

Stop #4 was to the hotel to settle in and proceed with Session 1 & 2 and then called it a night since we have to get up early the next morning for the start of Session 3.

Next day after Session 3 & 4, we headed to lunch... Stop #5.

Another one of Emily's favorite places to eat.. can you guess where we went? The location of our hotel and what she ordered for lunch can give you a big hint!

Stop #6 was to the Baylands... which will be posted on the next blog post since it's way too long to include here.

Stop #7 was to a Bird Store that we never went to and found online. It's called Los Gatos Birdwatcher. (I am so thankful for the internet in finding new places to go!)

She was thrilled to see this store and spent quite awhile looking at everything! Eventually we got a Raptor t-shirt, stickers, cards and some premium seed.

Stop #8 was back to the hotel to finish up the series with Session 5. It took me longer than planned in getting back to the hotel so we were 45 minutes behind schedule. We didn't get the chance to go to dinner until after 7:30pm.

Stop #9 was to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. This was the weekend of the Art Festival on University so the whole street was closed off for booths. I thought ...oh man... it's going to be super crowded and we'll wait forever to get a table but lo and behold... that wasn't the case. Everyone was eating and enjoying the food and art booths on the street that the restaurants were practically empty. We got into Cheesecake Factory on a Saturday night with a 5 minute wait!

Stop #10 was for dessert.. we went to a Yogurt shop so she got some of her favorite treats! NOTE: All the places we went to including the food parts were her favorites or places she picked or preferred. Remember it was HER weekend and not mine!

Stop #11 was back to the hotel to relax and sleep ... sleep in since we had a long 2 days of travel and serious discussion.

Sunday morning we slept in and looked forward to her Daddy and sister to come and check out our fancy hotel and to go to a family lunch at... yep.. the Cheesecake Factory... again! Hannah wanted to go so we went again for lunch and we even had an addition to the family... our niece (and the girls cousin) Marissa Lok-Yen to join us! (Apparently she went to our church's Sunday School instead of her own that Sunday).

Enjoying our second meal in less than 24hrs at Cheesecake Factory

Dessert at the street fair... flavored soft serve

While Emily and I were enjoying our weekend as just mother and daughter, Matthew had the chance to have  Daddy-Daughter time. This was the most worrisome part of my time away with Emily since my youngest is literally glued to my hip! It is very difficult for her to be away from me and for two nights it was super duper hard. AND she was away from her favorite playmate... her sister. So Matthew had to make her weekend very special also.

So can you guess where he took her?

This is one of her most favorite places to go and 'shop'. She got Lambie as her special gift!

And they ate at her favorite food court restaurant with the yummy chicken terayaki!

Next Up: The Baylands

Four Seasons

Before school started I took my oldest daughter away for a weekend, just mother and daughter. We spent the time celebrating her upcoming 12th birthday and spending a weekend away to do the Passport2Purity series.

Published by Family Life, "Passport2Purity equips you to plan a fun weekend of bonding with your child over God's plan for their purity. "

"Your child begins adolescence in a world of sexting, bullying, online stalking and moral defiance. Innocence is under attack, and you cannot win the battle with a single awkward talk or a strict set of rules. The primary defense for your child is a strong relationship with you and God. Family Life has developed Passport2Purity^® to assist you in building heart-to-heart communication with your preteen while laying a foundation of purity that will prepare him or her for the turbulent years ahead. Through guided conversations, object lessons and audio-based teaching, you can set your child on a journey of moral integrity—and strengthen the bond between you." from familylife.com

I am not sure where you stand in when and how you will discuss the 'birds and the bees' with your child along with making clear boundaries in what is and is not appropriate in God's eyes in regards to dating and relationships. But for me, many of my friends have done this series with their child(ren) and I looked forward to the day when I could take my first daughter away for a weekend to talk about adolescence and preparing for adulthood. Family Life recommends this weekend be done when your child is 11-12 years of age.

Topics that we discussed were how to handle peer pressure, their physical changes and the sex talk, staying pure and dating. I was determined that my daughter hear about the above topics from me and not from her friends. Since my parents never told me anything in relation to the above topics, I did not want history to repeat itself.

I have to tell you that preparation is key to a successful and smooth weekend. It was filled with a lot of teaching (from the CD set), thinking and writing (reflecting on how to answer the questions), discussion, and fun!

Yes, the FUN part is an essential part of the weekend. It is to be treated as a memorable event in your child's life; one that is filled with things that s(he) loves to do and will remember. So I will tell you what we did as her FUN part. If you want to know how it went with the P2P part, don't hesitate to contact me privately. I don't want to discuss it in a blog to the public because I want to respect her privacy and experience of the weekend.

Well.. it took me a long time to plan something that will be 'memorable' for my oldest daughter. She is hard to please.. she is not into shopping, spa-ing, high tea, nor anything else you would think a young girl would enjoy. You could probably guess what she likes (if you've read her guest blogs) and it was super hard for me to find a new place to go. But I did find a place to go.

But first, the place to stay. Since we will spend about 8 hours indoors listening to the CDs and doing the projects (there are 5 of them.. and yes there is a lot of prep work to do for this weekend as I have already mentioned and I will mention again since it's crucial that you are prepared and stay on schedule).. I wanted a very comfortable place. And I found it.. thank goodness it was near where I wanted to take her so it was THE perfect place!

The Four Seasons Hotel. What a lovely lovely hotel! Awesome service, great amenities and a reasonable good price (got to love hotels.com) for a 5 star hotel!

It was the perfect location.. not too far and not too close to home!

With our 2-queen bed room, we also received a $100 hotel credit to spend on anything in the hotel. It paid for our extra fees that hotels always tend to charge on top of the room rate: parking, internet, etc.. It even covered room service (a huge luxury) and we ordered twice!

Comfy beds (the first time that we both got to sleep in one without having to share it with anyone!) and a nice spacious desk to do our projects.

Bathroom was huge with a separate shower and a huge deep tub (I should have brought my bath salts!)

A sink for each of us and the amenities were by L'Occitane! There was a TV in the bathroom too!

Complimentary cozy slippers in two sizes. She was thrilled that she got a pair that actually fit her feet!

A filled mini-fridge.. and no we didn't touch anything cuz you will be charged! And the ice bucket was filled for us each day!

We ordered room service for breakfast. She had chocolate chip pancakes while I had a bowl of oatmeal.

And not to waste any free money, we had just enough left to order dessert: a selection of fresh baked cookies for her and a tiramisu for me. And yes we passed on dessert at dinner (Cheesecake Factory) so we could get dessert at the hotel.

 Next Up: The Mommy & Me Weekend