Hayward 4th of July

I'm about to totally spaz out.  Has anyone else had this much trouble with Blogger lately?  It keeps left aligning my pictures and changing fonts for no reason, plus I can't move the pictures like I could before.  I've already been using the "new" composer, so this shouldn't be the issue.  Anyway, after two hours of increasing frustration, I'm ready to take a break.  Please excuse any weird issues I haven't been able to fix!

For the Independence Day weekend, we were able to do a quick trip up to Hayward to see Ryan's Dad and sister. And, as is the tradition in the East Bay, the kids started their days of hyperactivity in the best way possible: stuffing themselves with doughnuts at World's Fare! (Oh, they made those shirts with Aunt Helena the day before.  They were very proud.)

After the doughnuts, the kids, Ryan, and Granddad took a quick tour of the wrecking yard.

 On the 4th, we met Aunt Helena and her friend Ryan in San Francisco, with the intention of walking down the pier and seeing the tourist sites.  Unfortunately, it was crazy crowded due to the fireworks show that evening, so we decided instead to go to a different part of the city and eat Indian food, then head to the bridge.  We went to the north side of Golden Gate bridge, and bravely got out to walk around despite the hurricane-force winds!  Everybody had fun, even though our faces nearly froze off.

That night we went over to a neighborhood fireworks party at Justin and Tiffany's, and Elise learned how fun it is to put a sparkler in her face. (I think Ryan was able to protect her from herself before any harm was done.)  

While we were watching the screaming cats and green fountains, Elise pulled on my sleeve to ask me, "Mama, what are dose tings?"  She was pointing to the stars overhead.  I explained, "Those are stars!"  "Oh . . what are dey doing?" she wondered.  Seriously.  My kid didn't know what stars were.  This is the kind of underprivileged inner-city upbringing I'm offering my children!  When the fireworks were all used up, I kinda assumed we'd be heading home to get the kids to bed, but, somehow, we ended up at Justin and Tiffany's place hanging out as it got later and later, and my kids were watching video after video without falling asleep like their kids did.  I think we finally left around 5am!  It was daylight before Ryan and I got to sleep back at Granddad and Bomi's place.  So silly.  We haven't done anything that goofy since we became parents, it was kinda fun.  The next morning was time to leave, and it would have been just fine if poor, old, blind Portia hadn't decided to wander into some forbidden part of Dog's territory.  I was brushing my teeth inside, and suddenly heard screaming dog and yelling Ryan.  I guess Dog had decided to eat Portia's face, so Ryan had to rescue her.  It didn't look too bad - just a little blood and a smallish puncture wound next to her eye.  The vet wasn't concerned when we got home, but despite antibiotics it got infected and . . .well . . . exploded.  Yeah, it was gross.  I freaked out a little.  Luckily we have a great vet, who did surgery and patched her up good as new.  Sadly, we didn't learn from this experience that Portia doesn't travel well anymore, as you will see in a later post!