yerba buena park

Yesterday Nina took Charli and Bella to the Yerba Buena playground downtown, and came back raving about how awesome it was, especially on a weekday when there's no one around, and how much space they had to run around, and how awesome it was some more (she's been there before, but yesterday she was particulary excited, I guess). Well, she made it sound so good that we felt left out, and decided to take Charli there again today. We thought we'd make a little trip out of it by getting some hot chocolate, and some wall anchors, and maybe even a new crock pot. Amazing how these things go together.

Well, Yerba Buena playground is indeed quite cool, and we imagine it must indeed be a lot better on a weekday when no one else is around. On a beautiful Saturday, though, it's packed, and most of the equipment is better suited to kids older than Charli, who are running pell mell through all the open space. They had very cool slides and climbing structures, and it's in the middle of a kid oriented complex where the walkway just becomes part of one of the climbing structures. The railings along the walkways are talking tubes, which are fun - of course we tried them out. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so you get no pictures of the playground. :( However, we do have this lovely picture of Charli in the grassy area nearby, which is where we spent all our time drinking hot chocolate and letting Charli run around without getting run over by 3 year olds. As I have said many times before, Charli likes hot chocolate.

We did get our wall anchors, which will be used to put the gates back up on our stairs - we seem to constantly rip them out of the walls. The gates are only necessary in stages, it seems. We didn't need them for a long time, obviously, until Charli started crawling and trying to go down the stairs before she really knew how. Then we kept them closed for a while. But then she actually became quite good at going down the stairs, and would reliably turn herself around and go backwards, and liked to go down to the landing and then come back up, so we would leave them open unless we really didn't want her to get away. Now she's walking, and she's to the point where she's interested in going up and down the stairs facing forward. She hasn't attempted it by herself, but she's right on the verge, so we need to make sure the gates are up good and strong. :)

We also got a new crock pot, for a zillion dollars. How can a crockpot cost a zillion dollars, you ask? When it has a cast aluminum insert, that's how. Our previous crockpot handle broke off like the first time we used it, so we returned it for a replacement - which had the knob on the lid broken off and glued back on (we opened up the box while we were in the store. Unfortunately, it was the last one left, so we took it). Well, the knob on the lid never fell off again - that glue must have been pretty good. However, the lid did eventually crack in half. Some kind member of my family glued it back together, but our glue was not as good, and it came apart again. Also, I could feel cracks inside the pot when I was cleaning it, so we decided the time had come for a new crockpot. And I was determined not to get another stoneware or ceramic inner. And the only crockpot I could find that didn't have a ceramic or stoneware inner was from Williams-Sonoma. And everything at Williams-Sonoma costs a zillion dollars. And that's how a crockpot costs a zillion dollars.

The inner part is very nice, just on its own. We made a lovely curry in it, and it cleans up very well. In addition, this crockpot is bigger than our last one, but it weighs a lot less, which is nice. It better last forever. It cost even more than our trash can, which we've already said better last until we have grandkids.