I don’t know about you, but I am enjoying summer, friends. I have to say I’m having a hard time getting on a schedule and getting things done—I feel like I’m making more of a mess than cleaning up—but it’s really been great having more time with Wolfie and Greg and being able to actually be home for dinner every night! We had a really super weekend….FINALLY the weather has gotten sunny (although as I write this, grey rain clouds have just begun to loom above). Here’s a little of what happened in our neck of the woods this weekend!

WHO’S BAAAAAD?
When we first moved to our house, our next door neighbors were a super sweet elderly couple named Norman and Evelyn. They were both in their late 80s. Norman was a dynamo, but Evelyn was beginning to get a little bit spacey. She once told us how she was taking a “cruise to Colorado” and she always thought I was two different women, but she had a big heart and loved her garden. One day when she was puttering in the front yard she shouted over to me, “The goats are coming soon!” I smiled and nodded and secretly thought, “Oh poor Evelyn…” Well. Shut mah mouth because the next day as I was walking to the kitchen to refill my cup of coffee, this is what I saw outside:

I called up Greg and said, “Holy smokes, Evelyn was right! There are hundreds of goats in the field!!”

We’ve lived here nearly 10 years and every year we look forward to our annual visit from THE GOATS. The Bay Area can get reeeeeally dry in the summer and the grassy fields are a big fire hazard. Rather than hire guys with big ol lawn mowers and weed wackers, the city contracts out these local farmers who come with their posse of goats and within 2 days flat they eat the entire field. It’s AWESOME. I love that we do this….green livin’ and it’s so much for the kids (and us) to see these crazy goats.

GOOOOOOAL!!!

Wolfie has never been a super sporty little lad. He does love watching baseball with Greg (Go Giants!) and just started Little League this year. This spring my dad took him out with a soccer ball and they kicked it around and suddenly, Wolfie was obsessed with playing ball. He loves kickball and running around. So we thought, “I guess we could try soccer?” I don’t want him to be one of those kids that is overscheduled, but Little Leagued had just ended so we decided to try this little soccer club (it’s more of a workshop, and not a team). OH. MY. GOD. He LOVES it!! He wants to get there early to play before class, and then afterwards he wants to stay and kick the ball around. He looks so stinkin’ cute in his soccer uniform too—with his wild curls he looks like a crazy European soccer star, haha. GO WOLFIE!

After we manage to pry him away from the field, we go out for a little lunchie. This weekend we ate at one of our favorite places—Cactus Cafe in Rockridge. The crispy chicken tacos are to die for!

Up the street is a great little independent books store. The book store is one of my favorite places to go with Wolfie. I love the smell of books! (Also you may remember our Top 5 Picture Books too!) I love sitting with him and reading stories. This time I discovered the cutest book by Lauren Child, who is most known for the brilliant Charlie and Lola series (we love the DVDs, especially this one). Lauren has collaborated on one of the most charming picture books I’ve seen in a while. The Princess and the Pea is the classic fairy tale, but the illustrations are what I love. They built miniature sets and then incorporated Lauren’s sweet drawings. It’s part paper doll, part doll house. SO COOL! You can get The Princess and the Pea here.

I also thought this Counting Birds book was really cute and had really excellent illustrations:

You can pick one up Counting Birds here.

Flea Market!
Wolfie had a birthday party on Sunday so Greg and I had 4 hours of free time, so we hit the Treasure Island Flea Market. The Alameda Flea is the one I sold at a few weeks ago, but this was a new flea market. I wanted to check it out to see if it might be a possibility for me to sell at when I can’t make the Alameda Flea. The weather was picture perfect!

{Someone on Instagram made the comment, “you have the best flea markets in your area!” We have some great stuff for sure, but also know that I’m just showin’ ya the best stuff!!}

When I was at Alameda, my booth mate was this really awesome woman named Michelle of Freckle Face Vintage. She had tons of cool things, very in line with what I love (aka colorful 60s and 70s goodies). Anyway, I was hoping she would be selling that day so I could say HI….I never found her booth, but as I was browsing some vintage shoes she suddenly came up to me! She was with her super adorable friend and we had a great chat. (Ladies if you’re reading, let’s get together!) I love making new pals.

After a leisurely walk around, it was time to head back.

I tried not to buy too much (hey, I’m trying to streamline over here, right?) but I couldn’t resist these robin’s egg blue babies!!!! Whoo hoo! GOOOOOOOAL!!!!!! I also got one other pair of brown mod oxford type shoes that are really grand. And only ten smackers!

So that was our weekend. What did you guys get into? Are you enjoying your summer? Is it hot has heck where you are? Send some of that sunshine our way!

What’s that? You want to see my new shoes again? Oh OK, if you insist….

PS

Don’t forget to enter our $50 Paper Flavor Goodie Bag Giveaway!! Enter it here.

I love meeting blog pals in real life. And friends, let me tell you it was like the Power Hour of cuteness this Tuesday. My lovely friend James (bleubird vintage) came to San Francisco and together with my other rockin’ pal Tracy (shutterbean) we had a most fantastic afternoon!

photo: bleubird

James lives in Houston and she and her fiance Aubrey came to SF for a visit. We were all looking forward to meeting up and spending the day together. We hadn’t planned it inititally, but the kiddos ended up coming along for the afternoon too, which added a whole extra cute element to the day.

Wolfie had never met Tracy’s boy Cooper but you’d have thought they were old pals! Cooper was quite taken with the Wolf cub and I think Wolfie felt quite pleased to play the role of “the big kid.”

{um how CUTE is the little Coop???}

We decided to head on up to Cha Cha Cha on Haight. It’s one of my favorite places to eat, especially with a small group—tasty tapas and yummy pitchers of sangria!

photo: shutterbean

After lunch, little Cooper had his driver come collect him (aka his papa) but thankfully Tracy stuck around. Thanks Casey!

We took a little walk down Haight Street where we made at pitstop at the awesome Amoeba Records. Wolfie wanted to find “the We Will Rock You band” (heh….Queen…one of his faves).

Next stop, GOLDEN GATE PARK, our version of Central Park. People the weather was gorgeous. GORGEOUS. We sat on a blanket and munched on some crazy peanut butter bacon cookies Tracy had made for everyone. Um, yeah. I said PEANUT BUTTER BACON. I know this will either sound amazing or gross to you…but I assure you, they were DELECTABLE!!!!! I was nervous (i tried bacon chocolate and didn’t like it one bit). The bacon pieces were finely chopped and added a nice salty tang. Mmmm. Cookies.

photo: shot by aubrey from a tree in Golden Gate Park. i love it!

Little Gemma Bird is a beeyootiful baby. Just one of those little sweeties you want to hug on all day!

It was so weird-but-cool seeing Wolfie and Gemma together. James and I have been friends for over a year and have seen snippets of each others lives through our blogs, but we had never actually met in person. A twitter friend said seeing our two bloggy worlds together reminded her of when TV shows do double episodes—kinda like Law and Order: SF meets CSI: Houston. I love it!

Wolfie thought Aubrey (Jame’s feller) was very cool…he was especially impressed with his tree climbing skillz!

Wolfie was such an awesome kiddo all day. I was so proud of him, hangin’ with the grown ups and being all silly cute. Baby Gemma was also a little doll.

We packed it up and headed back to Japantown where James and Aubrey were staying. We ladies were having such a fun time that we still wanted to hang. Greg came to get the Wolf cub so I could still hang out with the girls. Tracy and I have had lots of lovely lunch dates but had never had the luxury of a whole day together, so that was really grand!

When Greg drove up to the hotel he jokingly said, “So I assume you guys are going up to Fillmore to check out the marc by marc jacobs store??” We all looked at each other like, “Ooooooh, now that you mention it!” Fillmore was a short walk away and it was an excellent idea. We all love pretty things and we did some fun window shopping.

We popped into Jonathan Adler and a wonderful kid’s boutique called Mudpie. This onesie says, “So my story begins…” Very sweet.

The Fillmore Bakery immediately caught our eye. It’s a daughter and pop establishment and had crazy good macarons! Passion fruit, salted caramel…..mmm.

Our final stop of the day was a lovely ladies dinner at Delfina on Fillmore. We had blood orange mimosas and shared some very tasty pizzas.

Dinner with bloggers means yes….many photos were taken! I will say we don’t have a ton of each other and I think that’s a testament to the fact that we really just had a grand time talking and walking and kinda forgot about photos.

I have to say it was one of the nicest /funnest/ most mellow chill days I’ve spent in a long time! I have the feeling the three of us will be meeting up again soooooon.

Special thanks to miss james & tracy bean for a most fabulous day! Next date, Houston??

Both of these ladies have amazing blogs. Many of you are probably familiar with them already but if not, be sure to swing by bleubird and shutterbean. You won’t be disappointed! Oh, and you can see their posts about the day here and here!

Summer is finally here in San Francisco and it’s going off with a bang! Sunshine! Hurray! We’ve been busy busy busy. Here’s a little bit of what we’ve been up to!

Wolfie started soccer and he really loves it! It’s not a proper team, it’s more of a soccerclinic/intro to playing the game. His favorite school yard game is kickball and that’s how he became obsessed with kicking the ball around—I gotta say he’s pretty good at it. He looks like a little European futbol player in his soccer uniform! I guess this makes me officially a soccer mom. Heh.

On the home front, I’ve been continuing to clean up the house which is a colossal process, lemme tell you. I’m hoping to have a garage sale and start taking pictures for my July online sale this week! In between it all, we did a little dog sitting and back-yard fence mending.

I’m making progress but really, it’s all still kind of a big fat colorful mess.

Earlier in the month we got a brand new fridge! It’s soooo awesome. Our old one was over 10 years old and leaked…I swear it looked like a crack house fridge, it was so awful. This new one? Holey moley….it’s amazing. I open it up and it’s like a freakin’ space ship!

Wolfie finally had his last day of school! I can’t believe my little first grader is going to be a big second grader!! He is a math whiz and it astounds me how quickly he can add double digit numbers in his head and multiply. I swear we never did that kind of stuff when I was in first grade. Reading and writing is more of a challenge for him, but he really loves books and he’s improved so much.

To celebrate the end of school, we celebrated in a most fantastic way. My friend Stephanie (who did the Flea Market sale with me) works at Pixar….and she got us in to a special Friends & Family preview of Cars 2!!!! Whoo hoo!

I’ve been to Pixar a few times (Steph invited Wolfie and I to a preview of Rattaouille and my friend Axel, who is a Pixar editor,  got me into a the last two Star War movies…I have generous pals!). Pixar is absolutely as cool as you think it’s gonna be. Wolfie was kinda excited….

In the lobby were these life size Luigi and Guido statues. So fun! Everywhere you turn is something cool—like a giant Woody and Buzz Lightyear made entirely out of Legos.

Awwww, my little doll. Hee.

The movie was SO much fun! I will say it is verrrry different from the first Cars movie. One of the things i loved about the original Cars was that there really weren’t any “bad guys,” it was more a McQueen learning life lessons. I thought it was great for little kiddos—in fact it was the very first movie that Wolfie saw in a movie theater! (I must brag, he was only  2 1/2 and sat through the entire thing spellbound! Yep, we are huge Pixar fans over here….) Cars 2 is much more action-packed (aka violent) as it’s a whole play on the James Bond, Mission Impossible movies. I think bigger kids will love it! But little ones might get a little freaked out. It’s loud (lots of explosions and shoot ’em up action). We still thought it was lots of fun and visually (of course) it’s incredible.

OH! And there is a Toy Story short before it that is really really (REALLY!) great! We felt so honored to be able to check it all out. Thanks so  much Miss Steph!! Afterwards Wolfie had a treat as we hit Rudy’s Fail Safe diner and he had pancakes for a late night supper. Hey, it was the first night of vacation so we bent the rules a little on bed time.

And finally, this weekend we had a really relaxing Father’s Day puttering around town….

Last Little League Game of the season! (crushing that a Bay Area team had to be the DODGERS!!!! Waaah…..for you non-Cali peeps, they are our big rivals!) I asked the guys to “look cool” and this is what they came up with, hahaha.

Ooooh Knitta Please! I spied some really cool guerrilla craft graffiti in Berkeley. So kewl.

We rounded out the day with Game Night. First we played Trouble (one of our all-time family faves!). I got my butt whupped….

Then we played Uno, another fave. We have a special Harry Potter deck that is really fun (esp for my little Potter fan!).

So there you have it. Yer all caught up. How was your weekend? Are you enjoying your summer? I sure hope so!