Growing Things

After 3 days of mass transit, we rent a minivan and cross the Golden Gate Bridge and head to Muir Woods.

In the redwood forest, it's all big trees and family photo ops:







What you can't see here are the gluten-free berry scones they sell at the Muir Woods snack bar. We actually drive across the mountain to the Bakery-of-Origin in Larkspur, where we have lunch and stock up on scones for the journey north.

Our next destination is Santa Rosa to visit Jen's friend Collette Michaud, who is the founder of an emerging children's museum there. At this point, The Children's Museum of Sonoma County is just an empty building and yard, awaiting renovations. It's an exciting though undoubtedly scary stage imagining how to make it all come together for an opening next year!



Collette and Jen get right into an intense conversation about strategies on how to phase the construction of the new museum exhibits. Meanwhile, the kids are playing on a picnic table across the yard, inventing a game involving sticks, fallen apples and pokemon. Mark caught it on video...



...it's just a reminder that all the fuss about children's museums doesn't really matter to kids at all - kids can make anything fun and interesting. Grownups, on the other hand, need a lot of help! So children's museums are there to connect grownups to the ways their kids play and learn and create - it's a pathway to a family moment. That's the real value of children's museums (the same might be said of family road-trips!)

After Santa Rosa, we all head South to Petaluma to have dinner with Collette's family, which we barely manage to squeeze in between Tenzin playing magic cards with her son Russell, and her other son Ian showing Kobi his lego empires, and a long walk exploring downtown Petaluma (which is adorable and which we unbelievably did not photograph.) The crowning moment for the kids is the chance to meet Collette's husband Steve, a longtime cartoon artist and con veteran, who charms them with a tour of his studio and an autographed copy of one of his books.