Today and tomorrow

Today Bryan and I were planning to take Penelope to the SF Zoo (my brother was going to join us as well), but the rain ruined our plans so we took her to the JellyBelly Factory instead.

For those who don't know, the JellyBelly Factory is about a hour away from Sac - the tours are free plus you get free samples. Sounds ideal, right? Yeah, not so much.

While good for babies and older kids - it's really not a great place for toddlers. Penelope was alternately bored and scared during the tour (watching the videos bored her and the loud packaging machines were a bit scary) and threw more tantrums than I've ever dealt with before. Luckily her tantrums are pretty mild in general, some people might not even classify them as tantrums - and she did ok when being held or when walking (it was the stopping to watch the silly videos that would start a tantrum), so Bryan and I did a lot of "pass the baby".

While it wasn't an awful experience, we've decided not to taker her or "&" to the factory again until they're old enough to really enjoy the tour... so probably around 4 or 5.

Add in the political campaign signs in the front entrance (for Meg Whitman - ick, makes me want to puke in a bucket) and I really could have done without the trip.

We did get some bellyflops, which are misshapen jellybellys - still delicious! And free samples, so it wasn't all bad. The zoo would have been much more fun. Oh well... we'll plan a trip for a weekday when it's not raining. Maybe in March before "&" arrives. There's nothing like waddling through a zoo to make me feel at home among the animals *lol*

I did get a couple of hilarious pictures of Penelope. This is the face she makes when you ask her to show you her teeth - priceless!



Wandering around the empty cafe area:


Attempting to get jellybellys out of the machine:


Tomorrow is going to be another packed day. My brother has an appointment at ITT Tech to learn about the BA program in video game design, so P and I are going to go with him. She has her 15 month check up, and I'm going to get a MUCH needed haircut. Still not sure what I'm going to have Jim do with my hair, but it probably won't be too drastic. Or maybe it will :)

I'll probably post tomorrow night with Pen's stats from her appointment. Bryan and I both predict: 33 inches and 29lbs.