U.S. Adventure - Oakland

Upon our return to Oakland, our hosts RB and SB (and their dog NB) kindly offered to watch the girls so LBJ and I could go out for dinner.  We had a great dinner at the Ramen Shop in Oakland.  This restaurant has a lot of buzz (articles in the NY Times and elsewhere), and one of LBJs friends knows the owners.  It was indeed a noodle shop, but we love Japanese noodles.

On Sunday, the Bs hosted a BBQ for us.  The weather was great, so a good time was had by all.  It was nice to see everyone and the food (grilled by RB) was excellent.

On Monday, LBJ had a couple of meetings in SF, so I took the girls to the Oakland zoo.  Although not cheap ("you're paying for land" as LBJ put it), it was a wonderful way to spend a few hours with the girls.  We all had a good time.  We particularly liked the chairlift, where we got a bird's eye view of many animals.

Happy to pose for a photo, as always

view from the chairlift

I was quite impressed with the girls' attitudes as well.  They did not complain when I declined their request to go on some of the carousel-type rides, perhaps because there were so many other things to do (and we had just gone on the chairlift).  There was a nice kids' area for them to play, as well as a petting zoo.  FABJ even took ORBJ to the bathroom, and everything went smoothly (unlike the last time I let FABJ take ORBJ to the restroom - FABJ is very eager to be in charge, but ORBJ is not always eager to be bossed around!).  Not surprisingly, they fell asleep in the car on the way to pick up LBJ from BART.

Little bunny FABJ

The goat never had a chance

We finished our visit to Oakland with a trip to the Rockridge area to see LBJs friends again.  The girls had a great time at the (fancy) local playground, and then we had pizza (take out) from Zachary's, a Rockridge institution.