Truckapalooza, Kiwi, and the Bob Baker Marionette Theater

So when I said a lot has been going on, I guess I mostly meant for Sophie, she's had a lot of fun outings lately. She loves trucks right now - loves watching the garbage truck, loves hearing fire trucks and pointing out big trucks on the road, so I thought that she would love downtown Riverside's "Truckapalooza" with tons of big trucks and the opportunity to sit in them, interact with them, and meet the people who operate them.

Maybe it was too big, or too overwhelming, who knows, but while she seemed to like seeing them and looking, she didn't want to get too close or interact with them much. Oh well I guess! At least AJ and I got to start the morning with some great donuts.

It kinda looks like maybe she's
just grossed out by the cat...?

We got to wander around some of downtown Riverside and eat snacks, so the day wasn't a total loss.

In other news, we've had Kiwi for over a month now officially and he really seems to be getting comfortable and fitting right in... but maybe toooooo comfortable. He'll just claw right up you and make himself at home and still hasn't quite learned to control those razor sharp claws yet.

Once he got settled, I enjoyed working
with him on my shoulder

Khaleesi tolerates him quite a bit now!

Sophie still loves him, but she has
grown wary of his claws at times and
asks me to get him down. She loved this though!

Aaaaand here he is getting too comfortable.

We didn't want him to fall in and freak out and scratch
the hell out of Sophie, so we purposely dipped his paws
in so he could see what it was and then he scrambled away.
Crisis averted.

On my Nintendo Switch Animal Crossing island, he was so taken by the butterflies and was trying to chase them down and catch them, it was so cute!

The butterfly went offscreen and this
was him looking for it to see where
it went

It had been way too long since I had seen Jessica, and wanted to visit her in LA, and she found us a puppet show to attend at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater and IT. WAS. ADORABLE.

The theater has been around 50 years, it's it's own full scale little theater, the marionettes were all original ones and so vintage and beautiful and every scene used a different backdrop, curtain, lights. There was a live organist and the puppets would come out onto the floor and interact with those sitting there. It was so lovely!

At first, Sophie did not want to go inside (as is usual with her), but I pointed out all the other little kids there and she was a little intrigued, so she stopped whining, but she was still clinging to me. Once the show started, she was transfixed and I could tell how into it she was getting. I re-situated her on the front of my lap and she was just so into it. She was talking and laughing and giggling and counting the puppets and just seemed to have a great time. The best part was the tradition at the end of the show: everyone got ice cream! We'll definitely be back.

After the show there we went across the street to a great little playground where Sophie pretty much had the time of her life just going down the slide over and over and over and over and over.

We were in a cute little neighborhood with lots of shops and cafes so we took a walk and got some lunch at one that fortuitously ended up having a whole little kid section with toys and books so everything turned out pretty awesome in the end.