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Exploring Bay Area Playgrounds: Braly Park
For the longest time, I didn’t know what to do with my website. I always enjoy writing here and updating you, and I noticed I hadn’t updated in FOUR months. Holy jeeze. I want to get better with that, now that I’m a bit better with my time management after having two boys. I have a little system/schedule going now, and I can definitely fit some time in for blogging these days. So hello, again! Let’s jump into what I randomly came up with this morning…
My boys and I enjoy heading out to the forest for adventures or visiting the local playgrounds in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley (similar style to my Exploring Coffee Shops back in the day). I decided to create a somewhat weekly post about the ones we’ve been going to for the past couple of years, and finding new ones. I had been posting and sharing about these on my Instagram page each time we come across a new-to-us one, and now I’m also going to document about it here (you know, in case instagram decides to shut down randomly one day and I lose everything I ever posted!).
Braly Park, Sunnyvale California
704 Daffodil Ct, Sunnyvale CA 94086
Braly Park is a Japanese-themed park and is located on 5.6 acres of land. There’s a decent sized parking lot, off street.
This playground has a huge field for playing with your kids, flying a kite, throwing ball to your pup. There’s a bathroom on site, 3 picnic areas with electrical outlets, horseshoe pit, shuffleboard and sand volleyball court (no nets). I haven’t seen anyone play volleyball while there, but the kids seem to love playing in the sand and the water from the splash pad drains down into the sand creating a lovely experience for those that enjoy playing in the muck! Ha! Tip: If ever playing in sand/wet sand/sunscreen + sand, bring baby powder. Dash it onto the areas where you’re full of sand and it removes it like nothin’ I’ve ever seen. Wild.
I’m all about playgrounds that don’t have wood chips. Wood chips have a tendency to get everywhere: in our shoes,splinters, and landing on them when you have a new walker isn’t comfortable either. This is a great playground and the entire area is cushiony/soft/spongy material. Not sure of the technical term ;)
It has a play structure for older kids, and a toddler area with tons of shade, and a few musical instruments for the kids to make some tunes. We love the small frog splash pad area and sand. My boys could spend hours here.
Definitely check this one out!
Minimal mood (+ favourites)
Minimal mood. I search constantly on IG, and all over the web for visually appealing images. I save them. I love looking at them. Hundreds of images (including some of my own) are saved on my phone to flick through for…I suppose, inspiration of sorts. I love simple looking flatlays, stationery posts, beauty products in unique packaging. I want to do more shots like that.
Below is a picture I shot when my sil was visiting us. Looks like we’re in a far away place…I love how it turned out. Are we in Mexico? No no.
It’s been pouring rain here in California what seems like daily since January pretty much. I’m dyin’ for a bit of California warmth to come by again. Believe it or not (and remember, it’s all relative, for my Canadian friends) it gets chilly here. The other morning there was water frozen on our street (lol). And, it does dip down below 4°C. Seeing as I don’t wear my super warm Canadian winter coat here, but rather a fall-like jacket, you do tend to get a bit of a chill some days.
Anyway.
Sweet mercy, this post is all over the place (just like the good ol’ blogging days haha), but I did want to talk about a few of my favourite things as of lately:
:: lofi chill beats on YTÂ [a live stream]
:: white, black and grey in this top. It’s been pretty much my uniform the past 1½ yrs
// drink:: this new-to-me coffee shop [I want to do those explore coffee shop posts again]
// food:: TJs mushroom risotto [pure heaven. I serve it with baked salmon + roasted broccoli]
Have a great Wednesday!
Holiday Gift Guide| Gifts they’ll actually use!
One of my favourite round-up posts to do at the end of each year is a Holiday Gift Guide. I’ve been doing these sort of posts for countless years on my blog and I love showing you my top picks I’ve found over the last year, and oldies but goodies that I’ve been using for years on end. Let’s get cookin’ and dive right into the Spiffykerms Christmas & Holiday Gift Guide!
– The Tech Lover –
Lenovo Flex | This is a new yoga book One of my favourite features definitely has to be the  360° hinge that effortlessly switches you to tablet to laptop mode and back. We will be bringing this with us back to Canada for entertainment both on the airplane ride back.
Canon G7X Mark II| My husband bought me the infamous Canon G7X for Christmas last year and it was the biggest (and best!) surprise. I’ve been wanting one for a few years, and finally got my hands on it. I use it mainly for taking videos and photos of my baby. But one day I’ll start up my YouTube channel again once I make time for it again!
– Gifts for foodies –
Red Duck| This is the “So Unique†package of Red Duck sauces which consists of Red Duck Curry Ketchup, Sweet Mustard Peppercorn BBQ and Uniquely Korean Taco Sauces. It’s a small, women-opened condiment company that makes organic ketchups, BBQ sauces and cocktail sauce. So tasty. I threw half a jar of the Red Duck Ketchup in the slow cooker (with other ingredients) with some chicken, to make a “sticky chicken” recipe, and it was fantastic. It’s all gone now, but I used the entire jar (because we have salmon aka”fish friday” every friday) of Red Duck Sweet Mustard Peppercorn BBQ sauce on both sides of the salmon. Roast it in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 and you’re golden.Â
Pure Organic| These bars only 4-8 ingredients. The tiny layered bars you see on top there (yellow packaging) was my favourite. Definitely a sweet treat, made with fruit and vegetable puree. You can get them basically everywhere nowadays: Amazon, Target, Thrive Market, Costco, etc. The snacks are USDA-certified organic and non-GMO project verified. They use no soy or dairy ingredients in the recipes, and our Pure Organic products are also certified gluten-free and kosher.
KitchenAid Mixer| Now this is only new-to-me in the last month or so. But I finally bought myself a KitchenAid mixer and I’m loving it. I ended up getting a 5qt Artisan one. Although I’m not much of a baker, I’m still pretty happy I ended up getting it (on sale, too and I used a gift card!). Anyone have some great recipes to share with me to put this thing to good use?
– Gifts for Babies –
Birdrock Baby| Long time lover of Birdrock Baby booties over here. Each pair purchased feeds a chid in need. I love supporting small businesses, but also one’s that give back. My beb’s has been wearing them since day 1. I looked back on the day we brought him back home from the hospital and he was wearing them! I’ve received a few pieces via PR samples, but I’ve bought a ton of them too, both for beb’s and for gifts for his baby-friends. Use the code SPIFFY10 for a discount upon checkout.
California Baby| Like Birdrock Baby, California Baby is a brand I love, and support, and have been using as soon as I started bathing my baby, and putting lotions on him. Recently, the lotion shown here on my Instagram is certified by the USDA to be 100% Plant-based.
Guava Travel Lotus| Labeled as a portable lightweight travel crib, we keep the Lotus set up in our living room as a safe play area for bebs when I have to leave him alone for a minute or two, say when I fetch the laundry, or feed Alfie. But when we do travel, we’ll definitely be packing this up and loading it into the car. It folds up really easily, and he’s already comfortable with being in there, I know he’ll have no trouble adjusting to it when we need to set it up in a hotel room or something similar, in the future.
Sound machine| I shared this back in May, but any sound machine will work (or even an app on your phone). It gives my baby consistency of knowing when its nap time (when I turn it on, then put him into a sleep sack, he automatically knows it’s sleepy-time).
– Gifts for her –
Burt’s Bees| Long time fan/user of Burt’s Bees products, especially their lip balms. Their Holiday Gift Collection is in stores now and everything is under $25. I’m picking a few of these sets up for my family/friends (I hope I didn’t ruin that by posting it here…). I love the little gift/makeup bags that some of the products come in too. Here are a few of my faves: Burt’s Bees Essentials Travel Kit, Mistletoe Kiss, and Naturally Soft Hands.
PJs| Who doesn’t love a new pair of PJs? I love to shop Target, H&M, or Forever 21 for them. I wish I snagged up these striped ones from Target when I had the chance. Darn. I ended up buying these red and white striped one’s from Amazon the other day. Can’t wait!
Leggings| I’m all about comfort this year. I live in leggings. I picked up a handful right after Black Friday from Forever21 when I took bebs to the mall for his Santa pictures (p.s. which was ADORABLE). I’m all about the the velvet this year.
– Gifts for him –
Silicon Wedding Bands| I guess this isn’t just for him, since I bought a package for myself earlier this summer. It’s all I’ve been wearing since I scratched my baby once with my real wedding set and felt so guilty. These are great since the don’t bother my sensitive skin, and obviously don’t scratch little ones!
Clip-on lenses for your phone| These are so neat, and don’t distort your photos. You simply clip it on your phone and snap away. Great bang for your buck.
– For the coffee addict -Â
Milk Frother| I bought this for the family last Christmas and I gotta be honest, I’m not the one who makes the coffee in the household on the weekends, Mr. Spiffykerms does. But he makes me a fancy frothy coffee bevvie on the weekends (add sugar free vanilla syrup and I’ll melt!), and they’re so delicious with this milk frother. We use skim milk, and it still froths well!
Fancy mugs and a gift card| Target’s dollar spot has cute gift card holders this year (santa’s with a zipper on the top, so it’s totally reusable!), so snag one up, go to the person’s fave coffee shop and pick up a gift card and/or a mug, and there you have the gift.
Well pals! That concludes another Holiday Gift Guide on Spiffykerms.
Previous gift guides:
2017 Mama-to-be &Â 2017 Babies |Â 2016Â | 2015Â | 2012 |