Golden Gate Fam: The Color Factory, Again

When the chance came to get tickets to see the Color Factory again in San Francisco, I knew I had to try to make it happen since we had such a good time last time.

This time we went on a Friday, which meant Orelia had to miss school and "tragically" miss the Lunar New Year parade. This didn't bother me in the least, but Orelia was mildly devastated at the thought of missing any big event. Luckily, she had an incredible time and admitted afterward that it was better than any parade they put on at school.

Orelia went into each room knowing what to expect, which I think made it all the more fun for her. (Each room is designed by artists and creatives who took a blank canvas warehouse and made it into a color "experience" of all five senses.) She definitely spent a long time trying out each of the scents on the scratch and sniff wall, even though almost none of them seemed to appeal to her in the least.

This time Bennett was the one who tried the black (charcoal) lemonade.

He liked it better than Orelia did, but he decided one sip was enough. ("Sour!" he proclaimed it.)

This time we went with friends to the Color Factory. I missed having John there, but the kids seemed to love having the added craziness of some of their buddies around.

The kids spent a lot of time "hiding" in this ribbon room made of 1,000 ribbons hanging from the ceiling.

Orelia chose this dress specifically for the Color Factory, and it seemed to make her almost camouflaged in the ribbons.

I don't really like the sensation of walking into a ribbon enclosure, so I stayed outside of the ribbons and waited for the photo-ops to come to me,

I think something only photographers can understand is that for me, half of the fun is being able to photograph these types of events.

The purple room was filled with thousands of print-outs of "selfies" from the internet, which Orelia found especially fun to throw in the air.

Bennett turned the room into a construction site in his mind and played "bulldozer" by pushing the paper all around and "crane" by lifting the paper from one place to another. I don't want to say he has a one track mind, but he can be very committed to his love of trucks.

Orelia can placate Bennett and play trucks too, but she was definitely more interested in creating disorder instead of order in this room.

The confetti room was, of course, a hit once again.

Unfortunately it reminded Orelia of falling snow, and she tried to catch some on her tongue (and succeeded, blech).

To finish up an exciting morning, the kids took a dip in a pool of 10,000 yellow balls.

It was a little deep for Bennett to walk in, so he stuck to the edges as if it were a real pool.

Orelia, of course, dove right in.

Bennett decided to do what he did last time in this room, and remove all the broken balls to a nearby trashcan. The Color Factory workers found this quite amusing, but my boy does not like to see things out of place of broken, thank you very much.

There are few things I can imagine Orelia less interested in doing than cleaning up a ball pit of its broken balls, but that's the beauty of the Color Factory, that everyone can find their own fun where they see it: Orelia wreaking havoc, Bennett creating order, and me behind my camera.