New Year's & Gualala

After coming home from our first snow day, Dave came down with a little cold.  Since we were both on holiday vacation and could "afford" the time for him to sleep it off, he decided to stay home in Davis with the dogs while Eddie and I made a trip to Livermore for New Year's.  Sleep is the best medicine and since he normally works four 10 hour days he's not always able to get enough sleep in Gualala.  And when he gets sick, it always takes him a while to get over it.  Plus, it's always nice to give him some alone time in his house--something he almost never gets.

Eddie and I spent the night in Livermore at my folks' house.  That evening, I got him ready for his bath and then took off to Dyani's for her party.  My parents were kind enough to put Eddie to bed.  Worrying about crazy drunk drivers, my mom made me promise to leave the party before midnight so I could get back before too many drunks hit the roads.

The party was really calm: lots of families, doctors, etc. all chatting and happily munching on foie gras and fondue.  Dyani is definitely French now!

I was happy to see a childhood church friend at the party, a guy named Matt who I hadn't seen in probably 15 years.  Donovan and I had a fun time catching up with him.  We did a New Year's toast at 10 pm (for Chicago!) because a few of the families with kids wanted to get back home early.  Dyani's parents' anniversary is on New Year's Day so they drove over from Livermore to be at Dyani's place at midnight.  They arrived at about 11:15 pm so I was able to see them for a bit before I took off for home.

Eddie and I stayed to play at my folks' house for while the next day, helping my dad with some yard chores.  We got to go home with a laundry basket FULL of delicious greens and onions from his garden, too.

Grandpa made Eddie a yummy PB apple sandwich.

Eddie helped Grandpa sift compost to make soil blocks for radishes and arugula in the greenhouse. I rototilled part of the yard in an effort to kill off the stinging nettle plants growing there.

Without fail, Eddie and I end up raking or digging in the backyard when we visit.  I could have a whole post full of pictures from the course of his life in this very spot, playing in the dirt. (Note: I'm wearing my dad's high school winter coat in this picture. Once he outgrew it, my Grandma wore it for years. It fits me perfectly.)

Eddie and Grandma spent a lot of time reading together...and seeking out Waldo in my old books.

We gave Dave one more night to recover from his cold before heading up to Gualala for a few days.  Our time was spent doing three things: cooking/eating, adventuring through the forest with the dogs, and assessing the Coast House for our move.  We took measurements, mapped out the soon-to-be downstairs kitchen, and I took extensive photo and video documentation of every room, nook, cranny, and outside area so we can have a nice before/after compilation.  Dave and I are paying for all the Coast House renovations (except some windows that John never got around to replacing) so we're trying to plan everything out in stages so we can actually accomplish our wish list of changes.  And that means a lot of compromises in terms of quality and speediness of the changes (at least on my part!).  I finally relented and agreed on installing icky laminate/Formica countertops downstairs instead of Corian or marble.  At least downstairs will be rented out once we finish renovating the upstairs so I won't have to live with crappy counters forever.  Ha.

I made a see saw for us to play on and gave Eddie as much advantage as I could.  I love simple machines!

Dave and his boys: Eddie and Taters.

What's better than cuddling with your Papa after an afternoon spent hiking through the woods?

John had a burn pile going at last year's logging site so we got to go check it out one night. Here are three generations of Bower men standing in front of the blaze.

John and Peggy love Hagar the Horrible comics.  This one made me laugh so MUCH because I swear Dave and I have had this exact conversation.  I think we'll dress up as Helga and Hagar for Halloween this year.

Dave taking measurements downstairs.

Dave and I were also able to take Eddie to the play group at Action Network where we got to meet another family.  I also asked a zillion questions about recreation and sports for kids Eddie's age--I am hugely disappointed that there's nothing in terms of sports or dance classes until kids are in school.  I knew the choices would be limited,  but having NOTHING seems crazy.  Eddie's been in gymnastics for a year now and his little body and mind depend on having challenging experiences like that.  I'm going to have to get creative and come up with some alternatives (Form our own tot sports team or dance class? Ask the gym or church to host a Mommy and Me yoga class? Sign Eddie up for a class or two in Santa Rosa to attend on our weekly trips to "town" for Costco shopping?).

Eddie's First (and Second) Trip to the Snow

How is it possible that a child raised in the Central Valley had not seen snow or touched the ocean until his fourth year of life?  Gosh, Dave and I are lowsy parents in some respects.  Being only an hour from each environment, we just never got around to visiting either until he was three.

We took Eddie to the snow for the first time at Leland Snowplay at the beginning of January before Dave went back to work.  It was a three hour drive so I packed up the van the night before and we popped a sleeping/PJ-wearing Eddie into the warmed up car at 6:30 am.  Even stopping for bagels, once to check the tire pressure, and a final time to install the chains, we made excellent time and arrived at the park at 10:30 am.  I'd never installed chains before and it was snap; I don't know why people complain so much about it. I think I'd only driven a car one other time with chains on and I'd forgotten just how loud and bumpy it makes the car, even at 20 MPH.

I dressed us as best I could, without breaking the bank.  I didn't know if he/we'd like it so I didn't want to spend much money on supplies or gear.  Eddie wore a size 2T snow bib that I bought on clearance last season (it was wayyyy too small) and we all wore rain boots with extra socks.  Lucky for us, it was a warmish day so we didn't get too cold.  The biggest issues were that Eddie's pants were too short for the leg liner to fit all the way down in his boot so his feet got wet AND it turns out my "snow pants" that I've had for a last several years are most likely just "exercise" pants with a deceptively waterproof-appearing outer layer.  My butt got soaked playing in the snow.

Despite our gear, we had a fantastic time!  Eddie was too short to get a ticket on the tow-up route, so we stayed on the walk-up "bunny" sledding hill most of the day.  Our little boy went down on our laps once or twice and then insisted on going down alone.  It. Was. Adorable.  He looked like a little bobsledder!

Lucky Eddie got hauled up the hill by us.

Ready to go down the hill!

After a couple of hours sledding, Eddie decided he just wanted to play in the snow instead.

Dave and I had to dig a lot of holes in the snow banks for Eddie.  He said they were holes for dinosaurs...

Mama and Eddie Pie.

Me and Davie.

Three Bowers. My Aunt Virginia made Eddie's hat, originally for my mom when she had started losing her hair due to chemo treatments.  But it was too small for her. Luckily it's perfect for Eddie!

After a few hours we went to the car and ate a picnic lunch--I'd brought sandwiches, snacks, and water bottles because I wasn't sure we'd like the food sold at the snow park.  And boy am I glad we packed our food because the line inside at lunchtime was INSANE.  Dave and I bought coffees after lunch to warm up, but they were from a smaller counter at the back that didn't have a line.  And then we bought some bags of popcorn to munch on during the 3 hour drive home.

That night in bed, I ordered Eddie and me some new snow pants and him a pair of snow boots.  I figured Dave and I would make due with rain boots again or go to Target for some snow boots.  But of course, Target only sells snow boots in early fall so they were completely out of stock in-store.

We all enjoyed playing in the snow so much that we went again last weekend.  This time I decided on the Donner Summit Sno Park.  It was much cheaper, requiring only a parking pass, which I bought and printed beforehand.

It was even more fun than the proper snow park.  We forgot to buy/bring a sled, so we made due with the lid from a Rubbermaid tote in the car (our emergency kit).  Eddie also had success sledding in the laundry basket I'd used to pack all our gear into.  I'd packed up all the random lid-less pieces of Tupperware kicking around the kitchen so we could use them to make snow bricks to build a castle.

Eddie and I making snow angels.

Us in the woods at Donner Summit Snopark.

Eddie Pie in the snow!

Dave working on the snow castle.

We had another car picnic, but this time it was much better: olives, apple sauce, pesto-and-cream-cheese sandwiches on olive bread, PB & J, cheeses, crackers, tangerines, pretzels, cookies, etc.  And a huge thermos of hot coffee.

Our car picnic.  I love all my little Tupperwares.

After lunch Eddie wanted to hike through the woods, so we did, for about 2 hours straight.  We'd stop on occasion so he could knock snow off tree limbs but he was really interested in what we call "adventuring."  That is, just wandering around wherever.  Eventually, napless Eddie was not being a "good listener" anymore so I carried him back to the car.  We stripped off our snow gear, down to our PJs underneath, and drove home.  About 5 minutes into the drive, Eddie was dead asleep.

Since Donner Summit is only about 1.5 hours away from Davis, we had plenty of time to stop by Walmart to buy a replacement batter for the Saturn and then head to Costco for a pizza/polish dog dinner and to buy a few things for us and for Dave's parents.  The next morning Eddie went to the zoo with his friend Renee, leaving Dave and I time to go to Big 5 Sporting Goods to buy ourselves proper snow boots and extra gloves. I still need to get Eddie a second set of gloves since they get too wet to want to wear after lunch.

Next time we'll take friends with us to the snow and we're planning on a snowshoeing trip with Auntie and Uncle, too.  Yay snow!

Strawberry on Dwellable

Christmas 2012

Like last year, we opted to stay home in Davis for the holiday.  Our Christmas was small, with just a couple of gifts for each of us (well, Eddie also got one from Santa plus a hand-me-down I nabbed from my parents' house and we haven't done our gift exchange with my family yet).

We let Eddie put out cookies, a glass of milk, and a carrot for Santa and his helpers. And he was happy to see just crumbs and a carrot nub left when he got up at about 9 am on the big day. I made him pose for a few pictures before we opened up our gifts.  For record's sake, here's what we received:

Eddie's fourth Christmas, he's 3 years and 4 months old.

Eddie got a pair of ear muffs from his Grammy and Papa (for wearing on the heavy equipment), a dinosaur LEGO/K'NEX kit from us, a set of dinosaur figurines from Santa...and my old kid-sized sleeping bag that I nabbed from my parents' house.

Checking out his new toy.

He was insistent that we go to Gualala immediately so he could drive the "sheens" with his muffs on.

Dave got a coffee cup from Eddie and a set of Coffee Joulies from me (check them out--made by two Dave's and they're called Joulies ("Julies")--isn't that awesome?), and a bottle of Bogle port.  We both like Bogle wines a lot and he especially loves port (generally too sweet for me).  I took Eddie to the homewares store here in town and we found alllllllllll the cups with red on them, lined them up on a shelf, and then he picked one for his Daddy.  He almost settled on the roses and hearts one, but then chose one with two dogs chasing a cat on it. How appropriate.

I was spoiled and got a wireless mouse, a sleeve for my new laptop, a pair of crystal earrings to match last year's bracelet, and (the best part!) a no-touch infrared digital thermometer.  This type of thermometer has been on my wish list for eons and I'm so glad I got one!  Dave and I have both been using it--me for cooking and him for cooking, analyzing the new vs. old windows, and determining if the doors hanging in the garage were warm enough to paint.

You can see Eddie's cup of chocolate milk next to Dave's coffee cup during presents.  Giving Eddie a special treat like that allowed us to delay breakfast until nearly 10:30 am!

My parents arrived late that morning and my dad and I got right to work preparing our Christmas feast.  We were joined by my post doc (Rongzhong), his wife (Jane), and their toddler (Liyang...I was pronouncing it phonetically and then realized that they say it like Leon...oops).  We made: ham, greens, sweet potatoes, salad, olive bread, Red Hots apples, and two Swedish recipes since Edward and Jennifer were there on the holiday.  The Swedish things included glogg (basically sweetened, mulled red wine) and a  pepparkakor spice cake.  Jane brought some Chinese sesame balls filled with red bean paste and they were amazing.  I think we all had a great time.  Eddie and Leon had a fun time playing and my dad and Rongzhong chatted at the table for a long time.

Eddie helped me make the spice cake.

Christmas dinner.  We used my Grandma's silver and our wedding china (Ballet Ribbon by Waterford).

My mom always does such a nice job decorating/setting the table.

Normally I make the desserts, but this time I let my mom buy a "French Silk" and a berry pie from Shari's in Livermore.  They claim to make the same pies as Baker's Square, but their chocolate silk pie is definitely not the same.  I keep meaning to try making my own because all the imitations I've had just aren't even close.

The next morning my dad and I made crepes using a Nordic Ware crepe pan we'd found at the SPCA thrift store a few weeks before.  It was only like $4 and it sells on Amazon for over $50.  I don't have the dipping dish for the batter, but a soup plate worked well enough.  Not well enough for my dad, however, so he made a template for one with a piece of cardboard.  His plan is to make one of the appropriate curve on his lathe.  It was definitely worth the $4 but not at full cost--I like my normal crepe pan better, which I adopted from a cookware orphanage (i.e., my parents' pantry).

Me and my fancy new kitchen toy!

My dad loves Swedish crepes and he recalls having them with cardamom powdered sugar dusted on top--so he used the mortar and pestle to make some.  I didn't have any lignon berry jam so we used plum jam and lemon curd.  Sadly, my folks had to return to Livermore early that afternoon but we wish they could have stayed longer.

Crepe breakfast!

Grandma and Eddie spent a lot of time reading together.

In the days following Christmas, we hung around the house mostly.  My Picasa auto-upload phone pictures remind me that we went to Joe's Crab Shack to use up some BOGO coupons we'd gotten when we "donated" money to a charity back in September when the Whitneys were visiting.  At the time of purchase the waitress had said we could use both coupons at the same time if we needed to--but of course it wasn't quite that simple.  We were able to get our waitress to split our table into two tickets without much trouble.  So from two coupons, we ended up with three adult entrees an an order of crab nachos.  One of the entrees was a small steak and sides, which we just took home.  The steak turned into two batches of cook su, the broccoli turned into left-over-Christmas-ham quiche, and the chickens enjoyed the rice.

The waitress wrote silly things on our bibs.  Eddie, being a "bigger boy" as he calls himself, refused to wear a baby bib.  Haha, I love what she wrote on his!

Dave made me take this picture and send it to our college friend with a quote from Super Troopers. Prav was a good sport and texted me back with the next line from the movie. 

I hope everyone had a great holiday, too!

Today's Happenings

...well, after a positively splendid two weeks of holiday vacationing and family time, our small Bower Clan is preparing for getting back to the ol' grind stone.  It begins tomorrow.

Since the course I'll be TAing for is on Monday nights (4-8 pm) Dave will now be home Mondays instead of Fridays.  Lucky for us, Cassie can accommodate this change to Eddie's daycare schedule.  So while Dave gets to remain home with Eddie tomorrow, I will be returning to school/work.

But for today, we are doing what we often do on Sundays: cleaning, cooking, working on some house projects, etc. Well, the adults are.  Eddie's busy outside with his friends, which is perfect because we can get much more done that way.

My to-do list for the day.

Dave has begun painting the interior doors. We've not had doors on any room except Eddie's for about 2 weeks.  And let me tell you, nothing ruins a nice hot bath than having your kid come in to poop while you soak.  I miss our doors.  A lot.

Eddie and the neighbors are playing outside. I think Mary Jane was busy planting an old fennel bulb she found in her fridge. You can see the kids adopted an old salad spinner from my "donate" bin (the spinner lid broke and Dave could not fix it).

I was successful with my second attempt at making homemade yogurt. I used 2 quarts 2% milk mixed with 1 quart of heavy whipping cream--both of which had barely passed their 'best by' date. I used 6 tablespoons of Straus European style yogurt for starter.  The jars sat inside a foam cooler with a heating pad set to medium overnight.  It's sooooooooo good and nice and thick.  But what wouldn't be with that much fat in it?

Downtown Abbey's third season begins tonight so as much as I'd like to write up some posts (Christmas, New Year's, visiting Gualala and assessing the Coast House for moving in, and Hawaii)...it's definitely not gonna happen tonight.

Pre-Christmas Trip to Livermore

Eddie's daycare generally follows the UC Davis "instruction" calendar and this year that meant two solid weeks off for winter break.  Dave also decided to take both weeks off.  And you know what that means: a veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery happy Julie!  

The plan was to get a lot of stuff done around the house.  But of course, plans change.  First, we made a last-minute decision to go to Livermore before Christmas (rather than after) once we learned that my good friends, Stephanie and Justin, would be in town for an afternoon.  Plus, it allowed us to see Jennifer and Edward before they flew off to northern Sweden to (attempt to) see the Northern Lights.  

So from Saturday, December 22 through Christmas Eve we stayed at my folks'. It was a jam-packed two days, too.  

Saturday night found us at the ice cream parlor with my mom, Edward, and Jennifer.

What's a trip to Livermore without stopping at Loard's for a sundae?  Or, "the pink ice cream store," as Eddie calls it.

We played with LEGOs a lot on this trip.

Because Edward and Jennifer were staying at the house, too, we had run out of beds and bedrooms.  So Dave, the dogs, and I slept on blow-up mattresses in the living room.  It was fine with us because it was cozy warm from the fire place!  Considering the rest of the house is 100% unheated, this was awesome for us.  

Sunday morning I made a delicious breakfast with veggies and fruits from my dad's garden.  It was a fun treat to have garden-fresh tomatoes in late December.

I made a GIANT breakfast pizza, with eggs as a crust to Jennifer could eat it.

Then us human Bowers headed off to Sycamore Grove for a "rainy day adventure" with our friends, Brian and Melissa.  When planning our activities, Melissa suggested we go on our walk Sunday, rather, than Saturday afternoon, because it'd be "drier" that day.  I think she got her forecast days mixed up because it was a crazy intense storm by Livermore standards.  Luckily, we figured that out ahead of time and decided to go anyway, properly attired in rain gear.  If we hadn't prepared ourselves for the driving rain and super intense winds, it would have been miserable.  We spent about two hours chatting, walking along the paths, climbing up and into trees, and tromping through the creekbed looking for treasures and fish.  It was a fantastic time!

Eddie biked the first half of our rainy day adventure.  He did quite well, considering the wind was whipping around him.

Brian, Melissa, and Dave.

We escaped the wind for a snack inside a hallow tree...and then convinced Eddie to smile for a picture before we left.

Eddie was soaked and exhausted on the walk back, so he morphed into a joey, zipped up inside Dave's rain jacket.  And like most joeys, he snuggled up and fell fast asleep.

We got grub at our favorite Mexican hole-in-the-wall, then picked up a dozen donuts before heading back to my folks' place.  Shortly after we changed into dry clothes, Justin and Steph arrived.  We chatted, played LEGOs with Eddie, and ate donuts for two short hours before they had to depart.  

Brian, Melissa, Justin, Eddie, me, Dave, and Steph.  (You guessed it, Eddie ditched his wet clothes and decided against getting dressed again.)

Some family friends brought my parents a lovely baking dish for their Christmas gift...and it was filled with an uncooked lasagna!  We ate it for dinner that night, along with a giant salad made with garden treats.  Of course, it was still pouring down rain, so my dad and I got soaked while harvesting my flashlight.

You can't tell, but my dad IS smiling under that beard.  For reference, my blue coat is matte finish when dry and it gets shiny only when it is soaked.  Unfortunately, having worn and washed it since early college, it's no longer water "proof" at this point.  

Dave said I looked too happy, considering how soaked we were, so he instructed me to look miserable.  You can't tell in this picture, but my dad is NOT smiling under that beard.  

Salad fixings: mint, carrot, radish, green onion, bell pepper, parsley, and Chinese cabbage.  And I made a dressing using our homemade plum jam.  

Monday morning my dad and I headed out to shop for a few gifts.  The world may not have ended on 12/22/2012 but something shifted the universe because we ended up at the MALL to shop.  I think I've only been at the mall once with my dad in my whole life.  And the last time he insisted on standing outside Contempo Casuals while my friend and I shopped when I was like, 16 years old.  It was a Harold Levie Shopping Trip to the Mall, however: in and out as quickly as we could walk to the stores, find what we needed, pay for them, and walk back to the car.  

The sun was still out when we got back to the house, so we went out to enjoy the warmth of the greenhouse.  I can't say what we made in there because it'll end up being a gift for someone who reads this, but to whom I haven't exchanged gifts yet.  So...that'll be another post.  But it wasn't gardening, it was cooking!  Weird, I know, but us Levies have a soft spot in our hearts for humid, warm greenhouses, especially while it's cold outside.   

Me working inside the little greenhouse.

We took off that evening, after harvesting a whole laundry basket full of greens and onions to be cooked up for Christmas dinner the following day.  Dave and I stopped at a fast food joint on the way out of town for a snack and right as we pulled up to the drive through, Eddie's eye lids fell.  I asked him if he wanted to eat at the restaurant and he said, "No thank you. I'm going to take a nap instead."  He woke up when we got back to Davis and he was SO SAD that he didn't get to eat at the "restaurant."  It was like a tantrum, but for sadness, not anger.  After about 30 minutes of sobbing and repeating his sorrow, I was finally able to talk him out of it by singing the new-to-him song,  On Top of Spaghetti and offering him a bowl of mac-n-cheese and his very own serving of meatballs (from the freezer, so nice to have homemade food on hand!).  And now he makes me sing that song about 10 times every day.

Man, I think we wore my parents out!  The dogs, of course, will sack out any time they can find a willing soul to snuggle them.

Today

I don't know about you, but normally I'm positively itching to walk out the door the last day before vacation, a weekend, or holiday break.  Well, I was up until last year.  There's something about being fully immersed in a satisfying job that makes you actually want to keep working.  This week I worked as usual and even found myself offering to come to campus to work on some stuff for the course I'll be TAing for next term (a class about which I know practically--and theoretically--nothing).  Like, I wouldn't mind coming in on Christmas Eve to review the syllabus and website with the professor, who said she'd be working through the holiday on the course.  Crazy.

It helps that we were on vacation last week.  And by "we" I mean Dave and me.  No Eddie.  Although, we did invite Edward to come once we were there so while we weren't on a solo trip, we were child-free, which was quite nice.  I already posted pictures on Facebook and I have a Picasa album I can share with you if you like, just email me or leave a comment.  (After combing through and annotating 200 pictures I've lost motivation to write up a blog post about the trip at this point...but I will soon.)  The trip was amazing and I'm so glad we went where we did, for the reasons we did, and when we did.  The author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People advocates for time off to "sharpen the saw."  I couldn't agree more.  It was recharging, uplifting, relaxing...and calorific.  Mmmm, I love cheap eats.

So going to work this week was sort of nice; I liked getting back to my data, my samples, my plan.

My building, however, was dead.  I only saw people from two separate labs other than myself, all day.  My goal for the day was to pack 1/3 of my samples into tin capsules for total nitrogen analysis (something that should have been done in the summer but I checked the "carbon only" box on the form instead of "carbon and nitrogen" box...doh!).

So this is what I did all day...while listening to about 5 episodes of This American Life from 2001.

Even if I forgot to eat lunch, it wasn't a bad way to spend a rainy, freezing cold day.  And at the end, I helped my friend Danny water some stuff in the greenhouse before he drove me home.  Eddie was napping so Dave couldn't come fetch me and with the buses on break service who knows when I would have been able to get home.

The Mayan calendar ended today...but the world didn't end.  I thought about making some doomsday cookies to bring to work but I didn't have a flame shaped cookie cutter and as it turns out not enough people were at work to enjoy them anyway.

I hope everyone has a safe, fun, delicious, relaxing, and just-a-little-chaotic (too keep you on your toes) holiday season!  It's here!

San Diego: Part 3 (AKA Santa Barbara)

To wrap up our San Diego beach vacation, my mom, Eddie, and I drove north to Santa Barbara on Tuesday morning, October 3.  We met up with her grad school friend, Janice, at a Shoreline Beach Cafe, a cute little on-the-beach diner.  This place was perfect for Eddie because it not only had outdoor seating, but it was actually IN the sand and the restaurant provided sand toys for kids (and posts on which to tie up your dog if you brought one).  It was hot and we sat in the sunshine, soaking up the remnants of summertime.  (The food was pretty good, too.)

Then we drove up to Goleta to stay the night with some friends.  This was Eddie's favorite part of the trip because we stayed with Jonah--his bestest friend ever.  You remember Jonah, right?  I used to swap-sit with his mom, Morgan, before they moved for her new post doc position at UCSB.  These sweet boys of ours picked right up where they'd left off a year ago: playing, running around, talking our heads off, playing dress up, reading books together.  It was so awesome for them to be together again.

Sweet boys.

They love each other so much it's just adorable.

Morgan and Kristin made us a picnic dinner, which we ate at the beach.  We stayed at the beach until it was too dark to see where the boys were running off to, so we packed up and went to get ice cream at McConnell's.

After baths and stories, we tried to put the boys to bed.  Jonah usually sleeps with his moms but wanted SO BADLY to sleep in his actual room with Eddie, who had his own little mattress to sleep on.  So after a while, Kristin and I both ended up in the room, cuddling our respective boys to sleep.  I could hear Jonah whispering to her that "Eddie is STILL MOVING!"  He thought it was weird that Eddie twitches and rolls around until the moment he actually passes out.  Haha.

The next morning we had a yummy breakfast (minus the weird vegetarian soy bacon...) and everyone piled into their respective cars to take off. It was a super short visit with them, but I'm so glad we stayed there instead of at a hotel.  They let it slip that they might be getting a baby girl placed into their family the very next month...I was good and kept my mouth (and fingers) motionless on the subject until they posted pictures of baby Sofia on Facebook after Thanksgiving.  I can't wait to go down again sometime and meet her!

My mom, Eddie, and I met up with my good friend, Justin, and a local park.  Eddie played and ran around while we chatted about...well, a lot.  We were there for nearly 2 hours I think but it felt like 10 minutes.  I wish we could have spent all day with Justin.

Our drive back to Livermore was uneventful, if you count Eddie having a tantrum in Burger King while we got a milkshake as such.  We made pretty good time so Eddie and I decided to hang out in the garden with my dad for a while before taking off for Davis.  And of course we picked and took home a huge basket of veggies (his summer garden was still going strong).



So...that wraps up our fun beach vacation. I hope we can make beach vacations a regular thing.  We'll be living in Gualala but it's not that kind of beach, you know?  

Santa Barbara on Dwellable