Through the forest and to the beach, to Grandmother's house we go - Califronia Day 5

On Monday, Day 5 of our California trip we took a fantastic family day trip to the Redwoods and Stinson Beach. It was about an hour an a half to the redwoods and two hours home. Again, Lea was a great traveler and took it all in stride (but she did get to watch Robin Hood on the way home).

We arrived at Muir Woods around 10am and Ron got awesome parking. Here we are at the entrance to the Muir Woods National Monument.

I can't say enough about how beautiful the Redwood forest was. It was an easy hike up and back along a little stream. It was so beautiful and majestic. This video is supposed to show how peaceful and beautiful the running water sounds were, but I think mostly you just hear the shuffle of the camera. But I tried to capture it.

I can let the photos speak for themselves. And boy did I take a lot of them.
The mighty Redwood...

Lea by the stream


Ron, the tree hugger


Lea did get tired less than half way through. Everyone took turns carrying her for a bit. Here its Grandpa Ron's turn.

Grandma Jo Ann and Lea say hi to another baby in the redwoods. Grandma threatens to steal their stroller since we didn't bring one.

Group pic in the Redwoods

Dan strong man in the woods



Lea and Mommy sit on a tree


Around noon we took a rather scary drive down the winding road along the coast to Stinson Beach. Again, great parking, beautiful location. For this Southern girl the beach is somewhere that water meets sand, meets more sand and then road. But in California Water met Sand met Mountains. It was beautiful. This panoramic is a composite of 5 photos

We unloaded the van and the boys hauled our lunch to the beach.

Lea eats her picnic lunch.


Some old fogies didn't wear short.

But that didn't stop Dan. He still got in the water with Lea. The very very very very cold water. They played ankle deep as the waves washed up and Lea laughed and giggled and froze her tootsies.
Lea and Daddy in the water



While we played on the beach Ron got out the kite.


Ron and the *!@#!*!@! Kite


See while Daddy played with Lea in the water Jo Ann and I ran all over the beach trying to get the kite in the air, but to no avail. That silly kite did not want to fly that day. After many tries and much frustration we decided it was time to build sand castles and enjoy the togetherness, not running all over dragging the kite through the wet sand.

Lea and Grandma Jo Ann searched for "shells" on the beach. This beach was rife smooth rocks and drift wood, but no shells, so Grandma Jo Ann brought some shells with her and layed them out for Lea to find. Lea had fun picking them up. Mommy and Lea also collected a lot of rocks and drift woods to bring home.

Grandma Jo Ann and Lea built sand castles.

Mommy and Lea also built sand castles. Well... Mommy built them with the sand molds and Lea played Godzilla and stomped them.


Then around 4 we decided we'd better get going. Mommy wanted one more scenic picture at the pretty gnarled tree. Alas at the same time we walked up to the empty tree so did some very strange beach goes with their minis of Courvoisier. So we got our picture and got the hell out of there. I guess I have to say I'm glad I have the odd balls in the picture, it does make for a much more interesting photo. What characters. As Dan said, in California what is not fruits and nuts are flakes.


But we didn't hit the road home immediately. First we wanted to visit Point Reyes to get a stamp in Grandma Jo Ann's National park passport book. Their visitor's center had a wonderful nature exhibit with animals and some touch and feel bones and fossils. Lea enjoyed this part where you pulled a lever and a log lifted to show the life underneath. Lea just liked to pull the lever. Here are Grandpa Ron and Lea looking at the nature exhibit.

This was my favorite part of the nature exhibit — bird smelling his arm pit.

Then we stopped by a little store and bought cheese. I was very excited about blue cheese made from the region. Grandpa Ron thought it was bizarre that I was so excited about cheese. I do enjoy a good souvenir cheese. We went to a small "Whole Foods" like store where the young teen checking me out groaned as he worked the check out about all the drama in his life. I said "How can you be stressed out in one of the most beautiful places?" and he said, "If only landscape could change the world, we'd solve a lot of problems." It was an interesting and quick exchange. The imprtant thing is that I got cheese.

Continuing our journey home we tried to stop by a creamery that made Brie, but they were closed. Either closed for the season or we missed it by 15 minutes, hard to say, but closed is closed.

And as we made a true effort to make our way home we got held up at a 4 way stop in a small town. Cars were stopped 3 cars deep at a 4 way stop as a blind man with a cane stood at the intersection. No one wanted to run over him, but no one was willing to tell him traffic was stopped. No one that is, except my fantastic husband! Dan jumped out (and as he passed the car in front of us the lady asked him to help the man... real thoughtful lady... like he was just taking a walk since traffic was stopped). Dan said he asked the man if he could help him across and the man said he hated the intersection because he never knew when traffic was stopped. Dan said "well they're all stopped for you now, so lets go." We were all very impressed by Dan's helpfulness. Once a boy scout, always a boy scout.
Dan helping the blind man.

We made it home about 7 pm and had yummy takeout burritos and fell exhausted into bed. It was a really great day.

Happy Birthday Grandpa Ron - California Day 4

We noticed as I was posting that there are no pictures, after 3 full days here, no pictures of Grandpa Ron. So on his birthday, at his party, we made sure to take a picture of Grandpa Ron and Lea.





We started the morning by going out to buy luggage and strawberries (not at the same place.) We have a fantastic new set of 5 pieces to replace my one old "body bag." Will we fill it all to come home? We'll see...


We got strawberries at a real strawberry patch. The strawberry patch let Lea pick her own berries.

Lea had fun picking them and eating them. She ate them as soon as she picked them so we didn't stay too long. We would have had a berry stuffed girl! They were some really fantastic tasting strawberries. So fresh and sweet.





While out shopping Grandma Jo Ann got Lea a beautiful new party dress and pretty yellow flip flops for the big party Sunday afternoon.


There were about 20 guests over the afternoon. It was a joy to meet all of Grandma and Grandpa's friends. We got to meet Ron's two sons and his grand kids (who Lea had met the day before at Emily's first communion). Alex, Emily and Zachary.

When Lea saw Emily on Sunday she walked up to her and just stroked her arm. The only thing I could imagine was because Lea had seen Emily in her Communion dress with veil the day before, Lea thought she was a princess or something.

Or maybe Lea just wanted to play with Emily, because she did take her hand and lead her outside. They played together well and blew bubbles, even though Emily is about 9. Emily had great patients with Lea.
Dan and Emily sharing a laugh over some bubbles.


Also at the party was Dan's grandmother, Vivian Cardoza. She is looking great it was wonderful to see her. She came with Aunt Jeanie and it was good to see her as well.


They got a picture of the 4 generations.


Lea got to help Grandma Jo Ann and Grandpa Ron open a couple presents.


And as tired as everyone was, after all the guests were gone and everything was cleaned up, Mommy made the 5 of us pose for one last picture.


and then it was time to kick back on the bean bag and watch some tv.


video of Grandma Jo Ann blowing bubbles and the garden:

Off to see the Philip - California Day 3 After Nap

Dan and I for a while have been using BN and AN to tell time... that's before nap and after nap. Because really that's what life is like with a toddler. And it has pretty well split our days and thus the current twice a day posting. We've had pretty big adventures both before and after nap and since I seem to have time during nap time to post, why not post twice a day.



Again, as I posted last time, Saturday was JoAnn's day to take care of Lea all day. In the morning while we are at the festival and in the evening while we went to San Francisco (Oakland) to visit my college buddy Philip.



Ron and JoAnn were scheduled to go to Ron's granddaughter's First Communion. They were excited to take Lea. I took it as a great compliment that Ron was excited to show off his step-son's daughter at his other granddaughter's party. It is pretty exciting to be the "out of town grandkid." So they went to Emily's Communion and party. Grandma and Grandpa said that Lea behaved wonderfully at church. Even told Grandpa Ron, "Shhhh... Don't talk in church Grandpa," when he leaned over to tell her how well behaved she was. It sounds like they had a good time at the party playing with the other kids, some of which will be here Sunday for the big birthday party. Sounds like Lea did just fine without Mommy and Daddy for the day. I think making it the third day helped since she had a few days to get acclimated. They said she took her nap well and went to bed well. We stopped in to change clothes between the festival and our SF trip so we saw her for about an hour after her nap and maybe that helped her know we were still around.



We kissed the little one goodbye, loaded up Maggie and were on our way. The drive to San Francisco... well we were headed to Philip's house in Oakland... the drive to Oakland takes you between these hills/small mountains that are loaded with wind farms. The picture doesn't do it justice. There are miles and miles of wind turbines on the hills. It is a pretty site in its own way.


Philips house was a very cute apartment that over looked the other cute houses. He called it a transitional area. Meaning they are tearing clearing out the undesirables and raising the property values. The 4 plex Victorian next door was for sale for $699,000 - we picked up a flyer if anyone is interested.
Maggie got us to Oakland and was right on her estimated time, but took us to the wrong end of the street. With a phone call Philip knew exactly where she had taken us and we shut off Maggie and turned on our brain and found the house with no problems... parking on the other hand... what a nightmare. All parallel street parking. Glad I wasn't driving. Philip drove us into San Francisco so we didn't have to fight our way. Even with Maggie, the drive would not have been as easy. Philip drove like a local with enthusiasm and confidence... not like we would have, with cursing and searing.

Philip had a friend in from Ohio named Jullian. He was very fun and we were glad we got to meet him and that he was able to go to dinner with us.

Philip took us all to Brandy Ho's. A favorite from the last time we were in San Francisco. It is very very very very spicy (did I mention it was spicy?) Chinese food. Spicy, but very good.

I had General Chicken with enough sweet to offset the hot. It was delicious. I wasn't bright enough to take a picture before I started eating, but here is the empty plate. You can see the pepper bits hanging out. Phew my eyes were burning after trying a bit of Philip's dish. And he ordered Medium spicy. Dan (who has a bit of a bronchial cold type thing, poor guy) said it cleared out his sinuses for a few minute.

Brandy Hos has fantastic dumplings. We had fried dumplings and they make them fresh. Here are the women making the dumplings.

We left BrandyHo's to head up the hill - Everything is uphill. We joked about it but, seriously, it seemed like anywhere we went was at least a bit up hill. Philip teased that that's how you end up with San Francisco Butt... all that good workout. So here's a shot of Philip's SF Bottom (and Jullian's Columbus Ohio bottom.)
Philip looked FANTASTIC if I may say so... so good to see him and he seemed so happy and good so it was a real treat to get to visit.
We wandered into City Lights Book store - former home away from home to such writers as Kerouac and Ginsberg. There is a Beat Poet Museum across the street now, but we didn't check it out. We just perused the book store.
Then after those 4 blocks uphill, it was time for desert. We crossed the street from China town into Little Italy (almost literally) and went to the delicious Stella Patisserie (bakery) and had Tiramasu and coffee. You can see my slight sunburn from the Asparagus festival in this pic.

We then picked up the car (so it didn't get towed at 8pm like the sign said... and sure enough when we got to the car there was a tow truck at the end of the street waiting for the clock to turn.) and went for a cocktail. We went down tot he Embarcadaro area and were headed to a brewery. After I had extolled the virtues of such dives as The Carousel Lounge in Austin, and One Nostalgia Place and Elbow Room in Dallas, we could not pass up the "HiDive" on the wharf when we saw the sign.

While we expected the clientele to be like the sea captain from the Simpsons, it was all young and hip. Philip said there are new condos that just went in making the whole area much younger. Cool logo on the menu.

It was a few blocks from the ballpark and though you can't tell from this picture we could see boats pass on the water from the window at our table. It was really a lovely place to watch the sun go down and the ships sail.
Philip at the window... he had only one cocktail, despite the look on his face in this shot!

And that concluded our San Francisco visit. We picked up the van and Maggie took us home. We had to stop for gas and so I wanted to commemorate the gas prices.