Grandparents to the rescue

Oct 3- Oct 13. With Morgan on a 2 week trip to Houston & environs, and having also been gone for 10 days in September I was feeling a little overwhelmed at the prospect of managing on my own, especially with the pregnancy fatigue.

Enter, Mom aka Grandma. I am pretty certain I, and therefore Baby 2, would not have eaten any vegetables for the last 14 days if Grandma hadn't been cooking dinner for us every day. Also, lunch, and breakfast! We also had a lot of fun.

Claire spent every morning with Grandma while mommy went to work, and we also had some fun weekend adventures, like to the library, farmer's market. We also had dinner at Patty & Rob's house, where Claire was delighted by the two resident cats. She also was a big hit there. She was being an angel child, playing ball with 90+ year old Ora and basically being a charmer. When we left, Patty asked for a hug, and Claire gave it willingly, and added "and a kiss" and gave both hugs and kisses to Patty & Rob. It was too cute.

It was also great because Dad aka Grandpa was able to come up for both weekends from Redlands, an 8 hour drive. Claire noted that Grandpa's arms are "fuzzy," which I remember thinking when I was a kid too!

We also had a visit from Uncle Robert and Aunt Rachel, and we went to the massive playground at Coyote Point. Fun was had by all.

We also celebrated Mom's Birthday. Claire helped Grandma blow out the candles:

Check out the other photos from Grandma and Grandpa's visit, link above left as "Grandma and Grandpa's Visit."

We also took a fun trip to Half Moon Bay to visit the pumpkin farm and ride the train. Check out these picks in "Half Moon Bay - 2008" links above left.

When Grandma left, Claire came with us to the airport to drop her off. Now, when Claire sees a plane she waves and says "Grandma come back!"

North Coast Trip

September 27-28. Claire loves to go on adventures. When it is the weekend, she'll get very serious and come up to me and says, "Mommy, I want to go on a 'venture." An adventure is pretty much anything that is not the normal trips - library, grocery store, Maria's house, park. You can pose any kind of outing as an adventure and she will be excited about it.

In this case, we decided to go camping along the North Coast of California. We decided to stay in Hendy State Park in Boonville California, which is a nice campground with Redwoods. We stopped at a fruit stand along the way and bought these apples called "pink pearls" which were pink on the inside, and tart. They were just Claire's size and she liked them very much. She just ate them like an adult - I had to watch that she didn't eat right through the core.

We took a hike through the redwoods and stayed in the tent that night. The next day we set out for Fort Bragg. We stopped in Mendocino on the way, and went down to the beach from the Mendocino headlands. It was a beautiful day. The tide was low and we were able to see crabs, sea urchins, sea anenomes and starfish! One of the beaches had a lot of driftwood, which someone had crafted into teepees which Claire enjoyed exploring. There was also a fresh spring grotto, where water fell from the cliff. It was beautiful. Claire was not too enthused about the ocean but she liked everything else. There were also berries everywhere in Mendocino.

We made it to Fort Bragg, which is home of the "Skunk train" - a steam engine that travels from Fort Bragg to Winters, California. We missed the one departure for the day but that turned out to be okay because Claire is a little young for a 6 hour round trip train ride to be all that thrilling. Instead we had lunch at the North Coast Brewery Grill. For some reason it was just the most delicious food I'd had and it was very satisfying.

Next we went to another beach, just north of Fort Bragg. There were long boardwalks which Claire loved to run on. Running running running. There were tide pools but they were not as good as the ones at Mendocino.

After the beach we called it a day and headed on the long drive home! It was well worth the drive and we had a great time. Check out our photos (link top left, called "North Coast").