Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great time on our Thanksgiving trip.  We were gone from early Wednesday through Friday evening, so I am preparing our Thanksgiving dinner for today (Sunday).  On our way up to the hot springs we stopped in the town of Healdsberg for lunch and some wine tasting -  we will definitely go back there again, it was a nice little town where most of the wineries have tasking rooms right in the downtown rather than out at the winery.  We also made a few stops to do some "business" by the side of the road:

I know that some day he will be mad at me for posting that, but he did such a great job of asking us to stop the car and using the potty, that I want to share!

The drive up the mountains to the hot springs was twisty and turny, but also beautiful.  The resort itself is small and very nice.  I wish I had taken a picture of the amazing communal kitchen.  There are no restaurants up there, and the town is a 35+ min drive away on the mountain road, so we took food to cook.

A view of the valley:

The hot springs:

The pool and sauna house:

Two private tubs on the roof deck.  These were pretty neat, you could fill them up fresh for each person with the piped in mineral water:

There were also little rooms with private tubs.  These were the only one's O was allowed in because he is under three.  He really liked swimming in the "warm pool":

This morning, I was busy getting dinner ready; Tom, Kristen and O went out to the Jack London Square Farmer's Market.  We ate after O's nap.  It was a big meal!

O was not so interested in the dinner, but that was because he knew what was coming at the end:

This kid LOVES his pumpkin pie.  He ate two full pieces and wanted more!

KRay is Here!

Kristen arrived today.  O is very happy to have another visitor, and Tom and I are very excited to see Kristen.

Tomorrow we are heading north for a two night stay at Orr Hot Springs.  We will have Thanksgiving on either Saturday or Sunday since we were able to get reservations only for Wed and Thursday nights.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Crafts

Nan and O have been busy making crafts for Thanksgiving this week.

They made six of the pilgrim turkey plates plus the pine cone owl and gourd turkey to decorate the Thanksgiving table.

Today is Nan's last day visiting.  We sure have enjoyed having her here!

Nan's Here!

Nan arrived late Friday night, and we have been having a great time with her.  On Sunday we drove up to Sonoma for some fun and some wine tasting.

 He seems a lot bigger and older now rolling these big rope balls around than he was in May.

Little builder - he was very intent on stacking and poking sticks in the sand.

We made a stop at Train Town.  The little rides and the train were a big hit with O!

Me, Nan and O on the train ride.  He was pretty excited about the ride.

He was not as excited about the carousel though...

He rode the airplanes all by himself!

Overall we had a great time mixing in wine tasting for the adults with fun activities for the little guy.  Now, me and Tom are back to work, and O is handing out with Nan, making crafts and playing.

Happy Hoo-loween

O had a great Halloween today! Tom and I went to his preschool for their Halloween parade this afternoon.  He was very excited to wear his owl costume - and I can assure you that he had the nicest costume of all the kids at his school, by far.  Thanks Grandma!

Here are Daddy and O practicing their "hoo hoos":

The parade!

We walked through the shopping center that is near the school for the parade.  It was really nice, all of the stores and restaurants in the center had candy for the kids.  Here is our little owl getting candy.

The owl in his natural habitat:

After the parade there was a party at the school.  O had a great time, it was hard to convince him to come home so we could get ready for trick-or-treaters.

Once we did get home, he enjoyed handing out candy to the kids who came to the door.  We bought quite a bit of candy, but it was gone within about an hour and a half.

Overall, it was a great Halloween!



A Halloween restrospective:

2010

2011

Camping Fun

We took O on his inaugural camping trip this weekend.  We only stayed one night, but it was a BIG success.  Not surprisingly, he loved camping.  He was enthralled with the tent and the picnic table and especially the campfire.  I am very excited that O liked camping so much. It has been far too long since camped, and I realized how much I miss it.  

Since the only tents we owned were a very small one-person backpacking tent, and a slightly larger two-person backpacking tent, we decided to buy a bigger "car camping" tent.  This is our new camping palace:

The tent itself is not as big as the picture makes it look, there is an extended vestibule that we bought for it to provide a covered area outside the tent in an attempt to toddler-proof the inside.  O did pretty well with taking shoes off before going into the actual tent.  The biggest battle was getting him to not lean on the tent from the outside.  For some reason, that was very tempting.

We chose a walk-up site, so it was nice to not have any cars going by, although it did mean hauling all of our gear about 300 yards to the site.  Normally, 300 yards is not very far, but with O tagging along, it seemed to take forever on some of the trips.  

The campground is in a eucalyptus grover overlooking Lake Chabot in the Castro Valley.  Our site was nice and secluded from other sites, we did not have a view of the lake, but just over the hill from us, this was the view: 

Tom and O enjoyed some reading by the campfire:

O always loves eating at picnic tables.  Here we are at breakfast this morning:

Overall it was a great experience!  The park we stayed at is only about 40 minutes from or house to the campsites.  O went to bed really well and slept well in the tent.  He was excited, well behaved and "helpful" putting the tent.

Hurray camping!!!

Cool Guy

O decided yesterday that he wanted a pair of sunglasses.  Up till now, he has refused to wear any glasses on his face at all.  Now he is Mr. Cool Guy.   He looks pretty grown up in this picture!

Big Bed!

We moved O into his new bed today!

He is a big fan of the big bed.

His "new" bed is an antique iron bed from Grandma Beautz's house, and I have lots of memories of sleeping in that bed in the upstairs front bedroom of her house when I was a little girl.  I remember thinking that there was a lot of traffic noise in that bedroom on Hudson Street.  Funny how times and perceptions change.  It is nice to have it back in service again - thanks to O's Grandma and Grandpa getting all fixed up for us.  It looks great!