Seattle

O and I returned home today from a very enjoyable few days in Seattle.  We went up to visit Tom while he is up there with the ship and to see lots of friends and old favorite places.  As luck would have, this week is Kristen's Spring Break and she had already planned to visit Seattle to stay with Kelly and family, and Adam was able to drive up from Portland with the kids for a night.

Seattle is really just wonderful.  It was so nice to go back ten years later and see that we do love the city and the area.  It was much colder than Alameda, but we got sunshine almost every day and even a few days with mountain views!

On Saturday, we had a nice day with just the three of us.  In the morning, we went up to Volunteer Park to walk around and play around.

Cloudy Seattle - still beautiful!

We decided to hide out from the drizzle in the Seattle Asian Art Museum.  They have a nice children's area for kids to play in and were very welcoming to a toddler.

Cooking, as usual.

I just really like this picture of O at lunch from Volunteer Park Cafe, where we ate lunch.

After a nice long nap, and a game of Scrabble and some wine from Mom and Dad we headed over to Ballard Locks (where we got engaged) to see the boats in the locks.  Of course, it was a big hit!

Sunday we hosted a little gathering at Kelly and Matt's house.  It was really nice to relax and enjoy each other's company with so many kids to keep each other occupied.  We had Kelly's three, Adam's two, our one and my friend Rachel's one -so it was a house full of fun!

Monday, Tommy headed back to work, and we headed to the Space Needle, followed by a Monorail ride and lunch at Pike's Place.  It was a fun outing.

What a great looking group!

Griff, Jax and O at Pike's Place.

"Hyabob!!!"

Tuesday, O and I drove up to Shorline to visit with Rachel and Parker.  It was so great to meet Warren, her husband, on Sunday and to hang out like neighbors on Tuesday.

This is the view from their playground (and house).

Yesterday, we went to the Pacific Science Center with Kristen.  O liked the butterfly garden, but did not want them coming too close.

Of course, he loved the instruments!

I realized today when I looked at my pictures, that I never got one of Olin with Kelly's boys.  They all had so much fun together - we stayed with them Tuesday and Wednesday nights.  They were all so active, and having such a great time playing, that I don't think they ever sat still long enough for a picture!

We had a wonderful, fun, relaxing and full visit!  I got out at night to see some great friends from when we lived there thanks to Kelly and Matt; and Kristen, Kelly and I got out for a fantastic meal and great conversation thanks to Matt keeping the boys last night.  

Ah, Seattle, we will be back...

Time Flies

The title of this post is inspired by two things:

#1.  I have no idea how it got to be the middle of March this year.

#2.  I have no idea how it is possible that O will be three years old in less than a month.  

In the spirit of #1, I realized that I never shared some nice pictures from a hike we did in early February before Grandma and Grandpa came to visit.  We spent the day hiking to and picnicking at Tennessee Beach on the Marin Coast.  It was a gorgeous day.

In the spirit of #2, I thought I would share pictures from March 10th for the past three years.

March 10th, 2011 - 11 months old.

March 10th, 2012 - 23 months old.

March 10th, 2013 - 35 months old.

I suppose time always goes by this quickly, but having a kid definitely marks the time so much more acutely.  He is such a cool little person, and so much fun to be around.

Tom has been gone for about two weeks now.  Later this week, we are heading up to Seattle to visit him!  We are both excited and looking forward to the break.

Great Visit!

We had a great visit with Grandma and Grandpa.  They finally got to see Alcatraz and spent a lot of time with O.  We all took a trip up to the Russian River Valley.  First stop was Paradise Ridge Winery outside Santa Rosa.

Salute!

 We enjoyed wine and cheese for a late Valentine's day with our little charmer.

Would you care to dance?

The grounds of the winery also had a big sculpture garden where we walked around a played for a while.  A flock of turkeys even came by to make Mom and Dad feel at home.

We stayed in a cabin right on the river for three nights.  For some reason I did not take any pictures of the lovely river view we had from the cabin.  Our first full day we went hiking in Armstrong Redwoods State Park.  We had a nice little hike - O walked almost 2 miles on his own!

O with a "toddler" redwood.

We also went out to the Sonoma Coast  to enjoy the gorgeous scenery at sunset.

On the way back to Alameda we stopped at the Point Reyes' visitor's center to walk on the Earthquake Trail.  The picture below is at the site of the fence that was shifted by 15 feet during the 1907 earthquake.

We all had a really wonderful time with Grandma and Grandpa.  Olin missed them as soon as they left.

Hike

We went for a nice hike this weekend. O did great, he probably walked close to a mile on his own. I think we wore him out!

The hike was a nice little walk through a nature preserve which is populated with native California plants.  O really liked the ferns.

Toward the middle of the hike, he got a nice ride.  A mile is a long way for those little legs!

Tom is gone for a few days, but will be home for the weekend.  We are gearing up for Grandma and Grandpa here!

New Ride

Tom and I got new bikes for my birthday.  They have been sitting in the garage waiting for him to come home from his trip, and we got them up and running this weekend.  Today, we had our inaugural ride over to the farmer's market in Jack London Square with the bike trailer.  O really likes riding and LOVES his helmet.  He would not take it off yesterday, he ate dinner in it, cuddled on the couch in it, and played in it all afternoon.  We finally convinced him to take it off for his bath.

Here he is all set to go in the trailer for the ride home.  That my new orange bike in the background also.  Guess who chose the color?

Laugh Much?

O was really cracking himself up in the tub last night.  I was never sure what was so funny, but he was laughing so hard at one point that it was silent laughing...

The weather was gorgeous here this weekend.  We spent quite a bit of time at the playground and went to the beach for a walk today.  It was just beautiful out!

Sonoma

Last weekend Marcy, O and I went up to Sonoma for some wine tasting and fun.  O loves the sculpture garden so we visited the big blue chair to measure how much he is growing.

Mmmmm, a fine vintage aging in the barrel.

We also enjoyed some very tasty sparkling wine at Gloria Ferrer.  

And had fun playing legos on the floor at a tasting room on the square in Sonoma after a fabulous lunch at El Dorado Kitchen.

We had a great visit with Marcy, but I did not take many picture while she was here, or in the past couple of weeks at all.  Work was still pretty busy this past week, although it did slow down a little bit.  Tom will be home soon, O and I are both looking forward to that!