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Today was Mother's Day. In hindsight I probably should have made a point of getting a photo of me with my kids. Maybe for Father's Day I will. Miguel had to work so it was just the kids and I. It was actually sort of nice going into the day knowing that it would just be an ordinary day. Though a card from either of my boys might have been nice. When I asked Z if he made anything Mother's Day related at school he said, "Oh yeah, but then I forgot it there." And that was that and that's my boy.

The kids and I had a very lazy day at home. After breakfast Az brought me a sweater to help put on her, which I did without really thinking about it. Once it was on she went over to the door and declared, "Bye bye." She was very insistent for some time that it was time to go, and it made me realize it really has been a very long time since we just stayed home and did nothing. At first I postulated that it had been weeks, but upon some thinking it very well could have been months. It was a nice day to spent at home.

We've somehow burnt through all of our propane way faster than I expected, and are living on an empty tank until the guy can come on Wednesday to give us another hundred gallons. In the mean time we are living without gas and conveniences like hot water. Miguel heated up some water on the barbeque for Az's bath yesterday morning, and boiled water out there tonight for the kids' dinner of spaghetti but without even a bathtub I'm not sure how I'm going to get freshened up for work tomorrow. I've managed to spread a patch of poison oak all over the right side of my face, ear, and neck so that isn't helping me much with my general funky feeling.

Miguel suggested that I take the kids out to the ocean and use my parks pass to get into a campground where I could use the quarter showers. It's actually a pretty good idea, though perhaps frowned upon by the county parks. If it were just Az and me I might have tried it but I wasn't sure how to make sure Z was being kept safe while Az and I were in the shower. Az would have been game though, I'm sure. When it was already well past sunset Az brought me her sandals to put on her, but this time I paid attention to her motives. "Water?" she asked. And then, "Water, water, water!" She has come to expect her daily coastal trip.

I had told Miguel that he could just help direct the shower head so I could wash my hair, all five feet of it. The kids are both relatively clean and I haven't done much to get my body very funky, but my hair and poison oak besieged head need to be cleansed. It is now close to midnight, less than five hours until I have to be up again, and as witnessed in the above photo, Miguel is passed out quite cozily with Az. It is still Mother's Day though technically. If I go and wake him right now I might have a free pass.

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Az with both of her grandmothers. We headed down to Halfmoon Bay today to help my youngest cousin Em celebrate her eighteenth birthday. Miguel decided to invite his mom along since he wasn't going to be able to see her the next day for Mother's Day. We had originally planned a day at the park with both of our moms on Mother's Day proper but Miguel was unable to get the day off of work so this was a compromise of sorts. Contrary to her expression in this photo, Az actually did have a very good time. Her fascination with the ocean doesn't seem to have waned at all yet despite the fact that she has found herself there every single day recently.

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This is the companion photo to the one I took of Az and me yesterday I suppose. After I got off of work we went out to Duncan's Mills to get some loose leaf teas for Miguel's and my moms for Mother's Day and to pick up some half-priced pastries for the next day. Since we were so close to the coast we decided to grab a bite to eat out there (Miguel got fish and chips and Z and I each got bread bowls of clam chowder.) Once we were done I decided that since we were now so close to the beach we've been frequenting we might as well head over there for a bit. It was such a lovely, warm evening that we ended up staying out there until sunset. It would have been an all around splendid evening if it weren't for Z burying his shoes and some of the beach toys, and subsequently losing it all. I'm really hoping he catches on to the Don't Bury It Unless You Want To Never See It Again rule very soon. I'm tired of losing things to my son the dog.

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I decided to have Z play hookie from school for most of the day so I could bring both of the kids to Bodega Bay for a ranger-led tour of the tide pools. Thanks to my new parks pass it was a free event. We missed the first twenty minutes of it, which actually probably would have been the most interesting part for the kids because it was when the ranger showed various sea creatures he'd put in an ice chest. He let the kids touch most of them and told a little bit about each creature. After that, we went down to the shoreline where I guess there were technically tide pools, but they were created by people digging for clams in the sand. The holes they dig fill up with water when the tide comes in, but there didn't seem to be anything big enough to see with the naked eye in there. The kids had a very nice time anyhow. I got Z to school with just over an hour left of the school day. I worried that he would be there just long enough to run in wildly and disrupt the class but his teacher reported that he came in with a great mood and got right to work. I'll take that as a go-ahead to play educational hookie in the future.

 

I brought my camera along to the beach but then decided to leave it in the car. I know I lost out on a lot of really cute shots but I decided being able to explore with the kids and not have to worry about keeping my camera safe was more valuable than a few good pictures. I've been making that decision more often lately, which I know does not make for an intriguing assortment of photos, but it has made for a more enjoyable life. Luckily I have a son with a waterproof camera I can steal.

That same evening Miguel offered to pick up some Chinese for us as an early Mother's Day dinner, since he was going to be working on actual Mother's Day. We took our meal to Spring Lake, another outing that was free thanks to my excellent new parks pass.

When I told Az, "Let me see your pretty face," this is the pose she struck. She repeated it every time I said it. I have no idea why.

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I pulled out the inflatable pool today. Az was instantly excited, before I had even filled the pool with water. When I told her to climb in she looked worried and tried to pull off her top, saying, "Bath? Bath?" over and over. When I told her it was okay to climb in with her clothes on she got a huge smile and climbed in. I keep hoping to find a pool big enough for both of the kids but they seem to go from small $20 pools to larger than needed and $100+. While Az and I were hanging out the neighbors down the hill turned on some loud music. Az looked up at the sky and asked, "Sky doo doo?" ("Doo doo" is her word for music, as in the sound people make when generically singing.) Then she laughed and said, "Nooooo."

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Today's photos brought to you by guest photographer Z.

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Another night passed out on the couch with dad. Three more weeks until I try to get her back on a routine. I really liked our bedtime routine, I hope it's not too late to try to get it back.

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Ignore the date on the top left photo; Z likes to change the date on his camera, no matter how many times I tell him to just keep the date accurate, and that photos are better without the date posted on them anyhow. This week we brought Z to his very first concert in Sacramento, to see the Arctic Monkeys and the Black Keys. It was originally supposed to be his birthday celebration but his birthday was two months ago so it felt pretty disjointed. When I first proposed that we go to a concert for his birthday I had assumed we would find something in his actual birthday month.

 I went to my first concert with my dad when I was about his age, and I partially chose the Black Keys because I felt like it was music my dad would have dug. When I asked Z to think of three bands he might want to see he came back with The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and The Talking Heads. All of these seemed near impossible (if not actually impossible) to accomplish so I asked him if The Black Keys would work as a Plan B. Luckily he agreed to it. Driving to the concert an Eagles song came on the radio (despite the fact that we weren't listening to any "oldies" stations.) The Eagles just happen to be the concert my dad first brought me to so I took it as a sign that my dad approved.

I wasn't sure how he would react to the loud music and crowd. I did stock him with ear plugs of course but there was no way to warn him about the level of loud that we were potentially in for, he had nothing to compare it to. He did great though, and seemed to genuinely enjoy the experience. We sat through the Arctic Monkeys, with Miguel and my brother S coming and going. The two of them disappeared completely during the thirty minute intermission, which was a little irritating because I felt like Z and I were being left out of hijinx, but it was also nice to spend some time at the concert with just my boy and me. As soon as the Black Keys came on the audience stood up, and remained standing up the entirety of the show. Z couldn't see over all of the standing adults so I helped him stand up on his seat; he still was only about as tall as me so I didn't feel like we were being a nuisance. Z didn't feel very secure standing on the fold-up seats so he used me to hold on to. We spent the entire set cheek to cheek, with our arms wrapped around each other. It was a very sweet moment in my life. Sweaty, but sweet. I'm looking forward to the hopefully many concerts to come with my son.

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Miguel worked the morning after the concert so the kids and I dropped him off at work and decided to go adventuring. We ended up at a county park my dad used to take Z and I to. We hadn't been back since my dad passed, likely largely due to the fact that I never felt like it was worth it to pay the parking fee for a short visit. I had bought a county parks pass the week before though, which let us visit any of the county parks for the next year at no additional cost so we were free to explore.

When Z was younger my dad randomly bought us a parks pass, and continued to do so for a few years. I don't remember why he stopped buying them, if I told him not to waste his money or if it was for some other reason, but in any case Z and I stopped being in possession of the pass and every year I would think longingly of getting one but I never felt like I had that extra money to throw away. This year I realized that it really isn't throwing away money, it's making it so that I'm more likely to get the kids outside and running around. It only takes ten visits to get my money back, and that's before I consider in the fact that the pass comes with a free night of camping and four tickets to a fall festival that we go to every year. Once I put it into that perspective I felt foolish for not buying it in the past.

My dad obviously came to all of these conclusions long ago. I never even knew there was such a thing as a parks pass until he handed me one. He never bought himself one, I think he just wanted to encourage me to get Z out and take advantage of living in such a pretty area. It's the exact kind of gift I want to give my own kids one day, as a just because kind of thing.

The park that I brought the kids to on this day had  a small lake and Az was very excited because she assumed  that much water meant she was going to get to swim. There were people fishing and I spotted a couple of boats but it didn't seem to be the kind of lake that people swim in. Once Az realized that we were just going to keep walking along the lake and not ever actually go down to it she was pretty irritated with me. She kept pointing out paths as if I just didn't know how to get there. It was a pretty hot day so I can't say I blamed her.

It got a little too hot to be enjoyable so we stayed for only a little more than an hour, but since it was a free visit and we can come back many times in the next year I felt fine packing the kids up and heading home. Whenever a bicycle or people on foot approached Az would stand off of the path and stay still until the person passed. I proudly thought she had an intrinsic sense of self-preservation but then a group of small children on bicycles came barreling up to us and Az's instinct was to excitedly run towards them. So I guess she just has an intrinsic wariness of unknown adults, which isn't all bad either.

Over all it was a pretty nice, albeit short, adventure. I brought home a case of poison oak with me, which I could have done without, but I think today was the beginning of a beautiful year of appreciating the county we live in. Next time I will be more aware of the plants I touch though. I had hoped I'd learned that lesson long ago.

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Tonight Miguel, my brother S, and I brought Z to his very first concert, the Black Keys. Az stayed with my mom. We went over to my mom's in the morning and left the kids with her while Miguel and I went to the movies. There was an inappropriate for kids movie we wanted to see and I thought it would be a good transition for Az into staying by herself with Grandmama. She would have her brother with her while she settled in and got comfortable with her environment and I hoped that by the time the three of us left for the concert she would be engrossed in the toys and cool things at Grandmama's.

Unfortunately she missed a nap and I underestimated how much Z's presence makes her feel safe in a new environment. Miguel and I have left Az twice now but both times she had Z with her. Tonight was her first time being away from all of us, and it seems like it was pretty hard for her. My mom reports that she screamed for thirty minutes straight at one point. In hindsight we should have done a trial run and gone away for a short amount of time so she could see that we would in fact all come back for her. By the time we got home she was passed out. I climbed in next to her and she woke and reached for me, contentedly sighing, "Mommy," before passing back out. She continued to wake and check for me all night. The next morning when it came time to go she loudly ran and said goodbye to her grandma, to ensure that this time she would be coming with us. I wish the night had gone better, but the good thing is that we shouldn't have to leave her on her own again for a long time. Hopefully next time she will be old enough to appreciate the one on one time alone with her grandma.

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Dancing queen. It was a rather warm day today.

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Barbequing ribs for us in between the drizzle. When Miguel saw me taking pictures of him he raised his arms over his head to exhibit what a champion griller he is. Az quickly followed suit, to show that she's just a champion.

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The Disney Store is one of Az's very favorite spaces to spend time in. I've never had much of a reason to set foot in a Disney Store; honestly I've never been a huge Disney fan. Az, however, loves all things Mickey Mouse and princesses. She's never seen any of the Disney princess movies but there's still something about them that she loves. Fortunately for her, the Disney Store happens to be right next door to where her dad works, so she finds lots of excuses to veer off course and find herself there. My mom joked that I'm going to end up finding myself one of those people who has a Disney room in their house. I'm hoping this never comes to fruition, as we definitely don't have a spare room in the house. A Disney kitchen or bathroom would just be too much so I just know that if my daughter ever convinces me to let her passion for Disney take over my house, it's going to end up in my bedroom. I should have seen it coming when my pregnancy hormones influenced me to paint my bedroom walls lavender.

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Lounging in Mom's lap post-bath.

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Today was Open House at Z's school. I was looking forward to seeing more of what Z had been up to in the classroom but unlike other Open Houses I've taken part in, there weren't projects hanging up and the teachers didn't have any information to share. I asked Z to show me around his classroom but he just pointed out where he sat and then instructed me to look at the daily schedule. The school was encouraging everyone to check out all of the classrooms; students and parents were handed a card that they were to get stamped in each classroom. When you had all of the stamps on your card you could turn it in for an ice cream. Z is due to move up to a new room next year so I was interested to check out the classroom and talk to the teacher but Z was in and out of there so quickly I'm not even sure which adult in there was the teacher. Z zipped from classroom to classroom collecting stamps and then went straight to the cafeteria to get his ice cream and Az and I were left trying to get our stamps and keeping up. Az was feeling pretty tired and grumpy so I'm not sure how long I could have stayed in each classroom anyhow, but it would have been nice to get a couple of minutes in each room. I met a few of Z's friends from class so now I can finally put a face to the names in his stories from the day, so it wasn't a total loss.

There was a book fair set up in the cafeteria, which I think had a large part in Z's eagerness to get through the school tour. School book fairs are rarely that fruitful for us because the books tend to be for lower reading levels. I was hoping this fair would stock some books at a higher level since the school goes up to high school but it was all the standard elementary school stuff. I was able to buy a couple of books about shoes for Az though, which was nice because I've been looking for shoe-related books for her, and at least this way I was helping the school out a little. Z ended up picking out a couple of non-book items that were kind of sort of academic; a calculator that looks like a chocolate bar and an invisible ink pen. Like I said, they were only kind of sort of.

After the Open House we met my friend N for a pizza fundraiser for the school. As always most of the parents did not socialize with each other. It seemed most of the parents just ran in to pick up to-go orders. I'm having the hardest time getting to know the other parents. There was a group of two or three parents and their kids sitting at the large table in the pizza parlor but their table was full and they made no motion to make room for us so the kids, N, and I sat on our own. I really would like to get to know the other parents; being the parent of a kid on the spectrum is a unique experience and I would love to have other parents to share my thoughts and experiences with. Maybe next year Z will move up to the next class and there will be a couple (or even one!) parents in the new group also looking to make friends. Z had a blast running around the pizza parlor with the other kids at least, so it wasn't a complete fail on the social front.

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I was able to get Z to stop for a split second so I could take a photo before he went bounding back up the bouncy slide at Az's cousin's birthday party in Sunnyvale.

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We met up with my brother so he could help me figure out why my van was squawking every time I braked. Luckily the problem was solved easily with new brake pads, and even luckier my brother went to school to learn how to do exactly this sort of thing. Beyond the much quieter driving experience I've noticed a big difference in the way the brakes feel. Which is both a relief, now that they are fixed, and terrifying, that I was driving on less than perfect brakes for so long. Az's great-grandma had given her a toy car the night before that she had picked up from a garage sale so we brought it along to help pass time in the parking lot. It's missing the tall handle in back that one would use to push and steer it but luckily Az has a brother willing to push her around.

She was fascinated by what her uncle was doing, but also didn't want him to catch her looking at him. She's always been shy with her uncle, I think it's because she sees him rough-housing with her brother and doesn't know what to make of him. So every time S would look over at her she would quickly look away.

I wanted to drop the toy car off at Goodwill on the way home because I know I'm not dedicated enough to spend my back on pushing Az around, but Z was adamant we needed to keep the car for his sister and that he would be willing to push her around in it whenever called to the duty. He said that he really wanted his sister to be able to keep the car because it made her so happy. Obviously I had no choice but to haul it back home after that.

Az having a snack in her car, hanging out next to Mom's car with Dad's car off in the background.

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We celebrated Az's oldest cousin Manny's 18th birthday today at a park near his house. I'm of course always nervous of any events that take place at a park and require me to keep both of my kids unmaimed given one of their penchants for getting maimed at parks, but thanks to a jump house that held his attention and kept him away from the playground everything went well. When we first arrived a boy much younger than Z ended up hauling off and punching him while they were in front of the jump house. I allowed myself a huge internal groan and went to check it out. I imagined an afternoon of trying to keep Z away from the jump house and the the boy but fortunately it turned out the boy wasn't with the party and after punching Z he ran off and didn't bother to return.

Az of course had a blast. Her main playmate was her grandmother, whom indulged Az in walking along the stone wall and hopping from wood posts for most of the day. I think it's safe to assume her grandma had no trouble falling asleep that night. I tried giving Grandma B a break but Az wasn't about to accept my company in exchange for her grandma's attention.

 Az did manage to find fun in a few other forms. She was wary of the jump house, and most of the day it was full of rambunctious teenagers and her even more rambunctious brother, but the stars did align for a moment and Az got her first inflatable-aided jump. Unfortunately this only lasted about a minute before Miguel came to carry her off to the piñata.

 Being the youngest mobile member of the family, Az got first swing at the piñata. I didn't let her gather any of the candy but she was the one to get the remains of the piñata so she was a winner in her own eyes.

 A very nice time was had by all.

Whenever we're in the area we try to work in a visit with Miguel's paternal grandmother. I feel so blessed that Az gets to have her great-grandma in her life. She reminds me a lot of my own grandmother whom passed away about seven years ago. I'm sad that Z doesn't remember her better and that Az will never get the opportunity to build memories with her at all, but I cherish the time she gets with the great-grandmama whom is still alive and thriving.

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Az passed out on the couch in the late afternoon, her bright pink tutu hiked up to her armpits. I'm so used to Az passing out on me, and thereby pinning me to the couch or wherever it is we happen to be, I wasn't sure what to do with myself. So I took a photo. With Miguel watching Az more often these days she obviously has had to learn to fall asleep without me on occasion. It's still a very, VERY rare occasion that she will pass out without nursing if I'm nearby, but at least it is happening occasionally. Miguel has also stepped up with helping put Az to bed, and she is beginning to accept this much better than even a month ago.

She sleeps in bed with us 100% of the time now, when I started working outside of the house I seem to have given up my work on sleep training Az. It's a little frustrating right now because Az still needs either Miguel or I to lay down with her at night, and whomever does the duty for the night almost always ends up passing out with her. So we end up taking turns giving up our nights. And since both of us want to prolong our nights Az's bedtime ends up getting pushed back, which means the time she wakes up the next morning gets pushed back. And before I know it she has a crazy non-schedule. The school year ends in less than four weeks so I'm hoping to get back to teaching her to fall asleep on her own. I just hope too much damage hasn't already been done now that she's used to having us to cuddle with.

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Watching the garbage truck on an early Thursday morning. Az dressed herself in the tutu and wings; she can pull on a tutu in mere seconds on her own, but usually still needs some help with her wings. All too soon she'll be able fly away on her own, so for now I'm enjoying the small role she allows me to play in the fairy tales she concocts each day. I love the peeks I get into the world taking shape inside of Az's head. Today while I was pouring goldfish crackers into a baggie for Zae's lunch she came running up, saying, "Hello cracker! Hello cracker! Good to see you, good to see you!" And then she stole the entire bag away from me and ran away. All while wearing her tutu and wings of course.

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Inspired by Az's enthusiasm for the ducklings and poults (which is apparently the name of a baby turkey) and since we had some time to fill in town I took the kids by a cousin's house to visit their menagerie of animals. Between my cousin and her daughter they have two dogs, one turtle, one bunny, one bird, two rats, a hamster, and a handful of chickens and fish. I thought Az would enjoy petting a real live bunny since her interest in them had been piqued by Easter. As it turns out, real bunnies don't move around nearly enough to interest her and she was more captivated by a rabbit figurine in their house and excitedly exclaimed, "A bunny!" when a cartoon one came onto the television during our visit. The chickens wandering outside did interest her, but unfortunately the chickens had very little interest in being captured by her.

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Watching the world from their shared perch.

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It's been my goal to get the invitations for Miguel's 30th birthday out for some time now. They were supposed to be extremely simple and purely functional so I'd have one less thing to stress about but the thing about extremely simple and functional invitations is that they are also pretty darn boring. I ended up drafting up some Gilligan's Island themed invites, because part of Miguel's birthday festivities involve a two hour sunset cruise (a twooo hour cruuuuise.) This required me to both get a little more familiar with Photoshop and fix my printer so that it would stop insisting it was either jammed or being fed the wrong sized paper. Needless to say it quickly turned into a stressful adventure. I tried to start worrying about the fact that the ink bled through the paper on my double-sided invites but really I couldn't muster up any more freaked out energy. I eventually did get enough invitations printed, and was willing to overlook how amateur the whole thing looked because the thing about throwing a Gilligan's Island themed 30th birthday party is that if you do it just badly enough you can get away with calling it kitsch. However, this in no way meant I was willing to just slap them into plain white envelopes and mail them off. I would have to decorate the envelopes of course. Surprisingly enough I settled on drawing a simple wave along the bottom of each envelope and faking calligraphy for the addresses.

Az and Miguel waited patiently for me to finish so I could go put the baby to bed but obviously I took too long, because when I finally came up from my designing cloud I found the two of them passed out. I left them there to run out and mail the invites once I was done with them because I was eager to just be done with it. Miguel did eventually carry Az to bed, and around 4AM I passed out into bed with them. Just in time for my alarm to go off at 5.

(We're trying to teach Z the importance of clearing his own dishes from the table immediately after meals. We obviously have a few more miles to go.)

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Z loves holding hands with his sister, which works out pretty well because she loves holding his hand as well. Except for when she's trying to run away from all of us.

This week Z started catching a ride to school with a woman the school district found rather than riding the bus. I actually know the woman, in the way that one seems to know everyone kinda sorta in small towns, but I don't know enough about her to predict how well the new arrangement will work. It was really weird putting him in the car of someone I don't know and walking back up the hill to the house. I've been fortunate in that life has allowed me to be very particular about whom I entrust Z to. When I asked the woman if she had any experience with kids on the spectrum she told me that she knew a friend of a friend whose kid had autism, and added that she used to work as an aide for a kid in a wheelchair. I'm not sure if she knows what she has in store for her. When I met her and Z at the end of the day I asked her how everything had went, dreading what her potential response might be. She told me it had gone fine, the school had let Z out promptly at 2:20. It wasn't what I was asking exactly, but it did answer my actual question; if she thought I was asking about whether she had had an easy time with the school, it meant Z did okay. I'm crossing my fingers it works out, because it would be so great to have one less thing to stress about.

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22 months on the 22nd: I swear I just wrote one of these for 21 months.

• I'd say this past month was Az's real month of learning to talk. She went from a handful of words to freaking sentences.
• This may also have been her month of learning to actually run. Miguel and I haven't come to an agreement about whether both of her feet leave the ground at the same time or not. 
• Az has adopted a growly, monstery voice that she uses to express unhappiness. As in if someone does something that displeases her she growls at them. It's very cute now at 22 months but I suspect it will quickly become less and less adorable, so we're going to go ahead and keep working on learning how to put together sentences.
• On a related note I'm sure, Az has picked up screaming when unhappy. She's not screaming all the time or consistently, but she's definitely learned the value of a short, piercing scream to express her unhappiness. She has a lot of thoughts and feelings these days, but not the words to express them. I'm hoping this will work itself out as her vocabulary increases.
• On the more pleasant side of that, Az does a lot of gesticulating and babbling away of sentences that are only partially decipherable, but you can tell she knows what she's saying. I can't wait until I'm able to understand more of what she is trying to tell us.

I'm borrowing today's official photo from my mom's Facebook album. In keeping up with our weekend of enjoying local businesses and events the kids and I met my mom at the Apple Blossom Festival in Sebastopol. I've been meaning to go for years but something has always come up. Sebastopol was once the home of acres and acres of apple orchards, but about a decade or so ago the orchards were almost completely removed to make way for yet more vineyards. I assume the Apple Blossom Festival was originally created to celebrate local products but as there are now no apples, there wasn't a single apple product there. There wasn't even a single picture of an apple blossom. Apparently I waited too many years to come.

It was still fun though. The popular day for the public was the day before so when we went it was pleasantly vacant and free of crowds. Z had been invited to march in a parade the day before that ended at the site of the festival but he couldn't decide whether he wanted to do it or not and by the time he decided that he did want to the deadline to RSVP had passed. The festival that was left for us on Sunday was mostly a few craft booths and food stands, but there were also baby animals to be seen. Az and I even got to hold a couple of the baby ducks and turkeys. I was happy to see how gentle Az was with the animals. We don't have any pets and are not around a lot of small animals but it seemed instinctual for Az to pet the animals softly and carefully. I'm thinking we're going to have to find more opportunities to hold fluffy baby animals.

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I had enjoyed going to Duncan's Mills so much the day before that I decided to explore our own town today. I've lived here for twenty-one years now and I think I often over-look what my own town has to offer. It's a very small touristy area, but there's a reason why people choose to vacation here, right? The plan was to park on one end of town, window shop and peruse one side of the main street, check out the old bridge that for most of my life was the only way to drive across the river but which has since been turned in to a foot bridge (walking across it I couldn't imagine how two-way traffic managed to pass each other for so many years without every meeting turning into a disaster) and then I imagined we would come back across the bridge and check out the shops on the other side of the street. We made it through the first side of the street, which I had known going in had a lot less to offer us, and across the bridge but by the time I decided to check out the small grass park on the other side of the bridge Az was ready to lay down and melt. Both of the kids were asking, quite insistently, to visit the river the park led to but we didn't have any life jackets or beachwear on hand.

 I carried Az out of the park and realized that I was going to have to skip the antique store I eye every time we pass through town. There's a vintage rocking horse there that catches my eye every time. I have no need or room for a vintage rocking horse so it's just as well I suppose. Instead of the antique store I opted to bring the kids to the frozen yogurt shop. My dad used to send me to the shop to pick up a pint for him but I had never actually gotten a small amount to eat right there in the store. I hadn't even been aware that there was a small indoor/outdoor area full of vintage diner booths and memorabilia about the railroad that used to run through town. I know I default to this adjective too often, but it was really very lovely.

As was coming home to our forever cool home under the redwoods and laying with the baby while she napped.

And since there are no rules to this thing, I thought I'd just cheat and stamp these with a date to make them official as well.