Beach Day

Steph's class at Cabrillo College is over, but she went back to Santa Cruz today to have lunch with some of the other instructors and see what the students in the next session of classes are working on. She also took the opportunity to go to the beach with Evan in nearby Capitola. Here he is playing in the sand:

You may notice that he has one of his towelies with him, of course (the cloth diapers that are his security blanket)... you can't go anywhere without your towelie! Luckily we have a stack of them to rotate through -- as you might imagine, they can get a bit dirty.

Here's a little bit closer shot, just because:

After spending some time playing in the sand at Capitola Beach they went up the road a bit to Davenport to look for sea glass. As I've said before Evan loves to play in the water, so shortly after they got there he decided to wander down into the surf. He didn't go in very far, obviously, but it doesn't take much wave action and shifting sand underfoot to unbalance one with such a tenuous grasp of the mechanics of walking. Before long he was sitting on his butt in the wet sand (still wearing the outfit you see above), which is why the resourceful mom brings a spare outfit or two with her to the beach. That became even more important a moment later when a big (relatively speaking) wave came in, rapidly transitioning Evan from seated to prone, and partly dry to fully submerged!

Other than the initial shock of being tumbled by a wave he handled it pretty well (he doesn't mind getting his face a bit wet in the pool or the bath), but Steph quickly bundled him off to get dry and change into some fresh clothes. We'll see if he's any more cautious the next time we go to the beach (I'm going to guess not).

Meeting the Inlaws

Steph has been teaching a class at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz this past week and next, so my mom is staying with us to take care of Evan while Steph is gone all day. Obviously I don't get to see Evan for most of the day since I'm at work, but for Steph this is a new experience and it's been a bit of an adjustment. Fortunately Evan has adapted just fine -- if he was having any problems spending the day with Grandma I'm sure Steph would be pretty much a wreck.

On top of that he's been running a fever the last few days because of his most recent vaccinations (he seems to be having a reaction to the measles/mumps/rubella shot, which is pretty common). It's made him a bit clingy, and in some ways that's kind of nice. He even fell asleep in my mom's lap a few days ago, which he hasn't been willing to do in months! So Steph feels like she's missing out on some bonus snuggly baby time in addition to the day-to-day interactions she's used to. The class has been going very well, though, and she's enjoying being around other arty types, so her sacrifice is resulting in some benefit.

Anyway, that's not really what I was planning on talking about. Since my mom is staying with us for two weeks my dad came out for the weekend after a conference, and since this was going to be the only time they'd be in California before my sister Hallie's wedding in September they took the opportunity to meet Hallie's fiancé Mark's parents for the first time. We all went to Chouinard Winery, where the wedding will be held, for a picnic and some swing dancing at a Music in the Vineyards event. It was unseasonably cold that evening, so Steph and Evan had to do some dancing to keep warm:

Unfortunately Steph and I didn't get to dance very much, as we had to take turns following Evan around and keeping him out from under peoples' feet and tables. (Have I mentioned that Evan is a walker now? He's been motoring around for the last week or two... we haven't caught it on camera yet because we've been too busy chasing him down.) He also made a new friend:

Mary & Fionn's Wedding

Mary and Fionn had their wedding at a small church/community center the afternoon of the 4th of July, with the reception both before and after on the surrounding grounds. It was a very pretty setting, with lots of nice clover in the grass for Evan to pick:

This picture shows the actual reception layout a little better, and I also thought it was a great picture of Steph:

The church grounds were bordered by a few open fields that hadn't been cut yet this season, and as the sun moved lower in the sky the lighting on those fields became quite stunning. It was the kind of setting that's tailor-made for a photographer -- fortunately there was one on hand:

The lighting didn't just make the field look good... we also got a pretty nice picture of our little family:

Alpaca Farm

For the 4th of July weekend we flew up to Seattle to attend our friend Mary's wedding (you may remember Mary from our trip to New York last Thanksgiving) on Vashon Island. Vashon is one of the islands in Puget Sound, but despite its size and proximity to Seattle (the ferry ride is only 10 or 15 minutes) it's fairly rural and sparsely populated due to a lack of resources, namely drinking water. Seeing as how it's the Pacific Northwest there's no shortage of water falling from the sky, though, so the landscape is positively verdant. This combination of a beautiful setting and a lack of development means pretty much all of the accommodations on the island are bed & breakfasts, such as log cabins at alpaca farms.

That's right, alpaca farms. It seems there are a couple of alpaca farms on the island, and in my search for a place for us to stay for the weekend I came upon one, Winterbrook Farm, that rents out a house on the grounds as a B&B. So far Evan has been interested in any and all kinds of animals, so why not alpacas? And when else were we going to get the chance to stay on an alpaca farm? Once we knew it was an option we really had no other choice.

Here are Steph & Evan in front of our weekend abode:

You may notice there aren't any alpacas in that picture. Had we been there shopping for alpacas (or if we already owned any that were boarding there) they would have placed the merchandise within the enclosure around the cabin so we could get to know them better. One cantankerous dog around the house is enough for us right now, though, so we just admired the alpacas from a distance. It turns out that unless they know you very well or, even better, you come bearing food they're not really interested in being social. None of them ever came that much closer than the few you can see in the background here:

Still, we spent each morning walking around the grounds and checking things out. Evan is very used to his morning routine which normally includes a dog walk before breakfast, so we figured this was the next best thing. One benefit of not having a dog to walk was that we could set a baby-friendly pace so he could actually walk (holding onto a finger) instead of just rolling along in his stroller. And one benefit of actually walking is that you can stop and pick up stuff on the ground, such as interesting rocks:

There was one downside to staying in our quaint little log cabin, though: the constant threat of imminent child death. Had we paid more attention to the stationery we might have noticed the byline "Log Cabin at Winterbrook Farm: Baby Death Trap". Of course, there aren't many bed & breakfasts that market themselves as child friendly. Still, nothing says "Don't you want to climb up several feet in the air and then fall through the practically-nonexistent railing or just tumble backwards (your choice) to crack your head open on the floor?" like a rickety spiral staircase:

It actually wasn't that big of a problem -- we just had to be a little extra vigilant -- but it's fun to complain about. Overall we had a very nice weekend with the alpacas.

Professional Haircut

Steph took Evan to get his first professional haircut today! In the past we've cut his hair at home (actually, as I've related before, Steph would cut and I would entertain), but it's always been a bit of a struggle in one way or another, and Steph usually comes away feeling like there was a part she missed or could have done better on. We're heading up to Seattle this weekend for a friend's wedding (more on that in a few posts), so she figured it was time to try taking him to a kids hair salon (where the chairs are all cars of various types):

It may appear in this picture like Evan isn't having the best time, and there's a reason for that... he hated it. There's something about high-pitched motors he really doesn't like (we can't use the blender or the dust buster when he's around unless we want to deal with him pitching a fit), so having the electric clippers right next to his head was more of a challenge than he was able to deal with. That, and he's a little kid -- do any little kids like having their hair cut? If so I haven't met them.

Anyway, this was the only picture Steph had time to take before he started bawling. Fortunately the ladies who work there are used to this reaction, and they're also super fast, so the whole ordeal was over in just a couple of minutes... and his hair looks very nice now.

Birthday Party at the Park

Our neighbors' two youngest daughters had a birthday party at the park this weekend and they insisted that Evan should come. We certainly didn't want to disappoint such nice little girls, so as soon as he woke up from his afternoon nap we headed over for food, party games, and playing around on the jungle gym:

Evan is a little too young for hula hoop or water balloon toss contests so we didn't actually participate in any of the party games. He did appreciate eating birthday cake and playing with the balloons, though:

Clapper

Within the last week or so Evan has transferred his enthusiasm for waving into a passion for clapping:

He's quite proud of his new skill.

Cleanup

One of Evan's favorite activities is taking things out of containers and putting them back in. More often then not he doesn't get the balance between these two activities quite right, which leads to rooms of the house looking a bit untidy... kinda like a 1-year old was there. Sometimes the pendulum swings in the other direction, though:

If we can just figure out how to trigger his "put things away" instinct we might be able to make a serious dent in our housework load.

Spray Nozzle

I've mentioned in the past that Evan likes playing in and around water, whether it be splashing in his baby pool, taking a bath, swimming at the YMCA, or just playing with the hose:

It's possible the hose, when accompanied by its constant companion the spray nozzle, are his favorite water "toys" yet. They certainly make watering the plants in the yard more fun.

Dog Picnic

Every summer the group of people we know from walking Peekay at the park get together for a barbecue/potluck, and this year was no exception. Last year this picnic was one of Evan's first outings after coming home from the hospital (although oddly enough I didn't mention it in the blog), so he spent pretty much the whole time in our arms. This year was obviously a bit different... he spent most of the afternoon pushing his stroller around:

A still image doesn't do it justice... after all, you've seen him standing next to things before. I mean that he was really pushing it around:

This is one of his new favorite pastimes. Whereas our evening dog walk used to consist of us taking two laps around the park, nowadays we take one lap with Evan in the stroller and then spend about the same amount of time letting him push the stroller around in the grass. The dog keeps herself occupied by resting in the shade and sometimes chasing squirrels.

After an hour or two of pushing the stroller it can be nice to get a ride back to the car when it's time to go home, though: