Pismo Beach

Last week some unfortunate circumstances led us to take a trip down to Pismo Beach.  My mom's cousin and uncle both passed away and since my mom was already at our house helping us move, Landon and I drove her down to Pismo to be with family.

L and I kept busy by being the errand runners - food, clothes, what have you.  And we also played at the beach (get ready for picture overload)...

I love Pismo because the sand is so soft and doesn't get stuck in little toes.  Plus there are swings EVERYWHERE.  And if you know anything about The Wombat, you know he loooooves swings.

And we visited Dinosaur Caves Park, which is pretty much the cutest park ever.  It has a random mix of dinosaurs and sea animals.  I love finding unique parks like this!  It's nice to switch it up a bit from the mundane play structure you see park after park.

Takin' a ride on the USS Imagination.

 

And a ride on a dolphin:

 



We even braved a ride on the tire swing:

My offer to drive sort of just fell out of my mouth before I had the chance to think about the potential disaster this sort of trip could be with a one year old who just learned the word "no"  but a few hours later we were all packed up and on the road. I didn't have time to count all the things that could go wrong.

Which is good because nothing went wrong.

We spent 20 hours in the car in a four day span and this kid maybe cried for 10 minutes of drive time and slept straight through every night. He was quite the little road trip trooper.  I am so thankful that we had the opportunity to show our support to our family and to spend some quality time with my mom (it's not often we get to hog her all to ourselves). 

Goodbye, Little Rental House

Well, we are officially out of our little rental house.  It was a little bittersweet for me.  It was our first real home as a famil and we were so excited when we found it. It's in a cute neighborhood only two miles away from Ben's work and I'm really going to miss his short commute.  And I'm going to miss some great neighbors.  And I'm especially going to miss the parks.

We have three really great parks within walking distance.  The closest has tennis and basketball courts and a small playground.  We have done MANY laps around this park in the stroller.

The second park has Landon's favorite swings, some great slides and a tunnel that he likes to poke his little face out of to make sure I'm watching him :)

This next one we actually drive to because there is not a safe trail on the busy road that leads to it.  There are the BEST slides at this park.  Also a little lake where we can feed the ducks and look for bunnies.

We brought Landon home to this house and it has been a great place for us to live.  I will always cherish all of the memories made at these parks and I'm sure we will be back to visit often :)

Family Hike

We have a lot of house buying stress around here right now...home inspections, loan applications, insurance, signing, signing and signing loads of paperwork full of leagalese that we can barely follow.  Every time we turn around there's more papers to sign or something was dated incorrectly or someone's name was wrong.  BLEH.

Then trying to pick out paint, flooring, carpet and discovering we have not so similar taste. UGH.

So last week we decided to take a break from it all and have family day up at Wright's Lake. 

It's a really easy, flat hike all the way around the lake.  Landon got to ride on Ben's back the whole way.  He loves being in the backpack and is always content for our hikes :) 

Oh...uh this is our new dog, Dozer, who probably deserves a separate post unto himself.  He looooves the water and he loves playing fetch so when we combined the two, he was in heaven.

The Little Wombat didn't really know what to make of it.  

After we hiked around we found a little spot with some sand to play in (well, by sand I really mean mud) much to Landon's delight.  He threw the ball in the lake for Dozer and verntured ankle deep into the lake.  I totally didn't even think to bring his water shoes and there were too many little rocks and twigs for him to go barefoot.  Luckily, his little hiking boots are dark brown so no harm done. 

After fetching the ball in the water about fifty times, Dozer was worn out and Ben had to swim out to get the ball he'd thrown too far, lol!

It was a great day and exactly what this little family needed!

Horses eat carrots...my 16 month old knows it :)

A couple weeks ago, Landon and I took a mini trip to visit my parents.  The Wombat absolutely adores exploring his grandparents' house.  There is so much to do, but his hands down favorite thing to do is feed the horses.

I think I have a little cowboy on my hands already. He makes neighing sounds as soon as we start up the driveway.  He also makes neighing sounds when grandma (whom he has dubbed Me-Maw) picks him up because he knows she will take him to say hello and maybe feed the horses some carrots.  He neighs at toy horses, spring horses, horses he saw on a preview for the Olympic Games.  It amazes me, that he has such a recognition for horses in all shapes and sizes at 16 months of age (and really, it started even earlier).

The other day I was preparing dinner and Landon was begging for some food so I handed him a baby carrot.  He took off running and when he started neighing, I peeked into the living room and saw him trying to feed his spring horse a carrot!  The exact same thing his grandma showed him with the real horses TWO WEEKS AGO!!!  This is possibly the cutest thing he's ever done:

I am in serious awe about how quickly the little brains of children develop and the connections they can form at such a young age.  It is such an exciting stage to witness!

______

Linking To: Ni Hao Yall: Sunday Snapshot, Simple As That: Simple Things Sunday, The Paper Mama: Photo Challenge, Mama Pea Pod: Outdoor Play

Giraffe Encounter

The Sacramento Zoo is not huge. 

It doesn't have very many animals. It only takes about an hour to walk through the whole thing. But it is a quaint city zoo with affordable prices, a train, a merry-go-round, a reptile house and lots of shady trees. It is perfect for a little family outing, which is why we have passes and head there about three times a month.

You can also feed the giraffes for three dollars.  THREE DOLLARS!!! The problem is, the feedings are usually around 11 a.m. which coincides with naptime so we are usually long gone by then.   However, a couple months ago we timed everything just right and my dad was there to take some great shots of The Wombat's very first giraffe feeding experience....which happened to be me and Heidi's first experince too.

Landon was utterly fascinated by them but it gave me the heebie geebies. Their tongues are pretty creepy and for future giraffe encounters I would prefer to hide behind the camera and leave the feeding to Ben. 

Jaclyn wimped out so here is her version:

Mini Mountain Getaway

Ben and I were fortunate enough to get a night away together this week!  My wonderful father in law had given us an anniversary gift (in April) that included a gift certificate to Sorensen's Resort, use of his BMW (which Ben was ecstatic about) and overnight babysitting (which I was ecstatic about).

So on Monday we headed up the mountain.  We stopped for dinner at the Kirkwood Inn.  It's like the best hole in the wall restaurant/bar EVER. The food and atmosphere are amazing.

Shortly thereafter, we arrived at Sorensen's.  There was some wine and a cute little note wishing us a happy 3rd anniversary waiting for us in our cabin.  We hiked around.  Had dessert in our cabin.  Ate the BEST breakfast at the cafe.  We brought our books, mostly just relaxed and enjoyed the silence.  Quiet time really only exists when Landon is sleeping these days so it was nice to have a serene getaway.

We have a toddler in the house who demands most of our attention, which we gladly give, but it is so nice and SO IMPORTANT for our marriage to have some alone time and focus only on each other.  We are so blessed that all of Landon's grandparents are more than willing to give us that chance :)

The Fountains

The kiddo and I took a little trip to The Fountains to hang out with my good friend Paula.  We window shopped (because everything is ridiculously overpriced).  We shared some Big Spoon yogurt. 

But mostly, we chose this place to hang out so Landon could play in the water...and for some reason, this place is never crowded so I don't have to worry about older kids running over him :)  The water is on a timer so The Wombat was soooo cute trying to chase whichever one would spring up next, but then all of the sudden they all shot up and be made a bee line for me. 

Here he is with his accusatory point and glare. Haha!!

 

Definitely going to be making many more trips here to cool off this summer!