San Diego

We're back from San Diego, and we had a lovely time. So lovely, in fact, that I managed to check out and forget to take some great pictures of all of us in my grandmother's living room, the four generations together, and the lovely Chanukah party with our good friends. What can I say? You get what you pay for, I guess!

But have no fear, I do have some pictures and stories!

The crew:

Coffeecake

Natalie helping Pumpkin open his present.

"Who's Pumpkin?" you ask. This is Pumpkin:

Pumpkin belongs to my aunt and uncle who live in San Francisco. This was Natalie's first real prolonged encounter with a dog in the same house. We discovered that two year-olds and puppies are pretty evenly matched - at least in their ability to create havoc! But, seriously, Natalie loved Pumpkin. Whenever Pumpkin wasn't near or was sleeping, Natalie wanted to go see and play with him. But then, when Pumpkin would show any interest at all in her, she'd turn and run, screeching and laughing joyously and demand to be picked up, urgently. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Over. And. Over.

Pumpkin was great, but Natalie's true love is still Oma's kitty cat. In fact, returning from the beach at one point, we had this conversation:
Mike: Let's go upstairs and see Oma.
Natalie, hopefully: See Oma's kitty cat?

However, don't let the kitty cat love fool you. We also had this conversation when Natalie and I had had to abruptly come back into the house.
Me, to Mike: Ask Natalie why she had to come inside.
Mike: Why did you have to come inside?
Natalie: Ka-buzz I kick the kitty cat again.
(To clarify, they weren’t hard kicks - so much so that I felt the first one just might have been an accident, hence the warning that if she did that again, we’d need to come in. Guess the first one wasn't an accident. Also, I don't know what's more adorable here, her use of "ka-buzz" for "because" or the little "again" tacked on the end of the sentence.)

We also went to the beach.

Yeah, we still like the beach. A lot.

But Oma's yard is fun, too.

Speaking of fun, we also had a lovely lunch with my friends from high school and their kids (so, so weird to write that phrase, by the way). It was so nice to be together, and more than a little sad for me to realize that if we lived in San Diego, these kids would be Natalie's friends, and we'd have a lot more parties like this.

On the left: Natalie + ice cream. As genetics would suggest, ice cream was a big hit! On the right: the newest arrival. And, why, yes, I did make that hat!

We also went to one of cousin Emilia's basketball games.

Given her recent experiences, Natalie was a bit puzzled by the concept of whole-team, non-punitive time-outs.

And, as is the custom, we had sublime sushi with the Seattle contingent.

Time for some more park pictures, no?

 

And here's a video of big girl attempting to catch some birds (hint: she wasn't all that successful).


And a shot from the airport on our way home. As you can surely see, we had a good time!