October in San Diego

October in San Diego is just lovely - be not fooled by dreams of hitting the beach in June. That is folly, my friends. October is where it's at. Also, probably late July and August, but who can find a parking spot at the beach then?

Anyway, Natalie and I hit the road for a very brief weekend jaunt to San Diego. Our main purpose was to visit with my grandmother, but we also had the added bonus of seeing extended family (and super-extended family from England!) and my high school friends. 

We started things off with our traditional airport breakfast of pumpkin bread.

No, she doesn't want to share. At. All.

Since the weather was so lovely, we did a lot of sitting outside around the pool.

Natalie even went for a swim one night:

We played inside some, too.

 Natalie got to visit with her favorite kitty:

(The caption for this is Natalie saying, "Munch your food, kitty! Munch your food!")

(This is Natalie showing Baby Rachel how to give the kitty gentle touches.)

Of, course, we also visited our various playgrounds. Natalie totally knows how to work her audience for playground assistance!

We also had a totally lovely beach picnic with my high school friends and their kids and significant others. I had so much fun talking and visiting that I totally neglected to take any pictures. Here, however, is a picture of me (taken by someone else, obviously) at said picnic.

 
The requisite four generations shot:

Indeed, we packed a lot into just a few days. This trip was extra-challenging since Natalie's sleep was way off. In fact, she really wouldn't sleep for more than three hours at a time. This was super-exhausting since I really wanted to use her nap times to visit with my grandmother and others, but I was sort of a zombie from being up all night, night after night, with her. Well, mystery solved - over the past few months we've been struggling with an ear infection that we couldn't kick. 

As it turned out, it was so bad that she ended up needing tubes in her ears. So we did that about ten days after we returned. And, as stressful as the experience was, things are much, much better now. Here's a shot of the patient as she enjoyed her post-surgery popsicle. I will admit that the day was so emotional for me that I thought it was weird that Mike was taking this picture, but now I find it sort of sweet and I'm glad we have it.

Now that she's back to normal (whatever that means at three), Natalie has her eye on you!