Brennan's Fall Vacation

Hi there! Mommy had so many pictures of Halloween & the Pumpkin Patch she couldn't wait to post, so now I'm finally getting a chance to tell you about my big trip. First, we went to Atlanta, to see friends and check on our house on Glenwood Ave. I had lots of fun playing with Mommy's friends. Auntie Kris taught me how fun it is to stick food in grown-ups' mouths, and I'm still doing it! Thanks, Auntie Kris! We did all sorts of things - swimming at the YMCA, breakfast at the Flying Biscuit, and a night tour at Oakland Cemetary. I liked running around the cemetary until I tripped on a tricky brick and bumped my face. Mommy let me stay up past bedtime and have extra fruit, so I was OK, and I looked like a tough guy for the next week.

Then we went north to Michigan. I was a very good boy on the flight, because I was asleep the entire way. We went to the beach Mommy used to go to when she was little, but it was too cold for swimming. I had a good time with Gangi on the swings, though.

I had fun meeting 2 Barbaras - my Great Grandma and Mommy's cousin - and it was good to play with Grandpa Marsall again. I supervised his work on the deck, too. And I grew 2 new molars while I was there!

Then it was time to come back to San Francisco. It was so nice the day after Halloween that I took Gangi to brunch in Marin, at Fort Baker, a converted military base just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. I ate lots and lots of bread, then ran around on the parade grounds. I'd like to come back with my new (newly installed) bike seat and ride around, but Mommy is still afraid of hills and needs a bike rack, so we can drive to places that are flat. I'll try to not be such a crab about my helmet if we can go more. Maybe.

Halloween

Halloween fell on a Saturday AND there was a full moon and no fog AND Gangi was here, so it was a pretty special night all around -

Brennan wanted to be ready - it was his 2nd Halloween, after all, so he knew he needed some sort of disguise. We managed to convince him that he could do better than stealing my sunglasses. Thanks to a loan from Maine (the girl, not the state), Bren got to be a monkey. Of course, you could argue that he's kind of a monkey every day-

We had some other partners in crime -

Ian, the scary red dinosaur monster, and Liam, the scary orange...pumpkin. He was supposed to be a fireman, but had a change of heart at the 11th hour.

Bren enjoys taking small objects and putting them into containers. His favorite way to spend an afternoon is to tear toilet paper off the roll, walk around the toilet, lift the trash can lid, and throw it away - so taking candy from a basket and putting it in a bag was right up his street. Well, for 4 houses it was...

Luckily, there's plenty of other entertainment on Belvedere Street on Halloween. It really is amazing, the amount of time & effort they put into decorating their homes and handing out tons of candy, as well as simply making kids happy. One home featured "Madagascar" go-go dancers (last year, it was "Kung Foo Panda") - and Chubbles was transfixed by a saw-playing performance.

Here's the Scary Monster in the mist and the Crazy Monkey climbing Daddy -

And since I went to the bother of carving it (30 minutes before our Big Halloween Fun started), here's the damn pumpkin we went up to Healdsburg to get:

Pumpkins!

I know yesterday was Halloween, and there should be all kinds of "cute toddler in a costume" pics, but as I haven't even downloaded the camera yet, you'll just have to settle for Brennan's trip to the pumpkin patch. We took him out to Grandma's Pumpkin Patch in Healdsburg, which is a much mellower pumpkin patch scene relative to Half Moon Bay, plus it's super close to some of my favorite wineries.

I was hoping for a "little baby surrounded by giant pumpkins" sort of photo, not really factoring Brennan's actual activity level into my misty-eyed parenting fantasy. This is what we got instead -

AHHH! THE PUMPKINS ARE CHASING ME! WITH BIG POINTY TEETH! THEY'RE CHASING ME!
I thought we were coming to get a PUMPKIN. What is this s__t?

If elected, I promise to end the annual gutting & carving of your people...

OK, Ma, I finished the back 40, now can I come in for supper?

Anyway, it was a pretty day, there were no tantrums, we got a good pumpkin, and I was drinking wine at Preston within an hour. All of my birthdays should go this well...