November

In the Better Late Than Never Dept., here's Lucie at 11 mos. As I mentioned previously, it was a bit chaotic from Halloween to Thanksgiving, what with our various health issues - but we did find time to have a little fun.

When Daddy gets home from work, Brennan greets him with "Hi Daddy!" and "You have a tie, Daddy?" - which means, he'd like to wear Daddy's tie. Given that Daddy's level of attachment to his ties is somewhat akin to how Carrie Bradshaw felt about her shoes, the above photo is strong evidence for how much he's grown as a father.

Lucie has discovered another baby in the apartment and quite enjoys waving at her and talking to her.

Rainy, chilly days send me in search of ways to occupy a 3 year old boy that don't involve the 72nd viewing of "Cars 2". The nice guy who runs "Jungle Gym" at the Y introduced Brennan to some sort of Nerf baseball.
And there's always the Academy of Sciences, where you can whip up a nice plastic dinner while aboard a fake boat.

And when the rain lets up, you dash to the nearest playground to burn off some of the crazies. The above game involved chasing a little boy on a scooter while dragging a hula-hoop and screeching continuously.

The playground is even better if you can con your grandpa into "helping".

We had a Louisiana-style Thanksgiving this year, sharing a deep-fried turkey with Grambo & Grandpa Uwe, Uncle David & Aunt Amy, and cousin Ian. I think Lucie ate more turkey and sweet potatoes than anyone else at the table.

And we were able to duck out of taking a ton of food home, because in 2 days we were off to Mexico...

Mexico

Bienvenidos! Finally - after co-ordinating the dates, booking the place, buying the tickets, and waiting for months and months - we made it to Mexico for a week with our friends. Audrey and Grace were already in the pool when we arrived!

We know from our last visit (aka, swine flu scare leads to deals too good to pass up) that Puerto Vallarta is fairly kid-friendly, and Vida Mar, the beach level villa at Casa Tres Vidas, is pretty safe for babies, if you don't count the pool in the living room.

Brennan was pretty tiny the last time we went - 9 months - so it was a lot more fun for him this time. He loved running on the beach and getting knocked around by the waves, as long as John (or Mommy) was nearby. He also was very busy trying to keep up with Audrey, who is 5 and much more grown up.

Lucy did not care for the ocean at all, but found the sand quite delicious.
Brennan also enjoyed being a handsome man about town, wearing Mommy's sunglasses while strolling along the malecon.

There were also rocks to climb and little tide pools to find -

-Noodle Mania!

-and lounging in the hot tub.

Lucie had plenty of room to explore, and didn't have to hear "no, no, Lucie" 78 times a day while being snatched away from the really exciting dog bowl/cabinet/tower of toilet paper she just discovered. She had an endless supply of fruit and tortilla chips to munch on. And there were plenty of arms available to carry her around:

Mommy's

Suzanne's

and Daddy's!

Breakfast and dinner was at the villa, thank god, because getting this group to a restaurant was no easy feat. Also there's construction on what is the main - and practically only - road between Conchas Chinas and Puerto Vallarta, which meant going to town often involved 20 minutes of sitting in a hot cab with 4 sticky, bored little kids. On the plus side, going to town allowed us to replenish our wine supply, which never lasted as long as intended. Some bright ex-pat finally realized there was an untapped market - gringo wine snobs on vacation - and opened up a shop where you can get something other than Concha y Toro malbec. And Bren finally got his own sunglasses:
Nobody got sick or sunburned, and we only got asked to keep it down one time, so I think it was a successful trip. We just wish it could have lasted longer. Next time, hopefully...

Howdy, Halloween

I know Halloween is long gone - Brennan's trick-or-treat pumpkin is almost empty, and our warm & sunny October has been replaced with chilly & wet November - but we've been a little sidelined the past few weeks. It's mix-and-match time - guess which family member has had the following:

1. a stomach bug

2. an endoscopic sinus procedure

3. an ear infection

4. a nasty cold, firmly believed by the sufferer to be a result of tending to all of the above

So this picture of Lucie, enjoying the toys while her big brother is at school, seems very long ago indeed. Below is her 10 month photo:
We had quite a time getting her to hold still.
We needed a pumpkin, of course, so we made the trek to the same pumpkin patch in Healdsburg we visited 2 years ago. They've stepped up their game a bit, with a farm animal petting zoo, a tower of straw bales for climbing, and pony rides.

Lucie enjoyed grabbing handfuls of straw and attempting to eat it.

My attempt to pose Bren and Lucie smiling together by the corn and pumpkins was a near complete failure. What I got instead was more straw-eating from one, and the other looking like he'd just spotted He Who Walks Behind the Rows.
So we scrapped it and moved on to the tractors.
After some tractor "driving", Brennan noticed a couple little girls taking a pony ride, and announced "I want to ride a horse". I didn't believe it for a second, given our last attempt at pony riding (at the Fenton July 4th Freedom Fest) was aborted due to a last minute change of heart and sudden onset of boneless-ness. But I guess someone's come a long way since summer:

Despite the serious expression, I think he even enjoyed it more than riding the pumpkin wagon.

Sticking with the pumpkin theme, here's Lucie in a cute little jack-o-lantern dress. She's received so many cute dresses, I wish I could put her in them more often - but since she's decided to stick with her weird one-foot-pushing crawl, she tends to get hung up in the hem of a dress.

We celebrated Halloween by trick-or-treating on Belvedere street - although it was a close call, given the Stomach Bug Weekend that preceded the big day.

Sheriff Woody was accompanied by Cowboy Mommy (sorry, no photographic evidence, but my chaps got a number of compliments), a little Alien from Pizza Planet -
who spent her night picking off her eyeballs -
- and Paul McCartney from 1967 or something. Which if you have to ask, please know it will take a while to explain and will only be satisfying to a Beatles fan.
I wish I had more photos, but I had a tough time juggling the camera, the stroller, and my glass of wine. We'll just file that one under "first world problems" and hope for better luck next year, once Lucie is walking.

OMG Enough Disney Already

Lucie, though we love her dearly, is a bit of liability in a theme park. I thought it would be nice to have a special Brennan-and-Mommy-and-No-Babies morning while at Disneyland, so I arranged for a sitter Wednesday morning.

Remember how I mentioned skipping the park on a sunny Monday was a mistake?

Per the weather forecast, I'd packed for some 60-degree weather, but the rain caught us off-guard. It's one of those things you don't question - never get involved in a land war in Asia, it will be dry in Southern California until winter, etc, etc. I did at least buy our custom hooded Disney trash bags before we even entered the park, as it was clear that was our only chance of staying partly dry. Actually, we could have just stayed on the Disney train all morning - Brennan would have been content to do so, shouting "that dinosaur is having lunch" every time he saw the animatronic brontosaurus (yes, I know they're really apatosaurus, but this is a 1960's diorama)in the cave between Tomorrowland and Main Street USA. But after 2 full circles, I forced him off in Adventureland - where he saw another train:This was the last time he was happy on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. While tall enough to ride it, he spent next 3 minutes clinging for dear life to the bar and squeezed tight against me like a barnacle. At the end, he declared it "too scary, Mommy". He didn't seem to have any long term trauma, though - we stood outside the railroad and he hooted happily every time the "train" shot by us.

Returning to our safety zone in Fantasyland seemed like a wise decision, anyway.

By the time we reached "It's a Small World", I was wet enough that the company of singing dolls seemed preferable to staying outdoors. Also I thought Bren was its target audience.

It appears I was wrong about that, too.

We briefly wandered over to Toontown, where we discovered it would be 45 minutes to see Mickey (who we just saw yesterday in his yachting ensemble)- no thank you. Brennan declined to ride some Roger Rabbit themed thing because it involved going indoors, which he now associated with alarming noise, flashing lights, and lurching, thanks to Mr. Toad and Buzz Lightyear. So it was back on the train (Yay! That dinosaur is eating lunch!) and then back to the hotel, where we rescued Lucie and took her to lunch downstairs. She enjoyed a spoon, Brennan had chicken nuggets, and Mommy had a well-deserved glass of wine.

I was feeling like I was close to cracking the code on this place. For Day 4, we got up ridiculously early, stuffed Lucie in the stroller, and set out for "magic morning". This is when the park opens an hour early for Disney hotel guests and multi-day ticket holders, i.e., almost everyone going to Disneyland. (note to Disney management: magic morning could be a little more appealing if you upped the exclusivity) I thought I had one trick up my sleeve - the monorail from Downtown Disney to Tomorrowland was only open to hotel guests during the "magic" hour. Unless, of course, there's some random construction going on, which there was.

Oh, well. It was a lovely morning, and Bren got his first chance to ride the teacups at the Mad Tea Party. He was a little hesitant at first -

- but quickly warmed up to it -
and was pretty happy at the end.
Or just watch the action here.

Yeah, we rode 'em again.

I finally figured out how to get Brennan over his fear of giant Disney characters - flooding therapy! Not really - but I had noticed him excitedly peeking in the windows as we passed the hotel restaurant during the Chip n' Dale breakfast the past 2 days. So I booked a reservation for "Breakfast with Minnie & Friends" at the Plaza Cafe, hoping he'd like it. And he did! Somehow the approach of large animal-like things became non-threatening once surrounded by upholstered chairs and waffles.

Lucie, not so much.

While the characters were too much for her, Lucie did quite enjoy the Mickey waffles.

It was already a pretty special day, but then it got even better - Daddy got out of his conference early! He met us in Disneyland for a little fun, then we went swimming and had lunch by the pool. Then we went to California Adventure and made him go on rides that make him edgy -

Like the big ferris wheel -
and the jumping jellyfish -
As much as it pains me to admit, I actually had fun in the Magic Kingdom, rain and all - perhaps deep down I am a theme park person, after all. Of course it helps to have a 3 year old along - his happiness and enthusiasm must have been contagious. I think Lucie even caught a little.