Best Weekend Ever

(**Every single picture in this post was taken by Stephanie. If you read her blog they will seem very familiar to you. Her pictures are always much better than mine, so I don't think I took my camera out even once while they were here.**)

Steph, Megan and Trevor came to California to meet Louis and hang out with the rest of us. Norah has been anticipating their visit for months. Every morning we had to look at the calendar and count how many more days until their visit. You can only imagine the excitement level on the morning (Saturday) that we picked them up. Norah immediately hurled herself at all three of them and this is basically where I found her for the next 4 days. Glued to Megan.

We went back to our house so they could meet Lou and then we took a nice long walk up to Baskin Robbins and the grocery store to get stuff for dinner. When I say nice long walk, I mean that the walk takes me 7 minutes by myself (and I don't walk that fast). When Norah is involved it is about a 45 minute walk. Check out the red dress. It is an old tap dance costume of Megan's, but Norah insists it is her Cinderella dress. Suspension of disbelief, I suppose.


Lou was mesmerized by Trevor. Anytime Trevor was in the room Lou would stop everything and stare at him. Trevor could get the biggest smiles out of him too. He has generously offered to talk to Lou via Skype whenever Lou gets fussy. Trevor is cool like that.


About a month ago our neighbor gave Norah a giant story book that has the stories of Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Snow White. She loves it and wants to read it constantly. She has the Beauty and the Beast movie and we checked out Snow White from the library not too long ago, but The Little Mermaid and Cinderella are no where to be found (Disney does this sly marketing ploy called 'The Vault' and their movies are released only every 7 years, or something crazy like that). Anyway, Megan has both TLM and Cinderella and generously brought them for Norah to watch. She then left them here for Norah to borrow 'long term' because she's awesome like that. The big kids were so great about watching both with Norah many, many times. Trevor never complained once because again, he's awesome like that.

(As an aside, my biggest complaints with the majority of the Princess stories are that 1) the girl always needs rescuing from her dire situation, and 2) they fall in love without getting to know each other, or sometimes even TALKING to each other. I mean, Ariel is willing to sacrifice everything for a dude she hasn't even met! What if he was the world's biggest asshole?? Anyway, I try not to rain on Norah's parade too much because she really is enamored by the stories, but I can't help myself and I add a little epilogue on the end when we read her book. Belle gets her PhD and becomes a professor, Cinderella goes to medical school and becomes a doctor, Ariel goes back to school and becomes a marine biologist, and Snow White becomes a veterinarian. Norah was a bit confused because the movies don't show the girls going to school. Megan was a good sport and assured her that they did, the movie just didn't show it).

The next morning we ditched Louis and BVZ and drove into the city. The weather wasn't great, but it wasn't as horrible as predicted, so we decided to go down to Pier 39/Fisherman's Wharf. Yes, it's touristy, but totally fun and the kids loved it. We took them to the Aquarium by the Bay, which was a big hit. You have to walk through the gift shop to get to the entrance (imagine that), and Norah was happy to indulge her cousins and try on all of the paraphernalia.

Megan was a sport and lifted Norah up 9,000 times to see all the exhibits.

Jellyfish are always my favorite.

The whole place is pretty small, but perfect for kids. There are two long tunnels, one with shallow water animals and one for deeper water critters.

Shallow water had giant sea bass and tons of starfish.

Deeper water had sting rays and sharks.

On the level above the tunnels is a room with several tide pools. Megan and Trevor literally have no fear and were all about touching the sting rays and sharks. There was no way Norah was going to touch them. Hell, there was no way I was going to touch them. We're chickens.

There was a short demonstration on the effects of carbon dioxide on the temperature of the planet.

There was a large tide pool with all kinds of star fish and other sea creatures.

I tried for about 10 minutes to get Norah to touch a star fish. No dice. Megan said, 'Norah, why don't you touch a star fish?' and she did it in about 12 seconds.

She then screamed into some port-holes with tadpoles, 'Hi tadpoles! It's me, Norah!'

We walked around the pier and let the kids share a giant crepe. Of course no visit is complete without checking out the sea lions.






These two are connected in a way that I had only hoped was possible. They are soul mates.

We walked by a guy advertising $10 boat rides. Unfortunately, the next boat wasn't leaving for over an hour. We were kind of on the fence about whether or not to wait around, it was kind of getting late and everyone was getting tired, but we decided to let the kids decide. Megan voted to head home but Norah voted to 'ride a $10 boat!' Trevor had to be the tie breaker and he decided to pack it in and go home.


On the way out we stopped and loaded up on some fruit.

Trevor declared that his peach was the best peach he had ever had in his whole life, and if given the choice between that peach and chocolate, he would choose the peach every time.


Monday morning we took BVZ to work and went to the beach. We started getting all the kids ready at 9:15 and I think we actually left the house at 10:45. Lou did what Lou does best and napped one off.

I had told the kids that the beach was awesome, but the water was way too cold to swim in. We go to this beach all of the time, but never get more than our toes in the water. It's COLD. And it's cold outside. Like, you almost always need a jacket.

Megan and Trevor dipped their toys in the water.

Then their ankles.


About 15 minutes later they were full on swimming in their clothes. They have no fear (and thankfully, no hypothermia).

Norah stayed dry but had a fabulous time digging in the dirt, collecting sea shells, and burying her feet in the sand.



It was such a great day. We had to hose the kids and their clothes off with the backyard hose before they were allowed in the house. They got scrubbed down, thrown into pajamas, and fed pizza for dinner. They were in heaven.

The next day we took it easy and just let the kids enjoy each others' company.


Trevor brought Norah his old Wizard hat. She decided she was Merlin (from her latest fave movie, Sword in the Stone).

We went to a small recreation area at Coyote Point (about 15 minutes away), and checked out the children's discovery museum and zoo.

It was itty bitty, but the kids seemed to really enjoy it (I mean, who doesn't like seeing otters eat fish?)








I had to park it and give Louis a bottle and so the rest of the crew went to check out the gift shop. They came back and Norah had this fabulous flamingo. Turns out, Megan used her own money to buy Norah a special souvenier. Norah is obsessed with it.

Back at the house we made Stephanie a birthday cake (her birthday is in a few days). Megan picked out the candle.



It was a jam-packed couple of days that absolutely flew by. The house was total chaos the entire time and I loved every second of it. We were all so tremendously sad when they left. All the kids slept on a futon mattress on Norah's bedroom floor and on Wednesday when BVZ tried to put it away Norah wouldn't let him 'just in case they come back.' She tells me every once in a while that her 'eyes are all wet because my cousins went home.'

So much love. It sucks that they are gone.