What a Weekend

Whew. What a weekend. Things kicked off with a play date over here on Friday afternoon. The kids had a blast running around in the backyard and eating pizza. I had no shame and drank a Bud Light Lime in front of my friends. The kids didn't want to go home, and frankly neither did we, so Ruby and Norah convinced us to let them all take a bath together. Taking clean kids (in clean pj's) home from a play date is fantastic.

While in the bath, out of nowhere, Norah announced, "Caleb, your skin is black, just like Tiana's!" She was so thrilled and excited that I didn't have the heart to tell her that 1) Caleb is not, in fact, black; 2) it maybe isn't the best idea to make those kinds of proclamations; and 3) compared to Norah, just about anyone looks black. Poor girl is really pale.

Saturday morning we headed over the bridge and spent the latter part of the morning and had lunch with Uncles Dick and Alan and Kate. I can't believe I didn't take a single picture. It was a lovely visit, but poor Lou had a total meltdown at the end. See, he's the world's most mellow baby, but needs about 30 seconds with a pacifier before he can fall asleep. No pacifier and he apparently becomes the devil. For some unknown reason, we managed to pack half the house for our day out, but didn't include a single pacifier. Of course. We made a sheepish escape and stopped at a grocery store to pick up a spare. They didn't have Lou's brand so I got a few alternatives. He was pretty pissed about the whole thing and poor baby probably cried for an hour straight until he finally passed out.

We then went to Grandpa Gene's house where a lot of running took place, as well as a trip to the local park.

I caught her shaking the flowers "for fairy dust."

Grandpa Gene and Ms. Mary are always a lot of fun.

Sunday we figured that relaxing around the house was for wussies and met up with the B's and S's at Half Moon Bay. It started off chilly and overcast, but the clouds burned off after about 20 minutes and turned into quite possibly the nicest day we've ever had at HMB. The beach was packed, so clearly everyone else had the same idea. Norah loves this beach, but loved it even more with her friends.


Relaxing in a frog hat.

Ruby was the only one brave enough to go in the water (her dad surfed for a bit and then took her in). After lunch, all the kids ventured down to the water and found a little inlet to play in where they could splash around but not get really wet-that water is COLD. Some grown ups were up with Lou and the stuff and others were down monitoring the ocean situation. Both BVZ and I were down with the big kids. In true Half Moon Bay fashion, a wave came out of nowhere at a much higher tide than expected. Of course, this happened at the exact instant I turned around to say something to BVZ, and I missed Norah getting knocked down by said wave. Relative chaos ensued (she was NOT happy about getting knocked down or being soaking wet, Ruby didn't seem to mind...) and after the excitement subsided, Aileen called down from the blankets, "where's Caleb?"

I think my heart actually stopped. 5 pairs of grown up eyes immediately started searching. BVZ said, "I saw him walk up, I saw him walk up" but I couldn't stop looking in the water. I don't remember ever feeling quite that terrified, so I can't even imagine how Aileen must have felt. I waded into the water calling his name, while others scanned the beach. It was probably only 2 minutes, but it felt like an hour. Aileen found him about a hundred yards from our stuff (high on the beach), and my guess is that he tried to go back up to the blankets but got disoriented and couldn't find our group.

He was fine. We all needed a stiff drink.

Later that evening we went to the H-R's for a yummy hot dog dinner and smores. They have a killer house (5 minutes away from us), with an amazing view. We have house envy.

Crazy weekend but a ton of fun.