Happy Halloween!

A festive Halloween weekend...

A little pumpkin (punkeee!) carving.

Dancing at the CAS.

Ready to go with Kanga and Roo.

The princess and her entourage.

Kanga, Roo, and Eyeore.

She doesn't even need to remove the wrappers before eating her candy.

Vacation: island time

Tuesday we went to Whidbey Island and my goodness, the weather couldn't have been better. Every time I go there, I'm amazed at how beautiful it is. I went there so often as a kid that I took it for granted and never realized how incredible it is. (This is the story of my life now, actually, and whenever my plane lands in Seattle I'm shocked by all the trees. I also finally understand why all the out of town relatives would constantly be commenting on the scenery, which I thought was soooo boring.) After a bit of auto-touring (rather hysterical if my father is in the car) because Grace was asleep, we went to Fort Casey. It was built in the late nineteenth century, probably to deter the Canadians. You think I jest, but that's just because you don't know about the Pig War, unless you too had the privilege of learning Washington State history in grade school. I digress.

We went to the Fort, a place I remember going with my cousins as a young child, running around the battlements and ramparts (I have a younger brother!) and skipping rocks on the beach. Grace had a blast climbing around on the fort, but we quickly realized it's an exceptionally dangerous place for a toddler and headed to the beach.

I think my dad was trying to convince me that she was small enough to crawl through the canon.

Climbing the ramparts (Mark, correct me if it's a battlement).

Grace was so NOT into having a family photo. Can you see Mt. Baker in the background?

Rocks and driftwood. She would have happily stayed all day.

She's almost ready to learn to skip rocks.

Washington beaches, so unlike California beaches. Olympic Peninsula in the distance or maybe that's Vancouver Island.

Gracie christened my dad "Pop!" (yes, always with an exclamation point) on this trip.

Later in the afternoon, we headed over to NanaNan's on the other side of the island. Sadly, I couldn't get a good photo of Grace with her, but we did have a lot of fun catching up and attempting to destroy her house.

On NanaNan's beach.

Here Grace is sitting in the old family highchair. Apparently it was bought new for the sixth child in my dad's family, and was subsequently used by all my gazillion cousins and me. I remember it being in my grandparents' house for years - it must be more than fifty years old now and has the coolest styling.

Vacation: hikers

Monday we hit the road for Mt. Baker, aiming for Artist's Point to hike. At the ranger station, we learned the temps were likely to be in the 40s so we opted for a lower trail toward Hannegan Pass instead. This was the second time I'd hiked there, and ohmigosh do I love it. The canyon is indescribably beautiful. The leaves were changing (after living in New England we had all but forgotten that other places get beautiful fall color also) and the water falls running. I took around a million pictures of basically the same thing because every bend in the trail revealed another gorgeous angle. I think Steve did the same thing on the return trip when we traded baby backpack for camera.

I'm pretty sure Steve is contemplating how to convince us that we can make it to the snow.

Had enough of the mountain scenery? It's just so devastatingly beautiful there.

Grace has gotten to be a much better "passenger" on hikes, although she does love to yank my hair when I carry her. This results in some awesome hairstyles for me as I try to get all my hair under a baseball cap. I guess Grace got pretty worn out, or else was very excited to get home and play with the trains, because she was delighted to get back to the car.

Mark and I found some of our old Brio train sets in the attic so we set them up for Grace. She had recently become quite thrilled by trains, and whenever she sees one will yell "treh!" This is especially entertaining when we happen to be driving down a street with a trolley because every block produces another screaming, delighted "treeeeh! oh, treeeh!" So Grace was very happy to play trains with her Uncle Mark, although she would not let anyone else's train go near the roundabout. A bit territorial, that one. Or maybe we were just playing wrong - it's a frequent offense.

Choo-choo! (actually, that's too-too!)

Vacation: a review in several parts

I really wanted to get some posts up about our vacation before it became a distant memory. Fail.

But, here's a start. We hit the road at 4:40AM, aiming for B'ham in one shot but willing to spend the night along the way if all hell broke loose in the backseat. Everyone had told us Grace would go right back to sleep, but instead she sat in the backseat wide eyed. We stopped for gas near Mt. Shasta and got directions to a lovely park. It was the perfect stop - playground, very pretty river and just about one tank of gas north of SF. Grace rocked out to her Elmo and Baby Einstein DVDs (yes, I know they've been debunked but she likes them) while we jammed on up to Eugene, mystified by all the cars decked out in Ducks flags. Finally took Steve to Taco Time, which he promptly declared seriously inferior to Taco Bell (though Gracie was quite pleased with the tater tots), and then it was onward to the Tacoma Mall. Oh yea, Tacoma. There was plenty of space for Grace to roam plus food - it turns out malls are good road trip pit stops with a toddler. Grace refused dinner, but then as soon as we pulled onto the freeway again she started saying and signing "eat? eat?" She konked out and we rolled into Bellingham at 10:15PM.

Did you notice that I forgot to mention all the tantrums from the backseat? Amazingly there were none. None! There was a bit of whining, but no knock down, drag out, get me out of this seat screaming. Amazing that we did a 15 hour drive (and that's drive time, not including stops) with only three stops with a 16 month old. Steve and I have driven cross country three times and up and down both coasts, but we've never driven that far with only three stops. That baby girl just keeps amazing us.

It is fall in Washington, even if was the height of summer when we left the Bay Area, so we headed out to a local farm for their fall festival on Sunday. Grace learned a new word, "pumpkin", danced to the bluegrass band, and helped press some fresh cider. We tasted apples, pears and garlic. Yum. It was a beautiful day in that wonderful, green, Washington overcast way.

Next we headed down to Boulevard Park for a last walk on the old dock. Construction was to begin on a replacement the next day.

That is one of my favorite places in the world, with the view of the San Juans and the mountains in Canada, the sound of the waves and gulls, the smell of saltwater and the distant dinging of buoys.

Back to work, back to work, to prove to Dad that I'm not a jerk*

Made it! Through the first few days.

Grace started school (daycare) on Wednesday, and I started work Thursday. We're still getting the hang of our new routine, especially because my office site will be changing soon so I'm not really sure how the final daycare drop off and commute will work, but everything seems to be off to a good start.

Grace's transition back into daycare has been pretty smooth. She was definitely relieved that I came back for her on the first day, but she hasn't resisted going or started to cry when we arrive and she realizes she has to stay there again. She seems to have fun and she's eating and napping there. She comes home exuberant, yelling about buses and cars and birds and everything else we might see on the way home. Work seems good so far, although it's certainly too early to tell for sure. The team seems great and the work is really interesting and challenging. There will still be a period of adjustment as we settle into our new normal. But, all told, the first few days have gone well and I really appreciate all the support here and elsewhere. Y'all rock!

* If you don't know that reference, then, well... I don't even know what to say.

A moment of parenting brilliance

We have been on vacation, thus the lack of posts. But, we are back and trying to get ourselves together for a big week. The trip was wonderful and I'll post pictures and all the news of our two fifteen hour drives and excellent time with my family soon.

Meanwhile, I must share a smooth parenting move by my husband. We ran a bunch of errands today and Gracie was exhausted. We were having lunch and she wanted two things - to run around and to have her binky. So, Steve held the binky in his hand and let her have it. Apparently she wanted the binky more than she wanted to run, so she just stood there. She fought to get him to let go, but she didn't scream and she didn't run, and we were able to gobble down our last few bites. It was completely absurd and genius.

In other news, happy birthday to Andréa! Cannot believe we have known each other for almost thirty years.

Little girl

We recently had some summer so Grace decided to pick flowers. Something about this set of photos makes her look so much like a little girl rather than a baby... bittersweet.