In search of summer

When Saturday dawned cold and blustery (it's not supposed to get out of the fifties this week and the wind is howling as I write this), I was very glad we had a long-planned trip to Santa Rosa for the day. I was less psyched about the reason - this was one of our last days with Emily before she moves to Boston next month (boo, who would want to move there, anyway?!). We picked Emm up and once we cleared the bridge, the sky brightened and it actually felt like summer. By the time we got to Natalie and Chris's it was close to 80 degrees and I was almost out of my skin with delight. Plus, Grace had napped in the car after pouting at Emily for a while.

We did a little belated first birthday celebration for Gavin... Grace was just itching to play with his present. She had already unwrapped it once that morning.

After Grace and Steve showed Gavin how to play with his new truck, we headed over to a very cool park. It had several playgrounds for different ages, fountains and ponies. I didn't know that Grace even knew about pony rides, but as soon as she saw them she asked "Daddy, my ride the pony?!" (My is sometimes "I" around here). She climbed on the pony without flinching, no hint of fear, and loved it. And then she was immediately ready for the fountains.

She marched in fearlessly, despite lots of bigger kids. A little boy kept walking up to her and taking her hat off and she would come up to us, bewildered and say "He take my hat off!" Then she she would call to him "No take my hat off!" Nevertheless, she had a blast running around, getting soaked, shrieking and giggling. Eventually we had to drag her away, although she did manage to be standing in the middle of a circle of fountains when the water came back on - she was already dressed again. She may have enjoyed getting drenched but I wasn't so crazy about geting soaked hauling her back out again...

We headed back to Nat and Chris's after some time on the playground and played in their gorgeous garden, eating strawberries straight from the vine, which Grace pretty much thought was more thrilling than ponies and fountains combined. We enjoyed fresh apples from the tree (Grace at 2 without them even being cut up!), and then Grace got serious about supervising Chris at the grill. She wouldn't even let us come outside to keep an eye on her.

We had a super yummy dinner of Chris's famous and fabulous grilled chicken and summer salads and looked over Emm's photos from the Vineyard trip. We finally had to hit the road at bedtime, but G was not tired apparently. She and Emily had a sing-a-long the whole way back (Emily-the-Patient we should perhaps call her).

We had a beautiful drive back through the hills of Sonoma and Marin in the the fading light followed by the view of the Golden Gate in the fog as we came out of the tunnel. San Francisco may be chilly, but it is nothing if not gorgeous. What a fun day... we'll miss Emily when she moves but it's nice to squeeze in perfect summer outings while we can.

All the photos here.