Back and Relaxed - Carmel, 2010

We had an incredible time in Carmel this year. I took about 400+ pictures so I have been trying to sort through them in the last few days and deciding which ones to share. As a disclaimer, I can't narrow it down very well so there will be A LOT of photos in this post. :)
**You can click on any of the photos if you want to see them in full size.**

Carson did awesome for the entire time we were gone. He didn't even notice we weren't here. He took all his naps, slept fine through the night and had fun playing with Grandma. That made it so much easier to relax while we were gone.

On the trip we did a lot of new things and were just basically free. It sort of felt like I had forgot my purse or something, like you feel naked when you don't have something that's always with you. It took awhile to stop feeling like we forgot Carson in the car. 

Basically we just chilled, went sightseeing and gorged ourselves with tons of food. Bob took us to some fancy cheese shop...we each ate over a pound of cheese alone in three days. Yummmmm. We had our favorite cake in Monterey, drank beer and wine, made dinner at home and took full advantage of the espresso machine in our house. Luckily it also had some decaf or Bob and I would have been wired the entire time. Oh, I got to experience my first Trader Joe's too!

It was surprisingly really cold the entire time we were there and rained a lot too. Luckily I decided to bring my big winter coat, scarf and gloves because I actually need them! I was completely bundled up the entire time.

We usually fly into San Jose and drive an hour down to Carmel. This time Bob asked if we wanted to stop at a redwood forest on the way down as a detour. We were all over that! It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. It literally felt like you had been plucked from the real world and dropped on some crazy planet. It had the most enchanted feeling. Everything was SO green and everything around you was so captivating. I took a ton of photos there...here are some of my favorites.

 It was hard for me to get the actual scale of the trees in one picture because I didn't have my wide-angle lens with me. I did take this picture with my phone to send Carson. That tree Carl is standing in front of is 270 feet tall!

 

I was going to take a picture of Carl under this one big tree that was split in two at the bottom. Then he yelled at me for never being in the pictures so I set up the self-timer and jumped in.

Then he made me kiss him. Yuck. :)

We found lots of these banana slugs. Apparently they are the mascot of Santa Cruz, but they were nasty. They stood out everywhere and were cool to look at though.

 

One of my favorite things were all the big triangle-shaped spider webs that were covered in rain drops. They looked so awesome.

And there were a lot of different kinds and colors of mushrooms all over. They all looked like flowers or clams. And all of the ground was covered in clovers. We never found a four leaf one though.

We took turns under the huge overhanging trees.

 

 

There were all kinds of other plants growing on the big trees that had fallen on the ground.

Then it was time to go check out our rental house. It turned out to be more than awesome. It had a gourmet kitchen, beautiful furnishings, three patios and much more. It was really nice!

Then we headed to Point Lobos. That's the local natural reserve that we have gone to every year. It is so pretty. They have what is called "seal island" out on one of the points. It is impossible to see them with your bare eyes, but you can sure hear them! Especially when the wind picks up just right. I finally got somewhat of a decent picture with my telephoto so now I know what was out there.

This area is mostly all cliffs so you stay up top instead of going to a beach.

There is this ice plant all over there. I absolutely love the colors!

 On Saturday we drove down Big Sur and stopped at a few beaches. This was the only time it was actually sunny and we all loved feeling the sun. We hiked around and spent time just laying in the sand. They had three huge storms just before we got there so it was still really windy and the waves were huge for that area. 

 

 

At one point we were all laying in the sand and I looked over to snap this shot of Penelope next to me and Bob perched up on the rocks. Aaaahhhhhhh........

There were really cool big turkey vultures that flew over us the whole time. I got this shot of one.
We saw three whales while we were at the Bixby Bridge also.

 

 We were hoping to be there for the sunset, but it was too cloudy to see much of anything. This is what the sky looked like that night.

And on a different spot that same night:

Sunday was really rainy. We went down to Carmel Beach to walk around. My umbrella was pretty pointless and I had to come hope to re-dry my hair. Then we came home, finished what was left of all our amazing food and took off back up to San Jose. 

It was really great, but we came home pretty tired. We stayed up super late (for us), didn't sleep great in the bed there and still woke up at our normal time. We are still trying to catch up. Tuesday was Carl's birthday. This was a wonderful way to celebrate! He took Monday off too so he's have a day to relax before going back.

So, if you got this far, thanks for reading! I told you it would be looooooooooong.

California, here we come!

I am finishing up my last details and we are SO booking it out of here tomorrow. I am just too excited not to get it all out! Although, it is sort of bittersweet leaving Carson for the first time. But it is for the greater good. Grandma's been given all the instructions she could possibly need and they will have a blast. We finally got snowed on this afternoon and the weather is supposed to be pretty rainy all weekend in Carmel. I really couldn't care less though. I am actually looking forward to seeing rain, even though that kind of ruins most of our plans. We aren't going to know what to do when we can have three days of conversations in peace! :)

Anyways, I am just hoping for the strength to not call home at every chance I get. 

How could I resist this face though???

Catch ya on the flip side...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Tis the weekend of love. Celebrate wisely. :)

I thought I'd break out the Baby Legs and try a couple V-Day shots of Carson. There isn't much to do for boy props since it's all so pink and girly. I thought a good old smackaroo on the cheek would be cute. He "helped" me draw some hearts to cut out too.

Then, he didn't want to sit for me at all. The only solution was to turn on Yo Gabba Gabba. Yes, those guys again. But then he wouldn't look at me at all. All the pictures are of him standing or looking up at the TV. I still got some keepers though. :)

  

Carl says I'm obsessed with feet. I don't like real feet, but I do like to photograph them.

Half-way through the lipstick was getting disasterous so that came off.

 

He had to go get his Muno doll to complete the process.

They have a segment called "funny faces." This is the one he does every. single. time.

 

And then he decided to attack me. Except I had a different, longer zoom lens on and he was perplexed. I barely snapped this picture, but I LOVE this face!

Have a great weekend!!!

Our smart little guy

I thought I'd share a few videos from the week. Carson is such a character and I am always catching him doing new and funny things. 

 

Carson loves to "help" me clean; he pushes around the vacuum, pulls the rug in the living room to clean off, uses his bare hand to wipe off the table tops, uses the Swiffer on everything...basically tries to copy everything I do. Well, Monday was cleaning day so I got out my headphones. When I do this he always motions that he wants the other iPod to watch Yo Gabba Gabba (which he calls Muno, one of the characters on the show). I found some old school headphones for him and we went about our business. All of a sudden I realized he was actually saying iPod. He picks up on the smallest things!

 

He's randomly said different numbers for awhile, like "two, three!" without a one. This week he started saying, "one, two, three!" all on his own. And the Daddy Horse game is his new favorite.

 

He also figured out how fun his Elmo Hands are. Here is an example of his dance to go with them.

 

I had to take Carl to work really early this morning so I got home and showered before Carson got up. He woke up just as I was starting to dry my hair so I brought him into our room to hang out. Instead of running around he asked to get up on the bed. He has seriously never just laid down like this and watched TV. He is a tornado every waking minute so this was a first. :)  He was trying to lay back and get comfortable so I piled pillows around him and he stayed like that the whole time. It was super cute.

Getting into trouble

I just have a few snapshots to share today. :)

Last week was super hard. The only way I can describe Carson's mood for the ENTIRE week is horrific. He was a bear of a child. He screamed and screamed and screamed so much that by Friday afternoon I just put in my headphones and went about my business. He was "happy" and had anything he could want, but was just in some kind of mood. Add onto that that he wasn't sleeping well at night and I think we got a total of two hours of naps for the week. It was bad.

Luckily this week started off much better. We went to the museum on Monday morning with Erin and little Ava. I decided to try to sit in on toddler story time without great expectations. Sure enough, he didn't prove me wrong. He was "that kid" who had to run away from me and stood right up in front of the lady reading. He then made his way over to her markers and I had to go up in front of everyone and get him. Twice. I know better. We are going to go to the library hopefully tomorrow to just read together instead of trying a group setting like that. He is really getting to where he likes to read books and he will sit on your lap and pay attention. This week I read "The Curious Little Kitten" book to him that was mine as a tot and he has demanded it for every single nap and bedtime since. It's kind of cool to pass it on. :)

I had a big project come up for work on Monday night. I had to work on it non-stop until it was finished which wasn't until 1:30 on Wednesday. I was pooped, but Carson was a trooper. He was a new child compared to last week. He ran and played by himself for most of the time and is still being so funny. 

On Tuesday morning I hear him come clomping through the kitchen in my shoes (you can hear the buckles clang). I look over and he has on two different shoes with the booster seat insert on his head.

 

  

This morning we had been playing and I took a minute to come in the office. The next thing I know I can hear some crunching. I jump up to find this:

Note the bucket....he uses anything he can for a step-stool.

We also love to see how often he can turn into "Homer Baby". This is done with black beans:

Other than that not much is going on. Our Mazda started having issues again yesterday like it did last summer. We are hoping it is the alternator again and it will be warrantied. It's always something, right?!?!

Carl had taken on a sort of new position at work about a month or two ago. He has been a team leader or shop manager (not sure of the title), but we didn't know how long it would last because of a lot of changes going on there. He has really liked the job because he doesn't have to try to flag so many hours and does something like make sure all the work is being done in the right time and order (I'm not totally sure). But regardless, he has liked it. Well, he got word today that the guy he replaced is moving up to an advisor position permanently and the new serivce manager asked Carl to accept this position for good. It's a step in the right direction at least. I just want to see him happy! Congrats Babe!

Oh! And we are going back to Carmel in two weeks! We need a break bad so we are very excited. However...this time we are 99% sure we aren't bringing Carson. My mom is up for staying with him so hopefully we are up to leaving him. At first I said let's leave him, then Carl said he can't be away for three whole days, so then we were bringing him. Plus, I felt bad knowing we'd be there wishing he were there experiencing everything with us. We are a family now and that's what you do. Then after the last week I decided he is staying. We will be staying in a brand new rental house with stairs, a fireplace, knickknacks... we will not have a second to sit and relax. Not to mention the fact that I don't think I want my boss to witness what it's really like in my house some days. It's just hard to wrap my head around three whole days away when we've never been apart for more than a few hours. It will be good chance for a refresher for all of us.