By Aliciana:
We drove to Sequoia National Park to enjoy a beautiful day in the great outdoors. Gavin was amazed by the big trees and wanted to climb every rock. We enjoyed a nice hike to see General Sherman, the largest tree by volume. Gavin also requested that Chris mow the grass. As we were leaving Gavin said “bye-bye big trees.”
Aliciana, Gavin, and I spent a long weekend in Santa Barbara to celebrate our friends Brooke and Lance’s wedding. On Saturday we spent the afternoon walking around Solvang’s Dogtoberfest celebration. Gavin got to see lots of cute dogs and some wiener dog races. We finished off the afternoon with a delicious lunch at the Solvang Restaurant.
Gavin decided he wanted to be a monkey this year for Halloween. I don’t think he understood why he was dressing up, but probably just thought it sounded like a good idea to dress up like a monkey and eat candy.
We ended up only going to two houses, our friends down the street, Melissa and Jamie, and our Grandpa and Grandma Ladds’ house. He was having so much fun running around his great grandparents’ house like a monkey he didn’t want to go out and get more candy.
We decided to spend the day in San Luis Obispo to celebrate Aliciana’s birthday. We started off our day trip with lunch at one of our favorite eating spots: Firestone Grill. Then we took a stroll around downtown SLO and showed Gavin the creek that runs through the city.
Cal Poly was deserted because of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend so we decided to show Gavin our old stomping grounds. Gavin had a blast running around campus. We let him run wild around the Computer Science building and Dexter lawn. Then we walked around the rose garden near the Business building and checked out the new additions to Mustang Stadium.
We finished up our SLO trip with a drive around Avila and Shell Beach. After watching the sun set we headed back into SLO for dinner at Pepe Delgado’s.
Going to SLO is always bittersweet because it reminds us how much we miss living there. But, you never know how the future is going to turn out, and someday we might be able to afford to live there again. Until that day, we will just have to make as many trips there as possible to hang out and soak up the ‘SLO life’.
I managed to get a few photos of Gavin putting ornaments on our Christmas tree before my camera battery ran out. He liked putting ornaments on the tree so much that we had problems stopping him from taking them off, then putting them back on, over and over.
Myself and my family spent a wonderful spring afternoon enjoying the company of the animals at CALM. The new mountain lion and bobcat habitats are open and turned out great. The bobcats are much more active, and I would imagine happier, now that they have a large open space to roam instead of their former small enclosure.
Gavin saw my camera on the desk this morning and asked me to take his picture.
We met my brother Nick, his wife Jessie, our aunt Susie, and our cousin Sara in LA for the 3rd game of the new Dodgers season. I’m not sure how much of the game Gavin understood but he seemed to have fun. He really enjoyed all the clapping to try to break the Dodgers out of their funk. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, and they got creamed 10 to 0.
I can’t believe my little boy is already 3 years old! It seems like yesterday that my little wiggle worm was squirming around on my lap. But, seemingly while I wasn’t looking, he grew from a helpless little baby into a vibrant, rambunctious, independent toddler. He reassures us that he is still our “baby big boy”. I’m saddened to think that he won’t be little for much longer.
Gavin got to do lots of his favorite things on his birthday. We went to see the animals at CALM in the early afternoon. Later on in the evening, we went to BJ’s to have one of his favorite meals, chicken strips and french fries. He loves to eat the skinny fries they serve with lots of ketchup while coloring and watching the TV’s all over the restaurant.
Two of his favorite people in the world joined us for dinner, his Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Ladd. We went back to their house after dinner and had cupcakes and ice cream. Aunt Susie, Sara, and Maddie joined us for the celebration. Gavin doesn’t care for either type of sweets, but he enjoyed blowing out candles and eating lots of M&M’s. He also had a blast playing with Maddie and Grandpa.
