Avila Beach Day 5 - Los Osos/ Baywood Park

On Thursday, we spent some time in the pool. Ethan screamed so loud to get in the pool. I was embarrassed and couldn't get him to stop until we put him in the pool. I guess he remembered that he liked the pool from swimming earlier in the week. It was in the 60's the whole week but we still got in the pool. He loved swimming around in his floaty and with Ken.

Later that afternoon, Ken and I were ready to get out of the hotel and keep Ethan active so we headed to the Los Osos/ Baywood Park. I forgot my camera on this trip so I don't have photos of the sun setting. It was beautiful. We walked on the beach and Ken skipped rocks on the water. It was quite a drive from the freeway but worth it. Next time we go we'll have to spend more time there.

On Friday, we headed home about 11AM. My grandma was along for the ride, since we were taking her back to my uncle's house. Ethan enjoyed talking to her and playing games in the backseat. He also watched Finding Nemo. He played one of his favorite games. We say "UP" and he says "DOWN".

This vacation was so much fun! We were ready to come home though by the end of the week. Keeping a baby in a hotel room is hard. We were thankful that he slept incredibly well on this trip. He slept in until 9AM some mornings and took 2 naps most of the week totally about 4 hours of naps a day. I guess we wore him out.

Avila Beach Day 4 - Atascadero

On Day 4, Wednesday we headed to Atascadero to visit the Atascadero Zoo. It only $5 to get in and was so much more interesting than the Sacramento Zoo. I think that we enjoyed it more because it was a new zoo to us. We saw wallabys, flamingos, a turtle family, lots of different kinds of monkeys and a tiger.

Wallabys



The family of turtles

My boys

Alpaca

After the zoo, we went over to the park & lake to play.

I forgot to show the photo of Ethan's "bedroom" during the trip.

We had a great day and we'll go back to that zoo next time we're down in that area.

Avila Beach Day 3 - Pismo Beach & Morro Bay

On Tuesday morning we figured we needed to get out of the hotel during the morning or else we would go crazy held hostage with a 15 month old. We decided to head to Pismo Beach and to the Splash Cafe for some of their famous clam chowder.
We walked around, but there wasn't much that caught our attention, except a cute Oscar the Grouch t-shirt that we ended up buying for Ethan. I don't think we got any pictures of him in it unfortunately.

After enjoying our bread bowls of chowder we headed to Morro Bay to take a look at the shops and whatever else we could find. On the way there Ethan fell asleep. He was so tired that we couldn't wake him. We opened all the car doors and talked to him but he just kept sleeping.

Here's a video of him while he was sleeping:

Finally as we were driving away from the aquarium he woke up. We turned the car around and took him into the small aquarium. There were seals to feed and lots of fish to see. The seals were very loud which scared Ethan.

Not a great picture, but proof that I was there.

Later that evening my parents and grandma arrived at the hotel. Ethan had fun playing with Great-Grandma.


I've heard that Ethan looks a lot like I did at 15 months.
It was a long day driving around, but we had fun. Ethan slept in the car really well as you can see from the video.

Avila Beach Days 1 & 2

We had such a great time on our vacation to Avila Beach, near San Luis Obispo, a week ago.
We took a 5 hour car ride and Ethan did very well considering we only stopped twice. He still wasn't walking so we stopped mainly to eat. He watched Finding Nemo for the 1st time in the backseat.
There was sunshine and wind when we got to the hotel, but it felt great outside. We were in pants and t-shirts all week even though it was in the 60's. We even braved the pool a couple times, which Ethan loved.
By the time we checked into the hotel we had to run out to buy groceries and get Ethan back to eat his dinner and get him to bed. His bedtime during our vacation was about 830 or 9pm, when it's usually 8pm. He had his own "bedroom", the bathroom. It was the quietest and darkest room to be in considering we were in a studio.

Ethan with his walker on our 1st day at Avila Beach.

Photos from our room:




We had a gorgeous view of the pool & the ocean. My dad set the whole trip up and made sure to get us the best view.
On the 2nd day of our trip we headed to Solvang to walk around and look through some shops. It took us 20 minutes to find a parking spot, we walked around for an hour, had some ice cream and left. It wasn't what we thought it would be.





Ethan was great in the car when we went on little trips throughout the week. He took short naps and jabbered to himself.
More posts to come.

Wright's Lake & Popeye

Two weeks ago we went with Ken's parents to Wright's Lake. This was the first camping trip we've taken with them in their 5th wheel for more than one night. It was a lot of fun. We played cards and walked to the lake to feed the ducks every day.








"I'm Popeye the Sailor Man..."

Recently, Ethan learned how to sit up on his own. He's getting pretty good at it. We still need to spot him somewhat, but he doesn't really need it anymore. He loves that he can reach things and see the world from a different angle.
Two days ago Ethan got his first tooth too! The second one is on it's way out too. He's been a real trooper through it all. He's not been himself lately, but it doesn't last for long. It's funny how every thing that he learns to do or every milestone he hits I keep wondering if he'll hit the next one. I couldn't imagine him rolling over 4 months ago and he did it. Ethan will be 7 months old on Saturday and I can't believe how fast it is all going. Before I know it he'll be turning 1...I have mixed feelings about that one.

Ethan's 1st Boat Ride

Lake Tahoe & Ethan's first swim!

This past week we spent in Lake Tahoe on vacation with my parents and my sister's family. It was a lot of fun. This was an interesting vacation for us because we had so much to bring up with the baby. 2/3 of our stuff was for him. We ended up borrowing Ken's parents van so that we could fit, the vest, a huge suitcase for Ethan including diapers & wipes, all his bottles, a bouncer, a bumbo, and a playmat. I'm sure I'm missing something. Oh, and Ken's bike. Thankfully we had the van to borrow or we never would have gotten everything in our car.
While we were in Tahoe my parents surprised us with a boat ride on a party boat at Fallen Leaf Lake. I was very worried about Ethan, even though he was strapped into a huge life preserver. He was uncomfortable and I still worried about him falling over the edge of the boat. We made it through all in one piece. It was a fun day on Fallen Leaf Lake. Hopefully, I'll enjoy it more next time. We have a video of Ethan's first boat ride, but Ken's still working on it.
Here's the video of Ethan's first swim.