Yaya's Visit

My mom came down for a visit this last weekend. It was a quick trip (because of the distance between our house and hers, that's usually the case), but it was fun to see her. She got here late Thursday evening and took off early Sunday morning, so we tried to squeeze in as much as we could. Friday we took her over to McDermont to do the grand tour (and play in the arcade and bounce houses, of course). The last time she was in there, the tree was just a big metal frame and the soccer fields were just big dirt plots, so it was fun to show her the more or less finished project. I cannot believe, however, that I forgot to take her up and show her the slot car track!!! Honestly, for nearly a year that stupid project was Doug's other wife, the vast majority of it he did with his own two hands, and that's the one thing I forget to show off.

After a stop at the street fair to check out the vendors and grab some tacos and tamales for dinner, we headed to Tulare to take the older two munchkins to Where the Wild Things Are. Its one of my mom's favorite books, and was always my favorite as a little kid. It is far and away my kids' favorite book. The stomping, growling, running and swinging through trees that are involved in reading it is one of their favorite things in life. So we were all pretty excited to see it, and we all loved it. Especially Dylan. He was captivated the whole time and there were several big growls and shouts of "Woohoo!!" and wolf howls from his chair during the movie.

Saturday we went over to the coast. We stopped in SLO to grab some fish and chips at Splash Cafe and then drove to Avila Beach and had our lunch out there. We took the kids pumpkin hunting at Avila Farm, and if you have kids and are ever over at the coast I definitely recommend stopping there. There's a sweets/ice cream shop, goats and sheep and ponies and birds to look at and feed, a produce/canned goods store and (this time of year) pumpkin patch. Its great fun. Anyhoo, after picking out some whopping pumpkins (seriously--2 of them together weighed more than 50 pounds), we headed up the coastline to Cayucos and enjoyed the last of the evening sun on the beach and the pier.

The kids love Yaya and Kylie did better with her than I expected--maybe there's something to that early bonding theory, because my uber-attached baby let Yaya take her and walk out of sight of me no problem by half way through the second day (and half the time she still cries when I let someone she sees all the time and knows do that). I've been living a little cut off from the world here the last few months, with Doug working round the clock and me being too mentally depleted from running all over with all three kids by myself to ever make much effort to call or spend time with anyone else, so it was splendid to spend so much time with another adult, especially my mom. Things have been so crazy the last 9 months that it was nice to have a real break--especially since its starting to look like they're only going to get crazier in the next 4-5 months! Poor Doug was in and out the whole time, with work and meetings and whatnot, so maybe on her next trip he and my mom will actually see each other.

Sitting on part of the massive pumpkin pile at Avila Farm.

Feeding some of the greedy goats!

On the swings at Cayucos (using Yaya's hands as targets for their feet)

Upside down and screaming. Ah, Keilana.

This was Dylan's favorite activity of the day, I think

Every time she put him down, he'd yell, "My turn! My turn!"

Right here they're walking, but Yaya, Keilana and Dylan did quite a bit of racing down the pier. At one point, Dylan stopped dead in front of her, bent his legs and demanded, "Your shoulders Yaya!" I think this was because Keilana was winning the race and he figured that Yaya was faster than him. He doesn't like to lose to his sister.

We stopped for ice cream cones. The kids got some blue atrocity that had Pop Rocks, among other things, in it.

Enjoying the last of the evening light on the Cayucos Pier before heading back to the valley.