Life Goal Achieved: He's swimming!

Quinn and I are super proud of Calvin, because a few weeks ago he started to swim and tread water on his own!  Now when we take him to the pool we don't even have to hold him, he holds onto the edge, pushes off and swims for a little while.  Then when he gets tired he goes back to the edge. He even jumped into the pool and swam to the edge by himself.

This has been a goal of mine all year, because now that Calvin is more independent in the water, I can take both of my kids without worrying about one of them sinking.

Chateau Tilovi Bed and Breakfast

In San Francisco we stayed at the Chateau Tivoli Bed and Breakfast for two nights.

It was an old victorian mansion full of antiques, located in the historic district of San Francisco.

My only regret is not choosing one of the fancier rooms. We got a room in the basement, and it would have been perfect if Calvin was a little older, because there was a separate bedroom across the hall with it's own double bed. But we didn't feel comfortable putting him in there, because it was right next to the door going out, and it just seemed a long way from our room in a strange place.  So we put him on a cot in our room.

Breakfast was served on a sprawling dining room table, and they also had cheese and wine in the afternoons (but we missed that).  The breakfast included fresh fruit and bagels with cream cheese, smoked salmon and capers, which made us happy, but Calvin was miserable. There was no peanut butter!

So we bought a jar of peanut butter, which not only got us through the second breakfast at the Chateau, but also served us well for the rest of the trip. I don't know whether he was going through some kind of a growth spurt, or what, but that week he ate three or four peanut butter sandwiches every day.

The San Francisco portion of our trip came when we needed to do the laundry, and we also had to deal with parking and packing our stuff.  Luckily, when it was time to do those "chores" there was a playground right by the Bed and Breakfast. So we took turns taking care of business and playing with Calvin at the playground.

Beautiful California Coast Hike

Here are pictures from a hike we took off of highway 1.  With all the mist coming off the waves and the beautiful colors, this was the prettiest hike we took in California.  (And it was short too). I'm not sure how to explain where it was.  We pulled off the road because there was a sign that said something about sea otters, but we didn't see the otters.

Stopping to look at the waves

On our trip to California it took us hours to get from Cayucos to San Fransisco, mainly because the highway wound up the oceanside, with big mountains on the other side.

We had to stop every few minutes to take random wave pictures.  Here is a rare mama-boy picture.