Road Trip!

 Mommy and I had so much fun on our road trip last week... so much fun that I forgot to sleep! I was way too excited to sleep all seven or eight hours I had in my boring house, so I decided to wake up every hour or so to check out if anything new was happening. Mostly all I noticed was my mommy's eyes getting more and more red :)

First, Mommy, Daddy and I went down to Palo Alto to visit all our friends and relatives there. We went to our big neighborhood tailgate at the Stanford Football game. I tried to stick with Daddy and the boys to learn more about why men choose to barrel into eachother at full speed and inflict maximum bodily injury to themselves and their opponent. All I gleaned was that it's supposed to be "fun."

The next day we did another one of these races that mommy likes so much. I think Daddy and I had a much better time people watching in Golden Gate Park on a Sunday morning. Daddy explained to me that the people moving fast are exercising, and the people moving slow or not at all are recovering from something called a hangover.

Then came the sad part when we had to wave goodbye to Daddy as he went home on the train.

But there were so many more people to see. We spent the evening with Pat, Michelle and Molly learning about this whole MRI thing that I have to do soon. Everyone keeps saying it's no big deal, but going through a tube on my back seems a little scary. Or maybe it's my claustrophobic mom who thinks its so scary. Anyway, I was feeling a little shy and I couldn't preform my new rolling over trick for my guests. I still need some practice.

In her last post Mommy talked about how I didn't like her new baby carrier. Mommy is just a little impatient sometimes; I just had to get used to this new thing. Now I go everywhere in it, and I can tell that Mommy is a lot happier as her back doesn't hurt as much. She says I am really, "a big chunker" but she doesn't know that I have a secret contest with my friend Karsten to see who can cultivate the most inner thigh rolls before we start crawling. Anyway, here I am in my carrier visiting some Bay Area friends.

I got to see the real ocean in Santa Cruz, not the silly ocean sound that comes out of a sheep when Mommy is trying to make me go to sleep. Then we went to the place where Grandma works with the tallest buildings I had ever seen. We got to have lunch with Grandma, and Mommy told me that she comes here to work every day and still has energy to cook dinner for her family every night, although I have heard the word "retire" in some conversations lately.

We took a long car ride up north to see Aunt Josie and Uncle Nate in Sebastopol. Mommy says they're like my aunts and uncles because we love them so much. Aunt Josie even babysat me so mommy could go to a yoga class. Mommy seems to like all these things that make her hot and sweaty. Not me! My car seat keeps making me hot and sweaty and I'm trying my hardest to let Mommy know I don't like it, but she keeps sticking my in there anyway! I liked Sebastopol a lot because I could ride around in the stroller everywhere and we didn't have to get in the car at all. I noticed that Josie and Mommy liked to drink hot beverages and talk, talk, talk, until I reminded them that we had places to go :)

Here I am sneaking my first taste of Indian food while Mommy smiles for the camera.

Finally I got to meet Phyllis and all of her beautiful cats at our last stop in Napa. Phyllis made me laugh with her stories of her own grandchildren and her travels.

I think that Mommy was a little bit nervous about driving 5 hours home with me alone after I let her know that the car seat was no longer my favorite place. She seemed like she was in a bit of a hurry as she pulled over to quickly change my poopy diaper. She didn't notice the large stink bug that crawled into my onesie during the diaper change. I didn't mind too much, as I knew from my insect studies that stink bugs are harmless creatures. Besides, I will never forget the expression on my mom's face after we arrived safely home and she took off my outfit. She nearly jumped out of her skin as a large insect crawled out! But we all survived and we are happy to be back in our cozy home where the November temperatures are reading 81F. Until next time...