Country Mommy, City Mama

Grace has been traveling…

first a camping trip with mommy & uncle Troy

many rounds of fetch with cousin Yuma

Uncle Troy has the coolest camping gear

this was Grace's first real camping trip

 

She adores her Unkie Dokie (ladies...he's single 😉

Then it was off to the city with me, not so many pictures — kind of hard to manage a 30-lb backpack and a 3-year old in San Francisco…not a lot of hands left for the camera and I can’t figure out how to transfer photos from my phone.

 

on the Pier 39 Carousel, we also did a Bay Cruise around Alcatraz

At the SF Zoo, which, by the way, is absolutely awesome for little kids.

Grace and I rode the Amtrak (her first train ride) up to Richmond and caught the BART into the city.  We stayed at the Argonaut in the Cannery and rode the cable cars, buses, and the muni street cars.  We walked Pier 39, had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe and took a short detour on our last day to get a look at City Hall.  We were only in SF for about 24-hrs but we covered a lot of turf.  Grace loved the Transamerica Pyramid and the Zoo. Probably the best part for Grace, besides the zoo and the hotel, may have been seeing advertisements for Wicked all over the city as she is currently obsessed with the Wizard of Oz.  Anytime she started to have a “moment” I could usually look around and find a poster to point at, “Look! it’s Elphaba!!” always worked to distract her long enough to regain her good humor.

I’ve been antsy to  travel since Tammy and I went to the city a few weeks ago to see Wicked.  I don’t think I realized the cabin fever I have accumulated over the last fifteen months.  For sure things are going better, Hope is growing and just this week pulled herself to a standing position.  She’s babbling a little bit more and now says a very clear “mama” — although pretty much everything and everyone she wants is called “mama” at the moment.  Still, my life has been so much about early intervention and doctor’s appointments it has been a really long time since I have even felt capable of getting out like this.  It was also fun to have a little bonding time with Grace, she’s growing up so fast, though–thankfully–that now includes being potty-trained.  Praise. Jesus.

But don’t worry about Hope, she wasn’t totally left behind — both Tammy and I got quality B-Ho time while the other was on their trip with Grace.  It was hot as hell the few days Tammy was gone so Hope and I were more or less confined to the house except for a short outing to breakfast and the toy store one morning and ice cream for dinner another night. (Yes, ice cream for dinner — she needs the calories and it was 108 at 7pm).

Here are some photos of Hope while she was home with me:

we did enriching things like finger-painting and reading books

…and here are some pictures of her special time with Tammy:

…nice.