I think they had a good time.

I hope so, because we loved having them, and hope they return soon!

Me? I’m rejoicing in the spring that has finally arrived. The weather was so warm for Bev and Nancy’s visit, and everything was so sunny for most of this week. Today is cooler and foggy, but that’s okay. I have pictures to remind me!

And to help even more, we got some of the season’s first peaches and tomatoes at the farmer’s market yesterday. Has spring sprung where you are?

Jacob has previously only seen these gardens from the immobility of the back-pack carrier, but yesterday we just let him run wild. Nanny and Mie-Mie taught him how to say “Bamboo”!

He loves bamboo.

They have also successfully taught him how to say “Backhoe”. Not so much, “Mr. Mestophiles”. Boy, he loves his Grammies.

They seem to be having a wonderful time, too!

So what’s been happening? Well, a steady stream of visitors, which I guess shouldn’t surprise me since we live in one of the most beautiful places on earth. Not that I’m gloating or anything! (That’s Jon’s job.) Our friend Gayle snapped the above picture while spending a weekend here with us.

Jacob would like you to know that I still take far, far too many pictures of him.

On the Wednesday following Gayle’s visit, my wonderful Aunt Dina, her really cool son Ryan and his equally cool friend Jamie arrived for an extended weekend visit. We showed them all of the beautiful scenery the Central Coast has to offer, despite less-than-perfect weather. PCH 1 is pictured above…

…Big Sur…

…some trees…

…but I think their favorite was the PGA course tour of Pebble Beach. Turns out, there are three PGA courses within a mile of the house. I think Ryan was a little scandalized that I had no idea. We had an absolute blast with them, and were very sad to see them leave. Jacob was especially grateful, since they prompted me to get off my butt and drive the long haul up to San Francisco for a day. Jacob LOVED San Francisco. You wouldn’t believe the number of buses and trucks in that town! Not to mention the boat ride we took.

It was his first, to Alcatraz Island, and he and I had a lot of fun exploring while Dina and the boys took the audio tour. He is still talking about the boat. The night that Dina and the boys left, our friend Carl from college showed up and stayed most of a week with us. That was also a lot of fun, though I have far fewer pictures.

Carl, the saint, even watched Jacob one afternoon so that Jon and I could escape for an hour alone. Man, we needed that. This weekend we were supposed to head down to LA for our ten-year college reunion, but Jon’s mother and Bev show up on Friday, and I’ve taken on some contract work for MITRE, and I think someone is going to send in the troops to deal with the laundry/dishes situation soon… yeah. Suffice it to say, we needed a weekend wherein we do absolutely nothing but catch up.

So, hi! Sorry I’ve been away. Greetings from a very busy household–what have you all been up to? (Credit for the last photo goes to our friend Carl Coryell-Martin, by the way–he took the camera and tripod out while we put Jacob to bed one night. Thanks, Carl!)

In the course of the 12 days we were there, we saw bitter cold (4.1 degrees, baby!), relative warmth with accompanying rain, and a blizzard. Fun times! Jacob loved the snow, and on the whole loved the trip. Even the airplane rides weren’t so bad.

One of the most rewarding things about this trip was getting to see Jacob’s interaction with his grandparents. He started talking in earnest while we were in Maine, and managed to call Nancy “Neenee” (Nanny) while we were there. I really felt, for the first time, that the visit gave Jacob a big benefit, in addition to being great for those he was visiting. It was a wonderful way to mark his transition into a communicating, highly autonomous person.

I snapped this picture of him at my maternal grandmother’s house. I loved seeing him next to his one-year-younger self. He looks so much older, so much more like a little boy, in the pictures from this trip.

He’s really sounding like a little boy, too. Jacob jumped from being nearly silent to speaking in two-word sentences in the course of about two weeks. When we hopped on the plane, he wasn’t saying much other than “Mama”, “Dada”, and “Bye”. Today, the favored game was to run around the house admonishing me to “Mum-mum, tickle!!! Tickle tickle tickle, Mum-mum!!!”

As he gets more able to meet his basic needs without our help, our thoughts are turning more and more to the next baby. We really want at least one more, and I’m starting to feel like if I get too far past the baby stage I just won’t want to go through it again.

So what’s the holdup? Me, really. I hated pregnancy so much that it’s tough to contemplate going through it again. Add in the 20 pounds I’m still carrying around from the first pregnancy, and I just can’t deal. Since the fall is my internal deadline for the next pregnancy, Jon and I are both back on the South Beach diet. Today is day one, and we’re both suffering through the requisite sugar-crash and zombie-like fascination with all things baked.

On the bright side, and this is why I’ve tagged this entry “Gloat”, there are worse places to start South Beach than CA in the spring. Our dinner tonight was white fish freshly caught in the bay this morning, along with a fresh salad and the season’s first asparagus. Spring has totally sprung here, and I hope it’s not too far in coming wherever you happen to be.