Boys Night at TJ's House!

Will and Daddy hung out with TJ and Jay last night! McCrosky's Pizza was eagerly consumed.

Monterey Aquarium

We took an impromptu daytrip to Monterey this weekend and checked out the Monterey Aquarium. The special seahorse exhibit and the jellyfish were mesmerizing!

Construction at Grattan Park

Hook 'em, Horns!

We visited Dallas this weekend to celebrate the life and honor the passing of Will's Great-Great Aunt Bobbie (Barbara Jenkins). Besides reconnecting with family members we hadn't seen in a long time and meeting new ones, we enjoyed an up-close encounter with some real Texas Longhorns. Here's Will showing off his "horns."

The Blues

We've decided to give Will's room a paint refresh, and since he's now 3-and-a-quarter, we thought we'd give him some input. So, as if finding "the perfect blue-gray" isn't hard enough as it is, we've added a preschooler into the selection process. Fortunately, this also adds some humor into the mix.

I had forgotten all the crazy names they come up with for paint colors since choosing paints nearly four years ago. Will's favorite paint name (not color) is Seersucker Suit. But we're currently choosing between Brittany Blue and Atmosphere Blue (this looks much grayer in person). We dutifully painted sample cards and held them up for Will to choose. He immediately pointed to Brittany Blue and said, "That's my favorite!" Hooray, we have a winner! That is, until he pointed to the other one and said, with equal enthusiasm, "And that's my favorite!" He added, "I like the darker one." Daddy cleverly asked which one was the darker one. "That one," Will said, pointing to the opposite one. And so, we have yet to make a decision. Now that I look at Seersucker Suit again, maybe we'll put that back into the mix of choices. It really is a fun name to say.

Meanwhile, inspired by the painting to do some additional home maintenance, Mama and Will went to the big hardware store to pick up some new light bulbs, a heating duct cover and that sort of thing. Will spent a lot of time at the lumber yard picking out trim with Mama in his formative newborn months, and seems at home in big hardware stores with lumber stacked up to the ceiling, as opposed to our neighborhood store, Cole Hardware, that we frequent about twice a week the rest of the year. And he loves to refer to the big stores as "Potty Stores," what with the row after rows of toilets for sale. At any rate, the heating duct cover that inspired this visit was (of course) at the very, very top of the shelves. Much to Will's delight, the salesman had to get three different ladders, each progressively taller, to reach the one that we needed. Will's favorite was the "Tilt-and-Roll" ladder. "I can tell that you're a mom with a mission and there's no way you're leaving without this cover tonight," said Bill the salesman. A mom at Home Depot at 8 o'clock on a Monday night with a three-and-a-quarter-year-old? Yep, he's got that right!

We'll update this post with a picture of Will in his new blue room. Once we've picked a color.

First Sleepover at Uncle Kit and Aunt Heidy's House

Getting ready to head down the hill to North Beach

Will spent the afternoon and evening with Uncle Kit and Auntie Heidy on Saturday. They walked to North Beach along Macondry Lane, where Will pointed out the eucalyptus trees, which he identified by their peeling bark. Auntie Heidy smelled the leaves and confirmed. Once in North Beach, as Uncle Kit said, it was like the song, Who Are The People in Your Neighborhood? They saw a firetruck and the firefighters rang the bell and flashed their lights just for Will. Next came a police officer, who gave will an officer badge sticker. Then next down the pike was a tow truck! It doesn't get much better than this for a 3-year-old.

Unless, that is, you follow it up with a stop at the playground, steamed milk and pizza. After enjoying a steamed milk at Caffe Roma and some time on the swings at Washington Square Park, the threesome were off to Tommaso's Pizza. Will got on the good side of the host, Augustino, by complementing him on his shoes (!) and dinner was a success. After returning home and watching Charlotte's Web, Will slept on Kit and Heidy's guest bed (aka "The Big Bed"). After working up an appetite in the morning adding to Will's collection of paper airplane "fighter jets," Mom and Dad came over for croissants, fresh OJ and eggs the next morning and reflected on the prior day's adventure.

Molto bravo, Uncle Kit and Auntie Heidy! And grazie mille!