good gracious

mmmm. i've missed a few things over the last week and a half. a couple trips, outings and one e.r. visit.

backing up to last weekend, not the one we just had, but the one before it (april 17th & 18th). that saturday, we piled in the van and headed off to bodega bay. i love bodega bay. loved it as a kid. love it now. still vaguely creeped out that "the birds" was filmed there. but, really, nothing can bring people together like the threat of being pecked to death. do you feel the same? bodega bay is both eerie and beautiful, is it not? the trees look like they were shaped by the wind. it's always cold-ish. and there are a bizarre number of fisherman carvings EVERYWHERE. ok. i'm over-selling it.

we had taken the twins once when they were 10 or 11 months old. we have photos of them, bundled in fleece, with windburned cheeks in the sand. and, then, never again. until now. (apologies, lucas.)

here is the photographic evidence of our successful adventure:







we had a lot of fun. we splashed. we got far more wet than we (i) EVER intended. we ate sand (jacob). we screamed for whales (lucas). we tried to destroy someone's sandcastle but luckily became distracted by a dog (isaac). we got ice cream (kids) and hot dogs (parents) at the dawg house- this is tradition. we'll be heading back again, soon. we loved it just that much...

we followed up those good feelings with a trip to the emergency room the following day. lucas was trying to pull something out of a cabinet and a wooden activity board fell on his 4th toe, left foot. it looked awful. it broke the skin. it swelled and turned purple. i called the advice nurse and described it so vividly, that she was exclaiming on the other end as though someone had dropped something on her toe. after discussing it with her, we decided to run him to the emergency room just to check it all out. lucas was a very good sport. had some snacks. played with some toys. rolled all over the gurney. had an x-ray. was proclaimed fracture-free and dismissed. here he is, in a rare somber moment:



skipping ahead to this past weekend. we had a busy saturday. it was our 3rd annual autism awareness day at fairytale town in sacramento. isaac and jacob got to sing with some of the other kids from SENSE theatre on the mother goose stage. we hosted an information booth, painted faces, provided kid activities, and featured a variety of vendor booths for providers of autism-related services. we got to meet a lot of families and talk to a lot of nice people. the boys got to run all over the crooked mile and eat rainbow sno-cones. it was exhausting...but the weather was beautiful...my boys were so happy...and i love our volunteers- fellow parents, caring teachers, enthusiastic high school students and super-awesome tutors. these people are bright spots in my life. and i'm grateful for them. love, love, love you.