But who needs a playground...

... when you have a Great Grandad Burrell chair in the living room.

New playground

Last week, the playground in the park next to our street finally opened, much to the delight of Caden, Finn, and the other neighborhood kids. Today, at Caden's request, we all headed over there to let the boys rumble around. It was the first visit since Finn's been really walking, and it was super cute to see him toddle around exploring. The little kids' structure has a great double slide, and the boys had tons of fun sliding in tandem.

Snoopy Sno-Cones

It is feeling a bit like fall here. Temperatures have fallen, and highs in the high 60s and low 70s are forecast over the next week. With wintery weather predicted over much of the northern half of the country, we decided to get in on the action. Finn discovered Mama's Snoopy Sno-Cone Maker as he was rummaging through the cupboards this evening, so we made our own snow here in So Cal:

On Saturday, we headed over to our favorite local nursery, Roger's Gardens. Not only do they have a great selection of plants, but on weekends, they have food trucks. Saturday featured the Maine lobster truck, and we'd been missing lobster rolls. The lobstah was delicious, and we found some tasty herbs to plant in the front garden. 

That afternoon, we headed to the mall to look at furniture. In the parking lot, we discovered a very nice car:

Poseidon and the dragon

With the excitement of Finn walking this week, I never reported on the boys' Halloween antics. As the title of the post suggests, Caden dressed up as Poseidon. He has devoured Rick Riordan's books featuring Percy Jackson and heroes of Greek and Roman mythology over the past year. He wanted to trick-or-treat as Percy, but we decided that it wouldn't be a very exciting costume. Caden therefore dressed as Percy's dad instead:

Finn's costume created a bit of a last-minute dilemma. Given his propensity for mischief, we had planned - right up to the day of Halloween - to have him dress as Max from Where the Wild Things Are. We still have the awesome wolf suit that Mama made for Caden. However, we had forgotten that Caden dressed as Max on his 3rd Halloween, and the costume was too big for Finn. This necessitated a last-minute rush to the costume shop, where Mama found a very cute dragon suit:

The boys trick-or-treated all over our neighborhood, finally returning to our house well after 9pm. Many of Caden's friends wanted to trick-or-treat with him, so we ended up taking a circuitous route that passed by all of their houses.

The day after Halloween, we went over to Boopa's cousin's house in Huntington Beach for a Day of the Dead harvest party. While there, Finn made a new friend:

Last Sunday, Caden participated in a service activity with his Cub Scout pack. They built bluebird nesting boxes to be placed in local parks:

And Finn is not only walking with more and more confidence - he can now cross the entire width of the house - but he is talking more every day. Here's his current list of words:

Bye bye

Hi

Mama

Dada

Bubba = Brother

Nana = Banana = Food

Vroom vroom

Digger

Ball

Yay

Uh-oh

Up

Milk

Baby

Whoa

Dog

Cat

Roar

Bird

Night night

Bath

Boat

This

Light

More

Box

No

Look who's walking!

Monterey, Cambria, and Santa Barbara

We just returned from a long weekend trip to the central coast. Mama was invited up to give a talk at Stanford University's marine lab, Hopkins Marine Station, on Monterey Bay. We headed north right after Caden got out of school on Thursday and drove about 6 hours to a motel just south of Salinas. Both boys were great travelers! It is wonderful to have Caden riding next to Finn in the back seat, as Caden does a fantastic job entertaining his little brother. That evening, Caden and Finn took their first bath together. 

The next morning, we dropped Mama off at the marine lab, then Dada, Caden, and Finn headed out for a guys' day. After wandering around the lab a bit - Dada spent a month there taking a summer class 15 years ago - we went out for 2nd breakfast and then to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. 

The next morning, we awoke to real rain, the first we'd seen since Alaska. Caden and Mama checked out very wet rose garden, but the rain cleared by early afternoon, and after a yummy lunch, we headed to the pumpkin patch at Uesugi Farms. Besides an amazing assortment of pumpkins, the farm featured a hayride, a huge corn maze that was difficult enough that we were glad we had a map to consult after going in circles for a long time, lots of yummy food (e.g., pumpkin ice cream), a petting zoo, and big, air-powered artillery pieces that shot mini pumpkins.

The next day, we headed south along the Big Sur coast to Cambria. There is a UC Reserve there that we wanted to check out as a site for our research. On the way down, we stopped to see the elephant seals at San Simeon. They were amazing! The town of Cambria is also a lot of fun, with neat shops, restaurants, and - while we were there - a scarecrow festival. There were a lot of creative scarecrows on display throughout the downtown but Dada and Caden particularly liked Gandalf. 

Yesterday, we drove back home from Cambria, stopping at the Santa Barbara Orchid Estate en route. 

Finn is becoming more mobile and talkative. He took his first steps this week, and he is starting to string words together. While we were on our trip, Finn woke up hungry, but cheerful, in the middle of the night. He saw Caden sleeping in the adjacent bed and started calling, "Haiee, buba" = "Hi, brother".