Manhattan Beach!

After San Francisco, Alice and I said goodbye to Matt (relax! not forever! just for a week or so!) and headed down to Manhattan Beach to visit Vola and Jason. 

The baby pool filled with balls that was waiting for Alice when we got there was a huge hit.

Vola and Jason will be finding colorful plastic balls around their house for many months to come.

After being cooped up in a hotel room for a few days, Alice seemed eager to stretch out her legs and get back to working on her walking skills.

Not without a few hiccups, of course.

Although all the locals were lamenting the "June Gloom" weather, Alice and I (and my pale skin) didn't mind the cloudy weather one bit.  We loved sitting in the beautiful yard out back.

We hit the farmers market, walked up and down The Strand, strolled along the canals of Venice Beach, and made daily crack-of-dawn visits to Starbucks and the one restaurant within walking distance open before 7am.

And, we even made it to the beach a few times.

 

But, do you know what the best part of the trip was?

Hanging out with these two, of course!*

* No, Vola and Jason aren't into "prison chic" decor for their home or wearing earphones as accessories.  This photo is from our visit to Alcatraz, but I didn't get one of the two of them in Manhattan Beach, so this will have to do. And, for the record, as I was taking this photo, I told them to look frightened. Or villainous. Or hardened by many years spent behind bars.  Or something else that I can't remember exactly, but that explains Vola's expression. And Vola's explains Jason's.

Pre-California

Before I tell you all about our trip to Manhattan Beach, here are some photos from before we left.

Walking, T. rex style

Snug as a bug in a rug

Avoiding full immersion in the baby pool

Sharing a laugh with Mimi-nonna

San Francisco!

Matt, Alice, and I had a wonderful long weekend in San Francisco.

After an early wake-up on Saturday morning and a long, squirmy flight, we arrived at our new digs and Alice didn't seem to have any trouble feeling free as a bird right off the bat.

Due to the time change, we got a nice, early start to our days, setting out to explore the city at about 5:30am, after having coaxed an extra hour or two of sleep out of Alice after an initial 3:30am wakeup.

Matt and I even coined a rhyme to sum up the theme of the trip: "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."

Isn't it catchy?

Huh? You've heard that one before?

Never mind.

A dawn walk in Alamo Square

A dawn walk outside the Ferry Building

A dawn walk. . . 

Okay, I missed the third dawn walk, since Matt let me sleep in while he took Alice for a stroll, but you get the point.

The weather wasn't ideal, but that's just part of being in San Francisco, I suppose, so we embraced it as an excuse to do a little extra embracing.

See what I did there?

We caught up with old friends.

And got used to life on the go.

Then, most days, after a pre-early-bird-special dinner at around 3:30 or 4pm, we'd head back to the hotel for a sensible 6pm bedtime.

I'm pretty sure that this whole early thing is going to catch on with the cool kids pretty soon. When you hear someone say that 6pm is the new 6am you can say that you heard it here first.