Fourth of July Fun

We spent the Fourth of July weekend in Santa Barbara, visiting our very good friends, Brian and Andrea.  Santa Barbara is about 300 miles from Folsom, and by far the longest trip we've ever attempted with Charlotte.  The traveling went pretty well overall.  We had a bag of toys right next to her, and she would reach in and pull out toys.  This kept her happily occupied for quite awhile. We stopped after about two hours at a McDonald's (yuck, but not a lot of choices along the I-5 corridor) to give Charlotte lunch and tire her out some so she would take her normal nap.  She loved watching all the kids in the play area, so was pretty distracted from actually eating anything.  Then we drove all the way to Paso Robles (about two hours north of Santa Barbara), where we stopped in at a winery, did some wine tasting, and let Charlotte cruise around outside.  The last leg was the worst, with Charlotte practically screaming for the last half hour.  She had just had it by the time we pulled up to Brian's.

Brian let us crash in his studio apartment, while he stayed over at Andrea's.  This was awesome because his apartment is literally two blocks from the main street in downtown SB.  What was not awesome? Was the cough that Charlotte developed, which had her hacking all night long.  She managed to sleep through most of her coughing, but Chris and I would startle awake every time she coughed.  This continued throughout the weekend and got so bad that we about decided to drive back on Sunday (July 4th) until Brian convinced us to stick around.  I'm glad he did, even though the lack of sleep over three nights was tough on the both of us. 

The Fourth was great.  We walked all the way down State Street to the beach, where hundreds of people were milling about.  Charlotte had a fabulous time in the sand, and she didn't even manage to eat too much of it.  She really loved the ocean and would kick happily as the waves ebbed and flowed.  That's good news for our trip to Hawaii in 10 days (yay!).

We also managed to get some excellent wine tasting in, both in Santa Barbara county and again in Paso Robles on the way back.  My dear friend Kristen and her husband Todd happened to be in Paso for the weekend, so we met up with them at a great winery, which also had a quasi petting zoo.  Perfect combination!

Best part of the weekend? Charlotte has suddenly starting using the sign for "more" all the time.  She uses it when she wants more food or when she wants something again.  For instance, when I sang the "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" (her favorite song), she'd sign "more" as soon as I was done. So cute.  And it's just so awesome to know what she likes, although sometimes she signs more when there is clearly food on her tray.

And now, some pictures of the weekend:

Je suis grande! - I'm SO big!

Playing with the giant chess set

Wee!!!!