The Young Matey Hears the Call o' the Sea (or, "Our Quintessential Suburban Weekend")

This past weekend was the best possible mix of getting boring junk done and having fun.

Getting junk done equated to Target-mania to stock up on supplies and clearance clothes for our little bean pole.  Kid's 19 months old and almost too tall for 2 year old's clothes.  Grocery shopping, gym time, laundry.   And the dreaded little activity of digging through HD's plethora of toys/books/stuffed animals and weeding out the trash and stuff that's too babyish for her.

Yup, that's me wailing in the background.  I know grandparents like to spoil, but this is RIDICK!  There's more junk outside the shot, just waiting to impress upon our child that stuff equals love.

Now on to the funs!  Pinterest is a wonderful thing, no?  Well, not only has it helped me tag lots of pretties that I will never afford or muster the effort to make, but it also actually presents the occasional marvelous idea.  The "I Could Actually Do That" idea.   That particularly magical pin lead me to create a year's worth of pre-planned dates for Hubs as a Christmas gift.  Last Saturday, we did our first one, at home wine tasting.  We hit BevMo and took advantage of the 33% off sale, purchasing 3 wines that are not at all like what we usually drink.  After HD was asleep, we busted them out and did the whole she-bang, rating each wine on color, scent, and palate.  We spent a good hour discussing the wines, laughing, and using pretentious language about tannins.  First date was a roaring success!  I'll be sure to post about each month's date as they occur.  Conjugal details aside, naturally.

Hubs critiquing the Argentinan Chardonnay's not-buttery-enough color.

Boo-zay!

Sunday was a blast for our whole fam.  We headed up to our beloved San Francisco to hit up Golden Gate Park.  It was cold and windy, but Lord knows that doesn't stop a toddler from enjoying a park.  Kid had the time of her life at the huge Children's Playground, which has a tons of slides, those little bucket seats that spin around, sand pits, and cool statues of ocean stuff for climbing.  But our HD was completely enamored with the carousel.  So much so that she begged for a second ride and has not stopped talking about it in the days after.  She even reenacts the slides and carousel with her baby doll and stuffed Cookie Monster.

On her actual first ride.  HD looked so blase during the ride that we didn't realize she actually loved it until it was through and we had to vacate (horror!!).

That's right -- we're riding a pig with a jaunty neck kerchief.  I call him Toots.

The best part of the whole day is actually the part where we didn't take any photos.  Inspired by the wave and sea creature statues at the playground, HD insisted upon visiting the ocean.  Seriously, "Ocean?  Ocean?  Oooooocean?" was the catch phrase of the day, even in the midst of fun park stuffs.  And since the park is pretty much right there, we drove on over after we were done playing.  We got out and braved the blowing sand and walked our little bug-lette down to the Pacific.  I stood with my little family in the freezing wind, eyes squinting against the sun on the water, and knew that moment was so much better than any photo of it could ever be.