October: Home and Halloween

We got home from Utah and went car shopping.  Then we realized that we needed to make a decision fast because all of the 2014 cars were selling fast and they were deeply discounted to make room for the 2015s.  We leased a Honda Accord and love it!  Kaitlyn especially loves her "new blue car" and she has lots of leg room (the truck still works, but it's a little tight).  We took our first trip in our new car and drove a few hours up the coast to the Point Reyes Lighthouse.  Kaitlyn really likes her "funny music" which is whatever children's CD that we have from the library.  It makes her very calm and quiet in the car for quite a while.  We get a little tired of the same songs over and over, but it's still better than a whiny child.

There was a long steep staircase down to the lighthouse.  Kaitlyn hopped down almost every stair.  It was also windy and a bit cold.  Apparently this is the windiest and foggiest place on the Pacific Coast. 

Kaitlyn didn't walk back up the stairs and made Jeremy carry her the whole way up.  Silly girl.

Then we did another short hike to Chimney rock.  It was beautiful!

We did another short hike to elephant seal overlook.  We were a little annoyed that we couldn't get closer because these are really funny animals.

Then we played at the beach.  Kaitlyn had a ball.  The waves were huge here, but the pictures don't do it justice.  We had the whole beach to ourselves most of the time.  Kaitlyn dug and built and ran and did yoga poses and everything else a little girl could dream of.  Running in tight circles as fast as you can is really fun on smooth beach sand.  And Kaitlyn thought we were hilarious.

Another fun October activity is going to the Uesugi Farms Pumpkin Patch in Gilroy.  It was raining a little and muddy, but we had a great time on their tractor ride through the sunflower fields and corn and pumpkins.

The carousel operator let us go on two really long rides since nobody was there (rain stops people from doing lots of things here).

You can't go to a pumpkin patch without taking a few home!

For Halloween, I made Kaitlyn a Cinderella dress and spent several hours on it.  I enjoy doing really crafty things about once a year to make costumes and assumed Kaitlyn would love it since she has had a slight obsession with Cinderella recently.  I was very wrong.  This was the first time we managed to get it on her and she is screaming and trying to get it off.  We had to pin her down screaming and Jeremy and I could barely get her into the dress with both of us.  She hated it and had her worst meltdown yet.  I can't deny that it was hard for me since I spent so much time on it.  Luckily she couldn't get it off and we used a few bribes to get her into the car to go to our Ward Trunk-or-Treat.

Here she is trick or treating.  It was a bit scary for her and she maybe hit a third of the cars, but it was a good warm up.  The main bribe we used to make her behave at the dinner was that if she was happy, we would buy her some real glass slippers to go with her costume.

She behaved enough that we went straight to Target after this and bought the Cinderella Glass Slippers.  She has worn them ever since and loves her "dainty glass slippers."

On Halloween, we went trick or treating with Heather, Stephen, Daniel (Captain Hook), and Micah (Mr. Smee) at Stanford.  It was a fun night and Kaitlyn finally figured out how to take candy from strangers.

Kaitlyn finally likes her dress!  Here are a bunch of pictures of her because I love them all.

We crashed Heather's preschool one day.  She is an awesome teacher!

Kaitlyn and Daniel.

October 2014: Utah and Florida

My parents were very nice and agreed to watch Kaitlyn for us while we went on a trip with just the two of us.  We got to Utah a few days before our trip to help Kaitlyn acclimate before we left her for the longest we have been away since she was born.

We got to Utah right at the perfect time for the Fall colors up Little Cottonwood Canyon.  Alta was a little grumpy at this point.  The girls were all starving and going to die, but somehow a few goldfish brought them back so we could go on a little hike.

I've never seen aspens so red.  It was incredible.

Kaitlyn and Ellie were so cute have a picnic just to share the goldfish.

We took off for Orlando, Florida on October 7 and got there early the next morning.  We rented a car and went straight to Universal Studios.  We had a great time and loved all the roller coasters.  The Incredible Hulk was definitely a favorite.  We also loved the new Harry Potter world and were very impressed with all the details.  Here is Hogwarts Castle.

Don't let the snow deceive you, it was pretty warm.  We lucked out with weather and it was cool for Florida and not too humid either.

Olivanders' Wand Shop was one of my favorites.  Look at all these wands.  The kids were in heaven.

After a wonderful day at Universal Studios, we drove to Naples about 3 hours away.  We drove a lot on this trip, but it was a great way to see a new part of the country for us.

The next morning we went to Sanibel Beach because it is a beach made of seashells.  There is no sand and it was really cool and fun to look for shells.  We were even interviewed by a reporter on why we chose the beach.  I think he was just surprised to see two young happy people.  It is a bit after tourist season so we were unique in the area.  We never found the article though.

This was a handful of "sand."

Next we drove to the Everglades.  We went to Captain Mitch's Airboat Tours and had a great time.  The Everglades were amazing and very different from anything we had ever seen before.  We also saw 8 different alligators.  It was a successful tour. This alligator was right next to the dock and Jeremy tried to get it to move.  They are so still until they SNAP!

Here was another alligator we drove right up to in our little boat.  I could have reached out and touched it.  It was quick once it decided we were too close though.

We got to hold a baby.

The everglades were a highlight of the trip.  Very beautiful landscape.

After our tour, we drove through the Everglades down to another corner of it.  We went on a short boardwalk and saw more alligators.

These Anhinga birds were funny to watch.  They eat fish, but have to dry their feathers after every dive.  They just sit in the trees like this till they can fly again.

We stayed at the Key Largo Marriott Beach Resort which had a fun beach and fun pool.  We loved swimming at night in the ocean.  I discovered I really like swimming in the Ocean as long as it is really warm like in Florida and not freezing like in California.

On Friday, we drove to Marathon Key only to discover our snorkeling tour was cancelled due to weather.  So we kept driving to Key West (it takes 2 hours to drive to the tip).  It was a beautiful drive and we ended up renting stand up paddle boards and teaching ourselves.  I saw a sea ray underneath me and tried to follow it, but I wasn't fast enough.  We also tried two different key lime pies.  The one at Ma's Fish Camp was incredible and worth the wait.  Delicious!  We didn't take many pictures that day but here is one of the bridges from island to island.

We drove back up that afternoon and ate dinner in North Miami at a Cuban restaurant.  It was so good.  We really like Cuban food, its sweeter than Mexican food and the plantains at the end were yummy.  We dove to our last hotel, the Turnberry Isle Miami, and were blown away by how nice it was.  It was a 4 1/2 star hotel (everything looks cheap when you compare it to Palo Alto prices so we went for it).  We definitely felt out of place but enjoyed it anyways.  They had a mini water park with a lazy river and water slide at their swimming pool.  The only problem is we don't know how to tip valet's.  I'm sure they were laughing at us as we drove up in a cheap rental car with our stuff all over the back seat.  They asked to take our luggage and we had to pack it all up first.  Then we wanted to go to the theater and thought it would be better and faster to walk instead of waiting for the valet's.  It was fun to people watch here too.  There are different worlds we live in.

Our last day, we drove to Miami Beach and saw some yachts that dwarfed the mansions next to them.  We walked along the beach and enjoyed the heat, (this was the only really hot day), and we ate at a little restaurant that was selling way too much alcohol to people.  We also had some yummy ice cream and then drove back to Orlando to catch our flight.  We had a great time and were excited to get back to Kaitlyn.  Too bad she didn't miss us at all...

Kaitlyn had so much fun with Alta, Ellie, Olive, and Beck.

We went to the Children's Museum at Thanksgiving Point.

Olive loved the water and made all the older kids jealous that they couldn't sit in the tiny chairs.

There was a lot of jumping time.  Kaitlyn got really good at jumping with other people on the trampoline.  They loved playing "popcorn" with Jeremy bouncing them.

Jeremy, Kaitlyn and I went on a short hike to Cecret Lake up Little Cottonwood Canyon.  There was a little snow and mud, so Kaitlyn didn't hike when it was too muddy or snowy.

The girls went shopping and Kaitlyn saw the TV and didn't move.

Lindsey Patterson and her kids came to visit us, it was great seeing her after so long.

More jumping.

We went over to Dan and Shalane's house and the girls had so much fun playing dress up together.

Jeremy did his own hike one day up to the Pfeifferhorn in Little Cottonwood Canyon.  It looked beautiful!

 We went to Snogression (Kevin's business) and Kevin was nice enough to let us play around for a little bit.  Kaitlyn was scared of the foam pit, but Beck showed her what to do since he has grown up here.  Stacking blocks was also a really fun thing to do, and jump, like always.  The super tramp was almost scary it's so bouncy.

Thanks Kevin!

We also went to the Hogle Zoo and had a great time.

Fake animals are more approachable.

We had so much fun with everyone!  It was another wonderful trip.  I am so glad we have made so many memories this trip!