Less than Twelve Parsecs

Last weekend we finally got to celebrate our birthdays - mommy's and daddy's, which had crept past us in May and we didn't really notice. Or a better way to say it - we've been enjoying the little things in life so much that we didn't think of looking elsewhere for fun. Nevertheless, Mara is now older and more aware of everything. She is pointing and naming and matching items. Her world is expanding at a higher rate, so it was a good time to take a trip to Monterey Bay to see the ocean and the awesome aquarium. We've been wanting to visit their new jellyfish exhibit SO much since it reopened last year! Here's the sum-up in a video, and more details and photos below: We first started by spotting a cool pumpkin at the lunch restaurant. Mara was wearing her sea animals pajama pants, because admit it: what is more important, whether you are wearing pajamas outdoors, or whether you are matching the fishy atmosphere? To us it was obviously th

It's that time of the year. Invasion of pumpkins everywhere, and I can't say I dislike it. All sizes and shapes and color variations to fill your senses, it's an explosion of orange on haystacks. Day #1 Our very first immersion was in a fancy Glass Pumpkin Patch that happens annually in Los Gatos as a fund raiser. Mara was quite interested in the little creations and immediately picked them up and handed them to daddy.  That's how you pick pumpkins, especially acorn-shaped ones. Grandpa was visiting that weekend, so Mara gained superpowers and got to see some of the high pumpkins up-close. Some of these creations were quite pretty. What ended the visit was reading the $2700 price tag on one of the larger pumpkins, which made us do some risk-cost estimation and head out soon after. Day #2 After Sunday Ultimate Frisbee we stumbled upon another fundraiser pumpkin patch nearby. Full of real pumpkins in all their unbreakable glory.  Mara pointe