Mother's Day Weekend 2010

For Mother's Day weekend, we spent some time in the City but made Half Moon Bay our home base. The weather was great, and we had a lot of fun with Ella.

Here is Ella with Mommy in front of the Rodin "Thinker" outside the Legion of Honor. We went there to see the Cartier exhibit. Ella did not enjoy the jewelry, so Mommy had to take the quickie tour and then entertain Ella (with Aunt Tracey) in the lesser used porcelain room down the hall.

This was about one year ago when we went to see the Tiffany/Faberge exhibit.

And here is this year! What a difference . . . more hair and less fat :)

We had to park way down the hill from the museum. This was on the walk back down to the van . . . the Golden Gate in the background looked much clearer in person.

We stopped on the way out of the City at the Beach Chalet for lunch. Ella decided to practice feeding herself.

Our table with a view . . .

This is Saturday at the California Academy of Sciences. What an amazing remodel! When we were kids, this was our favorite place to go, besides the SF Zoo. This is a picture of the aquarium on the main level. Behind us, the tanks you look down into are actually the tops of the tanks for the aquarium which is really on the lower level. We are looking into the stingray exhibit here.

And here is the famous alligator pit we always remembered from our childhood. The difference is that today they only have the albino alligator because the other alligators used to pick on him. Ella was being very squirmy which made Daddy nervous.

Ella points out a fish for us to see . . .

The penguins were great fun for Ella to watch as they went racing by the window . . .

At the gift store Ella was not so sure about the alligator head snapping toy . . .

Ella and Mommy check out the fish in the big tank . . .

All the ladies on the roof of the museum . . . that's the De Young in the background.

On Sunday we decided to drive south and have a picnic on the beach . . .

Wake up Daddy!!!

Ella got really excited about throwing sand in the air . . . her scalp was covered!

And new baby makes four!!

After lunch, we drove a little ways back north to Ana Nuevo--the state beach where the elephant seals come to rest and hide from the great white sharks. The walk is about a mile and a half one way, some of it through sand, so while Ella was having a great time because we let her walk a lot of it on her own, Mommy thought she might go into labor!

When we got to the beach, we were amazed at how close we could get to the seals! There were rangers there to make sure no one disturbed the animals.

Kurt estimated there were about 250 at least . . .