Lisa n Tom (n James n Joseph)

Lisa writes: Donny suggested getting a Groupon to go Duffy boating. Duffies are little electric, covered boats like this:   This is not us. We are much cuter. It was a fun, little, two-hour trip. We putted around the whole bay at about 5 mph, looking at the insane real estate and insaner yachts. The two highlights were Richard Branson's 125-foot catamaran:   We could have driven the boat under the middle of it. Donny claims he's ridden a paddleboard under it.  and the poor guy who owns the boat that a egret decided to nest on. Small boat, big nest, much poop.   Here are my guys:

Lisa writes: Donny and Suzie were at some crazy-big country dancing festival a few hours away over the weekend. After getting home in the wee, small hours of the morning and recovering from all the boot-scootin', they met us a the pool. James was happy to meet them, and they weren't too ashamed to be seen with us in public wearing our sun-safety shirts. Sigh. The plight of the pale.  

Lisa writes: There was a game room for kids, with toys and video games. There weren't any kids in it at that moment (except for James), so we tried some Mario Kart. It took us three rounds to even figure how to work the controllers. Good thing there weren't any kids around; they would have died of embarrassment.    

Lisa writes: We went to church at a chapel in Newport Beach on Sunday morning.   Side note: There's a road -- 73 -- that is a toll road for part of its length. There are no tollbooths. You have to have a FastPass on your car, or you have to remember which exits you entered and exited and then go to the website, enter all your information, the date and approximate time and your license plate number, and then pay the $3 with a credit card. It is ... not convenient. Between the five of us, we had at least six GPS-navigation-capable devices, and ALL of them kept putting us on this road, even with avoidances enabled.   My point with this story is that I think the GPS heard us saying bad things about it on Saturday, because on Sunday it deliberately guided us onto 73, up a few miles, then told us to make a U-turn and get back off and go to the chapel that had only been, like, two miles from the hotel in the first place.   All THAT to explain why Dad ...

Lisa writes: We went to Crystal Cove to walk around on the beach. There are 70 year old beach shacks that have been converted into ... more expensive rental vacation beach shacks. And a restaurant that puts out a pretty nice breakfast. My favorite activity was looking for critters in the tide pools (anemones and hermit crabs). Lori's favorite activity was walking almost all the way to Long Beach with a sleeping James in her arms. James' favorite activities were eating sand and watching the pigeons congregate under his high chair for pancake debris.

Lisa writes: We got up verrry early to catch a flight to California (via Detroit). James was a champion flyer -- by which I mean he slept the whole time. Picking up the rental car was a face-melting, two-hour ordeal, but picking up the parents and Lori was no problem and we found a really great Mexican place, Taqueria el Zamorano. The Yelp reviewer sold me with "if you drive by here without stopping to eat, I will hunt you down and punch you in your big, stupid, bad decision-making face." And now we are in an ocean side, faux Tuscan paradise with naked baby statues.

Lisa writes: Does this make us really, really good parents? Or really, really bad ones? Either way, he was really great on this flight. Slept nearly the entire time.

Lisa writes: We came for the school musical production; we stayed for the kabobs

Lisa writes: ECHO friend, Nancy, made James these birthday cupcakes. He got a hold of one of them before we could take the picture. Guess which one.   And a surprise birthday present in the mail from Uncle Don Don and Aunt Suzie (ok, mostly Aunt Suzie). His legs aren't quite long enough to touch the ground yet, but give him a month ...  

Lisa writes: For James' birthday (continued), we met up at Grandma Trudi's house for lunch and a "smash" cupcake. Just a note on those -- it starts off cute, but eventually the quantity of sugar and butter and frosting gets a little nauseating for all involved, including the birthday kid. And then Tom went back to work and Grandma Robbins and I took James to the National Zoo. I think this was his 3rd trip. This time he only ignored MOST of the animals, not all. He liked the small mammal house with little critters that ran around a lot. Probably felt a kinship.  

Lisa writes: While Tom and I went to work today, James stayed home with Aunt Christi, cousin Christian, and Grandma. He went to the park, met a fuzzy dog, then came home and jumped himself into oblivion on the Jumperoo.