Nick and Brian in California

So I get to take a turn putting a post or two on the blog (this is Brian). In August I flew with Nick and my mom to California for my uncle's 60th birthday party.

I spent the better part of my youth in the Santa Cruz area of Northern California, so I thought that it would be fun to go back and see family and to show Nick where I used to spend a lot of time.

We had a great time. Nick was a really good kid. This was Nick playing at the beach. He really loved it and I wish that I had planned the beach trip out better and we could have spent more time there.

Here is a video of Nick having the time of his life playing at the beach.

I decided just to take Nick because we didn't have that many miles for the airline. Once I arrived at the airport, I was glad that I had just one kid to keep an eye on. Don't get me wrong, Nick was great, but there are just so many fun things to explore and touch in an airport for a two year old.

My Aunt Gail was also nice enough to let us stay with her. Nick had a great time at her house. My cousin (4 years younger than me) lives just up the hill from my aunt. My Aunt Gail told Nick that Chris (my cousin) likes cars, just like Nick. A few hours later when Chris came down for dinner, Nick greeted him at the door: Nick - "Hi, I like cars!" Chris - "Oh, hey there, I like cars too."

Nick really loves trains. So I decided that I had to take Nick to Roaring Camp. Roaring Camp is in the mountains above Santa Cruz (Felton). They have restored old logging narrow gauge trains that were used in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The ride that we went on goes up through the Santa Cruz Mountains through a redwood forest. The train climbs up a 9-10% grade over trestles and sharp switch-backs. We thought that we would get the best seats and sit in the car right behind the train. We couldn't understand why no one was lining up for that car. Then we realized two things; from the back you could see the train better around the sharp corners and that old train makes a lot of noise. Nick had a lot of fun, but I think that whistle was a little bit too much for him and he pulled my arm over his head every time the conductor blew the whistle.

While visiting a park that my mom used to play at, and that I played at when I was a kid, we passed a fire house. One of the firefighters happened to hear us walking by and invited us in.

While the photo is a little bit blurry, you can tell from the look on Nick's face that he was pretty excited. I would like to claim that I planned this great treat for Nick, but it kind of just fell in our laps.