A banana slug hike

This summer Kelton and I were part of a weekly hiking group. We've played in a creek in the redwoods, visted an enviromental museum on the bay, made flower hats in a garden, run in the waves at the ocean and did a scavenger hunt in a slug forest. I brought the camera on the slug hike and here's the group. Cindy is holding Kelton since I'm holding the camera.


Here's a portrait of the biggest banana slug we found. Kelton gave it a tiny, tentative, touch and was done with the real thing, although he enjoyed the foam slug that Cindy made for each of the kids.

Going on an elephant seal hike

This weekend we went to Ano Nuevo State Reserve and hiked out to see the elephant seals. Kelton did a great job hiking, and daddy did a great job carrying Kelton when he didn't want to hike in the same direction that we did. Kelton even enjoyed the trail itself. Here he is selecting pieces of the trail to give to daddy.


Sometimes Kelton gets tired of wearing his hat, so he tries on daddy's for size.


Along the trail is a shelter with information about the seals and Kelton enjoyed exploring the exhibit and the building.


We finally made it to the beach with the seals. David was talking with the ranger and Kelton was trying to get loose and run around. The seals are in the background looking like fuzzy boulders.


After the hike to the beach Kelton was pretty tired so David ended up carrying him most of the way back to the point where we parked the stroller. Kelton then fell asleep on the rest of the walk back and had a nice 90min nap in the car. Afterwards we had a well-earned meal in Half Moon Bay.

Trains, trains, trains

Kelton loves trains. He loves hearing the train sounds, seeing the real trains and playing with toy trains. He has always enjoyed the train set that Larissa and family got him for his 1st birthday, but just recently he's gotten good at running the trains on the track. So for his 18 month Birthday, we expanded his trains by adding a figure 8 set. Now he gets really excited about running the train over the bridge and around the tracks. He still doesn't understand about letting go of the train so it can go through the underpass, so that causes some frustration, but he's starting to understand.

Language log: more 2-word combos

Kelton hasn't really hit the two word stage yet, but I've seen a few inklings it may not be far away.

We were having fun chasing bugs on the trail last weekend but then they were gone. Kelton made the more sign (hand hits fist in front of chest) then the bug sign (wiggling antennae-fingers atop the head) -- then combined them for a while by touching his hands together on top of his head!

The last few days, he's taken quite an interest in Daddy's car when it's in the driveway, and has learned the distinction between Daddy's and Mommy's cars. He points to Daddy's car, saying "dada" while making the car sign (one fist moving up and down). He's so excited when Daddy's car is there that even after we've crossed the school parking lot across the street to begin our evening walk, where his attention would normally be full-steam ahead, he still looks back, says "dada" and makes the car sign again.