San Francisco and Sonoma

Ed, Wylie and Tea

Wyatt, Wylie and I drove up to the Bay Area last weekend for a visit with family and a bit of a summer vacation.

We stopped in Belmont to catch up with my Aunt Trit (dad's youngest sister) who we hadn't seen for four years. It was fabulous to catch up with her, hear how the families are doing and in general get together. I also scored Jane Cleary's address so I can get back in touch with her as well!

We then made our way to San Francisco to spend some time with Tea and Ed who are quickly becoming Wylie's west coast grandparents. Wylie decided within moments of seeing Ed that Ed was his guy. If Ed left the room Wylie would go looking for him and if he was around it was "Uppy" which sounded very much like Eddie and usually resulted in Wylie getting undivided attention from Ed.

Wyatt spent Friday at Pixar doing a meet and greet with storyboard artists and a production manager. He thoroughly enjoyed himself and thought the company was great. Wylie and I went to the deYoung museum to catch a Chiouly exibit and view the rest of the museum. The exhibit was mostly in the dark with the glass pieces lit from above, below, behind and internally. Wylie really liked the piece below and was driving some of the guards nuts by stepping over the grey lines to get to it. It was a full size boat filled with bright colored glass balls.

We then wandered around a very chilly San Francisco ending the day meeting Wyatt at the Musee de Mechanique down on Fisherman's Wharf. It's an amazing collection from the penny arcades and amusement houses from the early 1900s. We first visited this collection in 2006 when Wyatt found out there were working stereoscopes and rotascopes in the collection. The photo is a puppet scene of a dance complete with a mariachi. After inserting a quarter the puppets "danced" in place to Mexican music. It wasn't the only one Wylie was utterly amazed by in the musee.

The monkey with tail on Wylie's back is his new walking harness. (Just spent ten minutes trying to find a better word than harness, but reality is what it is) He carried the tail to keep it from dragging while I kept hold of the loop on the tail, thus allowing Wylie the freedom to walk around but still be in my control. It worked very well, especially when we were in the deYoung museum.

Friday after dinner we headed up the road to Sonoma to Tea and Ed's place in Sonoma Green. It was about 15 degrees warmer in Sonoma and nice and sunny. After a leisurely morning in which Wylie helped harvest about a gazillion plums from Tea and Ed's plum tree, terrorized Kamala (the cat) by laughing when she hissed at him, and then followed Ed around incessently, we headed out to the vineyards. We checked out St. Francis vineyards, bought strawberries fresh from the farm, visited a farm complete with minature horses, a llama, a pig, four cats, funky looking chickens and roosters that had what looked like boots on their feet (but actually were their feathers). By mid-afternoon it was time for a quick dip in the pool where Wylie displayed his ability to jump into the pool, kick his feet for swimming and hung out in a float purchased specifically for the trip.

A walk in the village with Ed

We also took in Wall-E at the Superior theater in Sonoma Village. It's a pet project of John Lassiter and very well restored. Last year we saw Ratatouille there. Wylie sat and laughed through the entire film.

Stopping to smell the flowers

Sunday morning was a leisurely stroll through the Sonoma Museum of Art and Sonoma Village with Wylie napping in his stroller for a good two hours. Sunday was also the day of the Napa to Sonoma 1/2 marathon. We left Northern California to head home at 5pm and spent the drive home pointing out cows to Wylie.

Pointing out an alligator handbag and dog painting

It was a great trip and we were sad to say good-bye to Tea and Ed.