Watching the cat

Theres a cat in the garden. Its an outside cat that only comes around when it needs food, but it caught Espens attention right away, he kept staring at it and the cat kept staring at me

Channeling Elton John

Daddys turn

Tonight it was my turn to don the head light and explore the new steps on an evening walk:

First day in new daycare

Espen had his first day at the new day care home today. He spent an hour there - with me - to get used to his new surroundings. The new place is well set up with a dedicated play room and sleep rooms, in addition theres a big yard with fruit trees and lots of grass and I think they will spend a lot of time out there.

My Girl

Lucia has really, really enjoyed a new thing we've implemented to positive reinforce good behavior at school: solo time with Mommy. To my delight, she has chosen to spend this time going for walks with me. I love love love going for walks and the fact she wants to makes me so happy. The night after Halloween she was very explicit in her instructions of our walk: we were each going to pick two pieces of Halloween candy, put them in separate ziploc bags, and take them on our walk and eat them somewhere. We did just that, and had a great time. I've been making a huge deal of our solo time together and reminding her that Daddy or Espen can't interrupt us and it's just time for me and her. She swoons each time I say that. Aww. Tonight she wanted to do the same, but because of Daylight Savings it was super dark, so we wore headlamps and sat on a newly constructed staircase near our place. She tried a tootsie roll and peanut M&Ms tonight and although she had a reaction to the milk chocolate, we still had fun anyway.

Starry Night

(Click on image to enlarge)

We never see much stars because we live in one of the most light polluted areas in the world and have to drive 2-3 hours out of town to see a resemblance of "Dark Sky" like we did in Bodega Bay this weekend. 

Apparently I took this picture all wrong, and it didn't come out as I had intended but it shows the Milkyway (and me). Not having brought a tripod, I just placed the camera on its back on a table, placed a hand over the lens (to avoid shutter vibrations in the camera), and pressed the shutter. Set the ISO to 400, shutter speed to 15 seconds and waited. Only took one shot, but next time I will do what the pros say: Set ISO to 3200, and shutter speed to 20 seconds…  

Espens first ever visit on a beach

... in slow motion!

Bodega Bay Trip

Why not take a nap? 101 was horrible on a Thursday night.. Accident up ahead and rush hour makes for slow driving - added 30 minutes to our 2 hour drive :(

Dinnertime! We arrived at the house just after dark, 7PM-ish, and had great foods waiting for us.  

Next morning art time! 

View from our bedroom. Not bad. 

 The back yard is huge and has great ocean views. 

Great weather this weekend. Usually this place is lost in thick fog, but we lucked out and can't spend enough time outside. Tonight hot tub time!

Espens new bed is ready!

Looks like he is ready too!

His new seat is a hit!

It is a great relief that Espen no longer has a raging fit every time he is placed in the car seat, these days he is quite content and is more likely to fall asleep than scream his lungs out. After getting his new seat things seem even better, and I think it has something to do with being up higher and able to see more?