Bodega Head and Anja gets new shoes

We got lucky with weather Saturday and the rain never came. We went out to Bodega Head, a small peninsula and bay not too far from us. This is no longer the peak of the viewing season for the gray whale migration, but we did see 3 whales total, and a bunch of seals swimming. Or sea lions, I'm not sure how to tell the difference when they're swimming. We also saw a bunch of interesting birds, including several new ones for Jay. We saw oystercatchers, black turnstones, great egrets, cormorants, brown pelicans, brants, eared grebes, western grebes, and many I can't remember.


It was just beautiful here, sandy shores with great rock formations and areas that are only accessible during low tide. Also cliffs overlooking the beach areas.


There were lots of cormorants and other shore birds and big waves crashing over the rocks. It's amazing the cormorants and seals swim down there, but they do.




I love this bright orange sea star. If you look closely at the larger version of the picture on flickr, you can see there are actually a bunch of stars there, but most of them are purple, so they are harder to see.


And lots of anemones in the tidepools and some exposed on rocks during low tide.


Anja's favorite parts are the pebbles.


Sand is pretty cool too.


Here's a quick shot from the side of the road on the drive back home. Petaluma is over those hills in the distance. I'm still awed by the everyday beauty here. There are restrictions out here about building new homes in a lot of areas so there are a lot of centennial farms and small places with a lot of grazing land and gorgeous views, but no suburbs or sprawl. It's great.


Today we took Anja to get new shoes. She thought this white shoe felt funny.

10 months old and sleeping through the night

It's been raining a lot here lately, like it's supposed to this time of year. Reservoirs are still down quite a bit, but this is helping a lot. We got 4.7 in of rain in the last 7 days. The rainy days are always interspersed with sunny breaks, which are really pretty with the dark clouds and wet hillsides. I was lucky enough to catch this rainbow from our parking lot during one of the breaks.


Anja is 10 months old today! She has been walking for a month now and is pretty good. Of course, that just means she is even faster than she used to be. She never crawls anymore. She climbed into our big orange chair and stood up the other day (I was right there)! And today she started chasing the dog around the living room.

We took Anja out for Mexican food tonight. Well, maybe it was more for us, but she did have some Spanish rice and refried beans. She was more interested in the huge ceramic sun face on the wall above her. She is really good in restaurants. Unless we take her out way past her bedtime (9:00 or so), she generally has a good time. She really likes new people and places. She actually looks pretty subdued in the first video because it was a little past her bedtime.




Anja is eating a lot more solid food these days. We've been more adventurous, adding exciting items like eggs, cheese, meat and pasta. She is still not really into mealtime, but she doesn't outright refuse to eat anything right now, so we just keep adding new things gradually. And when she's done, she's done:


So a couple of weeks ago Anja started periodically skipping her 4am feeding. We discussed starting to wean her off it entirely, when she just started sleeping through the night on her own! For the last 8 nights she has slept from 7:00pm until 6 or 7 in the morning. And she now takes two, two-hour naps a day most days. She is really good at going down for naps, too. When she looks tired I put her in her crib, give her a pacifier and her "taggie", and 95% of the time she's right out.

I put the TV on this funny kids' show with oversized stuffed animal costumes. Look how a TV program captures even a 10 month old:


Jay said the other day that Anja is now as smart as Blue. She knows names of people and some of her toys. It's really fun to watch her slowly understand more of what we are saying.

The Beach

Limantour Beach, Point Reyes.

Dikku Dikku Dikku

Anja makes a lot of new sounds these days. Lately she likes to say, "Dikku dikku dikku" all the time. It doesn't seem to mean anything to her, she just says it over and over again.


She is beginning to understand some of what we say, too. She understands Anja, Daddy, Mommy, doggie, Soft Teddy, peek a boo, puffs (puffed rice cereal), baby in the mirror, and bye bye. She also knows how to wave bye bye now. She "says" a few things now too. Here's a translator:

Dadadadada: Daddy
Mmammammammamma: Mommy
Daw: doggie
neh neh neh neh neh: I don't like it
Uhdah!: I like it




Anja's walking continues to improve. She can now stop and turn and walk wherever she wants. She commonly walks from one room into another without falling now.


Petaluma continues to be an amazing place. Jay and I each went for a bike ride for the first time this past weekend. There are endless combinations of stunning rides we can do right from our place. It's definitely hillier out here but the views are rewarding. I saw a golden eagle swoop across the road in front of me trying to catch something. Seriously.


I love the farmland here, it's beautiful. Here are a few other photos from my ride:



Here is a photo from a hill leading back into town. You can see the city of Petaluma in the distance.

Petaluma

So Petaluma is a pretty amazing place. It has repeatedly been ranked among the top 100 best places to live by various groups. The neighborhoods are all really nice. The downtown area has retained all its original architecture and is a very busy place. In fact, one block downtown was restored with original lampposts and signs specifically so it could continue to be used in period movies. Many movies have been filmed right in town here. They include: American Graffiti (1973), Heroes (1977), Cujo (1983), Explorers (1985), Howard the Duck (1986), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Basic Instinct (1992), Merlin's Shop of Mystic Wonder (1996), Phenomenon (1996), Max, 13 (1997), Inventing the Abbotts (1997), Flubber (1997), Lolita (1997), Videoplasty (1998), Pleasantville (1998), Mumford (1999), The Hamiltons (2005), and Molotov Alva (2007).

The town is only a few miles across, and it turns into farmland immediately without the usual sprawl. One mile from our house is beautiful rolling pasture with scenic curvy roads. It's a road biker's paradise. People still refer to Petaluma as a "cow town." There are a lot of cow and sheep farms. Vineyards are everywhere. Really, everywhere. I'm pretty sure everyone just gets one when they move here. We haven't gotten ours yet.

Here is the weather for this week. It is the same as it has been every week so far. I actually heard a weather person say on the news, "Well, it's gonna be warm today with a high of 68, but we'll be cooling down next week into the mid 60's." So prepare yourself for the cold front I guess.


It is sunny all the time. Even during the day or two we had some rain, the clouds parted for some sun during the day. What a difference it makes to have sun in the winter.

There are farmer's markets year round here. And buying local is easy. We can recycle most everything in a big bin across the parking lot, including plastics 1-7, fabrics like old clothes and rags, and plastic bags. We see the sun set every night over the mountains our apartment faces.

Jay walks to work. We take Blue to the dog park right next to the apartment, and take Anja on the two mile loop around the wetlands. Part of the wetland system is a tidal marsh which rises and falls with the tides due to its direct connection with the bay. Part of the day it is a mud flat, part of the day it is open water. Yesterday I saw a kite dive after something in the grass out there. But Jay wins because he saw an otter on his walk home from work.

And because it's funny, here's Anja playing peek a boo behind her stroller wheel:

Practicing

Anja practicing. And Blue says, "Pay attention to me!"