Nana's Here!
We got to have a long-awaited visit with Nana last week! We ditched our formal lessons in favor of playing tourist and getting in some quality time with Daddy's mom. Here are the highlighted activities:

Everybody loves a morning at the beach! The girls started out just playing in the sand and building sand castles, and they slowly inched toward the waterline in search of better building sand and treasures to decorate with. By the time we left all three of them were soaked up to their knees! It was so much fun to see them get braver at their own pace.

Our West Coast girls!

Monkey and Bug progressed from timidly checking out the surf shoulder-to-shoulder
to gleefully being "chased" (and occasionally caught) by the waves.

Nana's visit was the occasion for a couple of movie nights too. First, the girls got to introduce Nana to their current favorite film, Epic, while Mommy and Daddy got a real date night (whoohoo!). Later in the week we all watched Frozen together (it really is as good as the hype; we were impressed). I was also reminded of why lately I have only watched movies with the girls that I've already seen. Since I couldn't give them a detailed summary beforehand, we had to stop the movie several times to explain what was going on, assure them it was a Disney movie that had to have a happy ending, and give them a chance to calm down.

It's Nana, so of course we had to hit up the local shopping hot spot: Cannery Row! We explored all the neat little shops, and even stopped for create-your-own ice cream sandwiches at the Nestle Tollhouse Cafe. Yum!

The sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf were particularly lively the morning we visited. They were swimming through in the water, bumping each other around on the floating platform, and making so much noise! As usual there were a few otters playing around the corner, and the harbor seals basking on the rocks just a short walk away. We actually got to explore the rocky beach near the harbor seals, and the girls found some gorgeous shells that hadn't been broken yet. We topped off the morning with sea food by the water and a trip to the candy store for dessert.

"Look, Nana! I can be a harbor seal on a rock too!"

Then there were all the moments of just good quality time: reading books, playing at the playground down the street, introducing Nana to friends at church, taking her to watch their jujitsu class, building with Marbleworks, Skyping with Papa Bear and Aunt S, etc.

By the end of the week, these girls were worn out! Nana left Friday morning, and we decided to take it pretty easy that day. I decided we'd pick lessons back up again on Monday, but we spent lots of time snuggling on the couch reading books before meeting our homeschooling friends at the playground. Everybody even got in a nice long nap that afternoon--which is particularly good since we had a friend's super hero birthday party to attend that evening!