The McGrath Family Chronicles

Last month we headed west with our twenty two pound little bear to Oakland, CA to visit with Uncle Jimmy! Ten days was enough to allow us to hit all sorts of sites! We headed to Napa for a wonderful day full of wine, killer food, and amazing views and Gus was great from beginning to end. We drove down route one along the coast, stopping in Santa Cruz for a night at a great little B&B, driving to Monterey for lunch, then past Big Sur to Cambria, which was the next town down from a herd(?) of elephant seals. August loved these guys, and though they were simply lounging on one another, they were also barking a bit and August shouted right back at em'!

One afternoon we took a day trip to San Rafael and Tiburon which was a great little high end town on the bay. Over the weekend we were there we managed to hit Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, a wonderful free four day concert series in Golden Gate Park. August loved this as there was a ton of people to watch and lots of girls to flirt with! That night we took advantage of being in the city and hit up The Stinking Rose (where I had had dinner with friends twenty years prior) and City Lights bookstore. Alas, we didn't manage to get a photo of Gus in front of a nudey bar, though we thought about it as they were rampant in that area.

Last days were filled with a trip to Muir Woods and lunch at the Pelican Inn, and a tour of Uncle Jimmy's amazing efforts to preserve the history of Mt. Tamalpais overlooking San Fransisco. Last but not least we managed a dinner with an old friend Melissa and her family. All in all not too shabby of a list for toting around a little bear of a boy for ten days!

If the photos below aren't enough for you, here's a link to a complete slideshow of our escapades;
shutterfly california family photos

Next time we're there? The waterfront, the Haight, Yosemite and maybe even the Russian river valley.......watch out Uncle Jimmy......

Tiburon

with UNCLE JIMMY!

Babies love NAPA!

Cosentino Tasting Room

babies lunch at Tra Vigne

Afternoon winery stop; Chimney Rock

After a few tastings Gus does his best 'Charles Nelson Reilly'

Handsome boy

Napa'ed out

his first real look at the ocean......whoa....

off coast of route one

Hey, this ocean stuff's not so bad......

with Daddy in Monterey

Boys with the boys

Cannery Row, (what a chotchkie tourist trap!)

our first look at seals in Monterey

Seals just north of Cambria off route one

inbetween barking at the seals

cuddle seal time

our own cuddle time in the hotel

playing

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Golden Gate Park

rainy day at Muir woods

Add caption

Uncle Jimmy shot

Gravity car on Mt. Tam

Playing with Mina and Toby the cat

Gus is almost 8 months old already!

He's a baby on the move both in the house and out of the house. We've been very busy and he's traveled with us like a champ, heading to Rochester for a wedding shoot, the Finger Lakes for a weekend, his first Rock concert for Wilco and also a short weekend to Block Island! He has swum in the Palenville creek, North Lake, the Hudson, fresh water pond on Block Island and Lake George-oh, and add one very nice in-ground pool (holla, Carly!). He is somewhat crawling but prefers to ride in his walker over anything else and has a VERY healthy appetite which is starting to include chunks of soft foods. He is a ham and a flirt and the two teeth that he has coming in on the bottom are sure to catch him even more attention once he flashes one of his signature smiles.

He is our joy and we are so happy to share him with all of you.

Here's a few photos out of sequence but there's plenty there to help you catch up on our big happy babies past few weeks. We'll be sure to post more photos after our trip to SF in the fall!

xxxooo The McGraths