Muir Woods

Our mother’s day tradition was delayed because we were in Nashville for that weekend in May (did I ever blog about that?) but we fit it in a couple of weeks later.

In truth, it was a joint father’s day and mother’s day celebration because Kyle will be out of town next week, so we combined our special holidays into one big awesome day of fun.

Firs thing after waking was hop in the car and drive to Mill Valley for brunch.

I did some yelp work and decided on Lighthouse Cafe, which was a diner style place with bar stool seating in front of the kitchen and five booth tables.  There was a line out the door when we arrived, which surprised me since it was pretty early (for a weekend), but it went really fast and we were seated and ordering by 9ish.

I brought food for both kids, but V swooped on some of our eats.

Kyle and I both got the exact. same. order.

Ladies and gents, may I present to you the “ultimate breakfast” which (for a mere $14.50) gets you two eggs (FRIED SUNNY SIDE UP), bacon or sausage (BACON), a fruit pancake (BLUEBERRIES), home fries or hash browns (HASH BROWNS) & toast (SOURDOUGH).

I said my entire order and Kyle just said ditto.  He has good taste, you know.

Everything about the meal was great, except for the fact that they only had two high chairs and both were in use so V was on Kyle’s lap for the whole meal.  That’s a challenge, for sure, and more proof that he’s an amazing dad.  Oh, and he shared his bacon with her, so now you KNOW he loves her.

So cute.  We ate an aggressive amount of food, but ended up packing up a lot to take home.

My sister and her husband (that’s fun to say!) now live down the street so we went to see their new place for a bit, and then we pressed on to enjoy the beauty that is Muir Woods.

The huge redwoods were as impressive as ever.  P liked crawling into the gaping trunk caves and “fishing” in the stream, but was the most pleased about being the leader of our foursome.

Both kids snacked on bars which gave us an extra 20 minutes of walking time, but in the end it wasn’t a very long trip.  Like last year, we got sidetracked by so many random things in nature that before we knew it, it was noon and we were, like, 20 feet from the entrance.  I’m exaggerating of course, but who cares, it was still a fun trip.

She was in the ergo for half the time, but once her feet hit the ground there was no turning back.  Miss independent thinks she is 3 years old too.

We grabbed lunch at Whole Foods after and then hit major traffic on the way home…which didn’t totally matter because they both took the most unbelievable naps in the history of all the car rides.

Each year just keeps getting better and better.

Oh and I have nothing but good things to say about this Kite Hill soft ripened cheese.

I tried a different one before (soft fresh vs soft ripened) and was so-so on it (the texture was weird) but this one was good and I’d buy it again for a fun splurge.