But now on to Santa Cruz. We took Alex to Roaring Camp, the park just down the street from the house I grew up in. It has a steam engine train that runs through the Redwoods to the ocean. Alex was enthralled.
Looking for ducks in the lake....
"Look, Papa, a choo choo"
My boys. Aren't they handsome?!
Watching the train pull into the station...
"Choo choo"
And once at the beach, Alex took a ride on the carousel with Aunt Ruthie. He wasn't so excited about it at first... 
But then he had a great time.
He now says "Ruthie" and "Uncle Seth". It's uber cute.
Later that weekend we got a special visit from Cousin Emma, Micheal and my adorable godsons Patrick and Andrew who were visiting from Pennsylvania. Here we are taking a ride on the Giant Dipper at the Boardwalk.
On our way home from Santa Cruz we stopped for a little wine tasting and Papa took advantage of an opportunity to teach Alex how to play one of his favorite old video games. He also just bought a Wii, which makes for three video game consoles that we now have. My poor child is going to grow up addicted to these games. Sigh.
Back at home, we headed out for a walk to the park recently. This is how our walks go these days...Alex would rather push his stroller than sit in it. Which is great, but our walks take fooooooorrreeevvvvvvveeerrrrr.
King of the mountain...
We went to the local sports shop last weekend to buy Alex a tricycle. While we were there we ran into our neighbors who offered us their son's old Superman bike with training wheels. It's still too big for Alex but he LOVES it. 
