i'll start out with a link to the photos...click here (i'm planning to steal aaron and lauren's photos too and add them to picasa, their pictures are far better than mine)we had a wonderful vacation in windsor, lots of relaxing and some site seeing. windsor is in sonoma county, about 70 miles north of san francisco and 30 miles east of the ocean.
here are the highlights of our time there:
amanda met us at the condo and helped us get set up for the week. rather than doing anything real fun, she went with us to costco, target, and trader joe's. unfortunately she could only stay for the night since she had to be responsible and go back to work. but she got the marcus-fix she came for, he couldn't take his eyes off her!
laurie, lauren, and camille came to visit for a few days. we drove around the outskirts of windsor and healdsburg and admired the vineyards everywhere. we went to the hop kiln and korbel wineries. marcus had a great time playing with the girls and occasionally cuddling with his gg.
we met up with jeff, judy, their friend georgia, and their dogs (rooster and bonnie) for a day at wright's beach. camille drove with us to the beach and made it 3 whole minutes without talking-we were impressed! it was beautiful day, but really cold at the beach. laurie and the girls headed home after lunch. we went to old town santa rosa with the coddington gang after deciding it was too cold to attempt sticking it out at the beach. it was about a 40 degree temperature change between the beach and santa rosa!
marcus had his first swimming experience. he enjoyed himself completely...he thought it was a big bathtub where everyone splashed all the time. he carried around the bag of swim diapers as much as possible.we went to see the "world's largest petrified trees" outside of calistoga. it was interesting to see the petrified wood in a natural setting, but probably not anything we'd go to see twice. it was based out of a family member's home, which had been turned into a gift shop/museum. we tried to see another natural wonder, the "old faithful geyser of california", but it was completely surrounded by a huge fence and very large trees. clearly the "owners" were out for profit, not preservation. the admission fee was $8, to see the geyser spout every 20 minutes. oh, and there were supposedly fainting goats too, that must justify the charge... we opted to not go in and wait to see a geyser at yellowstone. kevin thought the neighbors needed to tap way down in the earth and create a man-made geyser and take away some business...if we ever move to calistoga, you'll know why!
aaron and susan vacationed with us at the end of the week. susan and i taught the boys how to play scrabble (at least that's how i remember it). we spent plenty of time lounging. we also hit the wineries. aaron is a bad influence, i haven't drank that much wine since brooke and i were in germany. we went to the francis ford coppola and ferrari-carano wineries. the grounds were amazing at both, and the wine pourers were too. both wine pourers gave us more than was on the list, and susan and i didn't know to pour out some of each tasting. we went to downtown healdsburg to visit a bakery and a couple small wine tasting rooms (i learned to pour out some wine and did much better there). we also did a food and wine pairing at the kendall-jackson winery (where i promptly forgot to not drink all the wine poured). we all felt a bit more educated about wine after the pairing and appropriately used the term "legs" many times. 
marcus warmed up to susan after a day, he even sat in her lap for a story one night. he wasn't as sure about aaron holding him, though he fell asleep once in aaron's arms. i'm waiting for marcus to learn to say "uncle aaron, i want you to get me", just like logan did to kevin a few years ago. kevin spent hours chasing logan, it's only a matter of time until marcus decides to wear out aaron. get your rest while you can aaron!
