Spaghetti and trains

What do you do when you have a really long to-do list? Avoid it, of course. Or maybe that's just if you're us. In any case, I've been ignoring my homework a little more than I ought to be lately and just having some good times with my guys, while we're still pretty able to get up and go with minimal planning.

Thursday we celebrated ... something... me teaching my first class? Me probably being done with the onsite portion of my internship until post-baby? Anyway, we went out to dinner at Old Spaghetti Factory, which we hadn't realized was actually a west coast based chain, not a Minneapolis/St. Paul one. We were worried Finn would have a hard time with the spaghetti, and he did, but it was great - it took all of his energy and attention through most of dinner so we could eat in peace. Good times. This video would be more fun if I could speed up the whole noodle-eating process, but my version of iMovie won't let me do that, so just be patient with him.

Spaghetti from Katie on Vimeo.

Then yesterday we wanted to get out of the heat and find something to do that would keep Finn entertained but let me spend a lot of time sitting around, and remembered that there's a train from up in the mountains down to the beach in Santa Cruz, and it fit the bill perfectly. Here we are soon after starting out.

On the train from Katie on Vimeo.

One hour on the train, then an hour down at the beach and boardwalk, then an hour back up the mountain to Roaring Camp Railroads in Felton. You can also stay down in Santa Cruz for four hours, but we weren't up for that. Here he is getting ready for the kiddie ride he was super excited for ("COPTER! COPTER!"), but then only liked for about 20 seconds once it started moving. He was the littlest one on it by far, and they stopped it to let him out.

Copter! from Katie on Vimeo.

We had a great time - there were big trees, a tunnel, a carousel at the boardwalk, and then just when we thought it was time to head home, there were ducks to feed! The beach train's not running too much longer this year, but we're definitely planning on going back. (Video of duck-feeding here.)

Plenty more pictures at Flickr.