Babes on the Beach

Here are some San Diego Beach pictures (from our July trip) taken by our new friend and master photographer Jen Cho Adams. San Diego was great, but meeting her and Mike was definitely one of the best parts about it. The only thing is that now we will feel self-conscious about putting our own photos up on the page.

More of Jen's photos of Beckett and his doting papa are available at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenandmikeadams/sets/72157607380727995/

Here is a longer rundown of our activities (taken from a letter to my aunt and Mina's grandmother):

Jeanne had a conference in San Diego and since Beckett is still getting several feedings au natural, Bruce and Beckett accompanied her. Bruce and Beckett definitely got the better end of the deal. They got to spend all weekend and mornings and evenings with cousin John Aldous, his daughter Mina, and her mother Nette (who was mysteriously under-worked during our vacation) while Jeanne had to actually behave responsibly like a person who was drawing an income.

Saturday Bruce and Beckett met John, Nette and Mina in Balboa Park (we also met master photographer Jen and master surfer Mike) and watched the end of the gay pride parade. It was Beckett’s first time seeing a drag queen. I am not sure, but I like to think the experience will help him be a tolerant member of society someday. Then we took off for the beach where John and Mike surfed while Beckett and Bruce posed for the master photographer, and then went to the beach again the following day--this time with master photographer Nette. Beckett and Mina had slightly different ways of enjoying the beach, although I think they both loved it. Beckett ate a lot of sand, tried to drink the salt water, pushed around piles of sand, and knocked over all the sand castles and towers that his father built. Mina was a little more fastidious about her appearance, and thus ended up with less sand on her face and in her intestinal tract, but demonstrated skill in scooping up and pouring water into holes, and in charming passers-by. Sunday evening, Jeanne had off so she joined us for dinner and lingering conversation over a take out Thai food including green curry, papaya salad, sweet and sour soup with coconut milk, Panang salmon, and Larb (if you aren’t familiar with Larb, then I suggest that you head immediately to the nearest authentic Thai restaurant prepared to get your fingers dirty).

On Monday and Tuesday AM and PM, Bruce and Beckett spent time relaxing at the John and Mina residence. Bruce impressed (or terrified) John and Nette with his lax parenting style. Nette went so far as to convince herself that Bruce was letting Beckett play with black widows! (Although it was never determined to Bruce's satisfaction whether there were actually black widows where Beckett was playing or whether Nette just conjured them up with her fertile and paranoid?? imagination.) Beckett, who is used to such laissez faire parenting assumed that were there any black widows he was bigger than them and so they would probably be afraid of him and so he crawled all over the place and ate a lot of leaves, grass, and dirt from the Aldous yard. Not to be outdone, Mina showed Beckett a thing or two about walking down the front steps while standing up rather than crawling down backwards as he was prone to do. (In general Mina acted as a fine tutor for Beckett as he got much more verbal while interacting with her, and made real progress on balancing and getting ready to walk.) For dinner, John and Nette humored Bruce’s desire for a real fish taco and took him out to Mexican the likes of which just can’t be found in Amherst, MA.

Wednesday AM, Nette treated us to a waffle breakfast that couldn’t be beat, and then with tears in our eyes, we left for Seaworld as it was finally Jeanne’s chance to play, but the Aldous clan couldn’t join us. The babies were sweet (or dirty depending on the moment), the conversation scintillated replete with sarcasm and wisecracks (from the two wise-guy cousins who like to think they are funny), the weather was warm, the food was great.