31st Birthday weekend trip
Andrew really happy for me that everyone got together for scotts and my birthday
Up highway 5 near Fort Tejon on a Friday nightbetween a sequence of the biggest storms so far this winter and we found ourselves stopped dead in a 2 hour traffic delay. The reason was apparently a mud slide, but after shifting from park to drive every 10 minutes for two hours, and filing into narrower lanes, we never even got to see it. We arrived to my moms house around 2:30am. Fortunately Mia was able to sleep for most of the drive and regain energy after a busy three weeks of late-night and early-morning work. When we woke up on Saturday we already felt like the previous nights extended drive was totally worth it. In a few hours Scott and Nicole came over with newborn Sophie and I finally got to meet my niece. A while later Matt and Julia came over with Andrew and it was awesome to be with everyone again. My mom made delicious pies for Scott and my birthday, Matt gave me three bottles of good whiskey to basically host my own personal tasting whenever I want, and it was special to see my twin brother as a dad for the first time.
Another storm was blowing in on Sunday with forecasters claiming it to bring the most rain that California has seen in a single storm for years. So Mia and I decided to leave Sunday night and drive to San Luis Obispo to see her family for a day. Be both took a day off of work, in combination with President's Day, meant we had a 4-day weekend to cover as much ground and family time as possible. In SLO, we enjoyed trips to the horses, the lush green hills everywhere, and homemade lasagna, cupcakes and pie (so much pie) for my birthday. I was so lucky, and I received a birthday gift of a Catchsurf foam surfboard - a super fun, durable, and much-less-harmless-than-fiberglass-surfboard 5'6" quad. These boards are soft and can also be ridden finless, which I've been wanting to try for years. I can also leave this at the boat or in my truck without worrying about sun or heat damage like a normal surfboard. I've secretly (or apparently not so secretly) been wanting a Catchsurf board since I was working at Surfline 3 years ago and realized that I had a growing fear of getting hurt by the hard edges and sharp fins of my surfboards the more often I surfed. An injury felt inevitable. With these boards, they float better so you can surf almost any kind of waves, and they're foam padded so if you take a tumble you're a lot less likely to get hurt from the board. It lightens the entire mood of a surf session to be more fun and silly, which is what surfing is supposed to be about anyway.
Sophie Skinner's expressive stages of being a baby
Journey, cleaning the v berth, George on a walk in the rain, a new fun foam surfboard birthday present to me from Mia's family