Flood Family Adventures

Michele and I spent some of our last day in Santa Cruz in the water … surfing “the Hook” at Pleasure Point. We were pretty good for a couple of nearly 40-year-old beginners. You’ll have to take my word for it as there is no photo evidence. The waves were big, the rain was intense at times, the water was cold, and the wildlife (sea lions, dolphins, pelicans) were plentiful and proximal. We tried to show James where we surfed, but he didn’t believe us – his parents could never be that cool! Later on, back at the house, he tried to show us his version of surfing.

It’s pretty unlikely that James will remember this trip as he gets older. Hopefully these photos will trigger memories from deep within his toddler brain. It’s hard to speak for him to know for sure what he liked the best, but here are some guesses:

• pushing elevator buttons
• having a TV in the same room as his bed
• yelling “Trolley” whenever he saw a cable car
• yelling “Red Light” and “Green Light” when we were driving
• barking like sea lions
• looking up at the big bridge (Golden Gate) and big trees (redwoods)
• going down the big slide outside of the Children’s Creativity Museum
• climbing monkey bars quickly enough to make his parents nervous
• eating dumplings
• eating raisons
• sticking stickers on the airplane window
• standing outside of the James Flood Building (okay, we liked that a lot more than he did, but someday he’ll think it was pretty cool)
• riding in his stroller
• hugging trees, parking meters (what?) and fire hydrants
• playing in the “big waves” on the beach
• running around Stanford University like he owned the place
• eating purple ice cream (it’s a Filipino thing)
• spending time with his Lala

Friday threw us a bit of a curveball weather wise, with a cold and rainy day forecasted. They desperately needed the rain to combat the several year-long drought, but it wasn’t exactly what we vacationers were hoping for. We took advantage of a rainy morning by getting a haircut for James (thumbs down from James on that experience), replenishing the snack stock for the flight home, and then finished off the morning with a short drive to the Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park to see some “Big Trees!”. The trees were definitely huge and beautiful, and James enjoyed running around like a crazy 2-year old on vacation.

After a long cold winter, a 60-something degree day on the beach in Santa Cruz seemed to be exactly what James wanted. While he enjoyed playing with the sand, he absolutely loved standing near the waves and yelling out “Here it comes!” and “Big wave!” when a knee high (ice cold) wave was coming his way. We had to use all of our parental trickery to get him away from the beach – he didn’t want to leave.

Wednesday was a busy day – we started with an early trip out to the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge to look at the “big bridge!” and see some surfers on the waves. Then we took a scenic drive down to Stanford University before sauntering around their beautiful campus and grabbing lunch. From there, a roundabout drive took us past the Google and Apple headquarters in Silicon Valley, then over the mountains to Santa Cruz. Busy day with lots of scenery and microclimates that ended with a happy boy who enjoyed running around our big rental house – about 50 times bigger than our tiny SF hotel room!

James enjoyed playing at a variety of playgrounds around San Francisco, and he was definitely having fun on the swing in this photo. It’s not quite as legendary as this video but he definitely had a good time.

We found some good restaurants and good food in San Francisco. James approved.