Late last month was our ten year college reunion, which is a little crazy to think about. There was never any question of our going to the reunion - even with a toddler in tow. But since traveling with Gavin is something of an undertaking at this point, we decided to extend the vacation and visit some family in Southern California, rather than just do a long weekend.
We flew into San Diego, where Kevin's sister and her husband recently bought a house. We spent a few days with them, visiting and exploring San Diego. We visited a few breweries, ate Korean BBQ, and went to the San Diego Zoo. But Gavin's favorite part of the trip was their three cats.
The cats were skittish at first, running away as soon as Gavin spotted them. Gavin spent a lot of time wandering around the house, looking for the cats or following them from room to room and softly calling out "meow, meow". It was incredibly adorable, especially when he'd spot a cat only for it to dash from the room and Gavin would sadly say, "bye bye meow".
One by one the cats eventually warmed up to Gavin, much to his delight. I was impressed with how good he was with them. He didn't grab them or poke at them,just gently patted their backs. Once the cats realized that he quickly lost interest after a pat or two, they'd just wait him out.
Gavin was also a big fan of their keyboard. He loved climbing up on the stool and hitting the keys to make noise. He also liked watching other people play and playing along with them. Kevin has been idly wanting a piano as long as we've lived together, and it's starting to look more likely that we'll actually buy one.
We also tried to spend a day at Mission Beach, riding some rides and going to the beach. Unfortunately we timed the trip abysmally and Gavin was cranky and tired the whole time. He wasn't interested in the rides or the ocean. He's not generally a fan of the beach anyway, but the conditions were awful for helping him get over that - windy and cold. We didn't end up staying very long.
After a few days with Kevin's sister, we went north to Santa Ana to have dinner with my aunt and cousins. With my aunt working full time and both of her girls involved in multiple extracurriculars, it can be hard to get together with them. I was really glad we were able to carve out a few hours to visit and see all the improvements my aunt has made to her house in the past decade. It's hard to believe I hadn't been there since college.
The next day we went to the Santa Ana Zoo to see the animals, because we couldn't check in to our AirBnb near campus until late afternoon. The Santa Ana Zoo is much smaller than the San Diego Zoo, but I ended up liking it better. It wasn't as crowded and it was a lot easier to see the animals. They had a whole bunch of monkeys, which are always fun to watch. And we saw a sloth and a very fat squirrel who had figured out how to steal food from the birds. We also took Gavin on the train and the carousel, which were both more successful than the rides at Mission Beach. It helped that we got on the rides well before nap time.
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