"We Going To Chico, California!" (part one)

Well, I suppose the title is misleading in that I'm writing this post after the fact. But Ezra was so cute the week before our trip, announcing "we going to Chico, California!" that it became how I myself thought/still think of our trip.

Seth left on Sunday to drive a UHaul down to the Laguna Beach area for a customer, then took a train to Chico. Dad, David, the boys and I all drove down Tuesday, leaving at 4pm and arriving in Chico at 5am.

Though I was anticipating Isaac struggling in his carseat for the long drive, he did worse than I thought he would. Ezra, however, did much better than I thought he would.

We spent Wednesday and half of Thursday at Uncle John and Aunt Shelley's house. Wednesday evening Aunt Shelley BBQed a big pork loin and everyone (John Ryan, Gregory, Trent; Aunt Lori, Uncle Brian, Andrea; Grandpa Jack and Melba) hung out all night.

When Aunt Shelley got home from work, she came out to the patio and sat down to talk with us. And absent-mindedly took off her shoes. Which Ezra couldn't take his eyes off of. And thus began his obsession with her clothes and shoes. He quickly started helping himself to her closet.

Thursday we went to lunch with Grandpa Jack ("Grandpa Beezer") and Melba, then when we realized Ezra was getting sleepy we hurriedly threw our stuff in the van and drove to Walnut Creek earlier than we'd originally planned. The boys mostly slept the whole time, which was really nice. Dad and David stayed in Chico.

The Meldrums got caught in a mudslide Thursday night, so they didn't arrive until midnight at least. So the four of us hung out in our hotel room. Friday morning we packed up and headed to the Oakland Zoo. I'm a bit embarrassed that this was Ezra's first zoo trip. Ooops. But he loved it. We were all pretty amazed by the giraffes - there were so many of them and so close up! And the boys loved the petting zoo.

For several exhibits it seemed like a zoo keeper was following us around to eavesdrop on our conversations and then correct us on the correct animal taxonomy. You know, like when we told our two year olds that this was a monkey:

Well, no. It is a gibbon. Which is an ape. Not a monkey. (The difference, it seems, is that apes do not have tails and monkeys do.)

It was so good to spend the day with the Meldrums. Jesse is three months older than Ezra and Jude is four days older than Isaac.

We then went to the "welcome dinner" at a nearby park and had Chipotle (obviously; it was a dinner for/with Kaleb) and yummy ice cream. While Seth and Eric (and Isaac and Jude) talked to everyone, Rachel, Jesse, Erza and I went up and played on the toys.