This weekend was a lot of fun — Auntie Meg came from Phoenix to spend a long weekend with us. She arrived Wednesday night and got to see Ella enjoy some bananas and a bath. Thursday she graciously offered to spend the day with the girl. Despite some teething issues, they had a great day.

Friday I took the day off work to spend with the girls. We travelled north to Fairfield and went to the Jelly Belly Factory. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of Ella with her state required hat — but Meg does, and hopefully she’ll share. We spent the rest of the day in the heat checking out all the outlet stores. I think that Ellie came out on top. That night we “accidentally” met up with Nate and Court at Mandalay for dinner. We just both happened to be there at the same time!

Saturday we took the camera, as well as the family to the Farmer’s Market. Here’s a picture of Alex’s delicious breakfast

Here’s the girls at the market

Here’s Ella picking an avacado

Later we went to lunch at La Fonda. Ella wanted to try a chip…

Then we went to the park for a walk, and checked out the rollerskaters.

Ella’s new trick is sitting by herself, which she practiced all weekend.

Sunday was a big day. It was Alex and Ella’s first Baby Beluga’s swim class. It’s only 30 minutes, but poor Elle only lasted 15. She had been practicing sitting all morning, and by the time she was half way through the swimming, she was tuckered. Hopefully next week will be better.

It was hard to say goodbye to Auntie Meg. Come back soon!

After Meg left, and a long nap for Ellie, we took a family walk. We stopped at the new Golden Gate playground to see if she might like to try the swings. Yes, yes she did.

Here’s a quick video of Ella and Milo playing ball.

Today is Milo’s 2nd birthday! Happy birthday Milo-bug.

Hurray!  Alex came home on Friday night.  Unfortunately, after Ella was asleep.  But we were glad he was home.  Saturday we went to the Farmer’s market.  Oh, I love spring.  So many fresh fruits and veggies.  And it only gets better from here.  And, as a bonus, we had TWO celebrity sightings.  We were big fans of “The Next Iron Chef” and were excited to see not one, but two of the contestants. One was our very own local star, Chris Cosentino, owner of Incanto. The other, was winner Michael Symon. They seemed to be hanging out together — good to know there are no hard feelings!

That night we travelled down to the peninsula to Nate’s birthday dinner at Suraj.

Ella even tried out her highchair. Although we determined she was both a bit too small, and a lot too tired to make it work quite yet.

Sunday I put Ella in one of her new Carter’s dresses. Oh my — she is such a beautiful girl.

And since it is San Francisco, one with a sweater:

And one with the pup:

This is what I missed last week:

And no sign of Rocky Raccoon, except this:

Looking forward to coming home.

So the last video of Ella on the jumper was her first experience with the toy. So a week or so later, she really has the hang of it.

As per tradition, Milo has to also try out any of Ella’s toys… as seen here.

Also, we just got a new video camera — so there will probably be more videos to come. It’s the coolest little gadget.

It’s called the Flip and it holds 60 minutes of video on 2GB of built-in memory; no tapes or additional memory cards required. And it plugs directly into your computer for easy viewing and sharing. Cool, eh?