It is such a delight watching Aria, our granddaughter, grow! We've been having her stay with us on occasional weekends, and each time she surprises us with how much she changes in such a short period of time. She is a very smart little girl! She'll probably be famous ... or infamous! Danielle bought a cute little Renaissance outfit for her and she drew lots of attention at this year's Renaissance Faire in Casa de Fruta.
Earlier in the summer, during one of those rare Monterey weekends with sunshine and warm temperatures, we took Aria down to Lover's Point Beach where she could show off her new beach fashionwear and her "maui jims" sunglasses. Aria turned 2 at the end of October and had just entered her 'Hello Kitty!' phase. So, for her birthday party, Danielle baked and decorated a cake with a Hello Kitty face - which really excited Aria and delighted Danielle :-) And then...

... a week later she had her biggest present of all!
Danielle and I had gone to bed much later than we wanted. Danielle was teaching at a seminar in San Luis Obispo the next day and we needed to make an early start the next morning. But around midnight she got a call from her son, Colin, saying that Jaclyn was experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions, signaling that she might be within days of delivery. A few more text messages, and a few more calls over the next few hours, and we were up and on our way to pick up Aria because it appeared Jaclyn was having true labor. When we arrived at their 2-room cottage up in the Santa Cruz mountains just after 5am, Colin texted us and asked us to wait outside for a few minutes. About 30 minutes later he came out and said "It's a girl!" Colin and Jaclyn had delivered their own second child, with no one else there to assist! Her name is KaraLeigh and she has dark hair and beautiful, dark blue eyes. What an experience to be there so soon after her birth. Danielle helped Colin bathe her at their kitchen sink. About an hour later, Aria, who had slept through the entire delivery (only 20 feet away), finally woke up and was quite excited to see that she had a 'baby sister' (picture below). We did actually make it down to San Luis Obispo later that morning: with Aria, and without much sleep. An amazing day.
The car? Oh, well, that's an antidote to hearing myself called "grandpa" so often!
Practically speaking, it replaces our 14 year old VW Beetle. But more so it replaces the Harley we had to sell several years ago as our "get away" vehicle: either driving "topless" out to Carmel Valley or down to Big Sur for breakfast on the weekends, or random roadtrips off "in that direction". It's a Miata MX-5 with power retractable hardtop. Zoom! Zoom!