I owe a complete baby post, and I should also do a Cambria post, but you’ll have to settle for a hodge podge of the last two weeks.

Took Luke for his 18 month check up (18.5 month if you want to get technical). He weighed in at 27.5 lbs, 33.5 inches. Put’s him right around the 70th-80th or so percentile. He’s doing better in height than weight, which I think at this point is a good thing.

And speaking of Luke, I like posting that kind of stuff on here as a way of journaling. In the next week though I am going to get a nice leatherbound journal to chronicle his life growing up. I think it would be really cool to read my dad’s thoughts from when I was 1.5 years old…or my grandpa’s thoughts when my dad was 1.5! How cool would that be? That’s what I want to do…sort of write a memoir/journal to him that he can read when he’s my age. Maybe once he moves out and has his first kid I will give it to him. Then he can read about the excitement I felt when he scored his first run, or how it pained me to discipline him (but that I hoped he would understand some day). These are all things I could tell him eventually….but our memories just aren’t that good. So I’m going to start my Luke diary this week, and when I fill it up I’ll start a new one. When we have another kid I want to start one just for them. Another goal of mine is to write a short “book” about my life before them, because that’s another thing your kids don’t ever hear much about. What was I like growing up…what did I do in High School, and college…all these fun memories I’ll be forgetting (and I’m sure I’ve already forgotten a lot!)

Cambria was a lot of fun, but I’ll try and make a bigger post later. We did a lot of eating, walking around, and lying around. I broke my caffeine streak finally. It was kind of sad…but I didn’t really want to go my whole life without ever having a cup of coffee in the morning, or the occassional mountain dew. If anything though, I want to treat it like alcohol. Having some every now and then is fine, but I was having a cup of coffee in the morning, sometimes a big soda at lunch (with a refill!) and it was killing me doing that every day. So now it’s a treat (like a beer!).

We got back last night from our short trip up the coast. We spent our first two nights in San Luis Obispo at the San Luis Creek Lodge. It’s a fairly new place that feels fresh and up-to-date. In San Luis Obispo we spent time walking around the downtown area, went to the farmers market and had a turkey leg, and drove to Morro Bay. A recurring theme on our trip was the wildlife we kept seeing, and this guy below was hanging out in Morro Bay. He even jumped up near a dock to let us take some good pictures.

I love these "smokestacks" in Morro Bay because they always look like a painting. They don’t look real for some reason, like they’re computer generated and my eyes are playing tricks on me.

After San Luis Obispo we headed up the coast and stopped in Cayucos on our way to Cambria, where we stayed at Moonstone Landing. I had never been to Cambria, but it reminded me very much of Poipu Beach on Kauai where we went on our honeymoon (but much closer and cheaper). While it’s not a Hawaii replacement (you can only spend a day or two in Cambria until you’re bored), it’s a very similar setup where a small street is the only thing between your hotel and a beautiful beach.

Cambria is just south of Hearst Castle, and even though we didn’t go there, we enjoyed the view of the coast and a nice drive. Something totally unexpected we found was a place along the beach that was literally crawling with Elephant Seals. Apparently male Elephant Seals have been coming to this specific spot since the early 1990′s to molt (get rid of their gross old skin). In a stretch of about 200 yards I would say there were at least 100 seals (there were two other spots similar to this one below).

It was great because they were barking and play fighting the whole time. There was also a really small pup that was getting chased by some big fat dude. That was hilarious. Another interesting site in Cambria was something called Nit Wit Ridge. It’s like Hearst Castle, but not really. Some guy did lots of funny/odd stuff to his house, and here is the result. Much like the hundreds of antique shops in these small towns, I’m not sure if it is art or crap.

Overall it was a very nice and relaxing few days. On a side note, I thoroughly enjoyed the Nikon d50 on the trip. It was great being able to snap pictures at will and have a lot of control over the pictures I was taking. My brother got me a nifty case to put it in that makes it much easier to carry around.

We leave Wednesday morning at 5 am for a Boston/NY trip with my parents and Denise/Paul. I’ll be sure to take a lot of pictures, but The Blarg will be update free for a week and a half. In the meantime, head on over to the Milkinator’s new site for some blogger goodness.

Happy One Year Anniversary to us! We’re going to San Luis Obispo to relax and eat a turkey leg at the farmers market, and then to Cambria. Be back on Sunday. Go Dodgers!