Ewan's birthday weekend

Every summer we try to get down to Big Sur for a camping and surf trip. We didn't last year because I spent the summer being either extremely pregnant or taking care of a newborn. We were excited to go back this summer and decided it might be a fun way to celebrate Ewan's first birthday, so we planned it for his birthday weekend. Troy's sister, Shannon, and her family, who live in Florida, decided to fly out and join us and then rent a house in Santa Cruz for the rest of the week. We also invited a few other family members and close friends.

Troy and his step-dad, Roger, and our friend, Todd, went down on Thursday to grab a few campsites since the place we usually camp at is first come, first served... or so we thought. It turned out that they very recently changed this policy so that many of the sites are now available by reservation. Sure enough, they were all reserved and all the walk-in sites were claimed. According to Troy, it was a total zoo down there, but the guys decided to camp at an overflow spot for the night and get up early to see if they could snag at least a spot or two. No such luck. They spent hours early Friday morning walking around the entire campground and even trying to bribe people for their sites. They also tried two other nearby campgrounds. Nothing. In the meantime, though, friends of ours who live up the hill from us in Bonny Doon offered to have us camp up on their property instead. Troy and the guys were so tired and discouraged that they decided this would be the best plan. Unfortunately it meant that a few family members we were planning on seeing in Big Sur wouldn't be able to join us for the birthday festivities, but it didn't really look like we had much of a choice. So the guys turned around and headed back up this way.

Friday afternoon, the Calvins (Shannon and Chris and their 12-year-old twins, Matt and Jake, and almost-two-year-old, Lily) and Marsha headed down from Palo Alto. We all met at our place, then drove up the hill to Bonny Doon to set up camp at our friends', the Proffitts. Their property is absolutely incredible. It's several acres in the redwoods, complete with three giant rope swings that swing out over cliffs and through the forest, a 40 foot slide built into the hillside, hiking and biking trails, a bike course, a trampoline, fire pits, and plenty of space to set up tents. They were generous enough to also offer up their bathrooms for our use. Needless to say, this ended up being a pretty good alternative to Big Sur. We all had a great time. I even took a couple turns on those rope swings, including the one that goes off a big cliff, but not before I had a couple glasses of wine. I'm very proud of myself - just wish we got some photos. I did get a few of some of the boys on the smaller swings, though.

Troy and Ewan:

Matt:

Saturday, we spent the day at the beach, which was also really fun and relaxing.
Here's the whole Turvy-Lowther-Calvin crew:

Then we headed back up for another night at "Camp Bonny Doon," where we had an early birthday celebration for Ewan. Marsha had bought him a really cute cake from Costco. Super healthy and all natural, too. Can you tell?

happy birthday at camp from Rebecca Turvy on Vimeo.

Here's the aftermath:

Sunday, Ewan's actual birthday, we packed up our camp and headed first back to our house, then to the rental house in Santa Cruz, which was absolutely beautiful. We helped everyone unload their stuff there, then picked up Tacos Moreno for dinner, along with another cake for Ewan from the Buttery. Once again we did the singing and cake thing. (Sorry to make you endure our singing twice, but we have no photos of Ewan "blowing out the candles" and taking his first bites of cake because we were using our camera to take the videos - one of the downsides of having your video camera and still photo camera be the same thing, and to only having two hands).


And this last video is Ewan opening his birthday present from us. Troy and I picked it out at a really cool toy store in downtown Santa Cruz called Lolly Tree Toys. I think Ewan will have to grow into it a little. Right now he's a little more interested in spinning the wheels and pushing it around the floor than riding on it.


Overall, Ewan had a great time throughout the weekend. He didn't sleep any worse than usual while we were camping, although it got progressively harder to get him to go to sleep as the weekend went on and he got more overtired and overstimulated. I always think about what it must be like for babies to be exposed to new situations like camping without being able to understand a verbal explanation like we adults are so dependent on. Babies tend to go with the flow really well, considering that. I think a lot of it has to do with the trust they have in us, which is pretty cool.
Well, that was the birthday festivities in a very large nutshell. We continued to enjoy our time with the Calvins throughout the week, and hopefully I'll get to another post on that soon. Oh yeah, and more photos of the weekend can be found here.