3. Take Coco to Monterey Aquarium

The aquarium is a great place for kids of all ages. The blue water easily catches your eye, even a one year can sit still and stare at the fishies for a while. Fun trip, and Coco seemed to have a good time. 3 hours without one little weep.

1. Teach Coco to Walk

This one is kind of cheating, because it was going to happen. But it happened so fast. The week before she turned 1, she could take 3 steps and would crash. By the time she turned 1, she was running into the kitchen to open all of the droors. She is pretty independent, and usually throws my hand away when I try to hold it. She is telling me "I got this dad."

4. Keep Surfing

S0 my scaphoid is still broken, even after 10 weeks. It is the stupid bone in your wrist that never heals because it doesn't get any blood. But with a cast on, I can keep doing almost anything without issue. I haven't surfed this much since I lived in Newport in 2005 when I could see the waves from my house; these days I'm catching better waves and doing it with some good friends. I had my cast removed for a couple days in preparation to get a screw put in my wrist. After I heard my doctor was going on vacation for 2 weeks, I had a cast (my 4th one) put back on so I can keep surfing and keep riding. There is a guy named John that is out at uppers every morning at the crack of dawn; he blogs about his sessions and includes pics of each day. This was one of the best days this fall, September 14th, a cool sunny morning with a light crowd and perfect chest to head high waves. Found out today John has prostate cancer but is having surgery tomorrow (Oct 18) and is supposed to have a complete recovery in about 6 weeks. Good luck John, hope to see you at Uppers soon.

Check out the array of cast colors I have gone through:

20. Get a cool new haircut

I went to a barbershop called Hawleywoods in Costa Mesa and got a rockabilly pompadour cut. Kind of a classic 50's greaser cut like Elvis used to wear. The barbers name was Eli and he was really meticulous, took an hour to cut my hair and they gave me a Pabst. The finishing touch was a straight edge razor he used to clean up aroundthe ears and neck. Really nice work.

2. Take Coco in Ocean

There is something about the ocean that does it for me. I'll find myself being the only adult bodyboarding with a bunch of pre-adolescent children and it doesn't bother me. I love the smell and the taste of the water, and getting that salt burn on my tongue. I love ducking under waves and riding the ones that slam me into the sand. I love it when salt water comes out of my nose 5 hours after I got out of the water.

I don't know if Coco will feel the same as me, but the least I can do is introduce it to her; so before she even turned 1 Lina and I gave her the chance to get wet and I think she liked it. Looking forward to spending a lot more time with her in the water.

45. Ride other Downieville Trails

I went to Downieville and didn't ride any of the "other" trails besides the classic Butcher Ranch to 3rd Divide route. In my defense all of the "other" trails like Big Boulder and Pauley Creek were all covered in snow and the main trail is just so freaking fun.
This trip all began with my neighbor Matt Bettino, whose friend Kurt from highschool works for Rocky Mountain bikes. Kurt goes up to Downieville every June to demo some new bikes and ride the insanely fun downhill run that resides in this part of the Sierras. I tagged along with his crew last year and this year I brought a few of my buddies with me: BLC, Colin, and Johnson. We charged up there in Johnson's dope Subaru Outback XT and we somehow loaded 4 bikes, all our camping gear, all our bike gear, and 4 stinky dudes comfortably for the 550 mile drive up to Downieville. Leaving OC at 4:30 on a Thursday equals getting trapped in stupid traffic in LA. I hate LA! After a nice, long, straight drive up the 5, we finally arrived in Downieville at 3 AM, set up a tent in about 2 minutes in the dark and passed the F out. Woke up at 7 AM to pounding rain, which wouldn't have been a problem if we didn't leave our bags laying outside and the Skybox wide open during the night. It was supposed to be clear and 85 degrees but you never know what you are gonna get in the Sierras. Which is beautiful by the way: pine trees everywhere on endless mountains, a huge flowing river, and still lakes that look like mirrors when the afternoon winds die down.
Lets not forget the mountain biking. 15 miles of flowing, tree covered, bermy, rocky, rolly perfection. And we were booking, I think Johnson hit mach 1 while flying down the buffest single track on earth, the 3rd divide trail. The trails were still pretty wet from all the stream crossing, snow melt, and light rains from Friday. Just epic, and the whole crew loved it. We got 4 sick runs in with no crashes, charged a nice hike to upper Sardine Lake, we got to watch the US lose to Ghana at the only bar in town full of salty locals, and we attended a very entertaining mountain biker raffle give away stocked with strong beers and crazy characters having beer chugging and tire pumping till it pops competitions. We saw a dude with a chin beard that was about a foot long. We also ate 2.5 fire cooked bratwursts a piece that wreaked havoc in our tent later that night. Like I said, 4 stinky dudes.
Another quick weekend come and gone but a lot of fun was had. Can't wait to go again next year. Oh yeah, and Flat Stanley was there too...

Introducing Flat Stanley

The Flat Stanley project was a created by a teacher for kids to make connections with other kids involved in the project. Flat Stanley is a paper cut out that kids would take with them to some of the cool places they go or fun activities they do, kind of like the gnome prank from Amelie. I developed my own Flat Stanley for my 50 in 500, and it is my green Volcom hat Lina gave me for Christmas. I realized that I've had it in most of the trips on my BLOG, so I'm planning to keep it that way and bring my Flat Stanley to all the cool places I go and fun things I do. Italy, check.

My boss Todd's Flat Stanley is the rocker horns, which he attempts to show in 99% of the pictures taken of him. Here we are in Venice with our Flat Stanleys.