Grandma and Cha Cha Live in Novato

The Trees We'd Walk Past on the Way to Peet's Coffee

Drawing the Scenery Atop the "Hiking Hill"

Lovely November Leaves

As I have mentioned before, Wyatt's West Coast Grandma and Cha Cha live in Novato. A suburban town in Marin County about 40 minutes north of San Francisco. By Northern California standards, it is a fairly bland suburb. New strip malls and chain restaurants line the frontage roads and there are tons of gated communities with names like "Tranquility" and "Serenity" filled with cookie cutter McMansions. 

However, by my New York, and most recently, Texas, standards, it is a lovely place with a few places to hike and take nice walks. There was a skate park down the street (William would skate there and may have been the oldest by at least 10 years - but he's used to that), you could walk to Peet's Coffee and the Safeway. Novato also had a very cute downtown area with an old fashioned candy store....and best of all, a Trader Joes!!! Not the crowded kind like in New York, but a big, friendly one that handed out balloons to all the tots and had cheap wines, cheap veggies, cheap and yummy frozen foods and, well, just a ton of good-for-you cheap stuff! This is the place where Wyatt saw his first ever balloon, and then he got one of his very own. To this day, he still get's excited about balloons. He'll look up and pat his head.  Another sign language geture that Wyatt made his own.

We also used to take Wyatt to storytime at the Novato Library. It was always super-packed and the same woman hosted storytime each week. She was a woman in her late 50's with long, grey hair she tied back into a ponytail. She always wore faded stone washed jeans, crocs and would sing and play songs like "Puff the Magic Dragon" on her guitar. She fit every hippie stereotype I could think of and despite this, I thought she was wonderful!

Some days we would hike this fairly long hike that would take you to the top of a hill that had a scenic view of most of Novato. One day I went without Wyatt and William to do a little landscape drawing and about an hour into it, they joined me for the hike down the hill. 

Novato was easy and relaxing. Some days I wish we were still there.