the santa cruz beach boardwalk

kind of a shame that it took us four and a half years and a deadline of moving across the country to actually visit this place. ryan and i had both seen it from a distance while relaxing on the shore and had heard the commercials more than a handful of times {"...at the santa cruz beach boardwalk...in the warm california sun" - catchy, right?}. but it took good friends colleen and jared and their season passes to drag us out there. 

we rode lots of rides and i had what i thought would be my first and last fried twinky. um, they are delicious. seriously. so good. i don't even like regular twinkies. but these, my friends, are to die for. it was my first, but definitely not my last. 

we also had to sample garlic fries as we knew we were moving lots of miles away from the beloved gilroy. 

colleen has held my hand through countless questions about ieps and neurologists and eegs and ekgs and weight gain and county services and, and, and... she has helped me to feel all the emotions that come with the territory that is rett syndrome and to know it's okay to feel each and every one of those emotions. jared and ryan often met up during their lunchbreaks to eat and chat and it was great for ryan to have another young dad to identify with. it was so nice to be able to spend a night away where none of us was worrying about rett syndome. although i regularly curse that blasted mecp2 gene, i am so glad it brings people like this into my life.