Thanksgiving 2009

We had a wonderful time in San Diego with Rob's family. AJ, UK, and BA made sure that Ava's first Thanksgiving was just magical. They even put up a Christmas tree and had a present ready for her (thank-you note is forthcoming...).


Such a fuss! They went all out, as they usually do, and we can't thank them enough for spending so much time with us throughout the week.

I'd also like to give up a shout-out to Hampton Inn for their almost entirely childproof rooms and the fact that the coffee table is the exact length of the distance between the bed and the dresser. We had a little Ava Corral that helped us all keep our sanity :)

We also had a little fun with giggling.



Surprisingly, this was after a Night Of No Sleep and a Day of No Naps. OMG we were exhausted, all of us. I think part of the laughter is just out of delirium.
Friday we went to Birch Aquarium at Scripps in La Jolla. Ava likes watching fish when they're on Discovery Channel, so we figured she'd really be into watching actual fish. She loved it! Even though it was crowded, we had a great time watching her watch everything else.

She got eaten by a shark...

And she giggled quite a bit more...


We have so much to be thankful for. It sounds kind of cliche', but Ava has made our lives amazing. Every day is an adventure that we are thrilled to share with our families and friends. We're SO excited for Christmas, and we're starting to plan a birthday party (shhhh..... don't tell her! It's a surprise!).

Hot Town, Summer In The City

On Sunday, we were at Bob&Katie's to celebrate their son's 9th birthday. He was the first baby born in our circle of friends, and we often marvel at how hard it must have been to be the first parents out of all of us. I don't know what we'd do if we didn't have the wisdom and support of our close friends who have done this before.

Ava wore a fancy dress and had a lovely time :)


She spent the afternoon watching the kids run around. She watched the grandmothers sit and chat. She watches everything. She's always craning her neck, looking around, taking it all in. Daycare Lady told me that sometimes, she's so tired and just barely awake, but she keeps one eye open so she can see what the other babies are doing.

We're going to skip town this weekend and head back up to the cabin to get out of the heat. August in Las Vegas is not for the faint of heart!

A Double Feature

Long overdue, I know.

We went to Utah for July 4th, and we had a mostly good time. There were some baby tummy issues (you do NOT want to know...) but she handled the altitude all right (10,000 feet above sea level) and we learned a few good lessons about traveling with a baby. The cabin is about 5 miles from a ski resort (Brian Head, to be specific) and we stayed at a condo there and visited Dad & Florence each day. It worked out, as the cabin had no running water, and running water is a key component of an Optimal Baby Environment.



I like hummingbirds, hence the inclusion of the hummingbird clip. It was a great weekend and we're hoping to get back up there soon. The last part (it went kind of Blair Witchy, didn't it, and I'm not so thrilled about that...) happened on the evening of the 4th. There was this huge fireworks show that happened right in front of our condo. It was crazy and we were freaking out because HI WE HAVE A SLEEPING BABY YOU MORONS but she slept right through it. Rock on, kid.

Our evening entertainment lately is all about The Ava Show. She's a funny kid and does cute little funny things.



That bouncy thing is about the best hundred bucks we'll ever spend. She. Loves. It. She still kicks her legs all the time, and she's all about being jostled and bumped around so it really is fun to watch her catch a bouncy wave and go to town.

We've started feeding her Real People Food, not just formula. My friend Tammy told me about a great website that is all about making your own baby food. It sounds kind of earthy-chunky-granola, but you can buy an entire acorn squash for the price of two jars of it prepared by a corporation with who knows what additives. And it's easy. Cut stuff into chunks, steam it, puree it, spoon it into an ice cube tray and freeze it. So far, we have done broccoli, the aforementioned acorn squash, and a yam. Broccoli seems to be kind of hit or miss (as it is for many of us), acorn squash seems to be pretty well received, but the yam? Oh she loves the yam. NOM NOM NOM YAM. She'll also chow down a third of a banana pretty easily for breakfast. My kid loves food. No shock there, huh? I really do love doing family dinners--we feed Ava while we eat and it's just cool :).

Ava had her six month check-up (and vaccinations because we don't want the Polio...). Little missy is 24 inches long and 17 pounds 9 ounces. She's grown almost 5 inches and she's gained 10 pounds, mostly in her cheeks and thighs. Very Wise Doctor seems pleased with her progress--she's still a little on the short side for her weight (runs in the family) but well within the normal range. We talked about her milestones: laughing, babbling, reaching, grabbing, sitting up unassisted. She's not so much into rolling over yet, and that's evidently an important precursor to the whole Crawling Thing, but I think we're close. We're about to start childproofing the house, mostly because we want to be ahead of the curve and if she does suddenly take off, we don't want to be running around the house with a drill like a couple of crazy handymen. Yeah. It's about to get fun.

Hit The Road, Jack!

So we went to San Diego last weekend. We left on Friday after work, and we'd had two nights of not-great sleep. I had some real anxiety about leaving town. I knew we'd be OK, but when we were almost to Barstow and the sun was going down, I felt completely out of my element. But the drive wasn't bad--Ava slept most of the way and we were going against traffic so it was pretty easy on all of us.

A video summary of the trip:



Saturday morning we went to Coronado and had lunch at the Del. It was a little rainy, but we did get to walk outside. They had an art exhibit on their courtyard--Dr. Seuss characters cast in bronze. Ava experienced her first Green Eggs and Ham :)


We went to the Padres game, and it was great until the Padres scored a couple of runs. We were sitting in the outfield bleachers, so when 40,000 people cheered, they were yelling directly at us.


We stayed until the top of the fourth. Ava had a good time until the screaming (she yelled right back at all those people...).

Sunday we had a great, relaxing day. We met one of my friends and her family for brunch at Wings & Things (YUM--beer & wings !) and then we went to Aunt Janice's for a Father's Day barbeque with Rob's family.

Monday, we had our Griswold moment. The San Diego County Fair is going on, and Rob really wanted to take us. I've never been to a big fair, but I know they have food so I'm a big fan of such things. We were pretty excited. So we plan our day around it, and we head towards the fairgrounds and there's no traffic. Cool! And we turn into the parking lot and it's nearly empty! Cool! We can park right up front!


And then we realize that maybe it's a little too empty. And then we see the sign:


They were closed. Sadly, there was no moose out front to tell us the news; we had to figure it out on our own. I thought it was pretty funny--Rob? Not so much.

So we went up the road to the beach, and I introduced Ava to the ocean.


She loved it. She likes to watch things that move (like the ceiling fan and the television) so this was a lot of fun!


It was a great trip! We have decided that we need to allow more time after we get back in order to recover--we drove back to town on Tuesday, and that was a really long day. We got home about 6:00 and we were all just exhausted. So there's our lesson.

Next weekend we're going up to Utah to see Grams & Gramps at the cabin. I spent a lot of time there when I was growing up, and while I didn't always love it up there (picture it: I'm 14 and all of my friends are having fun with each other all summer and I get to spend 3 month with no electricity and no phone and nobody to talk to except for my sister) I now see the value of having a place to go that's far enough away to be a vacation but close enough to be an easy run for a weekend.