A few photos to hold you over...

We did go trick or treating last night, but unfortuantely our camera is not functioning so we don't have photos at the moment. We went with our fabulous neighbors, Dave and Alexis, who of course had a camera. Mia is their daughter and she is adorable - about 9 months younger than Josie. Mia was a monkey (Josie loves to say "Mia!! Mia!!" and gets very sad when Mia goes home) and was adorable. Josie was a chicken and was too shy after she left the house to do the "bock bock" that she totally knows how to do. We went over to a friend of Dave/Alexis's to go trick or treating with their son, who was a boxer and had dribbled red skittle juice all over his shirt and it looked like blood. Awesome. So we went to about 10 houses, and Josie picked up candy, but didn't say trick or treat. A few times she tried to put the candy from her little bag back into the candy bucket that was at a few houses. Hilarous. She was really sweet and adorable. Had to cut it off at about 6:30 - she went into "Im tired and need to sleep mode" which is most often signaled by the thumb going into the mouth with the other hand going to the back of the head to stroke her own hair. So cute.




So until we get photos from Dave and Alexis, here are some from Palm Springs. In this first set, you will see how Josie was doing laps through the closet:



And then I open the other door....













And then come out the other side...

Waiting for the smoke to clear, sleeping in the bathroom

Okay so you probably think we're horrible, but the only one sleeping in the bathroom is Josie. We're in Palm Springs trying to gulp down as much fresh air as possible before heading back to San Diego. Even Orange County, where my parents have graciously set up a refugee shelter, is starting to be unbearably smoky. What the eff??

Anyway, we are here for a one-night engagement until Cory heads home to try to see how things are and I go to LA for work on Monday. Speaking of one night engagements, it turns out that both Jewel and Diana Ross are playing at random indian casinos on Cory's birthday this year. What to do what to do?? We'll probably just hit the Red Robin and call it a night at 5:45. Whoot!

Anyway, back to my point. Josie is asleep in the bathroom. Where else to put a one-year old who goes to bed at 6:30?? We're in a hotel room mind you. Now, the closet is actually pretty big and her pack and play would have fit in there but we didn't do that, now did we, so we must be pretty good parents, right? I mean, we would never hear the end of it if we did that and it got out. "You guys used to make me sleep in a CLOSET!!! You never loved me!! Of course you won't let me go to an all night party at a hotel with no adults after homecoming!!!"

I continue to digress. I'm tired and homesick and can't wait to get back to actual life. And I hate that Palm Springs is full of golf courses. Someone today was saying that the actual climate here in Palm Springs has changed because of all of the water they use to keep the grass alive on the golf courses. So now it's like humid and gross instead of dry and...well...less gross.

Sorry no photos. But we did enter Josie in the Gap.com baby photo contest, so maybe you'll see her photo on there! Probably not. But it was fun anyway! :)

Good night and sleep tight.

Fire!

Perhaps you've turned on the news over the last few days and have seen that pretty much all of North San Diego is on fire. Sunday afternoon we returned to our house from a weekend at Nana and PopPop's house and found a very smoky smell in the air. Over the course of the day the air filled with smoke and was just awful. We closed up the house but everything still smelled like we'd been to a campfire. Sunday night things kept getting worse and more windy. Monday morning the whole sky was brown with smoke and it was very hard to breathe. The wind was hot and smelled of fire - not just smoke, but actual fire, which was really weird. I had to get a brief filed so I was at work with a few other dedicated colleagues. The wind was blowing like crazy. By about 9 am, the streets were full of people trying to get out. Its very strange to see one's neighborhood full of cars that are normally one driver and suddenly all the cars have lots of people, kids, pets and stuff.

Cory got a reverse 911 call at about 9:30 "advising" us to evacuate. He packed up Josie, the wedding photo negatives, the video of Josie's birth (not graphic, I promise, we're not that kind of family - and it was a c-section, may I remind you), and some insurance papers and they hit the road, back to Nana and PopPop's. I followed behind about an hour later. The traffic was pretty bad; it took me about 30 minutes to go the first hour. For the first few miles, you couldn't see anything off either side of the highway. On the drive north, once you got about 20 miles from our house, you could finally see blue sky. In the rear view mirror, the whole sky was brown and clouded with smoke. It was such a relief - we'd had trouble breathing, headaches, and felt nauseous since Sunday.

So we've just been watching the news, hoping for the winds to blow the fire away from our house. For awhile yesterday, things were looking bad, but at the moment it's looking much better. A very expensive and exclusive neighborhood lies to our east and north, so hopefully lots of resources are going into stopping it from coming our way. We're hoping that everything settles down and we can go home tomorrow. We'll see.

In the meantime, we've been trying to enjoy this mini "vacation" from work and other responsibilities. (I wonder if I'll get some sort of billable relief for this? My office has been in the mandatory evacuation zone for a couple of days...hmmmm.....). We went to the Children's museum this morning and Josie had a blast. She's a trooper. Even with a cold and lungs full of ash, she's out running around and playing and having a ball.

Hope everyone out there is safe. More to come.

Josie's Day at the Wild Animal Park

So today Mama, Daddy, and Josie got to spend the day together. It was raining here (the third time maybe since we moved here??) and so we decided to go inland to the Wild Animal Park. Josie loves identifying animals, although she's better with the farm variety than the African savannah variety. But whether it's a goose, an egret, a flamingo or a California condor, Josie gets very excited and yells BIRD!!! She moves too fast these days to take many photos (at least non-blurry photos), but here's what I was able to get.

One of the African elephants had a baby about a month ago - the baby and mama were in the more private eating/sleeping area. At the Wild Animal Park, the animals have a ton of space to roam around - like acres. So don't feel bad for them, they don't live right here.

So then Josie loves going to the "petting zoo" portion, where there are a bunch of gazelles that act very much like our own Ruby. I wonder if people in Zaire or wherever these animals are from (yes, I know how ignorant that sounds, sorry) keep these guys as pets?

Well, one liked Josie and was licking her hand and face. And of course she petted them like crazy and before I could get her hands washed off.....



Yup, thumb in the mouth. I just checked on her sleeping and she's not covered in green pox. Hopefully it will say that way.

Back In My Baby's Arms Again

So after nearly two weeks, Josie, Cory and I are all home again. Both Cory and Josie called it an early night, and I am just so thrilled they're back. Two weeks is a long time without those guys!!!!

Not much to say but wanted to post some photos of the homecoming. She started out in a very cute outfit that was Minnesota-weather-appropriate but not San Diego-weather-appropriate.


She was just delightful all day. I really missed that bug of mine.









Okay the photo with the hat is totally cliche but it's still cute...right? I hope so.




Even Ruby was happy to see Josie!

Josie and the Llamas

Some might think that "pussycat" is the logical animal in that sentence, but they would be so wrong! Josie is with nanna and boppa in Minnesota, while Mama continues to dedicate herself to whatever it is that she does and Daddy is in the UK helping foreigners to legally invade I mean immigrate to our great nation. So, naturally, while in Minnesota Josie visited a llama farm. Of Course!! So I am the proud mama with photos entitled "Josie Llama 1" through "Josie Lllama 3" on my computer. Sweet!

Here is the report from Nanna: She warmed up to the llamas, LOVED the chickens, and HATED the horse - she cried every time we turned towards the horses. Really afraid, so we avoided them, even the cute little pony. :( At 1:20, she is currently laying in the crib talking about something and clapping. Hope she sleeps...

Givin it up for the single mamas

Duuuuuuudddeeeee....so I had a teensy weensy taste of what it is like to be a single mom and I gotta tell ya, it is some seriously tough work. Cory went out of town for like 2 days. By the time he came back I was a) exhausted and b) so thrilled that I'm lucky enough to have a dependable partner to help me raise my kid(s).

So here's the routine: get up at 6, shower, get dressed, feed myself, feed the dog, pack josies lunch (little portions of carrots/cheese/pasta/whatever into tiny tupperwares, thermos of milk, snacks), diaper bag full of diapers/wipes/spare clothes (she came home naked a couple of weeks ago), go upstairs, change josie, get her dressed, find shoes, get her fed (time permitting, if not pour some milk for the car ride), get her, lunch, blanket, favorite bear plus me and my stuff (purse, work from the night before, my lunch, etc) into the car, drive to daycare by 7:30, drop her with people, give instructions, report on poops/other diapers from the morning, sneak out so she doesn't fall apart (not for her, for me! i can't stand to leave her when she's crying, there is just something about my cells that won't physically let me do it), drive to work, work like a madwoman all day, try to remember to eat lunch, pack up work to do that night, make all the calls and do all the in office stuff that has to get done by then, get in the car, back to daycare, get a report from the people there who have spent all day with your child and make a beautiful effort to make you feel like you had a part in it, give you the food/poop/nap report (critical!), take her home, try to get her to interact with you when clearly she spent all her juice at daycare and just needs some downtime and has no energy at all and doesn't find you altogether very interesting, put her to bed, downstairs, clean up the kitchen from her dinner, wash all the tupperware thingys, have a bit to eat for dinner, upstairs, log on to the computer, work till 11, go to bed.

Wake up, repeat.

It's just insane. I don't know how people do it. So give it up for the single mamas.

Baby it's Hot Outside

This is the week every year that we just melt. We don't have air conditioning. And it's like in the 90s and humid. Miserable weather. So every day after Josie gets up from her siesta we go to the pool and cool off. First, of course, we have to have a little snack:

Here are some photos of our trip today. As you can tell, she thinks that her Daddy is just hilarious.

She did really good today - did great bubbles, kicked a little, splashed her arms around. Not swimming just yet, but making progress. All in due time...

Comments

Dude, the only comment I've gotten on this blog so far is spam and I can't figure out how to get rid of it. LAAAAMMMEEEE!!!!

Pete and Repeat Are In A Boat

No new photos today but a story about 'phinny. She likes to repeat stuff. Like everything you say she tries to say after you. She's really good at it too, and when she gets stuff right she is just overjoyed. Like last night at dinner she said "bean" and "pasta." She said yellow all day yesterday. She can really say anything, it's pretty amazing. She even threw me a bone and gave me a mama.

She continues to be waaaaay into fish. Luckily on my last business trip they sold fish tub toys at one of the stores in the airport, so I scored big time with that one. Of course they were the Nemo fish. I wish that there had been regular fish tub toys, not just celebrity fish. I hate the whole character thing. Why do all fish have to be Nemo? He's just one fish. I hear you, he's a special fish. But lots of fish are special, not just Nemo! And the last thing we need is a bunch of branded logo wear that Josie wants just becuase they only had famous fish at the airport. Rrrr.

Becuase I said I would

Okay so I don't really have a lot to share about Josie, mostly because I haven't seen her much lately. Cory took her on a trip with her cousin Warren up to some hot lava/waterfall/mountain place that's like 2 hours north of Sacremento. That's how busy I am - I have no idea where they even went for 2 days. Mt. Lassen maybe? Here are some photos of the crew enjoying their trip (including one with the famed backpack from a few posts ago):

Otherwise, it has been pretty quiet around these parts. Workin workin workin.

Josie seems to find a way to have fun though.

Dog Days of Summer

It is hot and muggy in San Diego. That just ain't right. It's supposed to be balmy and cool year round. So to cool off, at night (that's like 5:00 in Josie time) we go for a swim before dinner in the community pool, that's really of questionable cleanliness. But when you're this hot, who cares?

So here is what Josie has been up to.

First, when our housekeeper came to clean the house yesterday, she would tell Josie "nonononono" when Josie would try to climb the stairs, get into cleaning products, etc. She would also wag her index finger and shake her head "no." So guess what Josie did all afternoon? "Nonononono" with the index finger and the head shake. It's one of those things that is so funny and cute but you know you can't laugh and you can only have her perform a very few times before you have to stop her, because that will definitely NOT be cute by Friday. Oh well. I bet her dad will get a video of her doing it before the day is through.

Josie is also really walking well and running a bit, although her head goes faster than her legs and she falls down a lot. She's already learned to cover it though. When she falls flat on her belly, she lays her head to one side and smiles like "oh, why am I on the floor? I just decided to lay down and take a rest. I totally meant to do it. It was totally on purpose." It's pretty cute actually.

New words: she can say diaper, nononono (as previously mentioned), she loves to point out birds in the sky and go "bird!!" and some other things I can't think of at the moment. But with simple stuff she's pretty good at mimicking whatever you say. Oh, bear, that's another big one.

She's also really really into this light up moving fish thing that Nana Carol got for her. It has this groovy blue light and a paper reel of fish that rotates around a plastic casing. I'm not describing it right but you all know exactly what I'm talking about. She freaks out when the fish get unplugged. She's REALLY into them. She calls them like Pshaa or something. But you know it when you hear it.

(An aside: She's also REALLY into her DaDa. When he leaves the house it's like non-stop DaDa. Especially if she sees a photo of him. DaDa, DaDa!!! Yeah, I know, he stays home with you and takes care of you while I abandon you all day. But would it be that hard, Josie, to say MAMA just ONCE!?! I did carry you around INSIDE MY BODY for ten months. How soon we forget!)

She loves to crawl in and under things. Like right now she's under a folding table that has lots of heavy boxes on it....ohhhh...wait, hold on a sec I'll be right back.

She also likes to crawl under her dresser, into any available plastic can/bin/basket, under beds, in between the furniture and the wall....you name the tight space, that's probably where Josie is or is headed.

She's also into being way high up on stuff. Like the back of the couch. Or standing on her train, the big plastic turtle that holds her toys, her tricycle. In a pinch the dog will do as well.

(A last aside: isn't that an insight into what I've become! I referred to our precious Ruby as merely "the dog"!! I think she's insulted - she seems to be sulking in the corner. I'm one of those people. Those horrible dog people who has a baby and starts blogging and obsessing over the baby, meanwhile the dog gets shunted aside. I'm a horrible person.)

Hawaii!!!

After 30 years of waiting I have finally visited Hawaii! Josie only had to wait 14 months, but then we all knew she was a little spoiled. She fit right in on the beach near our house, in Moloa'a, Kaua'i. The beach she's sitting on here was about 100 feet from the front door of our house. Stunning!!

We (Josie, Cory, and I) went with my parents, my sister, Jen, her husband, Jeff, and their two kids, Emma and Logan. Josie loves her cousins Logan and Emma:

Josie also demonstrated an early aptitude for surfing, insisting on standing on the boogie boards at every chance she had. Here she is at tunnels near Na Pali (which Cory and I hiked, but took no photos). Also below is a photo of the beach looking towards Na Pali.

Cory and I went on a kayak/hike/zipline/cliff jumping guided tour near Na'Wiliwili. Here we are in our kayak:

The three of us also went hiking in Waimea Canyon with my parents, who were perfectly happy even though we slowed them down and kept them from reaching their goal location on the hike.

The whole gang went to Queens Bath, a pool made of lava rock that is filled every day with salt water from the ocean at high tide. There were a number of cliff jumping opportunities, as demonstrated by Jeff.

Well, Josie is yelling for our attention, although I know that she would be quiet and patient if she knew we were working on press for her.

That's all for now, mahalo and ALOHA!!!!

Summer in Minnesooooota

I've been trying to wait until I have photos to post, but that seems to create quite a lag time in posts. So let me tell you about our week with a photo from the internet (see left)

After a horrendous week at the office last week, and after a week-long business trip I had planned was cancelled, I decided to join Josie and Cory on their long-planned trip to northern Minnesota. They had planned to go for a week to visit gramma and grampa while I socked away billable hours in preparation for our trip to Hawaii, but I decided I couldn't bear to be without them for a week, and I joined them. We all went to Lutsen, Minnesota, which is the home of the Caouette summer cabin (at least for the last few years) where Mick and Carol (aka gramma and grampa or "baba" and "baba") ("baba" is also the word for mama and, often, the dog) spend July each year. It's a beautiful cabin that sits on a secluded part of Lake Superior, a stunningly beautiful place. Lake Superior is also largely pointless in my book, since it is 35 degrees year round and thus is too cold for even short swims. And really, what is the point of a large body of water if you can't swim in it??

So, for water fun, Carol, Cory and I went on a 7 mile canoe trip up Clearwater Lake, a lake in the famous boundary waters of Nothern Minnesota. There were loons yelling at each other, but otherwise we were largely alone on the lake in our ginormous aluminum canoe (see photo left). (no, that's not us, that's another stock image from the internet - but pretend it's us in the canoe and you get the idea). It was just what the doctor ordered after months of long hours in the office or cooped up in the house with the baby (poor Cory). Cory noted that it would have been something that our buddies and fellow bloggers Wes and Christine would have loved. Speaking of Wes, I owe you a call.

Also went on a long hike in the mountains with Josie in the backpack where there were lots of views of the lake around each bend in the trail. Here's a photo of a nice british man modeling what we use with Josie (see left), who, as you know, is much much cuter than the baby in the photo. A constant topic of debate - what exactly is that land on the horizon of the lake? Answers: Maybe it's Michigan (no, that's too far away!) Maybe it's the Apostle Islands (no, they're too far south); Maybe it's clouds (No, that's definitely land). I'm sure those of you with families have had similar conversations about different topics. Once we had said variations on those seven sentences approximately 100 times each, we headed down the hill for some lunch.

Anyway, it was a wonderful, wonderful trip and we had a ton of fun. Cory and Josie are still there, leaving me very sad and very lonely without them. I came home to a refrigerator that may have been off since we left. I plugged it into another plug and it started humming again. I'm sure the food in there is perfectly fine. I'll let Cory check to be sure when he gets home.

photos to follow.