Life in The Village

Winter break 2011

2011-12-29T21:50:00.000-08:00

Just a few pictures from the winter break, a little hike at Big Basin with friends and a sunset hike around the Dish.

Love...

2011-09-24T13:30:00.000-07:00

Little: I love you more than Littler does.
Daddy: Well I love YOU more than anybody does.
Little: Well I love YOU more than anybody loves anybody.
Daddy: Well I love YOU TWICE as much as anybody loves anybody, so there!
Little: I love you googolplex times googolplex more than anybody loves anybody!

Hard to argue with that!

Littler says...

2011-09-18T14:15:00.001-07:00

"If you're happy and you know it, you buy yourself something!"

Utah/Point Reyes | 2011

2011-09-15T23:13:00.000-07:00

Daddy had a lot of fun this last week. Here's what he says [though he left much out]:

Capitol Reef
For the third time in just over a year, my sister decided to marry one of her kids off to some unsuspecting person. So we bundled up our van and hauled off to SLC. First business: the second semi-annual Lewis Brother Backpacking Hooliganism Adventure Thing [see the first here].

This year we planned on taking two nights in Lower Muley Twist in Capitol Reef. It promised to be a bunch of fun, but almost certainly not as nearly-disastrous [read: "adventurous"] as the last. But Muley Twist is pretty rad:

To continue tradition, we took night-time pictures.

Unfortunately, Veedot and Kwiddufer are quite old and couldn't keep this up until we actually got a flawless shot. Nonetheless, it was blastificularly awesome.

After a windy and monsoonly-rainy night, we woke up in the morning to find this thing looming above us. Instead of proceeding down the canyon we decided to try to climb up to the ledge 1/3 of the way up the cliff.

But... we couldn't make it, so instead we did what came naturally--tried to knock the biggest rocks we could into the canyon. Nothing quite compares with the combination of the massive low-frequency seismic DUHDDD and instant cordite aroma that comes from boulders exploding on boulders. Unfortunately, we couldn't quite get this one over the edge [don't worry, there was nobody down there but Kwiddufer]:

The canyon was full of these infinitely-climbable sandstone walls. How can I resist?

Several miles down the canyon we found this giant under-cut wall. The river slams right into the wall and runs along it for dozens of meters before looping back. Under the roof, a huge pile of flaked-off rubble fills the space inside the loop. It's a perfectly self-reinforcing feature that can only end in a massive and spectacular catastrophic KKKKKSHSHSHSHCHCHCHCHKKKK. Another even-bigger version of this feature occurred just downstream. It was a wildly atmospheric place to eat lunch, deep under the roof. No lens in existence can wrap around this thing from the inside.

Tarantula!

We hiked about 18 miles and solved many of the world's problems along the way. We skipped the second night to bail out the wimminfolk and avoid night-time monsoons. Maybe there were no murderous willows or chin-deep, eyeglass-swallowing pools but it was a blast and a wonderful time two spend with two of my favorite people.

Cache Valley
We bolted way too soon from the wedding festivities [which we particularly rue] and headed to our friends' new place in Cache Valley. A-Ron and I went on our biggest bike ride yet--a 67-mile loop into Idaho that included exceptionally rocky canyon roads, wrong turns, not nearly enough cheap carbs, a persistent stiff headwind [non-conservative force, I'll have you know!], a newly-deformed front hub, lots of drafting, a pink saddle bag [and, relatedly, lots of disturbed ranchers], a lunch at a park in Franklin Idaho that I had a picnic in 7 years earlier, an absolutely deadly last climb and 4.5 hours of toil with one excellent friend. We both bonked [partially because of the above excuses] about 5 miles prior to the finish and barely barely limped to the end. Picture: two young guys on solid bikes, wearing legit cycling gear, trying to bike across the main intersection in Smithfield, over completely flat ground, pedal-coast-coast-pedal-coast-coast [etc]. It must have taken us a minute just to cross the intersection. Still, our overall pace wasn't too shabby given the circumstances and we think we could have easily done 80-100 miles with a bit better preparation [and less wind!!].

[a picture or two if I can get Boni to give them to me!]

We had a fabulous day-and-a-bit with these wonderful friends then had to head out early in the morning for...

Point Reyes
Starting bright and early the morning after we got home, I went off with some friends to Point Reyes for an overnighter. Attending: Mitch "Big Freakin' Laser" S., Jared "Chia" H., Thomas "Always has to be the Hero" H. and me. We trooped off to a nice little place on the coast called Arch Rock after spending some time replacing Mitch's busted tire.

We scampered around a bit here, failed entirely to take pictures [that was me], and set off again. Mitch set an I-just-climbed-Whitney-and-I-could-blitz-this-thing-with-a-she-bear-on-my-back pace down to our campsite at Wildcat.

We hiked up the beach a bit to a beautiful little waterfall right on the beach. This is where we lost Mitch, who had some nonsense early the next morning and/or was unsatisfied with a measly 9 miles for the day.

We started trying to gather materials for a fire. Grunting may have ensued.

Jared brought a crab snare that we filled with summer sausage and threw into the surf. It was a plan motivated by irrational coveting of crab meat more than, say, an adequate supply of fishing line. In fact, we didn't have nearly enough, which is why Thomas felt the need to dive into the water and retrieve the line we had. Fully clothed...

...and with his iPhone in his pocket. He seemed absurdly pleased with the new non-functional state of his phone. He was forced to change every item of clothing he had. The moment of complete undress coincided precisely with the arrival in camp of a gigantic passel of girl scouts. I kid you not. Like, 15 of them. That might have not been the kind of wildness promised to them after 7 miles of packing into the forest.

That night we built the absolute best fire in the history of history. We constructed a perfect little ultra-hot core and burned unbelievable quantities of random beach detritus, but no burrowing ducks. Bull whip heads give a satisfying DHUD when they explode in the fire, we found out, and are great for discouraging girl scouts. All the different damp seaweeds produced different pops and hisses and tones when thrown on the fire and it was a pretty sweet symphony down there next to the surf. A complementary rich wafting of scorched marine matter topped it off.

We slept on the beach, waking up to a light drizzle [or, as I apparently called it upon waking, a "bright sunny day"]. Probably the best sleep I've had since I was still wetting my bed and sleeping through it [meaning, by the way, a looooong time ago]. The fire was still scalding.

The hike back went through a whole different universe:

We found a lovely little glade in the forest where we listened as...

...Jared instructed us on the fine take-home points of Phinneas Gage.

All told, we hiked about 20 miles in the two days and solved at least three longstanding philosophical dilemmas that have vexed the sages since the ancient days. Great, great time, boys! Thanks for making this an unusually sweet overnighter.

So, that's 3 little adventures in a week, ~110 miles by foot/bike, ~1700 miles by car, 25 nieces and nephews [including the new one], ~10 hours of rich conversation, exactly 1 righteous camp fire and 1 awesome wife who let it all happen. Thanks, all!

Bud's newest obsession

2011-09-07T10:12:00.000-07:00

Several times a day, Bud asks for Mommy to pick him up and he motions to the kitchen. He has Mommy take him over to the mixer [which he calls, "umbah"]. They talk about the mixer for a while. He gestures at it animatedly. Then eventually he is satisfied [temporarily] and can go on his way.

Ballyhoo's 4th

2011-09-06T11:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Ballyhoo's 4th birthday. Daddy took her and her friend Lukey for a few hours to have fun without interference from the older kids. The last stop was a couple hours at Arastradero preserve. Ballyhoo asked Daddy what there was to do there. He said, "Anything you want! Run around, play in the water, break things, throw sticks, beat eachother up, whatever!"

So they hopped out of the car and started on their way and got stopped by a ranger. She asked Ballyhoo "Hi there, are you going on a hike?"

Ballyhoo: No, I'm going to beat up Lukey.

Well, she IS the birthday girl...

Dusy Basin | 2011

2011-08-24T12:57:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed, we've got a small horde of kids that tend to follow us everywhere. They're quite fond of us--and us of them--so generally wherever we go they do too. Usually this is a pretty decent arrangement, but there are a few things that we just can't do with a mini swarm of children orbiting around us all the time like so many life-sucking mosquitoes [but we love them]. Of these impossible activities, backpacking is one. This is unfortunate because backpacking is also loads of fun. And unlike some of our friends, we don't have awesome family in the area to unload our gaggle onto whenever we feel like unburdening ourselves [we're talking to you, family]. So, 5.5 years after the initial invasion, we still haven't done a single thing without the kids. Well, one or two dinnerandmovies and a few concerts, but nothing during daylight hours and nothing out of town.

Enter the Tahlbows. They--with a veritable armada of their own offspring--decided that it would be "fun" to try their hand at watching both colonies at the same time. So for 100 hours, off we went--leaving the Tahlbows with a massive rabble of 7 kids. Now, yes, some people have a larger cast than that of their own spawn, but consider this: 9 people in 650 square feet, kids aged 0, 1, 3, 3, 5, 5, 7, and one conjoined super-monster of monumental destructive and internally-antagonistic tendencies called LuBallyKeyHoo. So we left the Tahlbows to their own little adventure and we ran off to the Sierras to find peace, solace, flowers and... frogs. We called this adventure our "second honeymoon" so it would feel more legitimate, though we think it may be rare for the second honeymoon to happen 6.6 years after the first.

Before we dive into the adventure, here's a brief moment of perspective. In 4 days, there's not much chance of doing anything particularly noteworthy--and we didn't. We didn't summit a 14K peak, finish a grand loop, pound out 20-mile days, or meet any bears. There are those who practically live in the Sierras, and there are those who occasionally feign a vague passing understanding of a minuscule part of the experiences these mountains have to offer. We clearly fit in the second camp. But it was a lovely time for us--and also we'd like to leave the Tahlbows with SOME evidence of worthiness for their grand sacrifice--so as is usual for us we will document it here in excessive detail.

Our goal was to find wilderness and explore it without itinerary and without haste. We chose Dusy Basin in the backcountry of Kings Canyon National Park as our first wilderness stop based largely on this nytimes.com article about mountain yellow-legged frogs. Tundra has called to us for a long time, and awesome frogs are awesome--enough said. We camped on Friday night fairly close to the trailhead, picked up our permit in the morning and got on our way.

[use this map to follow along with the pictures, click to see the full-sized image]

Day 1: South Lake to Bishop Pass
The trailhead at South Lake is at about 9800'. To get into the backcountry of Kings Canyon NP, we faced a 6-mile climb up to Bishop pass at nearly 12000' and down into Dusy Basin. Perhaps this is a bit short of an epic climb, but the altitude was quite formidable for us given that we are used to a whopping 52-60' [depending on which floor of our apartment we're on].

[1] Us above South Lake near the beginning of the trail, sans feet.

[2] The lower elevations were violently flowery. It felt like spring in a warm wet place instead of late summer in a high dry place. Daddy thinks Mommy is a genius for conceiving of this way to portray that:

[3] Mommy beginning the final ascent to Bishop Pass. The trail consists of pulverized granite rubble organized into sharply-switchbacking ledges. When we spotted a horse/mule team coming down the trail ahead of us, they were two switchbacks above us and maybe eight feet laterally [which was quite intimidating considering the size of the lead horse].

[4] Mommy was in lead for most of the first 6 miles, and she absolutely blasted through. We passed about a dozen hikers, including some pretty serious-looking backpackers. She was awesome. Unfortunately, she seemed to have forgotten about the time she got altitude sick for a day visiting family at ~7000'. So what did she feel like after practically sprinting up 2200' to 12000'?

By the way, yes that is a child-carrier backpack. Hey, it worked great, ok? Due to way too much camera equipment, Mommy carried over 30 pounds in her pack, and her little dinky day pack just didn't cut it.

[5]

[6] We immediately abandoned the trail and walked along the pass to a little chilly lake with a perfect little gravel beach, a boulder for shelter and even some giant mountain yellow-legged frog tadpoles. Mommy took a little nap--there's nothing better for overcoming altitude sickness than a nap at 12000', right? Uh, yeah.

[7] We decided to explore further off the trail to find a place to camp. Travel was much slower off the trail but we were suddenly more more in-tune with our surroundings and much more aware of all of the little natural wonders found in alpine tundra.

[8]

[9]

[10] We picked a small gravel patch with a wonderful view for our camp and waited for the sunset.

[11]

[12]

We stayed up late watching the stars--neither of us had ever seen as many stars as clearly as we could there. We had fun finding satellites--dozens of them--and tracking them until the faded from sight. It was a glorious night, but we went to bed before the moon woke, which was a disappointment.

Day 2: Wandering under Isosceles Peak

In the morning, Daddy slept while Mommy decided to get some flower pictures. Even at such an altitude, there were flowers everywhere.

[13] Sierra daisy.

[14] Spreading phlox.

[15] Daddy's in there. At about this moment he had a very vivid dream about killing a "robot elf" with a .410 inside the laundry room of his childhood home.

[16] Since no photographer traveled with us, we had to make do with setting up cheesy faux-candid shots of ourselves. You might notice from the map that by this point we're actually traveling downhill but we thought the view would look nicer this way.

We picked our way across the granite and tundra to the unnamed lake in the background of the previous pictures. Isosceles Peak, the aggressive peak above the lake, clearly frequently sheds bus-sized boulders from its steep face into the surrounding land, including this lake. The ground is nothing but haphazardly-strewn granite chunks.

[17] Daddy couldn't resist a quick skinny dip in the nearly glacial water. Mommy was content to document it.

[18] A small meadow bordered the lake and it was full of the kind of richness only found in high-altitude meadows. Alpine laurel:

[19] Alpine shooting star.

[20] Feeling refreshed [especially Daddy, always invigorated by cold], we scrambled to a nearby ridge--essentially a buttress root of Isosceles Peak--and discovered a small pond, perfect in size for these rare little high-altitude amphibians:

[21] Both of these pictures are of juveniles. We spent a very long time trying to track down these very shy and small guys. Cold-blooded amphibians living at 11000'? They're a rare [and disappearing] marvel that live 2-3 years as tadpoles because the warm season is so short here.

[22] We rashly decided to work our way around the next significant [and fish-filled [thus frog-free]] lake on the Isosceles side. This meant something like 1/2 mile of multi-ton granite boulders and icy snow.

[23] The bouldering was super slow-going but we both had a blast. In some strange way, bolder-hopping is massively satisfying [if dangerous and inefficient].

[24]

Throughout the remainder of the afternoon, we hiked straight down the heart of Dusy Basin, always looking toward the view from the next bench, finally coming to rest at the marshy lower basin. We both remember this time as some of the most rewarding of the trip, picking our route carefully to avoid damaging meadows, cresting all local ridges to get a good view of the surrounding terrain, walking slowly to enjoy it all, and just exploring. This was one of the few chances we've ever had to feel legitimately like we were discovering new things with every step. Even though we were never more than a couple miles from a fairly well-used trail, we saw nobody that day and hardly a footprint. We think only a couple people a season ever make it back there in some of the really remote nooks we explored [and Dusy Basin is one of the least remote areas in the backcountry of Kings Canyon]. We saw more frogs, a marmot, a peregrine falcon, a little pika and some really wonderful legitimate wilderness.

[25] Daddy was very proud of having climbed this boulder. It was harder than it looks, or so he insists. We camped right under the edge of this boulder for the night, surrounded by exuberant alpine wetlands and their attendant hordes of mosquitoes.

[26] Since there was still daylight left, we ditched our packs and climbed up a small stream that drains into the marshes/lakes right by our camp spot. We climbed right up the falls, over granite boulders and through thick willow.

[27] As the sun was setting, we rested with our feet in the perfect water.

[28] This perfect little ledge seemed to be formerly part of that massive boulder we camped under.

At night, Mommy read from "The Last Season" by Eric Blehm. It's the story of Randy Morgenson, a legendary backcountry ranger in Kings Canyon who disappeared in the vast unforgiving terrain we had one little toe in [thanks to these folks for recommending it]. It's a gripping story and was particularly awesome to read right in the mountains that he loved. One of the main characters in the story, another backcountry ranger, patrolled by us that night--the only human we'd seen since leaving the trail the previous afternoon. Mommy actually huffed this hardback book around everywhere with us in the miscellaneous way-larger-on-the-inside-than-you-can-account-for-on-the-outside compartment of her [child-carrier] backpack, dubbed the Room of Requirement.

Day 3: Lower Dusy, frogs, and a return to the tundra

[29] Since we hadn't seen the last couple of rocky lakes at the extreme eastern end of the lower basin, we hiked off that way first thing. The way quickly became another boulder-hopping adventure. Eventually we turned back to avoid spending all day stuck in the boulders.

[30] We slowly worked our way along the wetlands, just luxuriating in the details. We even saw a juvenile Northern Goshawk, which was completely unexpected and awesome to these old raptor-watchers.

[31] Sierra daisy.

[32] Hypericum sp.

[33] Yellow pincushion.

[34] Small-flowered penstemon.

[35] Hypericum sp.

[36] Lemmon's paintbrush.

[37] Occasionally, Daddy just got an undeniable urge to climb the nearest and highest granite thing.

We rejoined the trail so we could quickly hike down to the point where Dusy Basin overlooks Le Conte Canyon. The view there confirmed to us that we could spend months in the backcountry there and still have a functionally infinite space remaining to get lost in.

After climbing back into the basin, we ditched the trail and struck off cross-country again, this time planning to hit as many potential frog ponds as we could on our long climb back to the lake at the pass, where we planned on sleeping that night.

[38] Pretty soon we found what was by far the most prolific frog pond we ran into in Dusy Basin.

[39] Don't get tired of these frog pictures. These are charming and special little amphibians that are in a world of hurt right now.

[40] A juvenile and 2nd [?] year tadpole side-by-side. The tadpole has legs and the frog has a residual tail. We saw frogs in every conceivable stage of development, but not a single adult. This one pond had several dozen juveniles.

[41]

[42] Mommy checks the water edge for transformed frogs.

[43] To delay having to leave this special lake, Daddy slowly pumped some water.

[44] Alpine shooting star.

[45] We found some other small lakes soon after the great one, but they were all either empty or fishy.

[46] It was not cold, but Daddy's new haircut had uncovered vast acreage of bare white scalp that by this time had become an oozing mass of fried skin. Thus the hat.

[47] We picked our path along a beautiful creek up towards our lake. Eventually we reached the alpine tundra again. We ran across a little group of three beautiful bucks. One of them [not pictured] had certainly the largest rack we've ever seen, he almost looked like a dainty bull elk.

[48] Slowly working our way up to the pass.

[49] We made it back to our charming little pass-top lake.

[50] It was chilly and windy, so we turned in early. The burbling water and inconsistent wind lent the night a strangely spooky feeling. But we accepted the creepiness instead of trying to shove it aside because it felt very appropriate for where we were. The Sierras are not "pretty" and they don't play nice, and spending the night mildly freaked out up there next to that wonderful wild lake felt like a good way to appreciate that. We read of Randy Morgenson well into the dark.

[51]

Day 4: Sprint to the finish

When we woke in the frigid morning, we threw back some Shaklee Performance [shoutout!] and headed down the pass. We needed to hike the 6.5 miles out and drive the >6 hours through Yosemite and the Central Valley back home before Little's school orientation at 4pm. So we started going at a pretty decent clip. By the time we got off the pass, Mommy was in front and she started just flying. Daddy struggled along behind, occasionally breaking into a jog to keep up. We left a plume of dust billowing into the air behind us like a panicked bevy of pika might. We lost 2200' by 9:15 AM and drove off into the beautiful morning light. When we got back home, almost all of the consort were still alive and the Tahlbows even seemed to have some shred of humanity and sanity remaining.

[52] Clarkia sp.

[53] Some of the lower-elevation riot on our march back to the car.

That's it! In the context of adventurers, summiters, climbers, rangers, trail runners, field biologists, etc., this trip was not particularly noteworthy [or tomeworthy as the case may be]. But to us this was a rejuvenating, enthralling and wonderful experience.

Here's to the Tahlbows--thanks for giving us the most amazing and generous gift ever. Yes, yes, I know we'll technically make it up to you piecemeal in the coming months, but what you did was heroic and we're deeply grateful.

Love Dem Barches

2011-08-17T21:47:00.000-07:00

Some of the best friends ever--not just OUR best friends, but objectively some of the very best of all time--just left town to go do whatever-it-is-they-think-is-more-important-than-being-here-and-having-a-blast-with-us. This makes us very upset. But we took some pictures after loading up the moving truck to memorialize their 5 short years here with us. Also: the Tahlbows--not too shabby friends themselves.

Long live Dem Barches!! Thanks for making our lives richer every day.

Washington 2011

2011-08-03T21:31:00.000-07:00

Washington; Grammy, Grampy, Marathon, Bud, Ballyhoo, Little, Chisnap, Canyon, Tarlissimo, Mandolin, Christofferson, Briznat.

Compare to our Washington trip in 2009:

EllaBellaSmellaFella

2011-07-10T23:00:00.000-07:00

EBSF is super intense. She's fully on, fully engaged, pedal-to-the-metal at all times.

EBSF is strong, fast, and physical but doesn't really like sports. She rode her bike 4 miles to [and sometimes 4 miles back from] school every day for several months and wasn't phased in the least bit. When her teachers complimented her, she owned it.

EBSF is massively competitive and cannot lose.

EBSF has an immeasurable capacity to love people. Her whole life seems to revolve around how dearly she cherishes her friends, cousins, teachers, aunts and uncles, grandparents, etc. When she loves somebody, they know it.

EBSF is painfully shy around new people but improved alot during her school year.

EBSF loves reading more than almost anything but gets very frustrated at how slow the process is. Her body does crazy contortions and acrobatics the whole time.

EBSF loves her friends to death and will play with them all day long, inventing insane courtyard games--last week they were taking turns riding her bike which was pulling the bike trailer with one or two kids in it, which had a rope attached to the back pulling a trike with another friend on it, which in turn was attached to a rope pulling a wagon full of kids. They did this for DAYS.

EBSF eats and eats and eats and eats and never ever stops. Especially "burritoswithbeanssourcreamandcheeeeeeeese!!!"

EBSF is a very happy girl and smiles with her whole body.

EBSF likes cuddling in theory but can't hold still long enough to do it. She might accidentally kneecap Daddy and head-butt him in the nose during a single peck-on-the-cheek attempt.

EBSF loves Vijay Iyer's "Duality." It just toys around with her body.

EBSF must be in any available water up to her nozzle. She's part fish [she gets it from Mommy].

EBSF will often burst into the house and bellow a very excited question 5, 6, sometimes 30 times. Mommy and Daddy try to answer on the first or second iteration but EBSF is so obsessed with asking that she never seems to realize that she has been answered.

EBSF is very, very hard on Ballyhoo. But recently they have started to have fun playing together, which is a major relief.

EBSF is VERY LOUD. She did not get this from Mommy. She likes to stay at Volume Level 11 at all times regardless of the social context.

EBSF also talks non-stop about everything she is thinking, seeing, anticipating, feeling, wanting. Monologue, dialog, whatever. She's hyper verbal.

EBSF wears all of her emotions on her sleeve at all times. She spends most of her life in an elevated violent euphoria but has frequent episodes of drama based on whether life is lining up for her or not.

EBSF is super curious and observant and consistently out-strips Mommy's and Daddy's ability to answer all of her questions.

EBSF doesn't clean. She hasn't the time for it. She makes herself very busy doing whatever it is she does. Every couple months she decides she would rather fight about cleaning for 3 hours than spend 3 seconds picking up one thing.

EBSF plays with serious dedication. She is an extreme recreator.

EBSF is exhausting but such a good girl. The joy that she derives from her busy, hard-core style of living is inspiring. She plays hard, eats hard, sleeps hard and has no regrets.

Ballyhoo

2011-07-10T22:29:00.000-07:00

Ballyhoo is IMPOSSIBLE to photograph. She's always completely disheveled, running in one direction while spinning wildly on two axes, bloodied from some face-plant on the pavement, and shrieking in either excitement, anger or both. This is very honestly the best picture of her we've taken in the last several months.

Ballyhoo is delightful. She is very polite--always saying please and thank you and sorry.

Ballyhoo is unprincipled with her anger. She may erupt in dramatic sobs quite frequently, but she can be easily tricked out of them. A typical exchange:

Daddy: "Ballyhoo, it's time for bed."

Ballyhoo, screaming, making grotesque gurgling noises, throwing things: "BUT I DON'T WANT TO!!!"

Daddy: But it's past your bed time.

Ballyhoo, rolling on the floor, kicking things: "NO! NO! NO!"

Daddy, in a very exaggerated perky voice: "Hey, Ballyhoo, do you want to do something really fun??"

Ballyhoo: "Yeah!"

Daddy, still sounding super-excited: "Hey, Ballyhoo! Let's go to SLEEP!"

Ballyhoo, suddenly bright-eyed and cheery: "OK, Daddy!"

Hey, it works, and it's super cute.

Ballyhoo has a bouncy, perky sweetness that is hard to describe.

Ballyhoo is confident and friendly and all of her peers and teachers love her.

Ballyhoo is a very doting big sister. She cares for Bud and really, genuinely loves him.

Bally is also only recently getting over unintentional brutality in her relationship with Bud.

Ballyhoo absolutely has to do everything by herself. She cannot be helped.

Ballyhoo CANNOT be helped.

Ballyhoo loves to dance. She's a tight bundle of ungraceful but adorable exuberance.

Ballyhoo is always adorably disheveled no matter how recently she has been groomed.

Ballyhoo is absolutely indominable. After deciding to start riding her bike without training wheels, she one day face-planted on asphalt and tore her face open. It looked stupendously gory but she didn't even hesitate to hop on her bike the next chance she got.

Ballyhoo is independent, feisty but lovable, stubborn and lovely. Just like her Mommy!

Ballyhoo loves to vacuum and help out. She is just fundamentally kind-hearted.

Bud

2011-07-10T21:57:00.000-07:00

Bud is monumentally grabby. If it can be grabbed it will be grabbed.

Bud is a goat. He must be on top of anything that is climbable. We have a ~3-foot stool in our kitchen that he learned to climb when he was only 7 or 8 months old. He pushes it around the kitchen until it gives him access to new stuff he can grab. Sometimes he just stands there because being higher is better.

Bud is unprecedentedly cuddly and sweet. He gives perfect strangers the best snuggly hugs. A couple of our friends in the courtyard get daily warm embraces from him. Sometimes he stops hugging us just so he can run into our arms and hug us again [because the beginning of a hug is the best part!].

Bud loves other babies. He likes to push them over and gouge their eyes out.

Bud is very sweet natured and happy. Everybody always tells us that he's a "special spirit."

Bud poops a lot.

Bud believes that he can let himself off of anything so long as he goes feet-first from his stomach. Stairs, chairs, beds, stages, tables, the Grand Canyon.

Bud says "Ma ma ma ma MOMMMM!!" when he needs something. And "stop!" if somebody is doing something he doesn't like.

Bud sleeps like an angel.

Bud is very creative at stealing food from people. Last week Daddy left a paper bag full of produce on top of the fence to keep it away from Bud while talking to friends. Bud walked up to the fence and pushed it until the bag fell, grabbed a nectarine and immediately inhaled it.

Bud is squirmy and restless. There is no context in which sitting still is fathomable. Sometimes he just runs around outside by himself grabbing things for hours.

Bud loves balls of any shape or size. It is clearly deeply programmed into his genetic code.

He loves to follow the big kids in the courtyard and play with them. He doesn't know what they're doing but he loves to be involved.

Bud is just a sweet dude. He rarely cries, tolerates a lot of sisterly abuse, and gives everybody unabashed love. He's like a grabby Jesu Bambino.

Lake Lag, 5.30.11

2011-05-31T20:41:00.000-07:00

Lake Lag. Frogs. Toads. Kids. Raft.

Little.

Blizane.

Raft, Little, Blizane.

Raft w/ more occupants.

Little pulling raft.

Some professional frog collectors.

Memorial day is a great day to dynamically memorialize childhood.

Henry Coe, 5.20.11

2011-05-30T13:21:00.000-07:00

The day after getting back from Yosemite, we all [including A[u]nt Chisnap, still ] went for a hike in the awesome Henry Coe State Park. We took the frog pond trail, which went up through oak grassland to pine forests and down into a small riparian valley. The total hike was about 3 miles with probably 1000 feet of total climbing. The girls did marvelously and the place was gorgeous, huge and--refreshing after Yosemite--completely devoid of people. The lighting was harsh but sometimes epic cuteness just trumps good lighting.

This happened quite a few times on the steeper downhill segments:

Little tripped. Her pride was wounded. So she stayed on the ground for several minutes pouting. Littler thought it was a fun game and joined in the fun:

We found a tiny creek and sat around it and played for a while. There was a drab little pacific tree frog just swimming around minding its own business.

But Chesters can't leave well enough alone, so Little instantly seized the opportunity and the frog:

Little is more than a little proud of herself.

Because this is what we do, Little splashed around for a bit. Littler got wet too but it's hard to take pictures of somebody who's holding your hand.

The previous day, Daddy had expressed his undying devotion to his 28mm f2.8 AIS Nikkor lens. On this day, he was using a different lens and the 28mm was nestled nicely in the camera pack up on a bank high above the river. Littlest, ever the busy-Buddy, reached in, grabbed the precious lens, and chucked it hardball-style right toward the river, six feet below. As it flipped through the air, Mommy exclaimed, A[u]nt Chisnap sat across the creek helpless, and Daddy stood far away unaware. The lens landed at the very edge of the water, bare-front-element first, and inexplicably stopped cold. From Daddy's perspective it looked like it was either [A] half-submerged or [B] impaled right through the glass on a small rock. Littler was closest to the action and instantly grabbed the lens while standing ankle-deep in the water. Mommy, A[u]nt Chisnap and Daddy were all yelling at her from three completely different directions with completely differing instructions. "Give it to me!" "Put it down" "Hold on to it!" In particular, Daddy--who was on the other side of 8 feet of water--yells the loudest and somehow thought it would be best to instruct Littler to give the lens to him. Littler held the lens loosely in her fingertips while waving it around in the air over her head, trying to decide which authority figure to obey. When Daddy bellowed his strange instructions, Littler decided to act and made as though to throw the lens over the water toward Daddy. Somehow the females prevailed upon Littler to hang on to it long enough for Daddy to actually get within reach. When he recovered the lens he discovered that it was inexplicably dry, intact, clean and it didn't even have a fingerprint on the lens. Phew!!

There was a lot of climbing on the way out, and the kids did marvelously, especially when they were motivated by promised cookies and juice. But, after sprinting up hills [then resting] for probably and hour they inevitably needed to be hoisted, so of course Daddy volunteered to let Mommy do it.

Henry Coe State Park is a marvelous place and will be closed in a political gimmick next year. Please take the time to inform your state legislator that you do not support this insanity.

Yosemite 2011 part 3

2011-05-25T14:41:00.000-07:00

Finally coming face-to-face with the inevitable, we went back to our tent on our last morning. We found everything basically as it was--soaked but generally recognizable. We picnicked, laid out all the wet sleeping bags and tents in the sun [sun!], and packed up everything. We were back out and ready to party by noon.

We first hiked to Chilnualna Falls near Wawona.

Little just stood there looking at the falls like this for a minute or so. What was she thinking? Praying to the water god?

Little and Littler both scrambled up some boulders to get up right next to the falls. It was fun but a bit scary for both of them.

Littler, in a very common combination, is proud of herself, happy, and sporting a big fat tear on her cheek.

The Littles found a nice slab of granite next to the falls to use as a slide. They had to squirm side-to-side just to move, but this entertained them for quite a while. If A[u]nt Chisnap feels like there are not enough picture of her, notice the foot in the corner:

This was Little's reaction when I told her that A[u]nt Chisnap was going to stay with us for a couple days even after we drove home from Yosemite.

We went to Mariposa grove [sequoias the size of Littler's attitude] and hiked a couple miles to see some big trees. Over the course of the hike, several sequoias grew over 10 feet and four collapsed from old age. Several floods swept the area and dramatically rearranged the local geography. California detached from the North American continent. The colonies around Proxima Centauri revolted. The Milky Way collided with the Andromeda galaxy. The sun exploded and engulfed the earth [finally drying us out]. This is how slow Littler walks when she is being stubborn [this is not a trait she got from Daddy. Just sayin!]

But she is super cute!

We ran across the Tahlbows, a momentary spasm of ecstasy in the middle of an infinite and frustrating day for Littler.

Littler and one of her very best friends, Lukey.

We saw some big trees then went home, Mommy and Daddy are dreaming and scheming about the backcountry, Little monologuing at A[u]nt Chisnap without breath, Littler blessedly napping and Bud being Bud. Thanks to the Tahlbows, Barches and A[u]nt Chisnap for a fun trip!

Yosemite 2011 part 2

2011-05-25T14:10:00.000-07:00

In the temporarily-drier morning of our second day, we stopped by Tunnel View to view things. It was almost boringly spectacular, the Paganini of scenery. But is was beautiful and we went there a total of five times on the trip to enjoy the ever-changing lighting.

We decided to take a hike to Mirror lake and ran into the Barches on the way. It was glorious, heavenly, lush and majestic with perfect lighting and great weather [in Daddy's opinion at least]. It even felt pretty wild compared to the rest of the valley. We took the loop trail to avoid the crush of people and the kids all walked for the two-point-something miles of the loop.

The dogwood was magical.

Little was absolutely obsessed with snow, as she has been for a couple years.The lack of suitable snow-wear didn't seem to deter her.

Epic snowfight with maybe an under-epic amount of snow to work with:

We ended up in a beautiful meadow directly below half-dome:

After hiking back, we drove around for a bit until we found this handsome young black bear:

We went back to Swinging Bridge for a late lunch and because it's just so darn awesome.

Buddy was one happy dude in the hiking backpack but otherwise he merely tolerated all the fuss and cold.

A[u]nt Chisnap took the girls exploring all over the meadow. They ended up making light-sabers out of sticks, which they didn't necessarily need to be in Yosemite for. Nevertheless, so much classic majesticness all around has got to have some benefits, right?

Our last stop was a drive up to Tuolumne Grove. It snowed a lot, so Daddy and Little just ran out and played in the thigh-deep snow for a bit.

Little loves lots of things but there is little she loves more than snow.

A view up Yosemite valley on the way back from Tuolumne:

Tunnel view, again:

At night, Daddy went with his friend J "Excessively-[and-wastefully]-tall-for-a-non-basketball-player" Tahlbow to shoot some pictures under moonlight. Lots of low-lying clouds and fog, coupled with short battery life and a late moon rising [a few days past full] made the job challenging but we each we able to salvage a couple decent pictures from the night:

Upper Yosemite fall with a moonbow:

Tunnel view again, El Capitan is on the left, Half Dome is in the distance and Bridalveil is on the right.

Another hotel night then one last day of fun before heading home: stay tuned for part 3...

Yosemite 2011 part 1

2011-05-25T13:44:00.000-07:00

Last week we took off to spend a few days in Yosemite. We had worked it out so that the Barches and the Tahlbows would be there at the same time as us. And A[u]nt Chisnap flew down from WA to come with us. So a multicolored day-long caravan of heavily-packed Odysseys descended upon Yosemite despite the doom-saying of the weathermen [more on that very soon].

So, about the weather. We knew it was going to be quite cold, so we came prepared [preparing is what Mommy does second-best]:

And it was pretty fun getting all bundled up in the tent. Littlest [Bud] was so wrapped up in warm stuff that he achieved spherical proportions. Both girls were drowning in a sea of sleeping bags. A couple things that we didn't prepare sufficiently for:

1. Rain. Hard, 33-degree rain all night long without ceasing.
2. Our rickety 10-year-old "circus tent" has--surprise!--no rain fly. We've slept in it dozens of times and somehow neglected to notice this. Whoops!

So here's the order of events on our first night at Wawona:

1. Hastily set up tent in the dark and rain. It held itself up about as well as Harold Camping's prophesies do.

2. Notice that pools of rain were accumulating on the roof of the tent.

3. Steal the tarp from under A[u]nt Chisnap's tent. It actually significantly increased the structural integrity of the circus tent.

4. Go to sleep.

5. Wake up periodically. Mommy: move further uphill as the feet get progressively wetter. Daddy: tell Littler to go back to sleep.

6. Daddy wakes up to tell Littler to go back to sleep and discovers that he is wet all over. He also discovers that there is about 10 gallons of water accumulated on the roof of the tent UNDER the tarp.

7. Daddy traces the drip from the roof-top reservoir and finds that it lands on Littler's head. Perhaps relatedly, she is soaked from head to toe but is actually asleep.

8. Daddy goes outside to heroically ~~avoid having to deal with Littler~~ drain the roof of the tent. He ends up wandering around taking pictures in the pre-dawn light:

By the time we all got up, we discovered 5 sleeping bags that were absolutely drenched and 2 that were plenty wet. So naturally we ate breakfast and drove off to go have fun and deal with all that wet stuff later. As it turns out, we didn't return for 52 hours [finally wussing out and getting a hotel], prompting the park ranger to inspect our tent for decomposing bodies. On the bright side, we got a nice early start to the day!

Our first stop in the valley was Swinging Bridge. It is a terrific spot for the kids to just run around with great views of the Three Brothers.

Little and Littler paused for about 0.023 seconds to pretend that they aren't engaged in a life-long ultraviolent blood feud to the death:

Little, as always, is prone to fits of radical joy:

Next we took the little walk to Bridalveil Fall--presumably because we didn't feel like we were soaked enough yet. And more drenched we did get [check out Mommy's jammies that she wore everywhere--stylin!]:

We also hiked and explored for a couple hours around Lower Yosemite Fall, which was damp. Also: awesome. We stood on the spot of one of Daddy's most awesomest heroes--John Muir--had built a cabin.

We searched endlessly for herps but found nothing--not even a slender salamander! Little is a great little herp flipper.

The to a warm, dry hotel room for the night. Daddy's mountain-man self-identity took some major buckshot but secretly inside he was ready to be dry. The girls just pretty much rolled with it.

Part 2 coming up...

Kids Have the Silliest Ideas

2011-04-19T08:50:00.000-07:00

Little: Can I have a cookie?
Mommy: No, not right now.
Little: But I really want a cookie!
Mommy: Sorry, we're not having cookies right now.
Little: If you let me have a cookie, I'll let you come visit me when I'm older and don't live with you anymore.
Mommy: How sweet of you. I hope you let me come visit you no matter how bad a mom I am.

My New Personal Blog

2011-04-19T08:46:00.000-07:00

Hey guess what? I (Amanda) have a new blog that I started a few weeks ago. It's probably boring for most people, but strangely enough, I keep writing on it because I'm pretty obsessed with running and exercise these days. It's called Farfenuken. Today I have exciting news!

Weekend

2011-03-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

To save us from a weekend of drudgery, friends invited us to go with them to Ed Levin park to hang out, eat, and hike a little bit. Having heard some great things about the raptors there, and not wanting to, you know, stay home and work, we jetted off to have some fun.

Littler was maybe a bit less than totally enthused to hike up the mountain.

Littler absolutely adores Lizard.

They used this rock as a pillow.

At the top of the "mountain" there were a couple guys getting ready to hang-glide off and back down to the bottom. The kids were fascinated...

...but eager for the spectacle to end so they could...

...well, you know:

No, Littlest is not wearing Littler's jacket as a pair of pants with a spurious hood that he needs to keep warm because he overflowed his diaper and his other pants are soaking wet and it's cold. It only looks that way.

Littlest wanted to join the mud party. Daddy had to take him far, far away. He went for it like a carrier pigeon.

We ended up seeing 6 species of raptors: kestrel, harrier, white-tailed kite, red-tail, red-shoulder, and TV. Not bad for a lazy saturday afternoon. And we threw together a little Provencal dinner at our place and watched a movie. Thanks, Boni and A-Ron!

Valentine's Day Interview

2011-02-14T18:33:00.000-08:00

We stole this idea from here.

2010 Interview

2009 Interview

2008 Interview

1. How do you know when you're in love?
Littler (3): I know.
Little (turning 5 in a few days): Um, I think, if I'm in love. [How bout some more Little, what else?] Mmmm, I....I...I only think.

2. Why do people get married?
Littler: Cause they loves to get married.
Little: Because they're s'posed to. I'm really getting this right. Why do we have to do this?

3. How old should you be when you get married?
Littler: ONE!
Little: 9.

4. Where do you want to get married?
Littler: Somewhere that we wanna get married. Ella wants to get married too!
Little: Temple.

5. What qualities do you look for in a boy/girl?
Littler: Littler's holding Miles!
Little: They play with me.

6. What's romance?
Littler: I don't know. I know Mommy! [What?] Um they get something that we don't get. A surprise.
Little: I don't know.

7. What would be a fun date?
Littler: I don't know.
Little: Camping.

8. What do you want to get for Valentine's Day?
Littler: I don't know. [Daddy: Littler, what do you want to get for Valentine's day?] Something that I liked. K Daddy?
Little: Ummmm...a big chocolate bar. AND a strawberry piece of candy.

9. Why do men give women flowers or chocolate?
Littler: Not chocolate. [restate question] Flowers!
Little: Because they love the mother.

10. What do you think about kissing?
Littler: [gives Mommy a BIG kiss] Kiss is like this. [smack lips a lot]
Little: Good!

11. How many kids will you have after you are married?
Littler: THREE! [holds up 3 fingers] Yeah, I'm 3 though. Cause I'm gonna get married when I'm one. [proceeds to count]
Little: One. [Just one? she nods] I mean three.

12. What will you wear when you get married?
Littler: Um...a princess dress! That does fit me. That is Ella's. When I'm berry big, like Mommy and Dad! Like this big [holds hands over her head] like Mommy and Dad are.
Little: A big white dress. But when I'm baptized, I would have to wear a white shirt, you know that? And white pants.

13. What will your husband look like?
Littler: Uuuuumm, I don't know. Cause I know that we can play with William and Blaine. Aaaand, um, Lukey.
Little: He will look like he's ready to go to church.

14. How can you tell your parents love each other?
Littler: Uuuuuuummm, they know I'm three!! [holds up 3 fingers and waves them around]
Little: They kiss and hug.

Flyin' solo part 3

2011-01-20T23:39:00.000-08:00

On sunday in the afternoon we went to see Olivander, Lizard and A-Ron at Linda Vista park. It was just a cool opportunity for the kids to get nutty outside where they can't break things:

On Monday we went with the same crew down to Pinnacles to do some hiking. It was a cool little hike, we saw quite a few condors, and there was a cool section of caving in the middle. And, even better, I didn't take any pictures of the whining or crying.

By the way, Little has had seriously puffy eyes for a couple weeks, and you'll see that in the pictures here. Makes her look a bit like Willem Dafoe with ample burrito weight.

Once again, I scored some dad points and let the girls get a little wet. Who new nobody packed any dry clothes?

This is Little's definition of a little wet:

Little and Olivander can entertain each other indefinitely. Same for Lizard and Littler. They're perfect little friend-pairs.

Caves drawing near.

The cave! It was pretty cool, though it would have been nice to have one adult per kid. Instead, I valiantly went on ahead and took pictures while A-Ron got to help the kids through tight spots.

Little is, once again, without undergarments or shirt. But she rocked the climb out.

As I told Mommy when she got home, I found some remarkable tips for keeping the girls' hair nice and controlled:

The kids decided that they wanted to take some rocks home. We still had 0.6 miles left, and they refused to bring kid-sized rocks. So they carried these all the way back to the car. Little's rock was a present for Mommy when she got off the airplan; Littler wanted the rock for herself and was offended by the slightest idea of giving it to Mommy.

Then we went home and picked up Mommy. Fun day!

It was super awesome to spend those days with my girls and it was strangely liberating to get them all to myself for a couple days. But to say we all were eager for Mommy to come home would be, you know, a catastrophic understatement.

Thanks, Matt, Matt and A-Ron for helping me stay sane over the weekend!

Flyin' solo part 2

2011-01-20T23:25:00.000-08:00

Saturday:

We went with Little's friend Tommy to Happy Hollow, a zoo/amusement-park-for-littluns. For a tiny kiddie zoo it had some cool stuff; Fennec fox! Fossa! Lemurs! Goats!

HH also has the biggest dang-busted climbing castle in the history of HISTORY, and the kids rocked it:

And then there were the rides:

This is Little's favorite. They hopped on, then it broke. I told Little to cut out the burritos; once again, I'm rocking this dad stuff:

The perfect Daddy lesson opportunity presented itself when we reached the fennec foxes. Two little cute things in there, gettin' frisky. Littler thinks they're babies and demands to know where the parents are. I told her they were indeed adults. She wanted to know how I KNEW they were adults. Not wanting to miss this crucial opportunity, I heartily pointed out that there were some squirrel monkeys over there, and aren't squirrel monkeys just awesome?

Good times Matt and Tommy!

Flyin' solo

2011-01-20T23:03:00.000-08:00

Mommy left to go hang with some sisters in Florida so I got to be a single dad for 5 days. Armed with two girls, my camera, a wide-open schedule and the anticipation of selective editing, I set out to survive [primarily] and to document our adventures, mostly so that I could post the documentation online and make people think I'm an awesome dad with perfect and awesome kids [that's where the selective editing comes in]. So, between epic hairdo failures and mooching off of friends and neighbors, I took pictures of the other stuff we did. Here it goes, in order:

Thursday:

We went up to Kason and Maleb's house in the mountain to hang out and play. Little played her first hockey, but her Arizona roots couldn't match up to Kason and Maleb's Minnesotan heritage. Nevertheless, fun was had in abundance.

Then we went on a hike in what is essentially their backyard:

Pretty cool backyard.

The trail took us down to a spooky-awesome foggy waterfall covered in moss. Little decided to get her feet wet. I decided to let her. See how good a dad I am? She decided to throw in wet pants and shirt to go along with it.

And this being a Bay Area winter, we saw some newts:

Dude's like, "hey, hey, hey now, let's not get carried away here." I think this is when I offered Maleb a taste of fresh newt.

We slept in a cabin next to the house and went exploring some more on Friday, this time by bike [Little is now wearing Maleb's shoes and a sweater with no shirt... I won't mention what else she is missing at this point]:

The chestnut orchard and its iconic bullet-holed junker.

Downhill bike riding capped off the afternoon:

Two days down, three more to go.

Thanksgiving weekend

2010-12-02T22:59:00.000-08:00

We spent Thanksgiving weekend here with friends. On Friday we went on a friend-suggested hike in Mt. Tamalpais State Park. It was 4-ish miles downhill from altitude to the coast and was very cool. We went with the Barches; Canyon, Tarlissimo, et al.

Ballyhoo stayed on Mommy's back mostly for time considerations. She might actually be completely capable of the distance but extrapolating past hiking experiences with her to 4 miles we projected it would take 4.39 times the age of the universe to get to our destination.

Dem Barches.

This is what happened when Little attempted to give Canyon a hug. It was explosive coodiness.

Little and Canyon pretty much didn't notice the 4 miles. They probably logged an extra 2 miles just crazying around.

Little decided that these rocks just had to come with us, and insisted that we hold them for her when she became too tired. Hasn't every kid who has ever hiked done that? So cliche.

Daddy may or may not have confidently led everybody down a steep hill on the wrong path.

We got to Stinson Beach at sunset.

We sat around well into the dark waiting for a shuttle to take us back to our cars... apparently there was a holiday schedule? Meh. Anyway, it turned into a fun little adventure and made a weirdly satisfying end to a fun day.

On Saturday we watched Stanford smother some Beavers with friends.

And that's it. Maybe we'll get around to posting the Hawai'i pictures soon?

Littlest aka The Dude

2010-10-03T12:42:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago Littlest said "boop" to Mommy. When Mommy repeated the sound to him he giggled and recognized it as his little word. So now we can say "boop" to him at any time and it instantly makes him thrilled. He even joins in and tries to say it back to us. It's so fun to be able to "talk" with him!

Also, about 4 days ago he just started sitting up. It's a cool new trick Daddy's been demonstrating to anybody and everybody. Go Dude!

Skyline-to-the-Sea with the chillunz

2010-10-02T14:26:00.000-07:00

Little and Daddy went on a short litle backpacking trip up Skyline-to-the-Sea trail yesterday with A-Ron and Olivander. We camped at twin redwoods trail camp for the night. A radicool old dude hiked in with us and told us everything there is to know about the plants we saw. A gorgeous San Francisco garter snake slithered right between Little's feet. Great-horned owls called all night from across Waddell creek. We heard Pacific tree fogs along the creek. We interrupted a swarm of flying ants out looking for a queen. A bunch of deer and some raccoons raided us throughout the night. And we pretty much chilled and enjoyed the pleasantness.

MAndrew and Kason and Maleb rode in on bikes and visited us at dusk, paying special attention to wearing Olivander right out.

Little yesterday with a big-leaf maple leaf:

Strangely similar to January 2009 in Costa Rica:

A madrone stick became the coolest toy/weapon.

A-Ron spent much of the trip being a superhero/monster. It's what he does:

Olivander likes the leaf too:

Next time: Daddy, A-Ron, Lizard and Littler!

Summer End Game

2010-09-12T20:08:00.000-07:00

Random pictures from the last 8 days' fun.

Here's Littlest and his friend/neighbor/near-twin 'Enri. 'Enri was born less than 12 hours after Littlest. They are exactly the same: they both poop a lot and sleep a bunch.

Kason and Maleb's parents moved up into the mountains and we've spent some time enjoying the trails up there. Last saturday Daddy and Olivander's daddy rode from Cupertino up Montebello Rd. to Montebello OSP and met Kason and Maleb's daddy up there. They rode up to the top of Black Mountain and took a picture of themselves, trying to look as rad as they can. Daddy stood on a very tall rock so he wouldn't look like a midget.

On Labor Day we went with Olivander's family to Portola Redwoods State Park. We had a fair amount of fun playing in the water...

...and lying in the grass...

...until the stinging nettle ambushed us and made Littler a sad little monster.

Little and Olivander did this for quite a long time:

Then we all drove down to Pescadero State Beach and hung out there until sunset.

Even the late-sunset light wasn't enough to make Daddy's midsection anything but blindingly white.

We found all kinds of cool things on the beach, like severed fish heads and a ray skeleton. We even saw a [live] sea otter, which was pretty cool. Somehow we took 800 pictures that day and none were of the awesome people we were there with. Nothing personal, we swear.

On Tuesday Mommy had her first game for her soccer league. She was a bit rusty to start with but warmed up and kicked some tushy.

The ball was heading over Mommy's head and, without thinking about it, she reached up to grab it. Thankfully it was too high, but she grinned a sheepish grin and kept on playing:

Here's Littlest just yesterday with Canyon's little sister Mandolin. He's staking claim to his territory as early as he can.

Tucson 2010 | Caca de vaca

2010-08-25T16:18:00.000-07:00

Mommy's brother and the kids' cousin [from Daddy's side] were nice enough to get married only a week apart in the same city. So we packed up and drove to Tucson for just over a week. First off, Mesa for Mommy's brother K-Dog's wedding. Mommy and her blood-related womenfolk:

The reception was in Tucson. By that point Littler was about toast. She's watching the sunset with her uncle Airic:

For the next few days we drove this way and that, sweated a whole bunch, and spent most of our time getting in and out of the car. Our planned trip to Mexico didn't pan out but we made it to one of Mommy and Daddy's old favorite places, the San Pedro river. Gra'ma and aunt Chisnap came too. We arrived too late for the unparalleled San Pedro birds but Daddy did get a look at a yellow-billed cuckoo and there were lots of frogs. Chesters do what Chesters do, so we got wet. Little and Littler didn't seem to mind the flood-browned water or even the thought that it flowed straight from Mexico:

Mommy and Daddy spent many, many days hiking up and down the San Pedro back in the day. It's a great place for gray hawks, illegal immigrants, botanists, frogs, summer tanagers, drug smugglers, nudists, snakes and green kingfishers. The Littles aspired to nudity but we managed to avoid most of the rest.

Little discovered a thick, gooey, brown substance all around the river. She dubbed it "mudsprake." She and Littler spent a lot of time decorating themselves with mudsprake.

Little likes to get right up to her nozzle in water:

Littler is monstering Chisnap. Whenever she tries to explicitly monster she puts her hands up by her eyes like this and growls/shrieks while wiggling her fingers like a star-nosed mole's snout:

Littler floating away:

Mudsprake may or may not contain a fair amount of caca de vaca.

Little finally got her shirt off and became a river monster.

"I have a shirt made out of mudsprake!"

Little liked jumping into "a river of chocolate milk!"

Little's totally got Lewis hops:

Gra'ma and Littlest chilling out of the water.

Back in Tucson, Daddy thought it would be a flawless idea to get together "Uncle" Pickle, K-Dog, Kiffer, Gobot, Ga-brul and K'naan in a city park at noon and play basketball. It was monsoonly humid and Tucsonly hot. It was somewhat shy of an all-star event. The smart ones then jumped in a pool and spent the rest of the day cooling down. Little, on the other hand, didn't seem to notice the heat at all:

We all went to the second wedding, for the Littles' cousin from Daddy's side, Narpete. It was superfun and packed with 24 cousins, 8 uncles and aunts plus Grammy and Grampy. There was a fair amount of bonkers dancing at the reception and Daddy was using aunt Megret's camera so we don't have any pictures. Anyway, it was fun and we gained another rocking member of the family for the second time in a week.

We got to finally meet Pickle's bride-to-be, which was awesome. At various moments in the week we got to see virtually everybody [sans the V's!] in our extended family, which was cool too: Littles-monster Gran'pa, Baffling-but-generous Gra'ma, Incorrect-on-this-one-particular-issue Grammy, Sleepy-and-not-at-all-interested-in-this-one-particular-issue Grampy, Exhausting Megret, Long-lost NoMan, Cowardly-shins Pickle, Undissuadable Kelce, What-am-I-getting-myself-into Petty, What-am-I-getting-him-into Narpete, Perpetually-sleepy Bronkney, Barbet-haired Cam, Not-nearly-as-surly-as-he-seems-on-Facebook Stoney, Will-certainly-be-able-to-crush-us-all-very-soon Chan, Started-out-pretty-huge-at-least Bwenners, Little's-perfect-idol Laney, Angelic Grace, "When-I-gave-a-lecture-at-Harvard"-anecdote-spewing G-Lens, Disturbingly-Mommy-like Barbarian, Random-often-accurate-fact-spouting Abel, Infinitely-nongullible Chameleon, Snake-activist Mawky, Constantly-somersaulting Lenny, Not-blindingly-white-at-least-on-the-back-of-his-neck Christofferson, The-major-grooving-influence-in-the-entire-Lewis-family AD, Snap-happy Ambrosia, Impossible-I-know-but-still-growing Wire-D, Best-moves-on-the-dance-floor YahnBahn, Everybody-wants-one X-Baby, Sweetest-cousin-ever Clavinator, .44 Maggum, Sweet-talking Lydenheimer, Kerpow-eyed Liesiepie, Song-writing D'Bora, Covenant-demolishing Jaded, All-hair-and-freckles Chaste, Village-shaman Pookie, The-village-shaman's-pants Anjee, Indefatigable Kal-N, Really-wish-we-knew-better Livie, Daddy-totally-forgot-he-existed-but-he's-pretty-cool-anyway Jax, Best-welcome-room-book-owner Bobert, Domesticator-extraordinaire EyeLien, Supreme-rockness KatieOGreatie, Contributes-like-90%-of-the-genes-his-kids-have Ty, Always-goofy-and-fun Magda, Doesn't-want-to-be-the-kid-you-just-have-to-cheek-pinch-but-totally-is SamWise, 100%-no-holds-barred-all-boy BeenJammin, Hair-of-a-future-glam-rock-idol Dzhaymz, Water-bottle-slayer Bonk, Sacrifices-his-body-for-the-team Kibbo, Adorably-nerdy IckleFat, Tactical-nuke Noer, I-am-a-beautiful-butterfly Kyysyn, Favorite-child Chisnap, Aptly-named Gordita, Dude-spent-like-forever-in-Afghanistan-and-isn't-even-weird Ereeek, Resembles-a-bitter-vegetable-but-way-cuter Kale-y, Totally-needs-to-get-into-audio-engineering Yoshe, Girlie-legged K-Dog, Bowls-worse-than-Littler-but-totally-tolerates-the-girlie-man-thing Aerial, Thinks-he-can-grab-the-rim-but-really-only-touches-it Gilbot, Kanye-glasses Josie, No-longer-at-all-rotund Gabrul, Kids'-favorite Airic and Shoots-way-too-many-3s K'naan, hailing from Arizona, California, Utah, Montana, Washington, Colorado and South Dakota. Daddy even got to make his own mother vanish in a puff of pure logic, which he thought was pretty fun. We have to thank D'Bora and Gra'ma, and Bonk and Kibbles for L'Hospital-ity.

Not exactly a vacation but a very worthwhile trip!

Littlest, aka Dude

2010-08-08T16:25:00.000-07:00

When Littlest was born he was super skinny and long [4.30.10]:

He got bigger fast [6.22.10]:

And he got happy [7.14.10 and 7.21.10]:

Now he's bursting out of his 6-month clothes and generally amplifying himself in all dimensions [7.24.10]:

I like to call him "Just a Dude [Little]" because he's very much like our first when she was a baby: fat, superhappy, adorable, and typifying the same hard-to-describe round/creamy gestalt that Little invented. And not at all put-downable.

Littlest's favorite activity: staring in Mommy or Daddy's face and grinning and cooing. He does it from across the room, the lap, or the carseat. He pretty much would smile and gurgle and tongue-wag all day long if anybody else had the endurance he does. It's super sweet.

Littler loves Littlest to death; quite nearly literally. She is so fond of him that she sits on him, drops him, pokes his eye, shoves her food into his mouth, hammers him on the head with her solid dolly, kisses him while lying on him so he can't breathe, and generally does anything violent that could possibly be construed as well-intentioned affection. In fact, Littlest now recognizes Littler as a source of unique terror, so whenever he can even see her he screams. We don't really want to discourage sibling affection--especially considering the lack of love lost between the two girls--but Littlest's welfare is at stake here. So Littler isn't even allowed to touch him any more. Sad, but--trust us here--totally necessary.

Our Weekend

2010-08-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

Our good friends recently moved up to the mountains. It's a ridiculously sweet place to live, connected up to hundreds of miles of preserve trails right from their front door. We went up on Friday night and slept in a corrugated-aluminum grannyshack on their property. An impossible-to-describe cascade of noises came down from the attic throughout the night, only a small fraction of which were explainable by the bats living up there. The sound of a deflated cheap soccer ball rolling on linoleum. Sproinging Victorian gadget components dislodged by wrestling poltergeists. Impossible inorganic resonances. It was exciting and trippy and tiring.

In the morning, Daddy and Olivander's Daddy and Kason's Daddy went mountain biking. The final 1,500-foot relentless climb left Daddy, at least, completely wasted. It was a great trail, though. Later, Mommy and Olivander's Mommy and Kason's Mommy went for a trail run. Overall a great and exciting morning.

We all spent the rest of the day at a beach near Santa Cruz, a lot colder than it looks. Here's where the pictures come in:

Little, Maleb, Olivander, and Kason, pretty much a who's-who of Little's favorite boy toys. However, she got married to her friend Canyon this week so hopefully he won't see this picture and get jealous.

It looks painful but that's what everybody was doing and it seemed fun.

The weekend at least compensated for the fact that, for the first time in our married life, we haven't been able to go anywhere fun this summer. Not yet anyhow!

Summer Upload

2010-08-08T15:03:00.000-07:00

After a very [not the fun kind of ] busy summer we have a bunch of pictures we hadn't gone through that we decided should just be dumped in one batch. Here goes:

May 24th:

Little and Littler wanted to go play basketball. To Little, every activity basically boils down to an outfit; soccer is about cleats, basketball is about basketball shorts, swimming is about swimsuits, etc. So what she really wanted to do was get dressed in a basketball outfit; the actual basketball part was totally secondary. Littler, on the other hand, was pretty serious about wanting to dunk.

Little's got epic hops.

5.31.10:

We met some friends at Lake Lagunita to look for frogs. We are an awefully anglo bunch:

Little got a new bike, finally one that wasn't pieced together from courtyard discards. It's huge and she loooooves to ride it. She rode with us to church a few time, 3 miles each way. She's a major cylist girl! Of course, her favorite thing is going "super FAST" and she now claims to go faster than Mommy, Daddy, and cars.

Perhaps the cycling is to blame, but Little is STRONG. She can take on two of her friends in tug-of-war and she's a champion snake-monsterer.

7.09.10:

Just some friends: Tarlissimo, Littler, Kason, Little, Maleb and Canyon.

7.15.10: Little figured out how to jump off a swing. She had no inhibition at all and went flying waaaay up there. She'd land like a cat on all fours but with a resonant thud and crouch there for a moment to regain her balance. Then she went back and did it all over again.

7.21.10:

Just a day in the life of LittlerMonster.

7.22.10:

Our courtyard rope swing rocks.

The parameter space occupied by the "Littler is having fun" mode of rope swinging is very small. But, characteristically, she always, always wants to do it again when we're done.

Little and Daddy | Pescadero 2010

2010-06-20T22:50:00.000-07:00

On Friday and Saturday, Little and I went for her first self-propelled backpacking trip in Pescadero Creek County Park. We had about 8,000 acres to ourselves, all we needed on our backs--not to mention Bluefish, the morphologically challenged Seussian tuna--and an unspecified amount of time to do unspecified stuff. Pictures first; story below.

Little giddy at the beginning of the hike.

"Look, a baby pinecone!" She was blown away that it was actually "an adult pinecone" from a redwood.

Just troopin' along.

Worley Flat. Bleak weather [challenging lighting conditions!]!

Little spent a good 5 minutes examining this stalk of grass and discussing its Mommy-tickling potential.

One of the larger banana slugs we encountered.

Slug!

Little loves to pretend to sleep--even 5 feet off the ground.

We explored around until 8:30-ish before heading to sleep. Little finally found a four-leaf clover that she wanted to get a picture of for Dongy [though it was in fact a two-leaf clover with four lobes].

Our camp spot.

We waded Pescadero Creek on the way in so Little talked a lot about the need to get wet in it on the way back to the car on Saturday, despite the fifty-something degree weather.

And wet she did get.

Little talked without breath until the moment of falling asleep on friday and from the moment of waking up on saturday until spontaneously passing out in the car on the way home. Nonstop dialog. We talked ferns/bracken, the contents of horse poop, hermaphroditism, grass seed dispersal, logging, bird calls, aposematic coloration, the awesome goodness of beans with rice--and their affect on your poop, horse shoes, cranes, road builders, four-leaf clovers, how that dead wren died, mycorrhizal associations, 7+7 then 14+14 then 28+28 then 56+56 then 112+112 then 224+224 the 448+448 then 896+896 etc., whether the banana slugs were sleepy or sick, itty bitty legs of California slender salamanders--and how little their poops must be, what happens to the poop in non-flush potties, whether we would play frisbee at the party later, the dimensions and orientation of the ideal trail-crossing log for climbing over, the importance of using "double-D-decker knots" in shoelaces, why slugs seem to like to eat horse poop, how in the heck mosquitoes can drink your blood through your skin, whether plants poop, and especially--at long length--death and mortality.

We made up many verses to a new song called "Pescadero, Pescadero, Pescadero." Little never complained, never whined, never was anything but lovely, charming, smart and happy. She walked 6 miles in 20 hours, carried Bluefish, sippy cup, headlamp and jammies in her backpack, slept on command, cuddled in the morning, and enthusiastically declared the existence of each of the 374,287,169,020,911,671,299 slugs we saw on the trail--and insisted on touching each one. She noticed when the trees changed from second-growth redwood ["red woods"] to mixed oak/conifer woodlands, she saw all kinds of little treasures that I missed--a weird ball of vegetable matter with bristly hair, cute little purple flowers, a cyanide millipede, etc. She tried to find one ideal stump to stand on. She flipped logs enthusiastically even though the salamanders were scarce. She found a ton of "six-leaf clovers"--never being able to distinguish between leaf lobes and leaves. We saw a brown creeper, heard an owl, called to black-headed grosbeaks and laughed at the crazy sounds squirrels make. She decided we'd better move to Pescadero. She was an angel and it was one of the most awesome Daddy experiences I've ever had. Next time... Littler and Daddy in Butano?

When we got home, Little got ready to "host" a party that she conceived of in our courtyard. 14 of her friends and a comparably-sized bunch of parents came and brought yummy food. After weeks of talking about it, extensive planning, the creation and dissemination of invitations, plans for soccer/snake monster/frisbee and loads of anticipation, she just sat at the table and ate TREMENDOUS MOUTHFULs of food. She earned it.

Little Mister, 5days, 8days, 10 days old

2010-06-14T20:25:00.000-07:00

Five days:

Eight Days:

Ten Days:

Cinco de Mayo

2010-05-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

We had a Cinco de Mayo party in the courtyard last week. It was pretty sweet. Sack races:

Berkle must have missed the gun...

The demographics were a little different in Littler's heat.

Littler thought the whole point was to be in a bag, and at that she excelled heartily. She just stood there looking very proud of herself.

Even the daddies got into the action. Daddy won the sack race, probably the absolute pinnacle of his life's achievements to date.

We even did a three-legged race. Daddy and Little tied Christofferson and Tarlie for first place, though both teams had suspect tactics. That fact didn't diminish their pride at the finish line, incidentally.

Littler ran in a foot race...

...about halfway through people started cheering as the older kids crossed the finish line. Littler got excited that she was getting such loud cheers, so she stopped and raised her fist like a champion boxer. She even spun and did a little [pirate-dead-leg] victory prance for the crowd. She never actually finished the race... details!

In a race of old nerdy grad student daddies, Daddy narrowly won the 40-ish-yard dash. That makes him 3-for-3 in events at the courtyard party, which he explains makes him a superstar. Total courtyard hall of fame material.

Little takes Maleb down.

Littler visualizes disemboweling the pinata penguin [a traditional Mexican icon if there ever was one].

[lots of pictures of other courtyard kids--let us know if you want them!]

Arastradero

2010-05-09T23:21:00.000-07:00

On Friday night, Kason and Maleb invited Little over for a sleepover. Boy was she superexcited! We were planning on going to Arastradero to explore a bit in the morning, so they came with us.

Little is all about having the right gear:

Mommy's not so big on the whole bed-rest-for-mothers-with-newborns thing.

Littler's pretty big on the whole get-muddy-whenever-possible thing, though.

Littler, as always, instandly achieved a state of adorable dishevelment, with a brand-new knee scrape, monster abrasion on the forehead, berry-stained face, muddy pants and feral hair.

Littlest was pretty chill.

Getting wet just seems to happen when the Littles get together with Kason and Maleb.

Maleb became the third wipeout victim of the trip.

Little and Maleb take a little rest here from an epic amount of running, proving to the world that they knew the route back to the car, among other things.

Kason and Maleb will be moving away soon. We don't know what Little and Littler will do with themselves! It seems like they spend all day with them. First Olivander moves, then Wilhelm moves, now Kason and Maleb move... life's not fair!

Littlest

2010-04-28T21:43:00.000-07:00

This is what Daddy saw when he walked into the birthing room:

Mommy's on a matt on the floor with a cheesy baby. He was pretty cute:

We got home after the girls went to bed so they came in in the morning expecting to see their new brother. We videotaped the whole thing. Littler was very cautious, walking by the door several times before waiting for Little to be brave. Little had been so incredibly, animatedly out of her mind with excitement for Littlest to come that we weren't sure how she'd act when he finally came. Pretty much the same thing: she was so excited! Both were utterly fascinated for several hours by the new thing and we were very impressed by how much of the whole thing they understood. They knew he was here to stay, they were totally unphased by his penis since they knew he'd be a boy. They were ultra sweet with him all morning this morning:

Little was completely intrigued by such a little person in her arms.

Littler loves to give kisses, and showered Littlest with them all day.

Little spent much of the day making up impromtu dances and songs for Littlest. Littler dances her crazy monster-pirate dead-leg dance and repeats whatever Little sings. Littlest sleeps, mostly.

You need to understand that Little is not at all cuddly. Her idea of cuddles is lying down next to us and pummeling our bodies with spastic limbs. Not so with Littlest, it seems:

As I type this, Littlest seems to have [cross fingers, knock on wood, kill a five-legged frog, etc] figured out the whole nursing thing. He's also spent all day listening to Thom Yorke and currently Steve Reich, so he's automatically pretty cool.

The Birth Story--Littlest is Born!

2010-04-28T18:29:00.000-07:00

The day started off normal with a nice workout at the gym and then a busy shopping trip/library visit that lasted about 3 hrs. When I got home I was famished and gulped down a HUGE protein drink and some fruit and then put Littler down for her nap around 2:30 or 2:45. Then I sat down to read Little some stories and this whole time I pretty much felt like the baby was dropping down as low as he could go, though there were no contractions with this (maybe one or two normal feeling BH-ish sort if anything?).

At 3:45pm yesterday (April 27), I felt my first contraction. I didn't think anything of it until a similar one came along less than 10 minutes later. Within half an hour, I had contractions coming less than 5 minutes apart on average. We started cleaning up the house and getting our final things together even though at this point I wasn't positive it was "real" labor. At 4:30 I told my friend I was having contractions and I'd let her know if they went anywhere (since she'd be watching the kids). I told her the contractions had "an element of pain to them". At 4:45 I told her I'd eat my big toe if it wasn't labor. At about 5:20, we dropped the kids off to her, and by 5:30 we were off on our way to the birth center. (My intuition was telling me at this point that I might not make it, but I brushed it aside as silly thinking and told myself I was probably much further than 45-60min from delivery.) This whole time the contractions were getting stronger. We charted them in Excel from about 4:30 to 5:15 and they averaged about 3 minutes apart during this time period. While I was running around cleaning up and packing things up from my list of things to prepare when labor started, I stopped for each contraction to lean on the closest thing that was at about waist height. I found that the weight and pressure with each contraction was more bearable when I kind of scooped my hips or dipped them until it was over. I also tried to concentrate on making sure I was relaxing my belly and my shoulders, which I think I've been pretty tense with in past labors, and I exhaled a bit loudly, kind of like pilates breathing or something.

Once we were in the car, it took me a couple contractions to really get the hang of the best way to relax and cope with each contraction, but it turned out to work best to concentrate on relaxing my whole bottom side, along with my shoulders and arms still, and I eventually stopped the breathing thing naturally because it didn't matter in this stage anymore. Partway through the drive to the birth center I was starting to have those "I don't know how much longer I can do this" transition thoughts, and again, I brushed them aside as silly because I was probably no more than 5 cm or something really depressingly unprogressed for how intense the contractions were. To my surprise (and not), at 6:08 I had a contraction with the urge to push and my water broke and I had to try not to push, but my body was just grunting and trying anyway. All the pressure of the contractions was in my bum now and it was less painful (as pushing contractions always are for me). Peter called our midwife to clarify some directions (she'd given us a rush hour shortcut) and told her my water had broken and I was having the urge to push. She called us right back after that to let me know to blow through the contractions so I wouldn't push. I was only partially successful, but I tried my best. I had no interest in giving birth in the car, as nice a story as it might make.

A few minutes later, after lots of maddening red lights, we arrived at the doors of the birth center. I had a contraction right then that I had to blow through and as soon as it was over I got out of the car and walked into the birth center. I walked straight back into my birthing room where the tub was filling for me and walked over right to the steps of the tub. I stooped over to pull off my pants so I could get in the water and got the urge right then to see where the baby was and push him out. I reached in and felt him not crowning but just inside the birth canal and then squeezed him out from a standing position in one push into my and the midwife's hands. My first thought after that was "I wonder if I can get in the water now?" Then Peter walked into the room with a shocked expression on his face, as he had just taken less than 2 minutes to park the car and grab a couple bags from the trunk. Apparently he heard a baby cry as he hopped out of the car and figured it was his mind playing tricks on him. Nope--that was the birth of your son that you just missed! But it was okay. Even if he'd been in the room he might have missed it. I almost feel like I did, it happened so fast. Littlest Lewis was born Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 6:21pm weighing 6lbs 15.6oz and measuring 20.5in, after 2hrs 36min of labor. (13 3/4 head circumference)

It turns out he was tongue tied, so the midwife clipped his frenulum, but he's still not the greatest nurser. He really doesn't like to open his mouth, or suck. This is nothing new to us (3 for 3), but it's still disappointing and difficult. This time we have a nipple shield already, so we did manage to get one good feeding in with that last night, but that's all we've managed so far, 20hrs after his birth.

All in all, a fast labor, an untraumatic birth (for me), a pretty good postpartum bottom-side (not as good as last time but much better than the first time), and another tricky nurser. Wish us luck that the nursing is figured out even faster this time!

Birth Story--from the totally irrelevant perspective

2010-04-28T18:28:00.000-07:00

This is my very first official "Birth Story" so I hope you like it, it took like 20 minutes to write:

Yesterday I worked from home, writing a paper. I was pretty much tired of that by four-ish. Manda asked me to make a spreadsheet of contraction times, so I recorded the hour, minute and exact second of each one, which was kind of boring. I got some photo gear together, always fun in a menshteklieber way. Then we drove off in the car. I hate driving. I chatted about random things, but Manda had to occasionally pause in the middle of a sentence to breathe hard. I was pretty patient with that. Eventually Manda said that her water had broken, but it didn't look like it got on the seat which is cool. We got to the birth center and after Manda walked out of the car I took the initiative to drive the car into the garage. I was grabbing stuff out of the trunk--more stuff than I should have been expected to grab in one trip, really--when I thought I heard a baby cry. Naw, I thought, that's just your mind playing tricks on you. So I grabbed all the stuff--enough to fill four arms I tell you--and walked all the stinkin' way back to the back of the birth center and saw Manda sitting on the floor, surrounded by midwife-types and with Littlest in her arms. She didn't even bother waiting until I was there! I stretched out on the bed next to Manda and Littlest and ate granola bars for a while--they were totally gross, Manda didn't even think of packing food for me, can you believe it? I had to go to the bathroom which was kind of gross because women, like, give birth in there. I took a bunch of pictures [of the baby, not the bathrooming] which allowed me to practice in changing-color-temperature situations, because the natural light coming in the frosted glass windows was waning. I got really hungry so volunteered to go down the street and grab some food. A meth-addict woman asked me for some fries and I said sure, and I even bought her a dollar-menu-McDouble without her having to ask for it. That's the type of person I am, you know? I ate one whole McChicken before even getting back to the birth center. Driving in SF stinks. They put way too much mayo on my sandwich. Manda was a little disappointed that I only got her one sandwich, but c'mon, I only got the meth woman one sandwich too, and she was probably starving to death. When I got back, they were still poking Littlest with things, helping him breastfeed, yadda yadda. So I stretched out on the bed for a while until we came home, a little late for my tastes since I had woken up at 6:20 in the morning to play basketball and was totally exhausted. Manda was doing breast-related stuff so she needed a light on but I managed to fall asleep soon enough. Not too bad, all told. People generally are way too dramatic about how hard it is to have a baby. Take away the crappy food and all the driving and it was pretty much a normal errand.

Lake Lagunita

2010-04-15T21:56:00.000-07:00

Little, her way awesome friend Mason, and Littler went with Daddy yesterday to Lake Lag to go see some frogs.

Mason really, really likes Little:

We waded to catch some tadpoles.

Littler saw a "little thing" [which is a Littlerism for "something that's creeping me out"] in the water and tried to splash it to death.

Little proudly shows off a tadpole.

At one point the little ones were wandering into a deeper part of the lake. Daddy suspected that it would be too deep for Littler, so he told them to turn around and come back. In the process of turning, Littler tripped and fell and started... swimming. Like, complete doggy-paddling swimming. Daddy, being the responsible man he is, stood and took a couple pictures then ran off to help her up. She got completely soaked but was proud of the fact that she went swimming all on her own.

We took Littler's clothes off and had her wear Daddy's jacket, which she thought was awesome. She liked making a hand-monster come up out of the jacket and attack her nozzle.

Little was sad that she couldn't get Littler out of the water, but she was very happy that Littler was safe.

This picture is Littler in a nutshell. She's always adorably disheveled. She can be feral-looking within a femtosecond of getting out of the shower.

Little and Mason can make each other happy for hours.

[Look at Little's buff quads [and her ups, which are at least twice as high as Mommy's]. It's all the biking :o) ]

Then we went home. Little and Mason walked about 4 miles [and Littler about 2.5] without complaining, and everybody had a blast from start to finish. Next time: frogs!

Montebello 2010

2010-03-21T23:16:00.000-07:00

Just a little exploring around our favorite exploring place:

A couple miles in, Littler decided to just head up a hill. So she took off without a word, straight up. She was totally determined. We eventually caught up to her, but she just kept on going up and up like it was completely the thing to do at the moment.

For St. Patrick's day, the courtyard had a little party which promised to contain a competition for the greenest costume. Little was determined to win and spent much of the day preparing her winning flair:

It was a vote-by-applause deal, and Daddy screamed the loudest so Little won. She rocked it!

Also, there has been a bit of warm weather, so this type of thing seems to happen:

Swingy Day

2010-03-07T23:58:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Thingy

2010-03-02T17:55:00.000-08:00

1. How do you know when you're in love?
Littler (2): Uh, Ella in the car, I know Mommy working. Mailbox, my mailbox out again.
Little (just 4): I cuddle!

2. Why do people get married?
Littler: Um people get married. People get married. People get married. Blahgoiahglhahglahglhag.
Little: 'Cause they need to grow.

3. How old should you be when you get married?
Littler: Um, I guess, I get married. I color, Dad.
Little: I don't know. Ummmm, I think, 8 years old.

4. Where do you want to get married?
Littler: Uh, I get married.
Little: Ummm since Mason is going to marry me then he's the one that's going to marry me, right? Mason's the one that's going to marry me, so... at his house.

5. What qualities do you look for in a boy/girl?
Littler: Um, oh no.
Little: I used to like Oliver very much but now I like Mason very VERY much. 'Cause I didn't really know I liked Oliver before Mason.

6. What's romance?
Littler: Romance. Uhh... I... know... romance...
Little: I don't know!

7. What would be a fun date?
Littler: Fun date. Um, a balloon. There's another balloon. Another balloon. Another balloon. Another balloon. etc., etc., etc.
Little: Um, *high pitched* Ca-li-for-nia!

8. What do you want to get for Valentine's Day?
Littler: Ban-times day. Uh, get a Ban-times day.
Little: Sweet tarts.

9. Why do men give women flowers or chocolate?
Littler: Chocolate!
Little: Because that's what's love.

10. What do you think about kissing?
Littler: Kissing.
Little: Mmm. I don't know.

11. How many kids will you have after you are married?
Littler: I get married. I get married. I get married and get kids to have.
Little: Two, or one. One.

12. What will you wear when you get married?
Littler: I get married.
Little: Mmm, I don't know. Um how about these clothes? [sweat pants and a sparkly shirt]. But Mason has to look very cool when he gets married, right?

13. What will your husband/wife look like?
Littler: Um, I want the yellow sippy-cup.
Little: I think my husband will be Mason, then there will be two Masons in our courtyard. Will we live far away when I'm an adult?

14. How can you tell your parents love each other?
Littler: Mommy, Daddy love eachother.
Little: 'Cause they kiss! Because they hug.

Little: I'm done for the day!
Littler: I want a yellow sippy-cup.

A Little Week

2010-02-21T22:31:00.000-08:00

Little turned 4 on Friday! Of course, what that means is that she now wipes her bottom on her own. Here are some pictures from the festivities:

Little's friend and neighbor T-bone was nice enough to have his 3rd birthday on the exact same day Little did. So we had a combined courtyard cake shindig:

Later, Little became accessorized as she opened her presents with ARod and Olivander, her friends:

They all played in the courtyard, riding their bikes up and down hills and playing with kites [Little's friend Cason gave her a cool fire-engine kite for her birthday and his brother Maleb decided that he didn't want Littler to feel left out so he made her a hot dog kite. Yes, it is the size and shape of a hot dog [and just as air-worthy!].]

The next morning, Daddy took Little and Littler and Cason and Maleb on a couple-mile walk to go find grubs to feed our new newts.

It was super fun! We also found some leaves to play in:

That's it.

Oh, yeah, did I mention that Cason decided that he's going to marry Little? He made sure to ask her before her 4th birthday so he didn't get pre-empted.

Wuf

2010-02-13T10:26:00.000-08:00

Littler has decided that she really is a dog, all day long every day. So the most common word she uses now, whether it serve as a verb, noun, adjective, pronoun, expletive, clause, diatribe, discourse, etc., is the word "wuhf." Thus:

"I want to play with [Little], wuhf."
"Daddy, Daddy, wuhf."
"Wuhf."
"I wuhf, I wuhf, I wuhf!"
"[whine, whine, whine] whuhf [whined]."
"Wuuuuuuhf!!" [meaning "I can't open the door"]
"Wuhf!" ["I did it!"]
"Wuhf, yeah."

Her stamina is remarkable, she's been doing it consistently for about 72 straight hours, and it took us about half that time to figure out what she was doing.

Christmas Trip 2009

2010-01-17T20:23:00.000-08:00

As a bit of an epilogue to a year of traveling, we drove out to spend Christmas in some place with family and snow: Utah. We rented a car--those of you betting against our car being anywhere near fit for the journey win whatever you win at our expense--and drove out in one day, stopping every hour or so as Ballyhoo recognized the leverage that a newly-potty-trained toddler has on her parents.

We stayed at CaA's house, home to many awesome cousins, including Maggum, for one reason or another the coolest person on the entire planet to EllaBella. The kids got the remainder of their presents, including headlamps for each--Santa's a smart dude, how did he know they always steal Mommy's and Daddy's headlamps?

BigE received her whole Christmas list this year--including a space station [EllaSmella clearly asked for a "space station," not a "fragile toy space-station-looking-thing made out of toilet paper rolls and scotch tape." Maybe the poor economy is hitting Santa hard up there. Time was, when a kid asked for a space station she got a space station. Not some cobbled-together toilet-paper-roll scale model. EllaBella was ecstatic so I guess Santa knows when he can get away with stuff like that. But still, Santa=cheapskate. I digress...] and a soccer ball. Ballyhoo got everything she didn't know she wanted, and loved it.

We attended Christmas morning at the CnA's, observing one moment when the heavens opened, angels sang, and the mysteries of True Christmas were revealed to us:

Ambrosia got a cell phone. We're pretty sure we observed a State Of Ecstasy, Nirvana, Total Oh-Em-Friggin-Gee, Transcendent Capitalistic Joy, Freaking Out Of The Highest Order [In A Good Way]. It was something.

We went to VonDenbergh's house to experience Christmas with them folks. All the pictures from that experience are in his possession, but imagine books. Lots of wonderful books. We had a fabulous Provencal supper wherein Daddy ceremoniously gnawed on a large lamb leg. We digested there for several hours, deciding finally that we had just experienced the best Christmas in the history of history, all told.

EllaBellaSmellaFella was way too very much extremely incredibly excited to play in the snow. So:

Mommy's side of the family had a big reunion in SLC, so we went there for a few days. We went sledding several times, sometimes with the family and sometimes just the Chesters:

K'naaan and Ballyhoo biffed it majorly:

Daddy got undercut from behind by two midget hooligans on a sled and it popped his rib out of place, which is a sure sign that he's getting old. Speaking of it...

After the reunion, we went back to CnA's house and spent endless hours jamming to Beatles RockBand. It was epically radinous. Sister BaBa and Elder BitBit came and "jammed:"

This next picture takes a bit of explaining, but once you understand it--and if you know BitBit--it may change your life forever. It's an instant classic, an I-Was-There-When type of deal. Daddy, as the photographer, writes the caption thus:

BitBit is playing the drums on Beatles RockBand, and--truth be told--entirely failing to more or less keep the beat, as it were. After watching his grandfather flailing away at the drums--and I'll note before I proceed that I'm confident BitBit will not read this blog post but if he does, my love for him has always been and will be forevermore orthogonal to his drumming abilities--YahnBahn decided to kindly step in and--to quote Russel the Asian-American scout--"assist the elderly" by surreptitiously keeping time on the snare pad to keep BitBit from failing out of the song. So here it is, BitBit in deep concentration hitting the drums with all the enthusiasm and random timing of toddlers telling knock-knock jokes, while Yahn is secretly the only one actually hitting the drums when they're supposed to be hit. BitBit was never aware of the source of his drumming power:

Then we pretty much just drove home, stopping in Reno to eat dinner with a couple of old Ogdenites, which was awesome.

We were treated with overwhelming generosity and kindness throughout the trip. It was phenomenal--thanks everybody for a great time!

Guess What?

2009-11-20T08:27:00.000-08:00

I'M PREGNANT!

Are you surprised? haha

I guess it's possible there are people who check this blog that don't know...

Pictures for posterity's sake...

14 w 3 d

16 w 6 d

Trip part 5

2009-11-14T16:12:00.000-08:00

We drove down to Tucson and stayed at Bonk and Kebbo's house with their two cheeky sons. By this point both Little and Littler were getting a bit bewildered by all of the cousins on the trip, but they had a lot of fun learning how to play Wii with Icklefattikins and Noer.

Our first day in Tucson we drove to one of our favorite birding/exploring areas: Sonoita creek, near Patagonia [AZ]. It was pretty dang hot, the birds were all hunkered down, and we were all quite tired by this point, so we--you guessed it--just played around in the water for a bit. Sonoita creek is pretty much the archetype desert-oasis thing except with the largest cottowoods in North America instead of palm trees [plus a thick-billed kingbird and some gray hawks, of course].

Little does this whenever she's in water:

We spend our nights hanging out with Bonkers, Kyky, Nicoplasm and Narpete, playing Wii and listening to music. When Daddy was out playing basketball with Nicwise, Gobot, and Kyky, Mommy and Bonky found a Sonoran desert toad in the yard, and captured it for Daddy to get a look at:

Daddy also found a great plains toad in the yard--gotta love monsoon season!

Daddy's main goal in Tucson was to play ball with Nicopotamus and Gobot and Kyky as much as possible. Like-mindedly, Nicasa took a whole day off from work to hang and play ball. And they played quite a bit, though the games always ended somewhat shy of epically do to lighting and timing issues. Daddy wants to include these pictures because he thinks they make him look cool [he searched hard for pictures showing Nicodemus with a funky expression or showing, you know, his butt]. Gobot was there too, but mostly he showed up on film as a lanky blur.

And, finally, Daddy felt strongly that a great deal of his nerdy rep would vanish if people could see how awesome he really was, so he had Mommy get a picture of him touching the rim and tried to think of ways to subtly remind people that he is only 5'7", which he imagined would cause them to say things like "wow, he's got ups," "look at that, white chocolate," and "oh my blazes he's sooooo awesome." Basically he failed; he touched the hoop but he's still pretty sure the whole setup is pretty transparent [and, you know, it would have actually meant something if he had dunked over Nicked like he's been promising for the last... 15 years, instead of being blocked over and over again by Gobot]. Nikolaus grabbed the rim solidly but Daddy vetoed the picture because it would make his accomplishment so much cheaper by its inclusion.

We hung out at Mommy's parents' place a bunch and went swimming with them; Little still loves Gobot to death. Bonksters and Kybbles were super generous and pretty much ran a B&B while we were there. Eventually, though, we had to face reality and head home--a 15-hour straight shot from Tucson to the Bay in one long, noisy day.

Thanks everybody for a great trip!

Tickling

2009-10-16T09:25:00.000-07:00

Today Little told me that she wasn't silly. I asked her to prove it. So she invited me to squeeze her knee and she'd prove that she wouldn't laugh.

So I squeezed her knee and she stayed heroically, deliberately stoic. Then I squeezed harder and she made a little gurgling noise like she was about to ralph. She looked like she was going to ralph too. But, determined not to be silly, she didn't laugh or even giggle, not even smile [which, for her, is a part of breathing]! By this point normally she'd be convulsing on the floor hysterically.

So I decided to pull out all the stops and I really gave her something to laugh about... I squeezed just in the right spot with just the right pressure. With completely overlydeliberate calmness she said:

"that's enough."

:o)

Trip part 4

2009-09-29T13:13:00.000-07:00

After Daddy and the dudes got back from their hike, we packed up and drove to Aunt Kathy and Uncle Tydye's house in X, Arizona. It's "X" here because we don't want to be responsible for another human being being aware of how awesome this place is. Then people would go there and it wouldn't be so awesome.

Little was superexcited to see another whole bunch of cousins. First, there was Madrigazella, an intriguingly feminine older girl. Little has always worshiped big girls and Mads played her part perfectly; she pranced around and did girly things and waited for Little to follow, and showed her novel things like dolls and stuff like that. Little was just nuts for her big cousin. Little following Maddicakes:

Next, there was Samwise, who is a couple years older than Little but was mostly interested in being impossibly sweet to Littler. Little was too distracted by the all-girl oldest cousin to spend much time with the all-boy Samwish, especially considering that all her friends are boys and this girl thing was quite a new experience. But Littler sure loved all the loving attention he gave her, and their no-holds-barred attitude in life seemed fit for each other even though they're several years apart in age.

Next there's BinJamin. His mom said he was uncharacteristically cranky when we were there, but we couldn't really tell. He's a really, really sweet little guy. Little and Littler both liked to play with him, especially on the monstrously rocking tire swing they've got in their front yard:

[Samwhich and Benegal on the tire swing]

Benyammin and Littler shared a stuffed pony for most of the trip, occasionally even altruistically. Here Benz rides the tire swing with the pony:

The tire swing was worth the drive in itself. Well, you know, the company was good too, but that thing was AWESOME:

Little never took her eye of the big girl cousin.

Littler found a doll. It was very exciting. She used it as a blunt force instrument:

Did we mention how cool the swing was? And Little liked it even more than us...

One thing that Little has always liked is the thrill of going "super duper HIGH!" [Littler calls it "dipper dipper HIGH!" So:

Madimoiselle showed her how it's done:

We drove to a sweet little stream in the mountains nearby, just to hang out for most of the day and do some fishing. Here, Little and Bendito do what they both do best: get very serious and contemplative about nothing at all.

If there's anything Chesters like, it's romping around in water.

Uncle Tyler pretty much rocked the whole day; Daddy was afraid his kids would defect. Here he teaches Little how to fish:

Then he helped her find some worms:

Then he let her catch her very own trout!

Little was way too excited; how can a Daddy compete?

So Uncle Tyler caught a garter snake and let her play with it. At this point Daddy decided he might reclaim some Dad points by appearing in pictures with both the snake and the daughter:

Little spent about 3 seconds pretending to be scared, but her face kind of gave away her real sentiment:

Little was beside herself with joy at having this little living thing in her hands. Unfortunately she had absolutely no sense of... shall we say animal welfare? She tried to tie knots with the snake, she squeezed its head to see how squishy it was, and she waved it around like a jump-rope.

Daddy had a photo session with the snake:

Then Mandolin let Little help her release the snake back into the water.

Littler, not quite as interested in the snake, cuddled with Mommy [to the degree that either of our kids cuddle with anything] and basked in the sun. Mommy was suffering what we think was altitude sickness, so was a little more laid-back than normal:

Little and Littler both find water completely and absolutely irresistible. Benyamine and Little somehow found a way to go swimming in 4-inch-deep water:

We love this picture because it illustrates exactly what we love so much about the KTnTYs and also X, Arizona. Benifactorial painted himself like a tiger and went out looking for fish and snakes along the river while his Dad fished nearby:

Madikins gathered flowers to give to Little, which flattered her a great deal:

So we went home and got ready for dinner. The kids didn't want to settle down so they put on some Weezer and went absolutely nutty:

On our last day the Daddies took a few of the kids out to go exploring in the mountains. Ty drove them in his pickup out over roads the very mention of which would cause our car to spill some serious oil. They found a little stream with tiger salamander water dogs in it, which was awesome.

There were a couple more garter snakes in this stream.

Little likes snakes in more than one way:

Madesian is outrageously cool.

They drove some more and found a beautiful meadow with a muddy stream, so they hopped out and waded and caught crawdads. Little was pretty much in heaven there, with awesome cousins in a new wide-open space to explore, and with little snappy things underfoot that were nearly catchable.

Cousin Mads was super, she helped Little through the deep parts and made sure that no crawdads nibbled on her toes. Little eventually got tired of the day but her big cousin was always there to cheer her up.

Before leaving town the next morning, we played for a bit with the cousins at a city park. Daddy took this opportunity to show up his brother Christobal, who is well-known for jumping over the hoods of cars [mostly Miatas, we expect]. So Daddy jumped over a whole car and Mommy got photographic documentation of it.

We took the "scenic route" to Tucson, which involved what felt like 34,839 miles, more or less, of winding mountain roads. Daddy got sick. Littler barfed. Next stop: The Bonks and the biggest cousins yet!

Trip part 3

2009-09-17T20:17:00.000-07:00

Daddy and his brothers Chris Tophranklin and Van Johndenbergh packed their bags with lots of cheese, summer sausage, olives, crakers, a couple pounds of guittard bittersweet chocolate, and sleeping gear and headed off to Boulder in preparation for hiking Death Hollow. From Daddy's point of view:

Chris and I drove down together, planning on meeting Van in Boulder. Chris lost a tire:

but that was OK because we both got to pretend like we're manly. We may have grunted a bit while jacking up the civic. Our specialty outdoors-wear amplified the effect; you can't get tougher than loafers over earth-tone socks.

We ate at Hell's Backbone Grill in Boulder, which was fantastic as always. I spent a considerable time on some goat cheese and beets, then my encrusted trout, then my niece's noodles, then some chocolate riotous dessert, so we started a wee bit late. We loaded into Van's truck and bumped over the Boulder airport to the trailhead, downed a bottle of Pellegrino, then started off. It was getting dark by the time we descended the first major grade so we found some soft sand in a wash surrounded by miles of ripply sandstone. We busted out the stilton and crackers--of course--then spent a considerable amount of the night taking pictures under the full moon, being periodically serenaded by an angry but undoubtedly puzzled bear down the canyon from us.

The troika throwing them up:

Getting on near midnight:

We're a sexy bunch:

Things got a bit rowdy:

At about midnight:

We found a little vernal pool with some Woodhouse's toads in it. We caught one and I harassed it long enough to get some pictures:

In the morning we rolled up our bags and started walking. We had lost the "trail" over a mile of pure slickrock, so we just decided to walk downhill until we met a drainage, and follow that until we reach water. We figured that water would be Devil's Hollow, and if it wasn't it would still be fun anyway.

We quickly found some water:

Yes, my brothers are getting on in years [a disclaimer here: I'm not sure how much they like me saying this, which is exactly why I keep on doing it. But seriously they're not THAT ancient, just that much more than me!].

Chris even discovered a new talent on this hike: shining, radiant biceps.

We spend the better part of the early morning pushing through thick willows and flood detritus. It was slow going, but we were in the water so we couldn't complain. This area is exactly the type of place that calls to me: very, very wild and rugged and harsh but beautiful. The drainage was pristine and wild; Van said he saw fewer invasives here than in any stream south of the Brooks Range in Alaska. We saw exactly one sign of humans along the whole creek bed: a partially used bottle of spray-on sunscreen [which Chris's bicep utilized repeatedly]. But we saw a ringtail [!] and at least 3 sets of fresh mountain lion tracks [!!]. I lived in Arizona [state mammal: ringtail] for 20 years and hiked almost every mile of running water in the southeastern corner of the state and have seen ringtails maybe once or twice, so that was a major treat.

After not too long we started reaching sections where the water got pretty deep:

This became somewhat of a challenge. I brought my camera and 3 lenses and various equipment--about 15 pounds of hydrophobic gear. And all our gear needed to stay dry so we could sleep that night. The bottom of the creek was obscured by the murky water and was composed almost entirely of large irregular boulders. In several places the water would go from one foot deep to well over our heads in a single step. We didn't mind getting wet--in July in southern UT that was welcome--but we also couldn't tread water and hold our gear dry, which meant we spent a great deal of time and effort engineering ways to transport our gear across.

It wasn't as easy as this looks:

We spent several hours of surprisingly challenging planning and execution getting down to our lunch spot: an overhang with cool sand and a great view.

A 30-second timer wasn't quite enough to pull off this shot:

So maybe next time I'll have a remote trigger!

Chris spotted something that I had been really excited to find on this hike: a snake! It was a young great basin gopher snake:

After lunch we spent a great deal of time arranging pictures of him. I was aiming for capturing the reflection of the opposite canyon wall in his eye like a fisheye lens.

So that was very exciting for me. The snake was beautiful and mostly cooperative.

We started off again, but the baggage transportation became even more difficult. It took all three of us at nearly every challenging spot to get our gear across, and it took all of our strength and resourcefulness to accomplish it. It's hard to accurately describe, but having this experience with my two brothers was an incredible and wonderful experience--I'd say it was bonding of the first order but that word has lost too much of its impact. Anyway, several times we were precariously close to disaster, but we pulled through.

Here Van suctions himself to the side of the canyon while Chris tries to get my pack to him. I'm valiantly standing by and taking pictures.

OK, we did have a disaster or two, but they were the kind that didn't result in funerals so it was all good. At one water hole, Chris lost his footing and fell completely in the water. And by this I mean that his entire body went underwater, including his own pack which he was ferrying over his head. We fished the pack out and threw it on shore, hoping that he'd have a dry bag by night time. Then Chris delivered what was possibly the second worst news we could have heard at that point [considerably behind "oops, your camera bag..."]: his glasses came off in the water. The bottom of this hole was maybe 8" of slick muck lightly resting on the bottom with boulders strewn about. At 5' down, the bottom was completely impossible to see. So we decided that Chris would very carefully search around him with his foot. The problem is that he didn't know where he was when his glasses came off, so we were looking at the possibility of him searching a couple dozen square feet blind with his toes. Leaving them there wasn't an option--he's almost as blind as he is shockingly white.

So Chris put his foot down, and... brought up his glasses. Immediately. It was quite something. So we did a certain amount of brotherly yahooing then went on our merry way.

Then we came to a nearly impossible hole. It was long, deep, had perfectly vertical walls, and there were basically no places to step. Chris painstakingly mapped out a route which consisted of hopping from one underwater, invisible, deathly slippery boulder to another. Toward the end of the route there is no boulder to stand on, so he waited there on his tippy-toes on a lower boulder. The plan was that he would boost us over the gap. As long as we put our feet exactly where he said--the boulders weren't visible at all--we should have been able to get across fine. We got all the gear across in this manner except the last bit: my camera bag. I don't know if you can fully appreciate the value of my camera bag to me. Think "like a son to me" and you're getting there. Anyway, Van was ferrying the 15-lb camera bag across, balanced on one hand because he needed the other hand to grab Chris's hand for the boost over the gap. As I watched, about 10 feet away, I saw this--and don't ask me how it got this way, but this is how it was--Van was holding my bag like the Lady Liberty torch, suspended above the water by Chris who was treading water to hold them both up. It was clear that Van couldn't reach the next boulder, and Chris was sinking. It was happening very sloooooowly. So Van said "I'm going to have to throw it." And he did. All my camera gear went sailing across 10 feet of boulders and deep murky water, propelled by a little wrist flick from the end of the outstretched arm of an old man relying solely on my aging brother's water-treading abilities for counterforce and balance. And I caught it. Van and Chris went sprawling into the hole but I got my gear and it was all in splendid shape. So you see why my brothers are my heroes, right?

We had so much fun doing this that we did it until we couldn't any more. There was a hundred-plus foot stretch ahead of us that required ferrying and mapping and that was just too much. We paused for a bit, and I climbed the side of the canyon to get a view. Turns out we were just around the corner from where the creek drains into Escalante river. We decided to turn back and start our way up the river since we hadn't seen a suitable campsite since... camping that morning. Being us, we really hadn't thought about a minor detail: we spent all day going down the river, so how quickly should we really expect to go back up? We were more efficient at going through the holes--we knew each one now and had a strategy to beat it--but when we passed the holes and got to the thickety part of the river, we ran into something that slowed us down considerably: the willows that had futilely resisted our path down were now daggers aimed right at our shins. Boulder had seen a lot of rain earlier in the summer and any high water sweeps the willow branches down until they are all pointing downstream. So just powering our way through the brush was not an option. And it was THICK. Oh yeah, and another thing: it was well past sunset.

By the way, it really was that bad. I've done a considerable amount of thicket-whacking: willow tundra in Alaska, mesquite stands in Arizona, scrub oak thickets in Utah, and dozens of riparian brambles in Arizona, and I've never been in anything quite like this: usually you can just power through and accept the loss of skin or be careful and take your time and arrive relative unscathed. But this hike was the worst of all: everything in the drainage seemed pre-engineered to prevent us from hiking back up the river, like a punji stick pit. We just had to accept a certain loss of progress and a certain loss of skin and flesh.

Eventually we all felt at least a mild amount of fear. We had no way of recognizing our path out of the creek in the dark, we were not on any established path, we were soaked [the 60-degree water that felt so nice in the daytime wasn't so nice when it got chilly] and freezing, we had gone much MUCH further down than we realized and had a long way to go, and the moon was behind the canyon walls so we had no light besides the two working flashlights we had between the three of us. We were facing a very real possibility of being very lost and having no place to set down for the night and get dry and warm. We prayed, we planned, we discussed, and we pushed on. The undergrowth was absolutely brutal, as was climbing up a slippery bouldery stream-bed in the pitch dark.

At one particularly dense thicket, Chris--who had basically gone the entire day without eating due to inflamed tonsils and was running probably a 5,000 calorie debt by this point in the day--got down on his hands and knees and slowly worked his way through willow spears. Half his body was under water and he had to identify and move every one of the dozens of sharp points in his way. He contorted his body to allow clearance under a big stick and, after scraping himself on a rock and getting stuck repeatedly with branches, he managed to get through. I was following him since I had no light and he did. I was too tired to do the whole soldier-crawl thing, so I just tried to power through the thicket. I braced for multiple stabbings and strong resistance but the only thing that happened was I burst through and almost rammed Chris. I said right in his ear "you know, I just walked right through that" and felt almost awesome. I think Chris might have cried. Maybe you'd have to have been there.

Somehow, thanks to Van's internal magnetic orienteering or whatever the heck he used, we found a drainage we recognized from our hike in and went up it and found soft sand. We built a fire--illegal but at this point completely critical--to dry out our stuff. We probably pulled in around 11pm, completely and utterly shelled. It was bad enough that those of us without a dry change of clothes--namely, Chris and I--talked about but maybe possibly didn't quite consider yet [?] stripping down nekkid to get warm and dry. I'm glad that wasn't necessary.

Here's a time exposure of our camp that night, with Chris and Van sleeping, then a picture 12 hours later in the late morning. The moon in the first picture and the sun in the second picture are at very similar locations:

Our hike out the next day was short but plenty hot and bright. The climb out of the drainage was steep but worth it.

When we got back home, we looked on Google Maps [...is the best. True that, DOUBLE TRUE!] and discovered that we had never been in Death Hollow. We traveled all the way down sand creek, and here's a link to sand creek where we met it--we traveled basically all the way down to where it joins a much bigger river [Escalante]: map

The distance measuring tool in google maps is prone to under-estimation, and my tracing of the path put our total trip at 16.2 miles, with about 14 of the miles coming in the one big day through some of the most brutal terrain I've ever hiked in.

Within days my entire body was covered in poison ivy rashes but that's a story for another time. I still have a bruised and swollen subpatellar bursa from smashing my knee on a boulder in the dark, but that's a small price to pay. Thanks for an incredible time, bros!

Road Trip 2009 pt. 2

2009-09-06T20:54:00.000-07:00

Little was super excited to see her cousins in SLC. We drove down and stopped at "[Maggum]'s house." We stayed there for several days, and during that time, we occasionally saw Little, but only in the form of a giggling blur flying past in pursuit of various cousins. She especially LOVED Ambrodesiac, Wire-Delish, Yahn-Bahn-Appetit, X-babykool, Kelvinatorious, Maggnum, Pinkleberrilicious and Winkleberritissorious. Ok, so pretty much she just loved everybody. Mommy and Daddy are pretty sure that Little has never been happier or had more fun than the week she spent there--and that's saying a LOT.

Daddy spent a lot of time taking care of the kids--and by that we mean being crushed repeatedly by Yahn-Bahn-Et and X-bayesian at foosball. Mommy, Daddy, Christofferson and AD spent many nights up way, way too late watching Flight of the Conchords on YouTube. Littler spent most of her time following around the bigger cousins and generally failing to keep up but nevertheless having lots of fun mimicking them.

Ambrosiac took lots of pictures with our camera, pictures which we have now stolen and use as our own. Pretty much every picture in this post that is an intimate head-shot of a cute kid is hers, plus some others. She did a fantastic job.

X-bah-baby:

We went cherry picking at one of the cousins' friend's house. Winkleberrified:

The Amtographer:

Little cherrypicking:

Yahn-Bahnneroo:

Back home, Maggumator, Little, and Pinkleberrissima played X-babastic's guitar together. Mommy and Daddy loved how Little felt so comfortable with the cousins even though she only gets to see them once a year and is often shy.

Ok, so here's a sequence that we just couldn't trim down to fewer pictures. Kelvinatidine is reading Maggnumnation and Little a story. Little and Maggnificent have just about the most expressive mugs possible, and they love each other. It's dang sweet.

Later, the bigger kids and Daddy played "Peterball" on the trampoline. Here, X-bababay executes a sweet attack on Yahn-Bahnbastic, but gets convincingly stuffed. Ambidextrose got a rocking capture:

Peterball himself prepares to annihilate X-baylien:

Wire-Deestruck came back from a summer camp and Daddy was way excited. She was a little more excited by her drink but Daddy didn't notice:

Little gets a push from X-babbed:

Littler had plenty of fun too. She loved Winklebusterblister a lot. And when we all played kickball together, she ran around trying to kick the ball very determinedly and seriously:

We all went to go look for July 4th fireworks but the streets were all clogged. So we drove into a random neighborhood near the fireworks and watched from the street. Later we found an empty house and watched from their derelict lawn. It wasn't the best view but it felt exciting.

One day, Christofferson and AD wanted to go to the temple and left their kids in the care of Mommy and Daddy. Daddy said, "you can count on us" or something like that. About an hour before they were due home, AD called Daddy and made sure everything was alright. Daddy assured her that everything was perfectly in order. She asked specifically if Winkleberioso had stayed inside the gate, because apparently she sometimes is tempted to leave the yard. Daddy confidently assured her that Winklebell was safe and sound and that she couldn't possible avoid his eagle surveilance.

At that moment, Winkleboss was wandering up the street in nothing but a full diaper. She crossed a residential road and a couple saw her and called the cops. Daddy found her screaming and had the pleasure of trying to convince the cop [who was, after all, just about as friendly as cops ever get] that she belonged with him and that he wasn't a horrible, good-for-nothing lazy irresponsible babysitter. He succeed with the former, perhaps not the latter.

Overall we had a blast with the CAD cousins and their parents. But we also visited Daddy's parents at their current laborschloss [the Family History Library in SLC], which was great fun. And we had a particularly rockfull night at Daddy's brother Venn's house with two more cousins, Ketrifect and Marigrossa, who were supremely awesome hostesses.

Next up: sand creek hike; Daddy, Christofferson, Vonn's adventures in southern Utah's finest.

Littler

2009-09-02T10:21:00.001-07:00

Right now--and this has been going on for 2 hours now--Littler is upstairs in front of the hall mirror screaming at the top of her lungs with joy. She's just shrieking and waving her arms in the mirror endlessly. She's so weird. And cute.

Road Trip 2009

2009-08-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

Well, we haven't finished the Costa Rica pictures yet, but now we've finished the pictures from our Oregon-Idaho-Utah-Arizona road trip in June/July, in multiple parts.

Part I: Oregon and Idaho

One day we started driving and ended up in Oregon at Crater Lake National Park. Little was beside herself with excitement anticipating snow, and Mommy was jittery looking forward to her half-marathon. We set up our circus tent:

Adhering to true wilderness-survival principles, we packed all 7 kinds of cheese that Chesters like best: emmenthaler, stilton, brie, lots of various goudas, camembert, wensleydale, jarlsberg. Little likes cheese:

Believing that going rough builds character, we of course brought along Littler's pack-n-play and two air mattresses.

We found a little bit of snow, which pleased Little to no end. Littler didn't think much of it:

The next morning we awoke and went to the actual crater lake. Daddy was excited for this moment since he had a very potent memory from visiting Crater Lake as a kid. He distinctly remembers driving slowly to church on a busy road right by the water. There was an island in the middle of the lake with a cabin on it, with a large sunday newspaper on the front doorstep. Daddy was particularly intrigued by the thought that somebody actually had to go out on a boat in the middle of a lake every morning just to deliver a newspaper to one little cabin. This left quite an impression on Daddy, and he was excited to go back and tell the kids: "and they even deliver the newspaper every morning to the island!"

So when we got there, we drove up on an empty street to the lake. Except the lake was actually a 1000-foot shear talus slope below the road. And there is no way there ever was a cabin on the island. So one of Daddy's most distinct early memories turns out to have been a dream. He doesn't know at this point if he's ever actually been there. Whoops!

Littler really wanted to stand on the retaining wall [retains tourists from falling down aformentioned slope into aformentioned lake]. Little, bless her heart, was desperately worried that Littler would fall down. So she started crying and shrieking "no, no [Littler]! Don't jump! Don't jump into the lake! NO, [LITTLER]!!" It was cute, pathetic, annoying, and sweet all wrapped into one. When given a chance, she would run over to Littler, tackle her, and press her into the pavement to keep her from getting near the wall. That was hard to explain to the passing folks.

Daddy had this great idea to neutralize the strong mid-day shadows to get a family portrait. He got out a big reflector and reflected the sun right back into everybody's eyes. This is when he realized that the sun is pretty bright. So:

Littler is cute; the lake is beautiful:

Little, beside herself and bawling, had to be restrained by Mommy just to get those two pictures. We hope you like them.

Basically all Little could talk about [when Littler wasn't climbing on walls] was snow. She wanted to play in snow [she even insisted on wearing her special "snow suit" all day--actually pajamas, which explains the funky outfit]. So we hunted out a patch of crusty, dirty, thin slush for her to play in. She built a "super super super BIG snowman!"

Littler, being Littler, just monstered the snow:

Little declares that her snowman is big enough:

Honestly, it's hard to overstate how much fun this Tucson/Palo Alto-raised little person had in that little pathetic patch of "snow."

Daddy moved in to help with the snowman; Mommy was being too sissy with the cold snow.

He helped for about 35 seconds before his hands were too cold.

Another of Little's dreams was to make a snow angel. It didn't bother her one bit that her body failed entirely to depress the snow one bit.

Then we drove to Bend and stayed at a hotel to prepare for Mommy's half-marathon the next morning. She'll post on her blog about that [incredible feat of supermommy].

After the half-marathon, we drove to a place that Mommy and Daddy had been planning on visiting since their early courtship: Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area south of Boise, Idaho. The highest density of breeding raptors anywhere in North America! A Peregrine Fund breeding center with live Harpy Eagles! Free camping! What's not to like?

We arrived at the area after sunset:

Daddy stayed up late into the night taking pictures. Then he woke up super early to get some pictures at sunrise:

When the little ones and Mommy woke up, Daddy grabbed Little and they went on a walk together while Littler and Mommy explored around the camp.

Little with the snake river reflecting the sunrise glow from a cliff face:

Little just wanted to play with dirt. So for 45 minutes or so, she baked dirt into various remarkable delicacies:

Littler was excited to see Daddy and Little again. That was the true sunrise of the morning:

Little taught her how to bake with dirt:

We explored along the river for some time. We saw several prairie falcons, always a thrill. We found a marmot:

Lots of lizards:

Then we went to the Peregrine Fund breeding center. It was amazing! We got to see live California condors, a Harpy eagle [!!], aplomado falcons [!!], and more. Completely astounding. The highlight was a live raptor demonstration where a worker brought in a Swainson's hawk [an old Chester family favorite, as luck might have it]. Littler immediately started screech/gurgle-ing "buh-duh!" which, of course, means "bird." She was extremely animated, as she tends to be. One might almost say monster-like. The hawk flew to a perch within a few feet of us and Littler went CRAZY "BUH-DUH!! BUH-DUH!!!" while squirming and reaching out to get to the hawk. The handler didn't happen to speak Little-ese and thus mistook this for fear, so he told the hawk to fly to the other end of the room. Bad idea. Littler started bawling and screaming "BUH-DUUUUH" in a universal tongue which, being translated, means something like "IFYOUDONTBRINGTHATBIRDBACKTOMETHISINSTANTIWILLPERSONALLYMONSTERTHISBUILDINGINTOTHEGROUND!!!"

We had to take Littler out of the room, she was scaring the hawk. It's hard being Littler; she just loves animals that much.

Little, being Little, mostly liked getting to dress up as a raptor:

So then we drove to Utah. That's the next megapicture post. Stay tuned!

She rides!

2009-08-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

We took Little's training wheels off today and look what happened:

I have to admit, I'm more than a little proud to have a 3-year-old bike rider! She's awesome!

The Fruits of Our Labor

2009-08-25T08:01:00.000-07:00

Our garden has had some trying times for the last year or so. We gopher proofed the garden, but accidentally made a hole in the hardware cloth that happened to be exactly where the gopher tunnel was (either that or gophers are really good at finding holes in wire to make their tunnels through...I'm not sure which). That meant that we still had a gopher problem, so we searched for weeks in our garden trying to find where he'd gotten in and finally found it! After spending months with our garden in a state of limbo this year, we finally managed to make it gopher proof AND gopher free! Unfortunately, we only had one plant survive this ordeal, but it gave us three lovely little melons. Here are the fruits of our labor:

For scale:

Super Littlies!

2009-08-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

Recently the girls learned how much fun it can be to play with capes, first at their cousins' house this summer, and then from our neighbor friend, who got two for his birthday a couple weeks ago. We don't really have any great superhero capes lying around, but we DO have several pretty scarves that are just the right size and shape for Super Littlies capes! Incidentally, Little made me tie one onto myself as I was writing this post, but, sorry, you're not going to get any pictures.

P.S. I got a haircut.

Cute Audio File

2009-07-30T22:24:00.000-07:00

We just unearthed this cute audio file. We had forgotten quite how squeaky Little was when she was a little younger!! It cutes us listening to her (of course).

Audio of Little, May 14, 2008, Age 2 yrs 3 months

Little Frogger II

2009-06-13T19:02:00.001-07:00

Daddy and Little walked back to Lake Lag today to take her pet toad back to his home.

She tried to catch juncos.

She tried to catch a towhee.

She caught lots of toads.

She tried to catch two baby killdeer but Daddy stopped her.

She tried over and over again to catch some superfast frogs.

She caught a toad. "Daddy, I like this toad. I'm going to kiss it."

She kissed the toad's butt. For several seconds. Intimately.

She caught a frog! Daddy was very impressed.

"Daddy, I have a super special birthday present for you. It's a surprise!"

It's a burr she pulled from her sandal.

She told a toad she was holding: "look how people can run FAST." Then she sprinted for 30 feet holding the toad in front of her. "We have long legs and frogs have short legs so we run FAST."

Daddy and Little got to pick their own prizes if they caught a frog or toad. Daddy got a big hug.

"Little, what do you want for your special prize for catching that toad?"

"I want... to catch another toad."

So it took a while to get home.

She pushed the stroller home herself.

On the way home she counted:

"one
two
three [etc.] ...
... thirty nine
thirty
thirty one
thirty two
thirty three ...
... thirty nine
thirty
thirty one
thirty two
thirty three ...
... thirty nine
thirty
... [etc.]

She saw a guy wearing a wife beater. "That guy's funny! He's wearing girl clothes!"

Little as Frogger

2009-06-07T15:52:00.001-07:00

Daddy and Little walked out to Lake Lagunita on Saturday, looking for snakes and frogs, which is great to do this time of year. Little found lots of toads and frogs.

Daddy: Ok, Little, go try to catch one, but remember they're very fast and hard to catch.
Little:

Yeah, she was definitely better than Daddy at it. So they spent a couple hours catching western toads and pacific tree frogs. Daddy tried to teach her how to be gentle but she always said "don't worry Daddy, I'm being really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really soft, see?"

So maybe that lesson didn't turn out so good. But Little had a stupendous blast! Littler and Daddy had found a racer last week there but no luck this week. Spring is great!

The highlight of the trip for Daddy came when he thought he saw a toad on the ground but then noticed that it was just a clump of mud. Little saw it too, and ran over very excited. As she was reaching out for it she said "Look, Daddy! I caught another..." then she grabbed it and noticed it wasn't a frog "...bhuaslkjbksjbcilusdfkj....." she trailed off indistinctly, obviously embarrassed. It was darn cute.

Anybody want to come help Little find some herps this saturday?

Littler

2009-06-05T10:46:00.000-07:00

Littler is 21 months today!

Last night Littler pooped while she was supposed to be sleeping. Other kids would cry, but Littler just pounded her crib WHAMMO WHAMMO WHAMMO with her heels until somebody came up to change her.

Every night when she goes to bed she bounces up and down in her crib for a couple hours before falling asleep. She never cries. Sometimes we hear stray crib squeaks past 11. Nobody knows what she is doing up there and we're all afraid to find out.

Littler parrots everything Little does, in real-time:
Little: Can I have some more cereal puh-leez?
Littler: leez
Little: I can pour it myself
Littler: sef
Little: thanks daddy
Litller: dad
Little: stir my cereal! [holds out spoon]
Littler: srul [holds out spoon]
Little: I'm done [gets down from table and goes into the livingroom]
Littler: ou'! [gets lifted out of high-chair and goes into the livingroom]
etc. etc.

Littler has her own language:
Water/bottle/cup/drink/juice="dadu" or "dadua"
Pacifier="di'di'"
Help me="hepi"
On/in/out/over/pick up/under="ou'"
Hi:"heyoh? heyoh? heyoh? heyoh?"
Give that back to me:"mai!"
Littler:"a-yee"
Little:"e-yah"
Towel: "buh-bul" [derived from "bubble" because Little always asks for her "bubble towel"]

Milk: "nyoh"

Thank you:"Gee-Koh"

So: "Hepi hepi hepi dadua nyoh" means "put milk in my cup!"

She calls Daddy "Mommy" about 50% of the time. And vice versa.

She talks and talks and talks but very rarely says anything commonly regarded as English.

She loves to monster: she does this by sticking her arms out, elbow straight, with her hands spread wide open, then violently abusing whatever she has her attention on, powered by robust shoulder muscles.

She likes to crawl up on the bed in the morning to wake Daddy up. Usually this consists of a vigorous monstering on the back and the words "abu globby du du a bliblibli Mommy!" Daddy then says "my name is Daddy." So Littler responds "abu globby du du a bliblibli Daddy!"

She is impossibly ticklish. When you grab her mid-section she curls into a fantastically tight little giggling ball, like a psycho opossum, and it takes quite a bit of work to get your hand extricated from it.

She is stubborn and has a healthy sense of justice. If some big kid takes her toy, she monsters them and takes it back.

She loves hiding in the curtains.

She loves to give Mommy and Daddy very sweet kisses right on the mouth, and sometimes will give 26 kisses in a row.

Sometimes she just lies down on the ground and stays there for a while, for no reason. Outside, inside, in the dirt, whatever. Face down.

When things aren't to her liking she's much more likely to get crazy mad than she is to get sad.

She sits on the potty and wipes herself with a super-mini piece of toilet paper. She doesn't realize she's supposed to DO something in the potty, but Little sits there so she must too. Then she flushes it.

Given a choice she will always choose drink over food. The most common word [eking out "the" just barely] in our house is "dadu/a!"

She can make computers do the most bizarre things when she monsters them.

She loves music and does a crazy monster dance whenever she hears any.

She's a powerful little compact thing.

We can always tell when she's done eating: she starts monstering her food. If we don't intervene quickly there is usually a 5-foot radius projected sphere of food around her high chair.

She throws things. Especially when she's angry.

She's very good at sports and athletics [for a 21-month-old]

When she's excited or very happy, she--yes, that's right--monsters.

If Little beats the boogers out of her, she gets angry but deals with it herself. If Little tells her "no, Littler!" she becomes devastated and needs parental consoling.

She hates cooking time. She wants to be involved but can't [she monsters all the ingredients]. So she stands around our feet and cries.

She absolutely ADORES animals. Any time she sees some she burbles and tries to monster them. If the animals are too far away, she monsters the closest parent.

She is super sweet and loves cuddles--but not for more than a couple seconds. There is monstering to do after all!

She doesn't smile more than is necessary, but when she does it is a MASSIVELY huge, sweet smile.

She is unusually cooperative [usually!] at nap-time and night time. She just wants to be in her crib.

She loves to eat rocks.

Every time we change her diaper she plays peekaboo with her hands.

Everything is a potential phone to her. She puts it to her ear: "heyoh? heyoh? heyoh!"

She loves to put things on her head like hats. Especially pants.

She's cute with pig-tails.

She's our Littler!

Last Day of School

2009-06-04T14:25:00.001-07:00

Today was Little's last day of playschool. We've been doing a co-op with the other kids her age in our courtyard and they've all had a blast. I managed to get a picture of them today (with the help of one of the other moms--she did all the hard work--I just had to take the picture...)

At the beginning of the year (September) there were SEVEN of them. By the end we were down to 5. They've really grown up over the last few months. When we started, the youngest of them was the age that Littler is now, and that just seems crazy to think that Littler is almost at a preschoolable age. She still seems like such a baby.

Thanks for participating!

2009-05-27T22:16:00.001-07:00

I knew there were more than 5 people who read this blog! TEN! Wowee. Thanks for participating in my poll everyone. Your votes and comments were very helpful, and I'm planning on taking your advice and waiting a few years before I plunge into the busy world of more schooling. I would like to go to a grad school that has more exactly what I'm looking for, and it's true that the timing works better when the kids are in school. So, now that my feet are firmly planted on the ground again, I'll throw myself into all of these races I'm doing.

Take my poll!

2009-05-20T14:12:00.001-07:00

I've been seriously thinking about going back to school for my Masters in Linguistics this Fall, at San Jose State University. There are lots of reasons why not to do it, and only a few good reasons why I SHOULD, but I keep thinking about it! If I did, Peter would adjust his schedule so that he was home when I wouldn't be, so they would always have one parent with them--no child care. BUT, it would be a bit hard on Peter to be home for that time and trying to work from home.

The program at SJSU is relatively inexpensive, takes ~2 years, with 6-9 units per semester, and admission is not tough, so nothing too crazy. On the other hand, being that easy, is it worth anything? And what would I actually DO later with it? Anything? Would I get a PhD later? And is it worth the potential hardship on my family, or is it all just for my suffering stay-at-home-mom ego?

Anyway, take my poll, and comment on this post if you have any thoughts. I'm eager to be the beneficiary of your wisdom.

Them Kids

2009-05-10T23:58:00.001-07:00

Some more photos.

Stanford Wildflowers

2009-05-08T16:59:00.000-07:00

Since I know the wildflowers are going to be leaving soon, I've been feeling pressure to get outside and take pictures. Here are some just to give you an idea of how many there are and how beautiful they are. (See my personal blog for nicer pics of Montebello Open Space Preserve wildflowers.)

Perfecting the Art of...

2009-04-29T20:33:00.001-07:00

pizza!!

Sometimes we get it just right, others we don't. (It's always yummy though.) As time goes on, it's getting to be really awesome! (If you think you've had our "good" pizza, chances are you're wrong.) Anyone want to come be a pizza critic for us? Maybe that's a cheap attempt at fishing for visitors, but, if you come (and you're not gluten intolerant) we'll make you some!

Photo Dump

2009-04-28T22:37:00.000-07:00

Last of all, Little wanted to take a picture of Mommy, so here it is [note the crizazyness Littler is exhibiting]:

Little's Anatomy

2009-04-28T20:13:00.001-07:00

Little knows where hair comes from.

Do you want to know?

Here it is: hair comes from music!

Yup, and not only does hair come from music, but when we sing it comes from our hair [she demonstrated this].

Pics of the Babes

2009-04-16T14:51:00.001-07:00

Mean Mr. Mustard

2009-04-07T17:51:00.001-07:00

It's like someone with yellow envelopes and a printer is playing a practical joke on us or something... So, in case you don't know, we bought a car, which is really worthy of a blog post of its own. We got it in the evening and the next morning (before we even woke up), we had a parking ticket. Then we took our car to the shop because the mechanic we took it to before we bought it is incompetent (again worthy of its own blog post). We got it back in the evening, and the next morning, we had another ticket. Why, you ask, didn't we buy our parking permit while the car was in the shop? Well, it turns out that Stanford's Parking and Transportation doesn't prorate parking permits that are purchased on a monthly basis, so if you buy your new car on the 24th and want to buy a permit, you're pretty much out of luck and have to pay for an entire month's parking to park for less than a week. Okay, so regardless, after the second ticket, we wised up. We went straight to the computer and bought our permit, BUT, after you buy your permit online, they have to email you to let you know when it's ready to pick up and then you have to go get it. We figured it would be okay because they would just run our plate number or something and see that we had a permit. No such luck. (I don't know why we figured this...) The next morning, what do you know but that we had another ticket. Well, last time we had to buy a parking permit, we were allowed to print up the confirmation number and put it in the windshield until we got the real deal, so we figured this would work out pretty well, except that we don't have a printer. (I know, now you're thinking 'What!?! No car AND no printer? Are you guys from the Ice Age or something?' Nope. We're just incredibly cheap.) We thought the dude with the yellow envelopes might have pity on us and see a note in the windshield with our confirmation number written on it and a promise to pick up the permit that very same day. The next morning as I was walking out to the car to put the confirmation number up that I meant to put there the night before, what did I see but yet ANOTHER yellow envelope with a dainty white ticket fluttering in the breeze. But, I figured now we're set! We've got the confirmation number up there PROVING that we paid for our permit and are legally and rightfully parking in Escondido Village. Somehow, I knew this was too good to be true. This afternoon, for no reason other than to see if we'd gotten another ticket, I went outide and was completely nonplussed to see another yellow envelope with a soggy ticket inside. Unfortunately, Peter threw out his back this morning and will be unable to pick up the parking permit anytime today (and possibly tomorrow...), and he's the only one who can pick it up, as far as we know. I wonder how many more tickets we'll get? (They only cost $35 each.)

So what do you think? Are we irresponsible or unlucky?

bikerchick

2009-03-27T14:50:00.001-07:00

Little loves riding bikes. A couple days ago she got her very own bike [appropriated from among several abandoned candidates in our courtyard] and we put training wheels on it. We expected her to take a while getting used to the new big bike, but she had no trouble at all.

In fact, today we went on a run with Little on her bike. We went a bit over three miles, including some nice little hills. And she rode the whole way! She impresses us a bunch. When she was going up the hills she would groan and say over and over again "it's hard, it's hard, it's hard" but she'd always make it. It's especially cute because she's a wee bit... uh, clumsy on her own two feet but she's super great on bikes. We're super proud to have a little bikerchick. Er, cyclistgirl. Whatever.

Littler's Style

2009-03-26T22:25:00.000-07:00

Mommy and Daddy couldn't help being constantly cuted out by Littler today. We seem to have finally found her "style".

Some random recent pictures

2009-03-24T23:13:00.000-07:00

Our vast, wonderful back yard.

Tickle me!!

We went on a little camping thingy with our friends to Mt. Madonna and Uvas Canyon county parks over the weekend.

Their son's name is Canyon, as you can see.

Little and Canyon spent a lot of time jumping.

Belated Valentine's Post

2009-03-05T15:16:00.000-08:00

Every year my sister-in-law does a blog post on Valentine's Day where she asks her kids questions about love, marriage, etc. I did it with Little last year but decided not to do it this year, I know not why... I was just reading our blog from last year a little bit and came across that post and decided to do it now (just to have the same questions to compare to). Last year her answers were a little skewed because her aunt's blog was up with pictures of her cousins. This year everything is skewed because I was using Microsoft Word and she was watching all the words and letters...

And now for your feature presentation:

14 Ways to See Love Through My Kid's Eyes

1. How do you know when you're in love?
Little (almost 2): Play music
Little (just 3): Um, play! That’s love. Say love to dance. (In a sing song voice) Do you love to dance?

2. Why do people get married?
Little (almost 2): Um...Um...Pooh Bear
Little (just 3): Cause…they just……..cause they like each other.

3. How old should you be when you get married?
Little (almost 2): Ummmm...two of those
Little (just 3): Maybe two just like you’re gonna turn two. But I was already two. Now I’m gonna turn three just like Oliver’s gonna be.

4. Where do you want to get married?
Little (almost 2): Um, Mack [but used real name] there in the picture
Little (just 3): When I get two.

5. What qualities do you look for in a boy/girl?
Little (almost 2): Um…blue, they're blue………and red. Mack's shirt's blue…with stripes.
Little (just 3): Maybe boy—what kind of boy makes a sound? Do you know boys start with “b” (the sound) “o” (the letter)?

6. What's romance?
Little (almost 2): Yeah
Little (just 3): What kind of romance is…um W. W starts with romance.

7. What would be a fun date?
Little (almost 2): Snowman, Chris is at home, the birds [not sure if she's talking about her Uncle, or her friend's daddy, but probably her uncle, since the computer was up on the blog of his family]
Little (just 3): Can you spell that? That’s a fun date!

8. What do you want to get for Valentine's Day?
Little (almost 2): Yeah. Oh yeah. That's Daddy's couch. Green. It's heavy.
Little (just 3): Maybe…maybe cards.

9. Why do men give women flowers or chocolate?
Little (almost 2): Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Little (just 3): Know why that?
They don’t like it.

10. What do you think about kissing?
Little (almost 2): Oh yeah. Oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah. Ohhh yeah.
Little (just 3): People don’t like that.

11. How many kids will you have after you are married?
Little (almost 2): There Daddy. Read it. There's Daddy right there.
Little (just 3): Three!

12. What will you wear when you get married?
Little (almost 2): Boys outside.
Little (just 3): Big jackets!! I wanna wear big jackets cause I’m a big person. But they’re way too big.

13. What will your husband/wife look like?
Little (almost 2): Oh no. Ohhh. Oh no. Oh.
Little (just 3): But it will be a little bit big. Looks a bit older than I am.

14. How can you tell your parents love each other?
Little (almost 2): They're the chair right now. Little couch. [used her real name (not Little)]
Little (just 3): But I don’t.
[Mommy: You don’t what?]
I don’t like each other.
Each other…each other…are gross!

Drumroll please......

2009-02-17T15:49:00.000-08:00

Littler walks!! Yay! It only took 17 1/2 months, but she's doing it. Beat that Winkleberry!

We're Picture of the Week

2009-02-05T14:16:00.000-08:00

Nature's Best Photography named one of our pictures the Picture of the Week starting today! Check it out:

http://www.naturesbestmagazine.com/index.php?nav=contests&subnav=potw#

Unfortunately there's no link to our website, and searching for "Peter and Amanda Lewis Photography" brings up an ANCIENT site of ours. It's exciting anyway.

2008-12-29T20:26:00.000-08:00

Playing outside today:

Portfolio... maybe

2008-12-29T19:43:00.001-08:00

We are finally ready to compile a portfolio, we think. We have one on a 14-day free trial:

http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/

We're just starting to get it up and running, obviously. Let us know what you think!

A day in the life

2008-12-29T14:03:00.000-08:00

What it's like to be an EV kid in late December:

What do YOU think?

2008-12-27T11:52:00.000-08:00

Little: Would you be happy with me drawing on the door?

Arastradero, again

2008-12-27T10:49:00.000-08:00

We biked to Arastradero to wander around with our friends.

Daddy slipped [gracefully] while carrying Ballyhoo on his shoulders and dropped her in a big pile of slick mud. They both got nice and dirty.

Yummy.

Christmas with us

2008-12-27T10:07:00.000-08:00

Our first Christmas ever by ourselves.

Littler got blocks. She concentrated very hard on them.

Little got an easel. She drew things. [note her puffy eyes, sign of her double eye and double ear bacterial infections...]

Littler enjoyed the easel too.

Little couldn't help helping Littler open her presents.

Little got a drawing notebook to occupy her during our trip in January. When she opened it, she immediately got a marker and wrote her name on it [with a backwards E with an extra horizontal line]. The thing is, we had no idea she could do this. She just popped out with it. She can write her name on the computer but that's a different thing altogether!

Mommy is showing Little how to use one of her new toys.

It was a blast!

Grass Installment

2008-12-11T20:46:00.000-08:00

After months of mud, we finally got some grass in our courtyard. So:

Little and her friend Alejandro.

Little and her friend/neighbor Wilhelm.

Little, Alejandro, and Olivander.

Mmmmmmm new squishy grass...

Littler got in on the grass action too.

Olivander.

Mommies Know How to Have Fun Too

2008-12-08T17:16:00.000-08:00

This year our ward's Christmas party theme was Christmas by the Bay. Somehow I ended up singing in a sextet of sopranos in front of the entire ward (I actually really enjoyed it!). We sang Tim Hockleberry's "Christmas by the Bay" and got to dress up all fancy and cute-like with jingle bell bracelets and big red ribbons around our waists. I haven't gotten to dress all fancy for a performance since high school band concerts (or the one college one, but it wasn't quite as fancy...).

Then, a few minutes later, I got to perform in a funny snowman skit that was a spoof on lots of commonly known songs with lyrics changed to talk about snowmen. Sounds weird, but it really ended up being lots of fun, and the audience loved it! So the next several pitures are of different parts of that skit. We all sang and danced to pretty much everything, but I was in small groups in a little rap and one with Spanish words to the melody of "La Cucaracha". I'm glad I went outside of my normal little boundaries and did these things. It was a lot of fun!

Nativity Pageant

2008-12-08T15:52:00.000-08:00

Little and Littler were cast as an angel and a sheep for the little nativity pageant one of our neighbors and friends from the ward held on Sunday. I threw their costumes together a few minutes before we left, which is why Littler doesn't look anything like a sheep, but, what can ya do?

Here's Little before the pageant:

Here she is wondering what Mary and Joseph are up to:

Time for a break...Hey look! Some hay!

What's in here anyway?

Littler as a "sheep":

Little is CUTE

2008-12-08T14:22:00.000-08:00

Thanks Given

2008-11-30T22:40:00.001-08:00

In addition to our traditional Thanksgiving with friends, on Friday we got together again and had an entirely nontraditional hedonistic smorgasbord in the name of giving thanks for gluttony, in general, and good cheese in specific. We tend to vacillate wildly between asceticism and hedonism and last Friday was the epitome of the latter.

We had [everything but the meat and cheese homemade by us or our friends]: excellent French bread, A-Ron's own house-pet sourdough, casatiello with pepper salami and old gouda, artisan white bread, super-eggy crepes, perfect popovers, pepper salami, linguica, kielbasa, hot capicola, ham, drippy brie de meaux, sharp cheddar, stupendous taleggio, jarlsberg, old gouda, soft-boiled eggs [just for Daddy], hard-boiled eggs, deviled eggs, green olive oil and balsamic vinegar, crackers, pistachios, almonds, seared brussels sprouts, apples, asian pears, oranges, and butternut squash fries. We had a toaster at the table so our little cheese/meat/bread thingies could be toasted on the spot.

For dessert, a chocolate fondue with poundcake.

Super yummy, and pretty cheap too [the milkpail market is ridiculous... $6.99/lb. taleggio! and you don't need pounds of it!]. And the leftovers are sweet. Sure beats turkey n taters, in our opinion.

[Daddy's favorite was a slab of the sourdough dipped in oil and vinegar with capicola and gouda on top, toasted then dipped in warm gooey egg yolk. MMMMMMmmmm. Mommy's favorite was toasted salami and jarlsberg on her famous beautiful white bread. mmmmMMMMMM.]

[we took some pictures, maybe we'll get around to posting them]

[thanks a ton A-Ron, Boni, Cristobal, Brizatnizatny, and Charlissimo for making it rock!]

It's Nov. 15th, and the weather...

2008-11-16T19:57:00.000-08:00

Here's what people in Palo Alto do in mid-November:

Happy Birthday!

2008-11-13T15:32:00.000-08:00

To a wonderful aunt, sister, sister-in-law! We love you!

(Sorry everyone else for not remembering yours--her birthday is particularly easy for me to remember...)

When the rain comes...

2008-11-02T20:50:00.000-08:00

...they run outside.

One of the beauties of our mediterranean climate here is that we get basically no rain during the summer. This summer was dry. And by that, I mean that we had--barring a single sprinkle in October--exactly zero picoinches of rain from sometime in April until saturday. Then we got over 1,200,000,000,000 picoinches throughout the day. So:

It started with a walk around EV with the kids, Little on her very favorite bike:

Then we just basically had a hydrophilic free-for-all until lunch. Enjoy!

Little and her best friend Olivander earnestly went to work digging a hole in the sand. Nobody quite knows why, but neither of them could be bothered for quite a while.

Littler discovers which direction rain comes from:

Of course, we are due for a dozen inches [that's 12,000,000,000,000 picoinches, if you're counting] or so over the next 6 months so maybe the novelty will wear off. But hopefully not!

Little Goes to (Pre) School

2008-10-23T11:06:00.001-07:00

Little recently started going to a little co-op preschool with her friends in our courtyard, twice a week. So far, she LOVES it, and is doing really well being dropped off at school with her friends for a couple hours (on the days Mommy isn't one of the teachers). She's learned about ants, bones, bears, leaves and trees, water, and lots of other things! And she loves hanging things up on the wall that she brings home.

More Random Littler Pictures

2008-10-23T10:58:00.001-07:00

Littler on Her First Birthday (A while ago)

2008-10-23T10:52:00.001-07:00

Bye-bye, I love you!

2008-10-23T10:41:00.001-07:00

Today as Daddy was walking out the door to leave for work, Little, who had been frolicking on the floor got up quickly and ran to the door shouting, "I can say bye-bye and love you now! Umm...wait till I get my fingers out..." She then took her fist and pulled up the appropriate fingers to sign I love you, held it up and said, "Bye-bye, I love you!"

Dang she really cutes me!

Can you say TWO YEARS OLD??

2008-10-02T13:44:00.000-07:00

Today during lunchtime, I decided to put Little's curtains up, which I have been putting off for a little over three months now. While I was up in her room finishing up, she came in and grabbed our little red camping egg carton and said something about playing with eggs. I said, 'Oh, cool' or something else equally nondescript. You know, the sort of thing you say when you're busy and your kid tells you something that doesn't really require ALL of your attention? So, when I was just finishing up, Little came upstairs, looking all wet and started washing her hands because she thought she was dirty. I asked her why she was trying to wash herself just because she was wet... This was when she broke the bad news to me--"It's eggs!"

When I came downstairs, this was what I found waiting for me (sorry for the veeeeeery bad pic):

She actually had the nerve to be proud of herself!

Now, I suppose I should go clean it up...sigh.

We did it!

2008-09-23T20:18:00.001-07:00

We sold our car today. We're finally car-free, insurance-free, parking-space-fee-free, C02-free, freedom-free. Yay!

By the way...

2008-09-10T14:09:00.000-07:00

They say the second child's triumphs are not nearly as celebrated as the first, and I guess that's true...but it's also true that most of them have come so late with Littler that we kind of stopped thinking about them for a while... For instance, although Littler has been able to sit since she was six months old, it was only if I sat her up myself. Her options until very recently were sit or lay down on her back (at least if she could talk and you asked her, I'm sure that's what she would tell you). Due to her lack of tummy time, she didn't start 'locomoting' until she was just shy of turning 1 year old, and when she did, it was not traditional crawling. We have a picture video we'll put up very soon showing what it looks like, but the way she moves is by sticking her legs out and then scooting her bum toward her legs, using her legs to propel her. It is very cute and silly looking, but it gets her from room to room and across the playground, so at least it works, even if it isn't as efficient as crawling. Her next big physical accomplishment happened today! Yay! As of today, Littler can officially sit herself up from lying on her back! This will be very useful for the several times a day that Little pushes her over flat on her back...

Gouda, Blackberries, Grammy, Grampy, Anacortes, and We

2008-09-07T20:46:00.001-07:00

[more details later]

We all went to Anacortes, Washington last week to be with Daddy's parents, Grammy and Grampy. Our original plan, plan A, call it an audacious one, involved a week of camping by canoe. Plan B was to have a couple short canoe camping trips with camping in the wilderness. We ended up with plan Q, basically canoeing lakes and bays in Anacortes, eating yummy cheese, playing Vietnamese Boat, and taking it easy. Here's the typical voluminous volume of photos.

On the first day we explored Hart Lake by canoe. Little and Littler had never been canoeing, so we took it easy. Little had quite a bit of fun, but Littler didn't like her straightjacket--er, lifejacket.

Little loved the job of making sure the canoe didn't float off while we were getting ready. She also loved her lifejacket, and especially the "tail" it has [the strap that goes between her legs]. She was actually pretty proud of her tail.

Little had a lot of fun paddling.

Mommy caught a big one.

Littler is proud that she figured out how to sit up with her lifejacket on, and Grampy is just plain proud.

We picked somewhere between 896 and 934 quadrillion tons of blackberries, but only about 10 pounds made it home. How could that have happened?

We visited a little dairy and got some yummy gouda for fondue. They had a big daddy pig. Mommy had never seen such a big daddy pig. So Mommy wanted a picture of the pig. Daddy, blase and cool as he is, wasn't terribly impressed but worked the pig into the background of a much more attractive photograph.

Ok, so the pig was pretty big.

Our next canoe trip was on Whistle Lake. This was a much more secluded lake, and our explorations were top-notch. There are just lots of things you can't see from the shore! The weather was perfect [cold, drippy, damp] and the lake was completely idyllic. We spent most of the time drifting over submerged logs and navigating narrow gaps discovering lots of beautiful little inlets. Overall, it was a blast [the 1-mile portage was another issue].

We also all went canoeing in the ocean, at Bowman Bay, along with Mommy's sister Tick. It was fun, but Daddy doesn't think canoes and the ocean are great fits.

We went to the coast for sunset later and enjoyed the lighting.

Littler and Grampy.

Grammy and Grampy.

Our last canoe trip was in Little Cranberry lake. It was at dusk, and beautiful. The kids were not too happy but it was gorgeous.

Grammy and Grampy's house.

Getting the wiggles out.

A portrait of Grampy's brain.

We set the all-time single-day Transportation Diversity All-Universe Record by taking car, ferry, bus, plane, golf cart, train, foot power, and bikes to get home. And it was hot when we got home, so:

Little with Ack and Olivander on our bed

2008-08-09T16:50:00.000-07:00

For the next couple days Little tried doing this wherever she was. She would get a grin on her face then fall face-first onto the ground. She could never quite figure out why it wasn't so much fun on the ground as it was on the bed...