Pool Party

The 3 of us went to a birthday party for Gavin, who turned 3 today. Gavin's parents are Derek and Melissa, who Austin has known for years. Gavin is the cutie in the second picture. We had a great time; we watched Gavin open his presents, Amelia and Austin went swimming (put a pair of water wings on her and watch her go!) and then we had make-your-own pizzas and ate birthday cupcakes.

Rock Band

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Uploaded by Hen7975

Here's Amelia and Gavin rocking out. Gavin got the guitar for his birthday...when he opened it, he said, "It's a violin!" It was pretty cute. Gavin's mom, Melissa, brought out a keyboard so Amelia could play while singing lead vocals.

First kiss...and the second one

We're pretty sure that this is Amelia's first kiss...yikes...so early! Amelia and Gavin were smooching in the pool today and I was lucky to get this on camera.

A Conspiracy

Two parts to the explanation for this video:

1. Ever since I got sick in the summer of 2003 from my mystery Alaskan illness, Austin has said that I snore. And as I get older and more matronly, it has gotten worse.

2. Amelia sleeps in bed with me whenever we visit family or stay in a hotel room and occasionally at home. In the past month or two, she's slept with me about 10-12 nights. My supposed snoring doesn't wake her up, so I figured that Austin is just a light sleeper, and is exaggerating my snoring. Well, lately, Amelia will lay down somewhere, pretend to sleep, and then start snoring. I think it's a conspiracy between her and Austin to make me think that I really snore, when in fact, I know I do not.

In this video, Austin is pretending to be asleep to prompt snores from Amelia. You might need to turn your speakers up.

Picture 188
Uploaded by Hen7975

22 Months!

Amelia is will be 22 months old tomorrow. Which means she is only 2 months away from being 2. Which also means that at some point, I will have to stop calling her "the baby."

Smiling because she doesn't know she has a new hair style
Keeping a calm facial expression as she
plots to steal the camera.

Her favorite hiding place

Trying to get the very last bit out of her Go-Gurts

Singing along to "Ni Hao, Kai Lan"

O'Fallon, IL

So I was working in O'Fallon, IL (about 1/2 hr east of St. Louis) for the past 2 weeks, andI thought I'd share some pictures of the area.

Yep, that's about it. Other than the AFB there, and a movie theatre (of which I became a frequent customer...seeing 5 movies), there wasn't much else.

Mermaid!

I'm pretty weird about swimming in natural areas, like rivers and lakes and oceans. I'm always afraid that a shark or muskie or alligator gar is going to eat me. I remember swimming in the YMCA pool, and psyching myself out that there just might be a shark behind me. We went to the Corpus Christi Beach yesterday, and Amelia and I missed being stung by a jellyfish by about a foot. Yikes. Today, we went to North Padre Island, and at every beach we went to, the shore was clogged with gobs of seaweed, and the water was full of it. Every time a wave would hit, seaweed would tangle around my ankles, and really skeeve me out, and Amelia hated it too.

So, we hung out on shore. Austin went for a walk to a nearby pier, and Amelia and I pulled out our sand toys and played in the sand. Amelia was just sitting there, so I put some sand on her legs. She didn't mind, so I kept piling it on. After I buried her legs, I decided to see if she would sit still long enough so I could fashion a mermaid's tail. I still can't believe she let me do it.

4th of July Weekend at the Coast

Driving to the coast on Friday... Amelia's

new thing is to pile as many stuffed animals as she can on herself.

Pretending to take a nap with Daddy.

On Mustang Island (running away from the water.

Apologies and Web Counter

Sorry, I haven't been posting regularly lately. I have been traveling a lot...in fact, I leave again on the 14th of July for 2 weeks in O'Fallon, IL, then home for a week, then gone again for 1 week in Delaware and 1 week right after in Idaho. When I get home from work, I can hardly get on the computer because Amelia wants to bang on the keyboard. I'll try to post more pictures, but I can't promise anything. Thanks for sticking with me, which brings me to my next item...

...some of you may notice that a few weeks ago I installed a web hit counter, which tells me the number of times that my blog has been accessed. It's on the way bottom of the page on the left hand side. I think I've only made one post since then, so I was really surprised to see that I had 120 hits. Either people are checking the blog to see if I've posted any updates, or I've been logging into too often to watch the "Boomdiada" video. Either way.

We're escaping the inevitable 4th of July parties that our downstairs and upstairs neighbors are surely going to host, by spending this weekend on the coast. Amelia's going to swim, for real, in the ocean on this trip. I'll post pictures when we get back.

Happy 4th of July!

Pictures from today

I ditched work at noon today and came home to start a long 3 1/2 day weekend with my A's. I took some pictures of Amelia in her Bollywood-inspired outfit (really a beach coverup and a pair of Sophie's lounge pants).

Thanks, Sophie!

Amelia is really lucky that she has a cousin, Sophie, who is a size ahead of her in clothes, because that means that we get Sophie's hand-me-downs. We got a box of clothes last month and I haven't had to buy Amelia shoes or clothes for summer at all. And Amelia's been wearing the heck out of them, too, something different every day. Amelia's modeling a cute orange and pink sunsuit in these pictures.

Amelia's Bad Habits

Amelia's picked up a few bad habits recently...

Tantrums

Spitting

And nail biting. I wonder where she learned to bite her nails???

From Mommy!

Yes, we still exist!

Finally, some new pictures of Amelia...after about 2 months or so. Sorry, we've just been really busy. First, I was in Hawaii, and a week after I returned, I went to Wichita for 2 weeks.

Austin's sister Jenny was here on Monday, and we spent the afternoon at Sea World. Amelia and I spent a few hours in the wave pool and the toddler pool, and then Austin, Jenny, and I took turns riding the new splash coaster while one of us stayed back with Amelia. She was in her stroller, and after some experimentation, Austin found out that Amelia loved being in the "splash zone" of the splash coaster. When the car would come down the track, Amelia would raise her arms up and just wait to get splashed, and she loved it! She laughed and jumped around in her stroller. People kept coming over to watch her have so much fun, because they couldn't believe that such a little girl would want to get splashed. Austin and I bought season passes, so we can take Amelia there as much as we want this summer.

Boomdiada!

I *lurve* this commercial.

Nothing to Update

Sorry, there haven't been any new posts in a while. I'm in Wichita, KS, and I can't even post any pictures that I've taken here, because I haven't taken any pictures. I didn't bring my camera on this trip.

However, I can tell you that Wichita is surprisingly a nice place. Everything is really green, and the air smells really clean. It's also pretty hot here, and if you can believe it, really, really humid.

So far, the only thing that sux about this place is the tornadoes. In fact, we had a tornado warning last night. I had to leave my 9th floor hotel room and go bunker down in an interior room on the 1st floor. It rained cats and dogs, but there wasn't any damage, at least not in Wichita. However, elsewhere in the state, some elephants escaped from a traveling circus and were found a mile away in somebody's backyard. No, seriously.

Magic Island

I had the pleasure of getting a rip-roaring sunburn at Magic Island today. It's not actually an island, just a protected cove beach at the end of a man-made peninsula. It's kind of like "the beach" in "The Beach." Meaning, ocean comes in, but only through small spaces in the rocks. Which is a nice for a person, like me, who would be afraid of sharks in a wading pool. And it's really clear, so you can be in up to your neck, so I could see sharks in case one happened to sneak in. Of course, I couldn't fight one off, but it would be nice to know what is gnawing on my leg before I exsanguinate.

Quite Possibly the World's Most Perfect Food

I know everybody is reading this and wondering what tasty treat this could be. Well, this delectable saran-wrapped little piece of heaven is a Spam Musubi, and oh my gawd, it is GOOD(except for the nori (seaweed) belt-like wrap...it's fishy). This is the convenience store snack of Hawaii, replacing the mainland treat of the classic hot dog. *AND* it's only $1.69 and served piping hot and yummy. It's so hot, that when you pull it out of the case, you have to toss it from hand to hand. Today I got smart and reached in with a paper napkin as I got 2 for my lunch. You may be wondering how you can get one of these. Well, you can't. Unless you come to Hawaii; they're everywhere here. MMMMMmmmmm...

Flowers for Sal

My mom loves gardening and planting flowers and all that stuff, so I thought of her when I was at the Dole Plantation yesterday and I saw these flowers. They have a huge garden of flowers that I hadn't seen before, so I took a bunch of pictures.

Hunting for your very own pearls....

I bought a bracelet yesterday at the local corner store. It was a string of blush-colored "genuine pearls" for $5. These pearls are very common here, and you can get them anywhere for $5 or less. In fact, I bought another bracelet today for $4, of cream colored pearls. Anyway, at the Dole plantation, when we walked into the general store, there was a woman that handed me a ticket for a free spin. I go to collect my free spin, and I win a certificate for 50% the chance to find my own pearl. The normal price for this is $15, so this would cost less than $8. Of course, they also want the customer to have the pearl set in their own jewelry, which they could do right away. The lady takes me to a container of water and what should have been oysters, but they really looked like scallop shells. I'm curious, so I ask her what the pearls look like when they come out, and she shows me a small dish with pearls that other customers have just retrieved. I look closer, and there are HOLES DRILLED INTO THE PEARLS. So they obviously took a pearl, which by the way, were of the same quality as the string of 50 or so that I bought for $5, drilled a hole in it, then pried open a scallop (since they are prettier to the customer than oysters) and jammed it in, just so someone could pay $8 (or $15) to find and then spend $100 to get it set into their jewelry. Silly.

Dole Plantation

Mango-less mango trees
Red pineapples are not for eating.

First time I've ever seen bananas on a tree in person.

But now that I think of it, I've also never seen a mango tree or a pineapple plant.

A big pineapple field.

I went to the Dole plantation today, a very popular tourist spot, which seems weird to me. I guess it's because I associate the word "plantation" with the word "exploitation" (of the workers). Anyway, they had a lot of tacky Dole tshirts, none of which I bought, but I did have a pineapple float, which was pineapple sherbet with pineapple juice. And then, because I wanted the pineapple-shaped souvenir bowl (because I thought it would make a nice cereal bowl), I had to eat the fresh pineapple that came in it. And by then I'd had it with pineapple. But after touring the pineapple fields on the Pineapple Express train, there I was, dutifully lining up with the rest of the tourists for my complimentary sample of pineapple on a toothpick. Yerk. After I got home, I went to McDonald's to get a cheeseburger. Did you know that *every* McDonald's value meal (even breakfast) is served with a dish of "fresh" pineapple? Well, mine is in the fridge. I'm pineappled out.