Sunday, June 28, 2009

Eagle River Hike

Today Emily, Banjo and I did a new hike by Eagle River, which is about 10 miles north of Anchorage. Actually, it was only new to me and Banjo - Emily did it with snowshoes with her co-worker before I was here.

It was a glorious day for a hike - super sunny and warm, but with a slight breeze. The trail was mostly flat, which was why we picked it (Emily still likes to do things outside, but isn't too keen on elevation gain these days). We packed a lunch but didn't eat it until we got back to our car. There were a decent number of people out on the trail. One group of folks we kept playing leap-frog with. One guy was nice enough to offer taking a picture "of the 4 of us" at the river.

At night Emily got really hot. So hot that she needed to get closer to the cool night-time temperatures. But she didn't want to get to get eaten up my mosquitos again, so she had to be creative.
Emily and Banjo out for a hike on an awesome day.

The US got out to a 2-0 first half start....but ended up losing 3-2 to Brazil in the Confederation Cup final. Damn!
This was the group that kept passing us. This is where we turned around. It took us a little less than an hour and a half to get here.
The happy family.
Here is Emily taking a page out of the Book of Banjo. That's one way to beat the summer heat.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Wednesday April 22nd - Polynesian Cultural Center

So after the Swap Meet and the Killer Tacos, Emily made our way up to the PCC. We got hooked up with a pretty great deal for admission to the center and the night show thanks to one of Mark's (who is Jared's brother -in-law) friend.

Maybe first I should explain what the Polynesian Cultural Center is. There 7 'islands' that make up the Polynesian people - Tahiti, Fiji, Samoa, Maori (New Zealand), Hawaii, Tonga, and one other one. And you visit each 'island', and they do a little show/presentation about their culture. In Samoa they climbed up a coconut tree, in Tonga they banged on the drums (they had audience participation, and this poor guy from China had some trouble following the beats), the Moari had singing (this one was my favorite). Since we got there a little late in the day, we didn't catch all of them.

Once the park closes they have a luau. We wanted to go to this, but it was sold out by they time we arrived at the PCC. So we had to settle for some lame cafeteria food. But then we went to the Night Show, which was pretty spectacular. They had lots more sining and dancing, cool things with fire, hot coal walking, etc. We were glad that we saw it - a really great show all around.

Of course I drove back to Honolulu afterwards in the dark (which I was still getting to use to - the dark). And to make matters a little more complicated, we were moving living arrangements - now we would be in a hotel. It wasn't too tough to find, thanks to Kari and Jared's directions and his sister's map. It was a long day, but a fun day.
Emily watching the parade of Islands. That's Hawaii.
A Somoan climbing a tree to grab a coconut.
The Moari singing and chanting. This was my favorite island.
Tonga getting ready for their drum show.
Here's Emily by one of those crazy Easter Island statues. I love thos things.

More Hawaii - Swap Meet/Killer Tacos - Wednesday, April 22nd

Back to Hawaii we go! On Wednesday Emily, Jared, Kari and I went to the Swap Meet at Honolulu Stadium. It was pretty sweet. There were tons of shops set up all on the outside of the stadium. We bought a few outfits for Little Peanut - a cool white and blue Hawaiian Island shirt/pant combo (and I later found the exact same print in a shirt that fit me, so of course I got it) and a cool bright orange pair of overalls. We also picked up a few other things - some little surf board bookmarks for us (and one for my Dad), a "Mahalo for removing shoes" sign, and a Hawaiian print red dog lease for Banjo.

There was this guy selling a glass cleaning/non-fogging cleaner, so he tried it on Emily's glasses. Later when we got back she swore that the stupid product left this nasty film over her glasses that she couldn't get off. Jared and I wanted to know if the anti-fogging feature worked in -20 degree weather, but he didn't know.

After the Swap Meet Emily and I went to the North Shore to go to the Polynesian Cultural Center. On our way there we stopped off at one of Kari and Jared's favorite tacos places on the island - Killer Tacos. It was JUST LIKE Taco Del Mar, complete with the surfer theme, menu items, AND slogan. But the burritos were a little tastier (sorry Scott).

Me infront of the home of the Pro Bowl....except for 2010.Emily and Jared walking the concourse. Lots and lots of clothes, and other goodies, to buy.We bought that middle orange overall for the Peanut.
We tried to convince Jared to buy this hat, but he thought it made him look gay. He said cowboys in Quincy don't wear hats like that.Hmmmm......does that slogan sound a little familiar???

Saturday

Today we had wonderful weather in Anchorage!  We walked over to the farmers market to get some produce.  I guess it's not really late enough for too much stuff, but we got some lettuce, rhubarb, and choi.  (Tonight we'll have the choi and the rhubarb--which I made into a rhubarb chutney with a recipe from the Seattle times).  On our way home from the market our we saw that our neighbor was having a garage sale.  She had a bunch of baby stuff, so we got a few items that we'd originally put on our registry.  We got a little swing, a boppy nursing pillow, a bumbo (this little thing that you can sit the baby up in before he's able to sit up on his own), a nursing cover thing and this over that you can use over the car seat so that the baby will stay warm and dry.  It was all in really good shape, so we figured it was a good deal.  

Afterwards we went to the dog park with Banjo.  Banjo had a great time.  He played with his chuck-it for a long time, and then he even went swimming for quite a while.  He's been sleeping ever since we got home.  

Monday, June 22, 2009

Solstice weekend

As fatherhood quickly approaches Neil looks like a man in a nursing home
Happy Birthday Clave!
Banjo's new home

Rachel going strong into the final stretchWeird green man


We didn't do anything too crazy for Solstice this year. On Saturday our friend Rachel was running the the mayor's marathon. The course happened to finish right near our house, so Neil, Banjo and I walked over to the park to get a glimpse of her wizzing by. It was pretty fun. People were a little past mile #24 where we were and tired. We cheered them on, including this strange guy in a giant green unitard. Even his face was completely covered in the green cloth, which was soaked. I'm not really sure how he was able to see, but he managed to stay on the path alright.

Later on Saturday we went out shopping for a new kennel for Banjo. Meghan, the old roommate, got word that we were looking for a new place to live so she wanted her kennel back. I guess she was afraid that we'd skip town without it, because she called all of our phones within 12 hours of us telling the landlords. The new one we got for him is quite a bit large. Now I can lock both boys into it at once.

On Sunday Neil celebrated his first father's day (I guess last year being Banjo's dad didn't count). I made some blueberry pancakes, and he got a book from the peanut: 500 Places to Tae Your Kids Before they Grow Up. Later in the day we had some friends over for a solstice bbq. It was pretty fun. We grilled up some chicken, and others brought hot dogs, salmon and shrimp. Lot's of tasty food! Neil and I stayed up till around 11:30 and it was still quite light out!

Week 32



Last week we had another doctor appointment. Nothing too exciting. The nurse that we had been seeing moved back to Arkansas, so now we have a new one named Sue. She's a lot more peppy and friendly. Everything seems to be going well. The heart beat was normal (around 130 beats per minute). Next visit we get to have another sonogram to make sure that the umbilical cord is connected in the right place.

This weekend when we were walking around Costco I passed this little kid in a shopping cart with his dad. Not 2 steps after I'd passed I heard the kid ask, "Daddy, what's wrong with that lady?" I have a giant tumor!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Brattleboro with baby Jude

Me, TeTe and baby Jude.
Jude having tummy time on the quilt that Grandma and mom made.
Me and little Jude Liston.
Jude taking a cat nap on his daddy's lap.

Following the conference I went to see Tessa and Elliot and little baby Jude. My visit started off a little rocky. Tessa had caught a bad stomach flu, and on top of things little Jude was going through his 3 week growth spurt, which meant that he was eating pretty much every hour. Tessa soon felt better, and it was great to see her and Elliot again--this time as parents. Jude was a really precious baby--definately a cutie. And I got a little test run for Peanut: eat, burp, gas, sleep, repeat. I had no idea that babies make such a loud noise when they poop!

Some more Buffalo pictures

At the hotel I slept pretty good with my 6 pillows!
Some of the fellows at the Pierce Arrow museum.
Paola posing like a gas pump.
A little mini car.
Some of the museum collectibles.

On Monday night we had the opening reception for the conference. Last year when the conference was in Denver it was at the museum of history and industry, which was really cool. This year...it was at the Pierce Arrow museum, which was on par with the rest of Buffalo. At first I thought we were going to the Pierz Indian tribe's collection of arrow heads, it turned out it was a couple's life-long collection of Pierce Arrows, which are apparently some sort of car. It was a pretty surprising site when I first walked into the museum to see all the cars and things.

Buffalo

Me with the falls in the background
The falls create quite a bit of mist.
You can see the high rises in Toronto
Down they go!
Buffalo was pretty much like a ghost town.

This past week I was in Buffalo, NY for the CSTE conference. I'm not so sure I'll be visiting Buffalo again any time too soon. Highlights include buffalo wings, roast beef on weck (a hot roast beef sandwitch on a roll with big grains of salt and caraway seeds with horse radish sauce), and Niagra Falls. The falls were pretty cool. I took the city bus out there, which seemed to be pretty easy. Unfortunately I didn't bring my passport so I couldn't walk across the bridge to Canada, but it was still fun. (Definately a lot more fun than sitting in the boring workshop.)

The conference itself was pretty good. I liked the plennary sessions, and there were a few interesting breakout sessions. My talk went okay, although people had a lot of hard questions afterwards. I felt like I was defending my thesis. And, we had graduation ceremony for our fellowship. We each got a little framed certificate, and Nicole the fellow in North Carolina won the special award that our class created to honor Hilary (my roommate in Atlanta who died suddenly).

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

29 weeks later

Today we had another baby appointment for Little 'Nut. It was with our doctor, Wynd Counts. They took a few measurements of Emily (like the distance from the top of her pubic bone to the top of her uterus - which is 28.5 inches) and listened to the Nut's heartbeat. We asked a few questions that we had, like how soon we could fly (between 2 and 4 weeks - which means that we'll most likely be down in Seattle in the middle of September).
The Doctor did have one little worry about Emily - weight gain. Emily has only gained 15 pounds so far, and she should be up to 25 - 35 pounds by the time the Nut comes out. So Emily has to start eating more calories in her diet to gain one pound a week. I asked what the best way to do that is, and the Dr. asked if we like ice cream. Of course we said. She then suggested that we (I mean Emily) eat ice cream with chocolate sauce or have a milkshake every night. Now that's one prescription that goes down easy!
Now Emily's appointments are every 2 weeks. Yikes!
Check out Emily stylin' with her shirt.
Just a peak...
The Peanut, in all his glory.
Banjo, say hello to your younger brother.
We trimmed Banjo's tail (finally!). We left a little hair on the end, and now it kind of looks like a Lion's tail.