Visiting Family

This August, we planned a trip to visit family around my grandmother Duffin's 90th birthday.  In case we would bring some paintings of Grandpa's home with us, we decided to make the visit to Washington the end of our trip.

We started by going to Bountiful, UT to visit our friends Mary and Richard Cahoon.  We had a nice relaxing visit.  Lizzy got to meet their granddaughter Esme.

It was here that Lizzy learned to sit up on her own.  We made our usual trip to IKEA while we were there as well.  But mostly just a relaxing couple of days.  Richard and Mary always treat us well.

From Bountiful, we made the long haul to Manteca, CA to visit my grandparents Johnson.  We had a great visit there as well.  Grandpa was proud of his huge tomato plants.

We took the opportunity to visit Berkeley and San Francisco while we were there.  I learned a great lesson that day.  When traveling with a small child, I can't plan on doing as much as I would alone or with just Kristina.  We had a nice visit of the UC Berkeley campus and were able to see Ghirardelli Square, but that was then more than enough.  We had the unusual experience of meeting lots of German tourists while we were in San Francisco.  One bus ride had as many as three different groups of Germans.  We joked that they should call it the Deutsche Bahn.

I grateful that we have now had a couple opportunities to visit the Johnsons since moving to Idaho.  More than once this trip, we commented on how great it is that I still have all my grandparents.  All of Kristina's grandparents have passed away, which makes for a stark contrast.  Grandma Johnson is not doing so well, which makes me especially glad to be able to visit with Grandpa.

From Manteca, we traveled up Medford, OR to visit my Uncle Richard and Aunt JoAnn.  I hadn't seen them since before leaving for Germany.  It was nice to get caught up and introduce Kristina and Lizzy.  The weekend before we came, their washing machine malfunctioned and overflowed.  They let us stay in their trailer, which was actually quite nice.  We had breakfast at Rich's deli twice.  Always worth it.  

One of the hard things about traveling is not having all the things for Lizzy that we are used to, like her high-chair.  Luckily, Uncle Rich was a pretty fair substitute.

For the day we spent in Medford, we went up to visit Crater Lake.  It was astounding how blue the lake was.  A beautiful spot, definitely worth the visit.

Lizzy was charming as always, easily getting JoAnn to fall in love with her.

From Medford, it was off to East Wenatchee, WA for our last stop with the Duffins.  We got to see all my cousins, aunts, and uncle on the Duffin side of the family.  I hadn't seen some of them in almost 20 years, so it was a really great reunion.

Getting to spend a couple of days with my parents and a few brothers was great as well.  Lizzy is the main attraction now, but that's okay.  I'm glad that she gets to spend time with her grandparents too.

Lizzy had a great time with her second cousin Maddie as well.

All-in-all, a great trip.  We did end up getting quite a few paintings from Grandpa.  It was actually quite fun.  One day several of us were out in his garage, going through all that he has out there.  It was like Christmas shopping, where the store owner is thrilled to give you anything you want.  We have now filled several bare walls in our house with paintings that will have meaning for years to come.

Lizzy really was a trooper and didn't complain too much about all the time in the car.

Switching Roles

A new semester has started, but this one has a bit of a twist.  Kristina is going to work, and I'm staying home.  I was able to get a month and a half of paternity leave so that Kristina can complete her internship and then be finished with her degree.  We are all very excited for Kristina to finish her degree.  It will be a great accomplishment that Kristina can be proud of.  We were also very happy that she was able to work out and internship where we could stay in Rexburg.  She is doing data analysis for an atmospheric chemistry professor in Provo.  It is an exciting project, and she's glad to have a personal consultant when necessary.  I'm have made it through two days as a stay-at-home dad, and already appreciate my wife more.  I think it will be really good for us to have this opportunity to get a feel for what each others' "work" day is like.

Enough about us, Lizzy is making great progress.  About a week ago, I was working outside (we are getting close to having sprinklers and grass) when Kristina comes out and says, "Guess what?"  Kristina had left Lizzy in the living room to play, as we often do (did).  She usually restricted her movements to the carpeted area of that room.  It is surrounded by tile and that had effectively been a wall.  No more.  That day, Lizzy went from the living room into our bedroom to see what Kristina was up to.  Now the whole house belongs to her.  I quickly finished my baby-proofing work, so now we let her wander where she will.  She has moved to a full crawl and is fast.  More than once, she was getting into whatever I was working on, so I would carry her off somewhere else.  By the time I'd gotten back to where I was previously, she was right there too.

It is great.  She is a happy, fun baby.  She is currently recovering from an ear infection, so that is a bummer, but she's recovering well.  She even slept "almost" through the night last night.  During our vacation last month (I'll write another entry soon about our vacation), she started scrunching up her face when she smiles.  It was super cute.  I even managed to get her teeth in the picture below.

 

She was as happy as Kristina and I to finish all that driving and be back home.

Actually, her sleep pattern has been a bit off since our travels last month.  The first night of our vacation, we tried to lay her in the pack-and-play to sleep.  That did not go well.  I've never heard her cry so hard.  We ended up having her sleep with us the whole trip (12 nights).  It coincided with a new bout of teething, so who knows what actually triggered what.  The short of it is that our great little sleeper is gone.  I'm hopeful that we will settle into a nice new pattern once this infection clears up.

She is super tall and already out-growing clothes for 9-12 month-olds.  This jumper is for 12-18 month-olds and is already tight.

She has a thing for sucking on straps.  Here she is going crazy on the belt on her high chair.