Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Christmas with a tiny squee











We all flew to my grandmother's for Christmas. It was a lot of people (me, Mike, Sterling, my mom, my brother, his wife, their 2 year old all stayed there and my aunt and uncle came for Christmas day). There were a few stressful moments. But overall, it was good to be there with everyone and to celebrate Christmas with family.

Sterling was an excellent flyer. She was a little rambunctious on the way down, but slept the entire flight back, which was awesome. She enjoyed looking out the windows of the plane. Unfortunately it was cloudy the whole way, so she couldn't see anything really cool.

My grandmother loved seeing her. Granny's house is not what one would term baby-proofed, so we had to watch our TS closely, but she was able to rampage about in the living room without too much damage. Granny had a lot of good toys: a few old watches, some necklaces, tupperwares, and all sorts of stuffed bears and dolls. TS enjoyed determining the merits of each of these. Her favorites were the watches and a large silver necklace. She also liked the TV remote controls.

Mike and I had headed down several days before Christmas so that we could go into San Francisco and wander about for a bit. We took BART in and TS fell asleep partway there. Here she is sleeping in the sourdough bakery that we ate lunch at (very tasty). Then we checked out the Cartoon Art Museum, which was "tiny, but interesting" (according to the review). After that, we headed to the Children's Creativity Museum, but got sidetracked at another museum where someone we knew was having an exhibit. By the time we made it to the Creativity Museum, it was closing. Oh well, next time.

 My brother and his family showed up a couple days after us. Their daughter is just over 2. She and Sterling had a good time together. Their Christmas present to everyone was to cook Christmas dinner. My brother had told Granny to buy a 7 pound roast (for 9 of us, including the two babies). She got an 18 pound roast. She wanted leftovers. Despite the excess roast, they pulled dinner off astonishingly well. Everything was very tasty.


My aunt makes cookies every Christmas. I look forward to them all year.


My mother flew in last. I wish she had been there a little earlier. It's always easier when she's around.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Thanksgiving with a Tiny Squee

Nappin' with her Doodad
We drove down to Corvallis on Tuesday night see my parents for Thanksgiving. TS slept the whole drive, which was fabulous. However, it did mean that we couldn't stop - if the car stops, she often wakes up. We stayed Tuesday night with my dad and had a leisurely Wednesday hanging out with him. He scrambled eggs for breakfast, which TS always enjoys. She also had some banana. Nothing exciting to report regarding Wednesday's activities except that my dad and I took a small walk and TS napped in the carrier. It was very nice weather for Thanksgiving. Sterling wasn't impressed with dinner that night for some reason. She kept forcefully flinging bites of it on the floor. Salmon? Fah! Onto the floor with you! Carrot? Fah! Banana? Fah! It just wasn't a night for eating.

Wednesday night we headed up to stay with my mother. We built a nest out of couches padded with (many layers of) blankets and TS and I stayed there, while Mike bunked in the guest bedroom. The bed there is a little small to comfortably fit 2+TS. Mike got to sleep in, which was good because he drove back home Thursday night after dinner. Wednesday morning, we had more eggs. TS ate quite an impressive quantity and also enjoyed some banana and avocado.

Sweet potatoes taste best when eaten with
the entire face.
We cooked a turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (in the crock pot), steamed broccoli, and had rolls. Everything was excellent and TS enjoyed it a great deal. She was underwhelmed with broccoli (a former favorite), but really got into the turkey. The grownups had pie for dessert.


Turkey is AWESOME!
Friday, I took the baby down to my dad's and we had breakfast (a sort of dutch baby pancake thing). TS skipped breakfast because I thought there was too much butter and sugar in the pancake. She made up for it later that afternoon, consuming half a banana and a quarter of an avocado in her mesh bag. This was after she'd had some turkey and possibly other things as well. She's turning into quite a good eater.

We gave her a bath in the kitchen sink
 on Friday afternoon.

My mother and I watched Avatar in 3-D, with breaks to potty and relocate the baby. She was pretty happy (and safe) in the couch nest. She napped through the beginning of Avatar, which was handy. We took a couple of breaks to do things (laundry, make sandwiches), which was good because it's a ridiculously long movie. We also watched LA Confidential, which was quite good. TS napped through part of it as well.

Fig, it's what's for dinner.
My mother drove us home this morning. We timed it exactly to correspond with the morning nap and the baby slept for nearly all of the 2 hour drive. Good job! We sat down and shared a Harry and David pear after my mother left, which was excellently tasty. Later, TS stole a dried fig (she was standing on the back of the couch and reaching over onto the table where the dried fruit is stored) and enjoyed it quite a bit. I think she ate the whole thing, except for the pieces that were plastered onto her face.

I started a loaf of bread in the breadmaker and chopped up some veggies to go in the turkey carcass soup (we'd boiled the carcass down at my mothers). TS did some excellent jumping in her doorway jumper while I cooked. Now, she's napping in the carrier while we sit in the recliner and blog.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Pumpkin Patch

I had gotten a Groupon for the corn maze at Bella Organics Farm. We had to go this weekend because the Groupon was about to expire. Mike and I got there early because I wanted to do a pumpkin photoshoot with the tiny squee. I'm not sure why the pictures are sideways. They were pointed the right direction in iPhoto.

Tiny Squee in a pumpkin hat

And in a flowered headband.

She's just too cute!

Even when she's mad about being in the sun.

"Noooooo, don't leave me in this bin of delicata squash!"

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Busy Month!

September was our month of travelling.

First, we went to Garibaldi, OR for two days. Garibaldi is on the Tillamook bay. I had a groupon for two nights (Sun-Thurs) motel there and this was our last chance to use it because I start working full-time at the end of September. The groupon came with free rental of a crab trap and a bottle of wine.


We got full use of our crab trap rental. I had thought that we woud go walk on the beach and do a little touring. What we did was try to catch crabs. We caught three eventually: 2 Dungeness and 1 red rock crab. Red rock crabs are an invasive species and you can keep any that you catch; only male Dungeness crabs over 5 3/4" can be taken. All of them were tasty. We cooked them at the hotel and ate two of them for lunch. The third we brought home (cooked) and ate later. Sterling was the smallest crab hunter we saw.




Last year, before I even got pregnant, we had made plans to go to the Out N About Treesort. We had reservations for the Peacock's Perch treehouse. We were back from Garibaldi for one full day before we left again for the Treesort. I hadn't fully thought through the idea of taking a Tiny Squee to the Treesort when I made the reservation. It's 5 hours away, which is a lot for a baby who is in a carseat-hating phase. We did successfully make it there and back, and a good time was had by all. Something else to consider: when you put a baby to bed at 8pm in a treehouse, someone has to stay with her. Early bedtimes for me.

Anna, Chelsea, Lisa, Sterling, and Mike at the Treesort



Mike up in our treehouse

Anna, intrepid baby-watcher

TS of the pointy hat
Less than 24 hours after arriving home from the Treesort, we headed off to VA to visit with TS's grand and great-grandparents. We had direct flights, which was awesome. There's no way that I'm going to do connecting flights with the baby until she's much older. It was a fast trip; only about as long as to the Treesort. TS slept for 2 hours on the first flight and 2.5 hours on the second flight. Apparently planes make her nap. She was very well behaved for the rest of the time we were in the air as well.
We visited her Namau's school. TS was very popular with teachers and students alike.
We visited Chocolate World in Hershey, PA. We flew up on top of the building to be photographed with the sign.
Sterling with her GranNamau and Pop-pop
Sterling with her Grumpa
Namau and TS
GranNamau and TS
TS flying after visiting the Art of Video Games exhibit at the American Art and Portrait Museum in Washington, DC
Everyone loved her and she had an excellent time. We brought home many more toys than we brought out with us, so she will be well entertained for a long time to come. I have to go unpack, but my toybox isn't big enough any more.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Visit to Granny's

We took Sterling on her first plane trip down to CA to visit her Great-Grandmother. She slept through the entire first flight, which was awesome. I was worried about her ears getting plugged up because she's been congested recently, but it didn't end up being a problem.

Granny was very excited to meet her great-granddaughter. Sterling was pretty excited too.

 


My mother was also down visiting, which was great. Sterling got to spend some time with her grandmother too.

Sterling slept in the bassinet that my brother and I slept in as babies. I'm not sure if my mother also slept there when she was little.


 It was pretty neat to have four generations of women in my family together in one place.