Summertime

Now that Jenna and Laina are finally back from their long trip to California, we got the chance to have some summertime fun this weekend. After a morning of daddy-time at the pool, we took Laina to the Douglas County Fair, then Sunday we drove out to the foothills to a place called "Tiny Town" to see the tiny buildings and railroad.

Petting the sheep

Riding the pony (mommy was possibly three to four times more excited about this than Laina)

Riding the 'fake pony' on the carousel. I was a little dissapointed they didn't have any music going. Its really not a carousel without the music.

Laina's favorite, by a longshot, was the car ride. She got to ride this one all by herself, since no one over 43" was allowed. She got to go "round and round" on what was basically a carousel with little cars. She rode this one twice, and probably could have gone all night.

The next day we were off to Tiny Town. After riding the tiny town railroad around the 'village', Laina went around exploring all the tiny buildings. Clearly a lot of work has gone into these things, and some of them are very old. The novelty wore off for Jenna and I pretty quick, but Laina loved it. Apparently a visit to Tiny Town has been a staple of Denver childhood for generations. Just the fact that it has been lovingly maintained since opening to the public in 1920 is impressive.

Some were a slightly larger scale and could be explored from the inside. Laina LOVED this section. She wanted to go inside every building, and peek out of every window.


We rounded out the weekend with a picnic with our church small group at a park/playground, where Laina played some basketball and did some serious swinging.

I think she had a fun weekend. Actually I know she had a fun weekend, since she's suddenly gotten a lot more conversant since visiting California and chatting with her older cousins. The last two nights when I've gotten home from work she's vividly retold the events of the weekend, with hand gestures and all...

Veggie Garden update

Visit my other blog, Laina's Laundry, for an update on the veggie garden with pics! I even have a zucchini fruit!

It's good to be home!

I just spent nearly three weeks with Laina traveling! I didn't realize when I booked my trip just how long that would be. We had a blast and I'll give you the highlights, but we didn't bring a camera so you'll all have to wait for pics (everyone else was constantly snapping photos, it seemed, so eventually I will have some pictures from the trip).

Part 1: California

We visited lots of family in CA and Laina absolutely loved every minute! She really had a blast with her cousins, Kylie, Connor, and Kaity, down in Orange County.

I had a 2-day training with the company I'm working with, Live Well International, on how to do nutrition and wellness seminars. What a great time filled with great info!!

I put some of that new knowledge to use and did three wellness seminars while I was there!

Laina had her first "sleepover" at grandma Janice's house without me. She did great.

My parents had a blast playing and cuddling with Laina and being impressed by her enormous vocabulary and knowledge.

I got to spend some time with my dear friend, Tamara, who now has a dream life living off the beaten path with her two horses (oh, and husband). I often say that I wouldn't want my own land and horses because it's too much work and so often you let things slide and your place starts to look run-down. Well she proved that all wrong. Her place is so great, organized, neat and clean and her horses are living the good life!

My brother, Jesse, flew in from Japan and we got to hang out a bit before the trip to Chicago.

Bummer of the trip: not getting my In-N-Out! But I did go to Trader Joe's and realized I'm not missing as much as I thought. I guess I do have some suitable alternatives here. And Jay tells me there's this place close by called Five Guys Burgers (or something) that will satisfy my In-N-Out cravings.


Part 2: Chicago

We had a family reunion planned in Chicago for the last part of my trip. My grandma Sally (my dad's mom) has some family out in the Chicago area and Laina and I got to meet lots of new relatives and also reconnect with some others.

Laina LOVED her 3rd (or 4th?) cousin, Kelsey (who is going into 5th grade) and they played cars together almost non-stop! If anyone cares to figure out the math, Kelsey is my dad's cousin's daughter.

Great Grandma Sally took care of Laina for almost an entire day while the rest of the family went to the Museum of Science and Industry and got to see the Harry Potter exhibit. Ya, you know you're jealous ;)

The whole time I was at the Science Museum, I kept saying, "darn, Laina would love this!" There were trains, planes, race cars, tractors, even baby chicks!

We did end up taking Laina to the DuPage Children's Museum where she got to run around like a crazy kid and played cool instruments, drove a car, played with water, and just generally had a blast.

Taking the recommendation of a friend, we went to Lou Malnati's Pizzeria and had authentic Chicago deep dish pizza. I'm sorry to admit, I do prefer hand-tossed style better. But the atmosphere and quality of ingredients were great.

Bummer of the trip: sitting in mad traffic on a Sunday afternoon on the TOLL road. Um, I thought the point of a toll road was to avoid the traffic!

But really, Chicago was much different that I'd expected. It was very green and the parts we saw were clean and looked like nice areas to be in. We actually stayed outside of Chicago in a town called Lisle, which is so very green and pretty and home to a huge arboretum that unfortunately we didn't get to check out. Hopefully next time!


Part 3: Back at the Homestead

Jay stayed home and worked (new job and all) and held down the fort here. I was SO happy to get home it was overwhelming. Love you, Jay!

The house was CLEAN and neat! Wow!

My vegetable garden is out of control! Jay put in automatic sprinklers in the veggie garden and everything is literally 5 times as big as when I left! I'm bummed though because I didn't know you have to have TWO squash plants to actually make any zuchinni. Mine is SO big and I'm just going to have to pull it out, I'm afraid.

Jay had mentioned on the phone that one of the flower plants I planted in the flower garden just before leaving didn't make it. He couldn't tell me which one, and I was afraid it was one of the ones I really liked, but it turns out it's not. It was one of the yellow daisy-looking ones that I bought because it was cheaper and added a little color to the pretty-much-purple garden.

Now it's back to reality for me. I have to get to the grocery store today, the fridge is empty (hm, what exactly did Jay eat while I was gone?), lots of laundry to be done, and a lot of email/blog/facebook catching up to do! Watch for pics, hopefully soon!

Potty Time

I am so happy to announce that Laina is potty trained! The cloth diapers are all freshly laundered and sanitized, packed up and stored in the basement for the next baby (whenever he/she decides to pop in). I followed an online program recommended by a friend called 3 Day Potty Training (www.3daypottytraining.com). Over all I am very pleased with the outcome, although for Laina it did take longer than three days.

We started on June 21 (lovely Father's Day present to Jay!) and that whole first week was pretty hard. The idea is to put the kid straight into underwear and then watch them like a hawk and take them to the potty any time they look like they need to go or when they start having an accident. I think Laina understood the concept with in the three days, but it took the whole week for her to really perfect it. This week has gone amazingly well and we've had no accidents at all the past 2 1/2 days! She even woke up twice last night to use the potty and then woke up dry this morning. Yay, Laina! She is such a big girl now. Getting her out of diapers really took away that last little bit of baby-ness she had. She just seems so big now - like a real preschooler :)

Even though that first week was really hard and trying on my patience, it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. The "fast" concept really made a difference, even though it's intense at first, at least it's done and over with. The other nice thing about buying the ebook from Lora Jensen is the online support you get. I had to use that a few times.

My little girl is growing up so fast and I know, before I know it, she'll be in school. A big part of me is excited about that day but a small part of me knows it's all going to come and go so fast. I want to try and really intentionally be present with Laina in these young years. As hard as it is for me to give up a lot of other things that I know I could do if she was in school or in day care, I know how important this time is and that I should be treasuring it.

Anyways, enough of my rambling. Here are a few pics to celebrate Laina's passage into "pottyhood".

Last night of diapers, showing off her big cloth-covered tushie

Showing off the big girl undies


Potty time mid-snack (hey, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go!)

Laina loved this balloon and it made her laugh so much.
It was good for potty training because laughing made her have to pee :)

The Much Delayed Ali Visit Post

Whew, it's been busy around here. Laina is newly potty trained but more on that to come later.

My parents were in town a couple weeks ago and we kept busy and had a great time visiting. Among the things we did: meandered the chalk festival downtown, visited the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and the Denver Botanic Gardens, ate sushi, had a get-together/BBQ with old attendees of my dad's church in CA who now live in CO (there are several!), watched Mommy ride (too bad the new filly wasn't born yet), and had lots of fun just hanging out and playing. Enjoy the pics.

Unemployment Over!

After 5 months of what I like to call a 'very frugal and stressful 5-month staycation', I will be going back to work Monday!

After exploring options in Atlanta, Albuquerque, Bakersfield, and even Ohio, I got an out of the blue invite to come in and interview for an architect position at a very good local firm, AndersonMasonDale Architects. And after meeting me they still decided to hire me!

I'll be starting Monday, and am still a bit floored by the opportunity to get back to work, at a firm I have huge respect for, and most of all, that we'll get to stay put!

Of course, in typical fashion, after accepting the offer, I've started getting calls about more interviews, and have had to turn them down. If only I could spread some of that interview love around to some of my friends who are still looking, it would be a good deal for everyone.

We are feeling hugely blessed with this new development, and can't wait for life to re-emerge from the strange limbo-state it was in for the last several months. Of course, Jenna will miss having me available so she could work at the barn more often, but hopefully we'll be able to come up with a solution for that. And I'll miss spending a lot of time with Laina, but really I'm trying to look at it more that we got 5 months of lots of daddy-daughter time, which is something we never would have had the opportunity to have otherwise.

Massive thanks to all who helped us through this period in all kinds of ways: prayers, connections, advice, opportunities, encouragement, etc. In the end it was a connection with a friend at the firm that got me in the door, which eventually got me the job.

It will definitely take some adjustment to get back into work mode, but I'm looking forward to it, and I hope more of my colleagues can make the same transition soon. There are too many of us out of work right now. I'm definitely encouraged in general by the very sharp upturn of job postings and interview calls over the last few weeks that we may be working our way out of the year plus funk in the architecture world...

Memorial Day '09

We had such a great Memorial Day yesterday BBQing with our neighbors. We pulled the grill down to the end of the cul-de-sac and everyone brought out chairs and one neighbor even brought a fire pit! We had marshmallows roasting over the fire pit and the joke of the day was that we were all "camping".

Laina enjoyed Taylor and Sage's car so much that she only got out of it once during the day, and that was to chase some amazingly huge bubbles. She squealed in high-pitched delight as she chased them down the street. I wish we could have gotten some video footage of that.

If we do have to move, one of the things I will miss the most is impromptu gatherings with our neighbors. I've probably said this before, but I know that God hand-picked this house and this neighborhood for us. The sense of community here just blows me away. So, enjoy some pictures from the the last few days (not all from Monday, but all still cute!)