Waking Up & Tater Tot

I know we haven't posted a blog in a while, so here's what's been happening.

• Last weekend (Sept 15 & 16), we took Kaitlyn on her first overnight trip away from home. We stayed at Seascape Resort for a wedding that I was officiating. I was surprised at how much stuff we had to bring even though we were only going to be gone for 1 night - it takes 1 little baby to fill 1 big SUV. Kaitlyn was great during the trip and slept through the night in our 2 bedroom suite (with ocean view - nice!). She even slept through the wedding ceremony - I won't take offense. All-in-all, it was a fun trip and Kaitlyn successfully made it through her first night away from home.
  
• Over the past week, we have been slowly moving Kaitlyn further and further away from our bedroom each night. Since she sleeps so well at night, we thought it was time to move her to her crib (slowly). We've been moving her down the hallway in her bassinet and tonight is the first night she's spending in her crib - we'll let you know how that goes.

Below is a video of Kaitlyn waking up. I brought her downstairs and let her out of her "cheater chimi" (a swaddle with velcro to help keep it tight). She's usually pretty happy after a good night sleep an likes to stretch after being chimi'd all night.

Kaitlyn likes to sit on the couch being propped up by pillows and watch SportsCenter with daddy. Below is a video of our little couch tater tot.

We've Been Simpsonized!

There's a fun website where you can upload a picture of yourself and it creates an image of what you would look like as a character on The Simpsons. I created characters for myself, Shawnna & Kaitlyn and put them together into one image below. Let me know how close you think the image below looks like us and Simpsonize yourself here. Email the results to yourself and post the URL in the comments section of this blog.

I'm a Published Photographer!

I was contacted a couple of weeks ago by the Editor of Schmap Guides (online travel guides) who had seen one of my photos online and wanted to include it in their new guide to Monterey and Carmel. The photo, shown below, is a picture of the Monterey Bay Aquarium I took from my kayak as Shawnna and I kayaked in the Monterey Bay a couple of years ago. Apparently, the editor stumbled upon my photos on Flickr and thought the aquarium photo was good enough to include in their guide. I gave them permission to use my photo and now you can see it in the Schmap Monterey and Carmel Guide. Here's the link straight to the page with my photo. National Geographic, here I come ;-)

2 Month Doctor Visit

On Tuesday, we took Kaitlyn to the doctor for her 2 month appointment. The appointment consisted of a weigh in, height and head circumference measurements, as well as vaccinations. I had been dreading this date since we made the appointment after her first vaccination appointment back in July. I cried longer than she did and I wasn't looking forward to doing that again.
Well, call me naive, but I didn't realize that there would be 3 needles! My poor baby! We were armed with Tylenol to ward off any fever she might get, but I was not prepared for how many shots she would get. I am happy to report that Kaitlyn took it like a champ after her screaming was finally over. (Mommy however was a wreck from the get-go.) She fell asleep before we left the exam room and didn't wake up for a while. She only woke up long enough to complain about being in the carseat still. I took her out and she fell back to sleep on my shoulder (which is usually her favorite perch for viewing the world).
Since Tuesday, she's only been a little more sleepy than usual. Other than that, there was no fever or crankiness that the doctor said is the usual outcome of these shots. Again, Kaitlyn proves to be the best kid ever!
Not to forget the fun stuff from the visit, Kaitlyn weighed in at 12 lbs., 1 oz. That puts her into the 75th percentile for her age. Her height is 22.5 inches, which is average, along with the average circumference of 15 inches. She's thriving, happy and adorable as ever.

Half Dome Hike - Sept. 3, 2007

On September 3, 2007, Dad, Dan, Kelley and I hiked half dome. The actual hike was almost identical to the Half Dome hike from last year, so I won't bother going into the details. Here is the high level synopsis:

• We started the hike at 6:15am
• Made it to the top at 11:45am
• Spent 1 hour on the top
• Finished the hike at 6:15pm

Here's the updated list of Half Dome summits:

• Dad - 9
• Dave - 5
• Dan - 3
• Kelley - 2

The real drama occurred the next morning as we were sleeping after the long hike. At about 5:15 in the morning, I woke up to a woman yelling, "Go away! Seriously, leave me alone!" She was banging on a garbage can and making a lot of noise. My first thought was that it was a domestic dispute, but when I got up and looked out the tent cabin window, I saw a large, female grizzly bear* (see update below) directly behind our tent cabin, about 10 yards away. She was just standing by a tree, looking around. About 5 second later, I found out why, when 2 grizzly bear cubs made their way down the tree. They meandered over to the mother and proceeded to walk away from our tent cabin

(the picture to the right shows the view from our tent cabin window. The center tree is where the cubs descended and the other tree has a light attached which is how we saw the action). A few minutes later, I saw "the woman" walking back past our tent cabin with a couple other people talking about how she was walking to the bathroom alone and how she just wanted to get back to her tent cabin. That must have been extremely scary for her. I'm glad we followed the rules and put all of our food in the bear locker. I had never seen a grizzly bear at Yosemite before and I wouldn't mind seeing one again - just not so close. Over the next 15 minutes, I heard a few noises that sounded like shotgun blasts. If that was what I was hearing, I'm pretty sure they weren't intending to strike the grizzlies, but to just scare them away from where the people are. That sure was a memorable way to end our trip.

If you want to see what it looks like on the top of Half Dome, check out this video. Of course, a video shot from my phone can't really do it justice, but it's better than nothing.

For another perspective of this trip, Dan's version of events can be found here

*Update: The bear I saw must have been a black bear since Grizzlies are no longer found in California. Thanks to bear expert Ron Williams for the clarification.