Boom boom

Rain, lightning, and most important, thunder; were the excitement of the weekend. On Friday evening there was a wicked storm that came on quick and dumped buckets. (Originally we had planned to go camping on Friday and Saturday nights… turns out we were lucky Patrick had to work late) Anyway, we started out on the front porch watching the rainfall… Evie and I even ran through it a bit, but just a bit because she got a little scared…. Then we moved to the more sheltered back porch and hung out and watched the trees bend, the thunder boom and the rain fall. Every time it thundered Genevieve would get a little nervous so we would turn to her and make light of it by saying “boom, boom.”

On Saturday (after a detour to the tire shop because of a cracked sidewall on one of the jeep's tires) we ditched our warm abode and drove the hour up to Mt. Lemmon and the Rose Canyon Lake campground. We were pretty excited to try out our new tent that I bought about four months ago. I had no idea when I bought it just how large it was… I have named it gargantor… Needless to say it is a huge step up from our little two man backpacking tent and has enough room inside to house a small army so it was pretty spacious for the four of us…. Maybe a little too spacious because Kita spent most of the night going from window to window pacing around. In the old tent she could barely stand up so we never really had that problem. Anyway, after we had the tent all set up we went for a little walk down to the lake and then I tried my hand a vegan car camping fare… I think it turned out pretty well but you’d have to ask Patrick for an honest opinion.



Overall it was a nice night out. The best part though was as we were all snuggled up together laying down to sleep for the night there was some thunder in the distance. I was a little afraid Evie would get scared and start crying but instead she laid there listening and then after awhile after a particularly loud clap of thunder she whispered… boom boom.

Socialite

Genevieve was quite the pint sized socialite this past weekend. On Friday Monica, Jason, Amelia and Soren came over (no pictures of Soren... all of the ones I took turned out to be a blur!) for dinner and a little play.



Then on Saturday Evie came with me to the Mamma Bookclub which (of course) doubles as a play date. At book club she had all sorts of fun getting into trouble with her fellow walkers Ila and Joe. Then Saturday night we went to Ben, Annie and Maxine's house to celebrate Ben's new book, A Boy and His Shadow. There were more awesome friends to play with there and... quite possibly the highlight of the weekend... a couch to jump on.



Then on Sunday Evie hung out at the racquetball club daycare and played with all sorts of kids while Patrick taught me how to use the weight machines. Finally, last, but certainly not least, Evie and I hung out at Ksenija, David and Joe's house with Haylee, Mark and Jameson because Ksenija and her family are moving to Takoma at the end of the month. They took us all over to the pool at the park and the three kids played and played and played! What a great weekend!!

A day in the life....

Generally I write about the exciting and unusual… you know struggles over finding a breast pump, torturous sleep schedules, unique bowel movements… I thought, especially for those of you who don’t get to spend “normal” days with Evie, I’d track our movements and the environment for a day a report (or rather blog) back. So here is what I found. The day is question is last Friday, July 11th.

5:45 am – Evie wakes to a very wet morning… it is actually only 72 degrees outside. I pick her up out of her bed and she says “gimme bear” then take the bear and gives him a big hug, a bear-hug if you will (ohhh sorry, couldn’t resist)
6:00 am – To the kitchen for banana and some spinach-scramble eggs (I’ve found that I can hide the spinach in the eggs and actually get her to eat it!)
6:45 am – Flop onto the bed to wake up Patrick
7:00 am – Run around the kitchen while we drink coffee. The dog food and water must, of course, be placed on the counter before she is allowed to run amok, otherwise there would be water and mushy food everywhere.
8:00 am – Says bye-bye and iloveyou to Patrick as he leaves for work.
8:30 am – Change the poopie diaper and jump into the car to go to the park and then the zoo!
9:00 am – Zoo opens. The monkeys were howling and jumping and Evie got very excited watching them. The lion was roaring too but she wasn’t nearly as interested in him as she was those monkeys. I let her out of the pack to walk around the aviary and she trotted off after one of the ducks who looked decidedly nervous about his little stalker. After about 45 minutes we played in the water park type area and she got sprayed by another kid, she did not like this at all and started to cry a little bit. I asked her if she wanted to go and she gave me an emphatic NO but also didn’t want to let go of my hand. We hung out there for a little while longer and then, all nice and wet, jumped back in the car and went home.
10:30 am – clean diaper and a nap.
12:00 pm – Woke up from nap, received a fresh diaper and then ate one of the frozen cream cheese lunches that I make en masse for her.
12:30 pm – Went out to Pollywogs baby resale store to trade in some clothes and sundries. Evie was very fond of the stuffed animals and the dolls. In the end I bought her: wooden car, cool cloth book with a little stuffed bear that you can remove and dress, three outfits and some awesome new shoes.
1:00 pm – Went to Bed, Bath and Beyond for some new storage containers
1:30 pm – Across the street to Trader Joe’s for the bi-weekly grocery trip. Evie kept grabbing the items out of the cart (once it was full enough) and handing them to me. At Trader Joe’s we saw Jenna, one of the nurses from my pregnancy class group, she said hi to Evie, but Genevieve was pretty shy with her. At the checkout Evie “helped” the cashier by handing him items to scan, she received a purple balloon for all her hard work!
2:30 pm – Home again for a snack of pita, tomatoes, grapes and a plum while I put away the groceries. She then helped me with the laundry by carrying one side of the basket and putting some of the laundry in the wash (and some on the floor…just to prove that she is not the totally helpful toddler)
2:45 pm – Bounces around the house playing with her toys, she was especially into the owl puppet that Uncle Brendy bought for her.
3:30 pm – Nap
4:30 pm – Wakes up, gets a clean diaper and eats a little pre-dinner snack of cheese and milk.
5:00 pm – More playtime. I sat with her at the piano and played some kids songs we have and tried to sing them to her. She seemed to enjoy just sitting there with me while I plunked out the songs.
5:30 pm – Patrick comes home. Evie is in the living room… she has figured out how to get on top of the piano stool and is playing the piano herself. We push the chair in so she can’t get on it and she gets upset.
6:00 pm – Dinnertime. Friday night vegan pizza special… (on my third try of making pizza from scratch I finally cook the thing all the way through!) Evie eats a little of the pizza, she really doesn’t like the tofu sausages (which, I swear, are awesome) because they are too spicy. She put one in her mouth and then, much to our dismay, spit it out onto the floor with surprising force.
6:45 pm – Bathtime! Now whenever you say bath Genevieve gets really excited and runs to the bathroom. She and Patrick take a bath together and brush her teeth.
7:15 pm – P.J.s and then the evening walk. Part of her bedtime routine is to walk around the neighborhood in the Ergo.
7:30 pm – Back from the walk. Patrick is tired so I put her to bed. This entails three stories and followed by three songs.
8:00 pm – Evie is happily cuddled up with her blankie and her doll, corelle and out for the night!

Whew what a day!

Fourth of July

As Patrick and I drove up to the cabin at Blue on July 3rd we discussed how we couldn't remember what we were doing for most of our July 4ths over the past five years. No longer able to blame such lapses on a lack of sleep; we determined that we just would have to do something exciting this 4th of July to make it memorable.





Well I am happy to report that we did not do anything exciting per se this holiday, we didn't even make it up to Alpine for fireworks, but that it was most certainly memorable. Genevieve hung out and played all weekend long, alternating between the jacuzzi, the stream, the sand by the stream, the front "yard" of the cabin and the bathtub. The common thread was definitely water. In fact on Sunday Evie managed to take a dip in the jacuzzi, play in the stream, bathe in the bath and swim in a lake (Lake Roper outside of Safford) all in one day!

It is always hard to leave the cabin, especially when my folks get to stay! But I am happy to report that it has started to rain here in Tucson... always my favorite time of the year!