Ann vs. Jason

By: Ann

Things have been going okay over here in California.  Jason is still plugging away at Google and it’s pretty busy with back to school season at the clinic for me. Athena has been active as ever, forcing us to get rid of our playpen that we had for her.  She actually climbed over it a couple of days ago all on her own.  Thankfully, she climbed on the side that there were a bunch of cabinets.  Now we have taken apart the playpen and just use it to block off trouble areas (wires, bookshelves, computer area, etc.).  We’re pretty much done for when she learns how to walk, which will be any day now because she has been cruising all over the place for over a month now and is getting better at standing on her own.

We had a few hot days last week and decided to take a dip in our pool with Athena.  The pool was a little chilly due to it getting so cold here at night, but we decided to give it a try anyway since she seems to enjoy the cool weather of San Francisco.

After testing out the water, we decided to go full throttle since she seemed to be enjoying herself so much in the water.

She really enjoyed being dipped and twirled in the pool.  I’ve never heard her squeal in delight this loud.  It was great.  She looks a little pale/blue because I piled on the sunscreen a little too much.

Here’s me wiping off some of the sunscreen…sporting my NDA After Prom t-shirt.

Look at her.  She’s a natural.  She’s just like a fish in the water…fortunately, unlike her mommy.  I really do need to get over my fear of water and learn how to swim.

We are going to Yosemite next weekend for some light camping and hiking.  It should be fun.  I’m a little scared about her waking people up in the middle of the night for her bottles and such since we are going with some of Jason’s coworkers.  More to come.  Let’s hope for the best!

By Jason

We’ve been meaning to post this for a while, but we’ve been pretty busy lately. Athena is now standing and can walk if she has something to hold on to, so we spend most of our time just trying to keep up with her.

Three weeks ago my Aunt Linda came to visit and see Athena.

One of Athena’s new favorite passtimes is swinging on the swingset. She’s still too little to fit i the toddler swing so we just holder her on our laps.

Here’s an earlier photo on the swings with me:

We drove down to Santa Cruz to see the beach. The boardwalk there is a historic amusement park, and though we didn’t really do any rides we had fun walking around. Athena is a big fan of noise, movement, and color so she had a great time, missing a couple naps. We paid for the missed naps later.

Here we are walking down toward the water – the water is always pretty cold in Northern California, so we didn’t plan on doing any swimming. Despite being covered in seaweed the beach was still pretty busy.

Playing on the beach blanket:

Ann took a rest on the blanket and Athena thought it would be fun to crawl on top of her:

The next day we met up with my cousin Kurt to wander around San Francisco. We had lunch at Piazza Pellegrini in the North Beach neighborhood, near Kurt’s place.

After walking down to Fisherman’s Wharf we took the duck tour around the city. We took a similar tour in Boston a while back – it’s a WWII-era amphibious vehicle that takes you through the streets and into the bay.

Aunt Linda even got to drive the boat:

Later she and Kurt helped get the rest of the tourists dancing:

We ended our day with a wine tasting session, and took some photos using my patented “happiest day of your life” method (it really works).

Aunt Linda also gave Ann and I some time to go out, just the two of us. We picked out the most romantic, adults-only evening we could think of: dinner at Dennys and a round of miniature golf.