Ann vs. Jason

By Jason

Ever since I got my Nexus One I’ve been taking a lot more little video clips of Athena. Although I’ve uploaded some of them to YouTube and Ann and I have shared some on Facebook, I haven’t been very good at posting them here.

This post will catch everyone up with Athena’s latest video hits. I tend to like photography better than video but it’s hard to show Athena’s new fascination with her own shadow with a still frame:

It’s also much harder to see how our little girl has developed such advanced etiquette and table manners for a 1-year-old without a video like this one:

In all seriousness, Athena is very quick to pick up cause and effect. If she sees Ann and I do something a few times she’s usually ready to give it a go herself – she knows how to turn the TV on and off, always wants to press elevator buttons, and she knows how keys work (even if she’s still not tall enough to use them):

You might remember how much Athena enjoys the swings at the playground. Although she’s still very thin, Athena is growing taller quickly, and she’s finally tall enough to ride in the toddler swing all by herself:

She’s also constantly escalating her feats of acrobatism. It’s hard to believe that we’ve had her play yard disassembled since July last year, when she climbed over the top of it. At this point every object in the house must be knocked over and scaled:

That one is actually pretty mild compared to some of her climbs, I’m afraid to put video of it on the web. I’m also saving a few recent videos for the next update because this one is already getting long.

As for what we’ve been up to lately, last week we went to the world-famous Monterey Bay Aquarium with Sandy and her cousin Nivi. I wanted to go to the Sausalito Cetacean Institute instead but this was a good second choice.

From Monterey Bay Aquarium

From Monterey Bay Aquarium

We were excited to see Athena’s reaction to all the big fish and bright colors, and she really had a ball. It’s very hard to get photos inside the aquarium because of the low light – you notice the few I managed to get are very grainy from the high ISO setting I had to use.

From Monterey Bay Aquarium

Here’s Athena standing inside a concave part of a multi-story tank – it almost looks like she’s in the tank.

From Monterey Bay Aquarium

Here’s Athena showing me the river exhibit. We can add the word “fish” to her vocab list, and this time I know I’m not selectively hearing it because another dad there heard it too.

From Monterey Bay Aquarium

The aquarium has a lot of interactive, touchable exhibits for kids. Here’s Athena playing in the touchpool, before she started trying to drink the water and Ann had to put her back down.

From Monterey Bay Aquarium

A fun photo under a crashing artificial tide:

From Monterey Bay Aquarium

Athena also had some fun running around outside on the deck chasing pigeons:

From Monterey Bay Aquarium

From Monterey Bay Aquarium

We didn’t manage to make it through the trip without another public display of Athena’s eating issues, but overall it was very fun. I’ll end with a photo of Sandy and Athena watching the jellyfish. I took some more photos of the sea life that you can see in the Picasa album. A few of them turned out okay but I started to feel bad taking them – I have a nice camera but I really don’t have the equipment for this kind of photography. I wouldn’t feel bad taking an extra moment here and there to focus and whatnot except everywhere I went there were dozens of people with digital cameras and camera phones. It was like no one could just look at anything to enjoy it. Weird.

From Monterey Bay Aquarium

By Jason

Since last weekend was a long weekend we decided to take a trip down the coast to see Monterey and Carmel.  The hotels were pretty booked up (and expensive) so we stayed in nearby Salinas.  Salinas is famous for…  well, not much, except maybe John Steinbeck.  Also, according to Wikipedia Craig Kilborn worked there as a sportscaster before he hosted The Daily Show.

One fun fact not listed in Wikipedia is that there are two Best Western Hotels on the same street, separated by one other hotel.  We almost went into the wrong one before we realized the address wasn’t quite right.

Overall I think we would give Salinas a thumbs-up – it was pretty close to everything we wanted to go see, and we had some really good Mexican at El Zacatecano.  At the end of our trip we also found out that there’s a free shuttle between Salinas and Monterey so we could have even taken advantage of that.

A quick warning:  this will be a pretty photo-heavy post, since I got a new camera, a Nikon D60.  I’ve been thinking about getting a new camera for a while now but I really wanted to get a DSLR before the baby came – that way I can better handle low light and motion.

Our first stop was Monterey, where we visited Old Fisherman’s Wharf.  There was a nice little Greek Festival going on but unfortunately we had already eaten.  The view from the wharf is nice:

We kept passing places that had caramel corn, salt-water taffy, cotton candy, and other sugary goodness.  Ann captured me trying to get the last sugar fibers off the cotton candy stick.

The wharf was worth a stop, probably a bit more touristy than we would have liked but a good place to pick up whale watching tours and such.

On the drive back I couldn’t resist playing with my new camera.  It gives me a lot more options, for example 4-second long exposures at night:

Ann was pretty worn out:

The next day we drove down to Carmel-on-the-Sea with then intention of taking some pseudo-artistic pregnancy photos on the beach.

I like the way this one turned out, specifically the low angle and the way the breeze has Ann’s skirt moving in to the middle of the frame:

We were hoping to pick up a long flowing wrap or a sari to make better use of the ocean breeze but the stores were selling nothing but jackets and hoodies.  I understand that they stock things seasonally, but I can’t imagine we’re the only people on the planet who once in a while want to buy a summer item in summer or a winter item in winter.

The waves were fun to watch but it was in the 60s and the water was pretty cold anyway, so we didn’t do any swimming.

Carmel is a nice little town, it started as an artist community and still has that feel, though the houses are all ridiculously expensive and the shops sell $400 purses and whatnot.

We followed the coast a bit further down to the Carmel River State Beach and took more pictures.  This is the estuary where the river meets the pacific.  The water from the river is clear and and very warm and calm compared to the ocean just a few feet away, so it looked like a great place for little kids to play.

A fun picture of Ann’s shadow:

Our next stop was the top of Jacks Peak, the highest point on the Monterey Peninsula.  You’re able to drive pretty close to the top, but Ann made it up the rest of the trail, so we’re going to say she officially climbed a mountain while pregnant.

Ann gives me a classic skeptical look:

A view of Monterey from the peak.  I made a very large vertical panorama of the view looking towards Carmel, too.

Here’s Ann smiling.  The park was nice, though full of poison oak.  There were a couple places that were supposedly filled with fossils but I didn’t see any, which was disappointing.  Ann thought maybe they were there, but I just didn’t notice them.  I assured her that I know what a fossil looks like.

The next stop on our trip was Cannery Row in Monterey.  There they have not one, but two Thomas Kinkade stores, which meant that I had to throw up twice.  Other than that it was nice, touristy like the wharf but a little bit upscale (meaning more expensive).  We didn’t go to the aquarium, so we’ll have to head back some time to check it out.

It was getting late so we decided to head to the beach for the sunset.  Monterey faces north so we had to go up the coast a bit.  There are miles and miles of beaches but not as many access points as you would think.  We ended up in Sand City, on a big dune overlooking a beautiful beach.

Here’s the sunset.  Because of the often cloudless sky and general haze off the ocean, I’d have to say we have better sunsets in Cleveland, but I’m not complaining.

On Monday we drive back up the coast toward home.  Here’s Ann at the Moss Landing beach.  It was too chilly do take any artsy photos here.

These tiny birds are sanderlings.  They’re pretty entertaining to watch, because when the water retreats they all rush down the beach the look for food, but when a wave comes in they all run back up.

Here’s a photo of the Elkhorn Slough wetlands near Moss landing, this is supposed to be a great place for birdwatching.

We went home and had a little cookout with hotdogs and a greek salad.  We’re probably going to go ahead and count this trip as an early anniversary, too.

I’ve got more photos at Flickr.  You can also see the photos from our trip mapped out by following this link.

Next up, an update on baby names and some democracy, so stay tuned!