nancy's blog

Lydia had fun watching her first Fourth of July parade.  She especially enjoyed anything with "music," animals, and balloons.  We sat near the starting point, which shortened the wait time somewhat.  That was a good thing for all of us!  No fireworks this year.  Maybe in a few more years she'll be up for that.

Daddy's hard work is paying off with one lovely tall sunflower plant with multiple blooms and our vegetable garden.  We've already eaten a bunch of lettuce and now we're starting to get cherry and roma tomatoes, with many more yet to come.  The squash and pepper and cucumber plants are looking fine, but we don't expect to be eating anything from them.  Soil quality does make a difference!  That's the big lesson for next year's garden (no big surprise there).

The fruit trees are doing their own thing and we just wait to be surprised by what we find growing on our many trees out back!  Lately, we've been eating plums off one of the trees way in the back lefthand side of the yard.

The VanZante family came to stay with us overnight this week.  The three kids loved our back yard.  The 9 year old boy chased lizards and picked and ate plums at will.  The 7 and 5 year old girls played on the swings, and had fun pushing Lydia in her toddler swing.  They all cooled off in the baby pool, splashing their dad, Brian.  Margery and I have been good friends for years, so we chatted as much as we could in spite of her jet-lag and playful kids.

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Steve joined the Golden Bear in Honolulu on June 19th, while I flew home.  Instead of my scheduled five hour layover in LAX, I got to fly direct to SFO.  Bonus!  I arrived home Friday morning instead of afternoon.  Lydia ran to meet me at the BART station, but looked around asking for "daddy?"  I told her daddy will be home later (much later, she has no idea!).

I dispensed the souvenirs - white chocolate macadamia nuts for Grandma (she deserves so much more!) and a cute little aloha outfit for Lydia.  Here she is modeling it for daddy.

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I also took a shot of her with her "new" baby doll bed, which Grandma found at a garage sale.

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Steve and I enjoyed the early celebration of our fifth anniversary on this trip.  We explored the tourist extravaganza of Waikiki, hiked to Diamond Head and another time to a waterfall, went Snorkeling in Haunama Bay, swam and soaked in the sun a little on a beautiful North Shore beach, ate shave ice and at a shrimp shack, visited Iolani Palace, and ate at a variety of restaurants.  My friends Patty and Brenda, who live there, also took us around to the less touristy places.  Patty took us outrigger canoeing with friends and took us across the island to her church on Sunday.  We had a great time, but missed our little pumpkin and called her every day to hear her say "I love you daddy.  I love you mommy.  I miss you!"

Before Steve and I left for Hawaii, we celebrated Father's Day a week early with Lydia at the park.  Daddy and Lydia had fun flying a kite.  Steve was sad to have to say goodbye a week and a half early, given his two month absence, but we decided it would be better to leave her at home with Grandma.  

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Here are some photos of the house we're in contract to buy, 931 Rose Drive, Benicia.  We'll close around the end of October and will probably be moving sometime in November.

Lydia is now a one-year-old girl and she seemed to enjoy her special day.   We celebrated at a local park with a picnic lunch of egg salad sandwiches, fruit salad, and a birthday brownie with ice cream.  Lydia especially enjoyed her brownie, which mommy really hadn't expected her to eat!  Daddy entertained us all by flying his kite for a while too.

Steve, Lydia and I went camping for the weekend to Clear Lake State Park.  It was a lot of work to figure out what to pack for food, toys, etc, but we finally made it out the door on Friday afternoon.  Lots of other families were there and the tent sites were pretty close together, so it was a bit noisy and hard for me to fall asleep (next time, ear plugs).  Steve and Lydia didn't seem bothered by the noise.  Friday night Lydia stayed awake later than usual because of the daylight and new setting.  Saturday night she fell asleep much sooner. Both nights she slept through the night and only got up a little earlier on Sunday morning. 

We spent Saturday going for a walk around the park with the stroller, going for a swim at the rocky beach (yucky water), and hiking.  Our low-light was getting stung by yellow-jackets or bees during the hike.  No fun!  Lydia didn't have any allergic reaction, thankfully, since her Uncle Jon is allergic.

Steve had brought a canopy with netting that we set up over the picnic table at our site.  That was wonderful to have for shade and protection from bugs while we ate.  We enjoyed using our new tent and air mattress too, although nothing beats the real mattress at home!  It's good to come back to showers and carpeted floors.  Camping definitely makes you grateful for the comforts of home!

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Lydia is a pro at crawling now, even though we wondered if she would skip it entirely.  She still prefers to walk, mostly hanging on to the furniture or cruising the walls, but crawling works well for those in-between spaces.  Here's a look at her crawling technique as developed on carpet (which looks different than kids who learn to crawl on hard floors, as our neighbor Dony told us yesterday).

Here's Lydia driving ducky around the living room.  She needs a little help when she reaches a wall.  Hopefully she'll figure out how to turn before she gets strong enough to make dents or break windows!