Mae Mae and the Boy

Charlie's 6 months old!

Today is Charlie's 6 month birthday. Where has the time gone? Some things that Charlie's doing:

Sitting up on his own.

Standing with a little help from his friends.

Sucking his toes.

Eating rice cereal.

Sleeping in his own bed.

Waking up only once during the night.

Being the cutest damn kid in town.

His 6 month appointment is on August 15th, so it will be interesting to see how he's grown. A couple pictures of little guy are below.

We just had a wonderful time with Gigi, Hap, Dalton and Jack up here in Seattle and I'll post some stories and pictures very shortly. I'll also post more pictures of our trip to California.

Happy 6 months Charlie! We love you!

It's been too long

We purchased a flatscreen tv when we returned from vacation. We couldn't wait to connect our laptop with the tv, so we could view our vacation pictures on the big screen. Well, big mistake. We blew something in our laptop and couldn't get it to power up. I thought we lost all our pictures as we hadn't yet saved them to disk. KC to the rescue. He was able to get all our precious pictures off the computer, but we still don't have a home pc. So, hence the reason I haven't blogged lately. We hope to have it back up and running very soon.

Old Aunt

One stop that was a must was to drive out to Blythe, California to see KC's Great Aunt Arlene. The last time we saw her was about a year and a half ago, right after her 90th Birthday. If you're not familiar with where Blythe is, drive to LA, hit the 10 freeway and drive to Palm Springs. Once you hit Palm Springs, keep driving for another hour and a half and your there...or you're nowhere, depending on your mood. She lives out in the middle of the desert and KC was able to track the temperature at 114 at one points. Hot, hot, hot! Arlene lives on a working farm and is well taken care of by friends and family of her late significant other, Paul. We love Arlene. She is so full of life, but talks about death all the time. She's bright and quick and surly as hell. She tells good stories and has lived quite an adventurous life. Did I mention we love Arlene? Old Aunt.

The Cousins

Being able to introduce Charlie to Dalton and Jack was magic. The Cousies are finally together...and all I have to say is "ohhh so cute!". The older boys have been so gentle with the baby and have done well with entertaining him. Jack has minute long conversations with Charlie and even pauses to make sure that Charlie has a chance to respond. So funny! On our first day together, we took a trip to the Dairy for ice cream.

We're goin' back to Cali...Cali

We started our adventure on Father's Day, Sunday the 17th and had planned to get an early start to get down to Oregon by the morning. Everything would have gone smoothly had we finished our laundry and packed before the very same morning we were going to leave. About 2 hours into our drive, we got a call from Meg. "Where you guys at?". We could have lied, but we decided that honesty was the best policy, "Renton". We left our house a little after 9 am but made the following stops before hitting the open road. The Bank. My office. Starbuck's. The local parking lot for Charlie's breakfast. Gas. And I'm sure there were a few others that escape me.

We drove the coast most of the way and stayed in hotels both Sunday and Monday nights. We stopped in Monterey and had coffee with our dear friend Kelly Baker, whom we hadn't seen since our wedding. After almost three days of travel, we made it to Mae's Mae's and have really enjoyed our time here so far.

Dinner last night

We have a great neighborhood restaurant/bar just 5 blocks away. The Barking Dog is a fantastic place to take kids. It's a casual environment with large tables inside, great picnic tables outside, good food and terrific staff. We've only been there two times, but both times we've met other parents and babies. As Auntie Meg always says "you guys are totally members of a new club". It's true, having a child automatically gives you a free pass to talk to any stranger you choose. Typically it's other parents, but I've had many conversations with grandparents that love to coo over Charlie or young adults that comment about how cute he is...and it's true. He is very cute. Last night, Charlie met Gabriella and Elsa. Gabriella was at the restaurant with her two Dads (love Seattle!) and Gabriella was taking a stroll with her parent, hoping she'd fall asleep for the night.

Auntie Meg met us at our house and we walked to the restaurant. We sat outside, which proved to be a little cold, but made sure to bundle the little guy up. Charlie is such a good baby and did really well until we got our food. KC's convinced that this is always the case and I'm beginning to think so too. He started to get a little fussy so I fed him until KC was finished eating and then he took over by walking Charlie around the block. My halibut sandwich was yum. Here are a few pictures.