Chung Family

Disneyland!!!

2012-01-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

New Years Day we were up early and ready for Disneyland! I was really really skeptical about this whole trip because I thought it would be so busy we wouldn't get our money's worth but it turned out to not be nearly as bad as I thought. We got lots done in the morning before the crowds arrived and then we just avoided Fantasyland and all the lines for the kids' rides there. Tyler was quite a trooper, we were there for 12 hours and he did great.

Here we are walking down Main Street.

Waiting for them to open the rest of the park. Right after we took this picture, a pink Mickey balloon went up into the sky, lost by some child, and the entire crowd said, "Awwwww."

After driving Autopia with Grandma.

On Pirates of the Caribbean with Alison and Matt

Treehouse on Tom Sawyer's Island

Loving the teacups!

Meeting Mickey! (thank goodness he was thrilled since that was probably the longest line we waited in all day)

Waiting for It's A Small World, the holiday version was awesome!!

When can we go back????

Palm Springs

2012-01-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

Back in the summer, Alison and Bernie signed up for a half-marathon in Palm Springs on New Years Eve. Then we planned to go to Disneyland the next day. A couple months later, the race was cancelled. But we had non-refundable hotel reservations so we decided to go anyway to break up the drive to LA. The day we arrived, we went straight to the zoo so Tyler could use up some energy after being in the car. They had a really big model train display that Tyler enjoyed way more than the animals.

We spent the next day driving and hiking through the Joshua Tree National Park. Tyler had a bit of a hard time understanding what a national park is and kept asking where the slide was. Here we are in the Cholla Cactus Garden.

Climbing rocks

A Joshua Tree

The next day we went hiking in Indian Canyons. Do you see Tyler??

More rock climbing

The weather was beautiful and we really enjoyed it. Lucky for us Tyler loves hiking too (one day a few weeks ago he and I went hiking by ourselves during the week because we had no other plans and that's what he told me he wanted to do!).

Christmas Day 2011

2012-01-06T15:38:00.000-07:00

Bernie woke Tyler up on Christmas morning a little after 7. What a nice dad. Alison, Matt and my mom came over for stockings and breakfast.

Tyler's favorite present, from Santa.

Opening presents from us and Susan and Judy.

New train set

My mom went to pick up Dad after lunch and then we all headed over to their house after nap for more presents and Christmas dinner.

Tyler had a great time and did really well opening all the presents (we didn't have to spread them out over days like last year). But he was ridiculously spoiled! We are very blessed to have all that we do. My mom said she remembered how she always hated how our grandma spoiled Alison and me when we were kids and she vowed never to do that. And yet she did. So she says she made a resolution that from now on, he's only getting one gift and some books. We'll see how well she does :).

Pre-Christmas Activities

2012-01-05T16:57:00.000-07:00

We had a busy December leading up to Christmas. First, we put up the tree and all the decorations. I put all the unbreakable and yucky ornaments at the bottom because last year Tyler couldn't keep his hands off the tree. But he has been excellent! He loves to look at all the ornaments but hasn't really touched them or tried taking them off.

We went to see the Luminarias at the Botanical Garden, something we had never done before because of the price, but we really enjoyed it and decided it was well worth it (also the Big Bugs are still there). Tyler liked the lights but he also really liked all the different music groups playing around the Garden. We could barely tear him away even to eat dinner.

We had dinner and Christmas movies night with Alberto James and Diego - here they are watching Frosty.

We went too ZooLights with my parents, Tyler loved it but kept asking to see the orangutans. We told him they were sleeping and my dad did his best orangutan impersonation which Tyler loved.

We went to Tucson for a Christmas get-together with my high school friends, Laura and Chelsea (Natalie was missing because she just had a baby!). Here the kids are decorating cookies.

They all helped each other open their presents.

Trying to organize them for a present photo.

Tyler played with Aunt Alison as she came home early for Christmas.

We went to the Larsons' for a Christmas get-together.

We had Christmas Eve dinner at Joanna and Alberto's after mass. Joanna was kind enough to take a bunch of family pictures for us with her fancy camera.

Stay tuned for Christmas Day!

Polar Express

2012-01-04T15:07:00.000-07:00

I'm only a month behind now! Over the next few days I will do my best to catch up to the New Year. Happy 2012 everyone!

The first weekend in December, Tyler and I went on a trip to the Polar Express with some friends from gym class. It happens that most of them have girls and poor Tyler has no idea how lucky he is at this point in his life! We rented a 15-passenger van for the drive up to Williams, and although we were a little wary about having so many 2 year olds in such close quarters, it was really great. They were wonderfully behaved and kept each other entertained.

Tyler and his 5 girlfriends on the trip :)

In PJs, playing in the snow before the train.

On the train

Eating the most wonderful sugar cookie

With his friend Raleigh, waiting to have their tickets punched

Ringing the bells Santa gave them

Tyler was scared when Santa entered our car and burrowed into me, but braved up enough to turn around and take the offered bell himself, thank goodness.

The next day we tried to go sledding but it was snowing and we almost got stuck in the van, so we visited a Deer Farm instead and made our way back home. Those couple days in the snow just reminded me again that I don't want to move back to the cold (unless it's to Europe).

Thanksgiving in the Bay Area

2011-12-05T15:02:00.001-07:00

We flew to San Francisco the day before Thanksgiving to spend the holidays with Bernie's family. We also saw Alison and Matt before they went on their annual Yosemite trip. First stop when we arrived was Alison and Matt's apartment.

Tyler had a great time playing cars with Uncle Matt and playing on Alison's iPad. Then we went to dinner at the famous Zachary's Pizza in Rockridge.

Thanksgiving morning we all did a 5K Turkey Trot. They all ran while I walked (very quickly so Tyler wouldn't get bored and lonely) pushing Tyler in the stroller. Afterward, Tyler ran a 100-yard dash for 2-3 year olds. He got tired about halfway through (I know that 100 yards is a football field but it seemed a lot longer than I had thought) and revived just before the end. But he had a great time.

Uncle Eddie surprised Tyler with a just-because gift of some Cars 2 cars.

Here is our Thanksgiving dinner table, all was super yummy prepared by Bernie's mom (everything tastes better when you don't have to do any of the work).

The day after Thanksgiving we went to the Oakland Zoo with one of Eddie's friends and his kids. Here they are checking out the otters (thank goodness they were playing since the ones at the Phoenix Zoo never do anything except sleep in their logs).

After the zoo, Tyler went on a couple rides at this mini-amusement park outside the gates. He happily drove this fire truck (I was surprised he actually went by himself since adults were not allowed and he has been quite clingy lately.)

And, of course, the old standby, the carousel.

Bernie's parents wanted to give us our Christmas presents so they could see Tyler open them since they won't be with us on Christmas (and who will argue with early presents??). Tyler helped us open some beautiful wood-carved animals they brought back from a recent trip to Africa.

Saturday we went into the city and had lunch at a nice seafood restaurant in the Ferry Building. They didn't have a kids' menu so they made Tyler a grilled cheese on a French roll. Fanciest grilled cheese I've ever seen.

We also saw these giant ornaments,

this castle made from 3000 pounds of sugar, gingerbread, frosting, etc.,

and the Christmas tree in Union Square.

Finally, some attempts at family photos (Tyler was somewhat cooperative)

and running through the leaves.

Mini Vacation with the Larson Family

2011-12-02T15:54:00.000-07:00

We have been talking for a long time about going on vacation with our best friends, the Larsons. Like a week-long vacation to the beach or a cruise to Alaska or something. It hasn't happened yet. But we did take a test-drive the weekend before Thanksgiving! (Our camera battery was dying almost as soon as we started the trip so there aren't pictures of everything we did.)

We began with all 8 of us piling into their minivan.

We drove to the Out of Africa park in Camp Verde (for which we had purchased Groupons way back in the summer). We had a blast in the safari bus feeding carrots to a giraffe,

seeing a baby zebra,

and a white tiger.

We have no pics of the following things:
-a white tiger in an unchoreographed water show, the tiger isn't trained, they just kind of played around with it
-lots of lions sleeping on top of their shade structures in the sun
-a big rhino named Boom Boom

After a quick trip to the gift shop where each kid got a souvenir, we got back into the van for the short drive up to Sedona and checked into our hotel. After a snack and rest, we headed across the street to Wendy's for dinner.

Then to the Fantasy of Lights at the Los Abrigados Resort. There were 28 themed light displays all around the resort and they were amazing! I have no pics except this one of all the kids in a boat that was part of one of the displays.

Unbeknownst to us, Santa was also there. Abby, Katie and Jack had a great time sitting on his lap and telling him what they wanted. You may remember Tyler's experience with Santa from last year. I was hoping he would be better this year but apparently not. He hung onto me and Bernie for dear life and wouldn't even go with us to say hi to Santa. So I don't think I'll be paying for the mall photos this year.

Then, since the Larsons are a family of 5 and we of 3 and the hotel informed us that roll-away beds are not available due to fire hazard (even though we somehow reserved one beforehand online), Abby had a sleepover in our room.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then headed out for a hike near Courthouse Butte. We debated for a bit between the 4.5 mile one and the 2.5 mile one. Good thing we chose 2.5 since the kids were already complaining before we finished that!

After no naps either day for Tyler, he had a meltdown when we returned to the Larsons' house and had to say goodbye. Other than that, we determined our test-drive to be a great success and will hopefully get around to planning that longer vacation one day!

Balloon Festival

2011-12-01T14:53:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago there was a Groupon to a hot air balloon festival just a couple miles from our house. It was for Friday or Saturday and since we were going to be gone for the weekend, Bernie agreed to leave work a little early on Friday so we could go that afternoon/evening and check it out.

At this point, I am going to refer you to my friend Natalie's blog, for her account of the event which she attended on Saturday, just so I don't have to type it all.

Okay, now that you've read that and discovered what liars the organizers were, I will say that although we were also very disappointed in the number of balloons (we saw about 12, still many fewer than 50), I guess since it was Friday afternoon, there were not that many people there. We had lots of room to move around and see all the balloons up close and personal and there were no lines for anything. And we hadn't paid full price either, so it wasn't too too bad. But I agree that we wouldn't go back next year unless we had a similar deal for sure. Here are a few pics of ours though.

Look, hot air balloons!

Please ignore me itching my knee in the background here.

The balloons 'glowing' at night. Obviously, not all at once as promised.

Annual Fall Weekend in Sedona

2011-11-02T07:45:00.117-07:00

Last weekend we took our annual trip to Sedona to hike and see the fall color (although it turned out we were a week late for the best of it). We had lunch when we arrived Saturday and then went to our first chosen hike on the northwest side of town, Fay Canyon. It was only 2.5 or 3 miles which we figured was a good length since we had just done a breast cancer 5K in Tempe before leaving that morning.

Here is the view of the canyon from the parking area.

Tyler started out walking...

but as it was naptime, he soon got tired and he switched to the Ergo.

Taking a break next to a big red rock

We ran into this wall, quite literally it was the end of the trail.

Some of the amazing views and rock formations on the trail

After the hike, we drove to our hotel, which was up on Airport Mesa. After a shower and rest, we went for a walk to the airport. Tyler really enjoyed watching this tour helicopter load up and fly away.

Bernie and I watched in amazement as 4 adults and a baby of no more than 6 months boarded the helicopter for a tour and discussed how we couldn't imagine taking such a small baby on a helicopter (personally I am afraid to go on a helicopter at all but that's beside the point for the moment). Two minutes after they were all loaded up and the rotors started going, the rotors slowed down again, a door opened and one of the adults got out with the baby and waved goodbye to the rest of the family. When he came out, I asked him what happened. He replied, "Oh, it was too loud, she just didn't know what to think and was all upset so I'll just wait here for them." My voiced reply, "Oh, that's too bad. Hope you don't have to wait too long." My inner-head reply, "Duh. Who would take a small baby on a helicopter?!!!" (Apologies if any of my readers would do or have actually done that.)

So we continued our walk down to the Scenic Overlook for a view of the sunset over Sedona.

Our hotel was not too bad except for what we discovered were super creaky floors. We were abruptly awakened at 2:30am by the footsteps of the people above us. They seemed to constantly walk back and forth from the bedroom to the bathroom and with each step the floor squeaked and creaked. After 50 minutes (50 minutes!!!!) of this, I talked Bernie into going up there to talk to them (the front desk was not open all night). So he did, they claimed they weren't making any noise, he said they may not think so but we could hear every single footstep. Thankfully they did stop after that, but still lost 1 hour of good sleep.

So in the morning, we got up with Tyler around 7, packed up, went to get some bagel sandwiches, and were on our way to our next hike, the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon. It is the most popular hike in the area and gets quite busy by mid-morning (we normally like to hike less crowded trails but it's the best one for fall color that is also suitable for Tyler), but we were early enough to get a spot in the lot. It was cold though!!!

Here is Tyler on the bridge just before the hike starts.

The best patch of color we saw

Bernie picked Tyler up and carried him over each of the many creek crossings (didn't want him to get wet and any colder than he already was) and each time when they got to the other side Tyler said, "Good job Daddy."

Having a snack of apples

Whoa, Daddy look at that big rock!

This trail is 3 miles in and 3 miles back and after 2 years, we still haven't made it to the end. Maybe next year!

When we got back to the parking lot, a family with a one-year-old in an umbrella stroller was just getting started on the trail (it is a cement path for a couple hundred yards until you get to the creek). Bernie politely informed them that the path would end shortly and the rest of the trail involved many creek crossings, rocks and tree roots and that they may not get too far with the stroller. They replied, "Really? You don't think even this umbrella stroller will make it?" His voiced reply, "Well I don't think you will get too far." Our inner-head reply, "Yes, the puny $10 umbrella stroller you have will most definitely survive all those rocks and bumps intact, no problem." (Apologies to any of my readers who have taken their $10 umbrella stroller on a wooded, mountainous hiking trail.) Their reply, "Oh, I'm sure it will be fine. We'll give it a try." I really wanted to stick around and see how long it was before they gave up and came back but, alas, it was lunchtime.

So we went to lunch at a cafe in Uptown and sat out back on the patio. Did Tyler enjoy the view? Apparently not, Daddy's phone was much more exciting.

Then on our way out of town, we had to stop at the Bell Rock Vista to take our annual pictures in front of Courthouse Butte, in which Tyler does not cooperate very well. They were not too bad, though.

Maybe next year Tyler won't need to be carried at all!

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T11:13:00.000-07:00

Tyler had a Halloween party at school last Thursday. First there was a costume parade. Then the teachers ran a bunch of games for the kids to play and get candy. There were hot dogs, popcorn and caramel apples too.

Here's Tyler in his costume.

Here he is with his princess girlfriends, Emerson and Raleigh.

And here goes the parade.

Tyler had fun I think but after awhile he and his friends were bored with it and just wanted to go play on their playground.

Then of course last night was Halloween. Tyler was really excited to wear his Buzz costume again.

Here he is with Grandpa Bob.

Ready with empty bucket.

It only took him about one or two houses to really get the hang of it, then he was off and running. He was having a really good time for about 45 minutes.

Then as Tyler's bucket got full we made our way back to Joanna's house to try to get a group shot of Tyler, Alberto James and Diego. It didn't go so well. Here are a couple of the attempts.

All in all, a much more fun Halloween than last year when Tyler really had no idea what was going on yet. Can't wait to see what the difference will be next year!

Pumpkin Patches

2011-10-26T13:54:00.000-07:00

Last Friday we did a repeat of last year and went to the Pumpkin Patch at the Botanical Garden with Colleen and Lucy. Colleen's husband, Doug, and their 2nd daughter, Olive, came along this year too and so did Joanna, Alberto James and Diego.

As with last year and our pumpkin patch in Michigan, Tyler did not seem all that excited by any of it except the tractor pulling the hayride. Ah well. Here they all are in the hay maze.

At the end we went in to the rest of the Garden to look at the Monarch butterflies, but we didn't look at the Big Bugs again (except the 2 on the way to the butterflies) because Tyler said he was ready to go home (I was also quite warm and didn't mind - when is it going to feel like fall???)

Then Saturday Bernie and I took Tyler to another pumpkin patch that I saw on Groupon and purchased because it was on the way to my parents' house. With the Groupon it was cheaper than the one we went to last year and I thought it would be fun to dry a different one. Turns out we should have gone back to Mother Nature's Farm. It was a definite letdown and not nearly as nice.

Here are Tyler and Bernie on the covered wagon ride to the 'pumpkin patch.'

Here is the 'pumpkin patch'.

Here's Tyler with the pumpkin he chose on the return wagon ride.

Here they are in the hay maze.

And in the Spiderman bounce house (that was the highlight for Tyler).

Here are some other people's kids on the pony rides. This place might have been worth it because it included free pony rides (which are not available at Mother Nature's Farm). However, Tyler was too afraid of the ponies (they were really more horses and quite large) and did not ride.

Next year remind me to just go back to Mother Nature's Farm!

Michigan in the Fall

2011-10-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I took my first solo airplane trip with Tyler (no Bernie to help) and while I realize that many other mothers do this frequently with even 2 or more children, it had taken me until this point to feel comfortable enough to actually do it. We haven't been to Michigan in 2 years and Alison wanted to go in the fall, so it seemed like a good time over the second half of Tyler's fall break. (We left our husbands at home working.) So off we went to visit our Aunt Susan. We flew in to Detroit and then had a 4+ hour drive, including stops, up to their cabin in Northern Michigan. We spent 4 days there and while we did have quite a bit of rain, wind and cool temps, we did manage to have quite a good time.

Here is Tyler reading with Aunt Susan.

Here they are getting ready to watch the Tigers in Game 6 of the ALCS, sadly it was the last game of the season for the Tigers.

We went for a walk to see what fall color was left.

We went to a pumpkin patch! Here are Tyler and Judy feeding the animals at the farm's petting zoo.

On the hayride out to the pumpkin patch.

Here's the tractor that pulled us out there. Tyler seemed to be much more interested in the tractor than the pumpkins.

With the pumpkin he chose

With Aunt Alison and our pumpkin on the hayride back to the barn

And Tyler got to jump in his first ever leaf pile! (Aunt Susan had raked it up on their beach and wonderfully covered it with a tarp to keep it dry until the weather was nice enough to try it out!)

They also have 2 labs, who Tyler was very unsure of the first day or two, but got more and more comfortable with so by the end he was sitting with them right next to their faces watching them eat. I think by the end they were pretty annoyed with him and wished he would go back to keeping his distance!

I must also mention that I had started potty-training Tyler when fall break began, just 6 days before our trip. The first few days did not go well but on the 4th day, something just clicked with him and he has had virtually no accidents since then. I was super nervous about the plane trip and didn't really want to regress and put him back in diapers so we did pull-ups for the flight and he was totally fine, just told me he had to go and we went to use the airplane bathroom with no problems. He did fine back at school this week too! The only downside to this has to do with nighttime training. I had decided I wasn't even going to start with that yet because his diaper is usually still super full in the mornings. However, Tyler himself had other ideas. With no direction from us at all, he just decided that if he was going to use the toilet during the day he was going to use it at night too. We discovered this when he called out to us around 10:30 the few nights before we left for Michigan and had woken up needing to use the bathroom and didn't want to go in his diaper anymore. When we got to Michigan, the time change made these calls sometime in the middle of the night when I actually was sleeping (I thought I was done with middle-of-the-night wake up calls almost 2 years ago!). But they seemed to get later and later and last night he made it all the way to 6:00 am! Hooray!!!

September Catch-up

2011-10-20T14:25:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I am behind on my blogging AGAIN!!! Before I move on to the post that was my real reason for logging in to Blogger today, I decided I better do some September events before I totally forget about them.

First, we went to the Big Bugs Member preview night at the Botanical Garden with the Larsons. It is a special exhibit with some giant bug sculptures placed throughout the Garden. I was a bit worried that Tyler would be afraid of them because, frankly, when I saw some pictures of them before the event they scared me and because he has been a bit of a scaredy cat about certain things lately. But no worries, he had a great time, loved looking at the bugs and keeps asking to go back and see them again (haven't gotten around to it yet). I of course forgot my camera, so here are a few pics I got from Sarah.

The following weekend it was really quite cool for Arizona in September so we had a great morning working in the yard. Tyler 'worked' at climbing in and out of his water table while Bernie and I raked, trimmed, vacuumed, etc.

Then we went to the Science Center with the Larsons because we had a coupon to get in free there with our Botanical Garden memberships (definitely got our money's worth out of the membership this month!).

Here is Tyler watching their eyes show up on the giant screen on the ceiling in the lobby.

Entering the esophagus

Throwing balls into the nose with Jack

Getting muddy

Watching (and feeling) the Forces of Nature video (in which you experience a thunderstorm, tornado, volcano, etc)

Fun times!

Drawing and Pizza

2011-09-06T14:45:00.000-07:00

So far in his short 2 years and 3 months of life, Tyler has not shown much (any) interest in art of any kind. We have lots of crayons and markers, chalk, paper, Color Wonders, etc. but he usually colors for about 2 seconds and then spends a lot of time taking caps on and off and organizing the crayons into lines or piles.

If the kids do any kind of art at school, it goes into our parent pocket to pick up on the way home. For the first couple weeks of class, I was sad but not surprised to notice that most of the other kids had done some kind of artwork each day but my pocket was always empty. Finally, in the 3rd week my pocket had something in it!

Later that week some of the other moms in the class were discussing whether or not they save all the art. Some did, some saved only some. I, on the other hand, had only one piece so of course I saved it!

On a seemingly unrelated note (for now - you will see how it ties in later), a new Grimaldi's opened in the shopping center close to our house when we got back from Europe. We had been looking forward to it for awhile. We decided to go a few weeks ago. Bernie was late coming home from work though and we didn't get there until about 6:30. The wait was 1 hour and 5 minutes. We left. We returned the next night at 5:20. The wait was 1 hour and 5 minutes. We left. It looks like a nice place to wait for an hour and 5 minutes doesn't it?

But not when it's 110 degrees out and you have a 2-year old.

We finally decided to try again last night, planning to arrive early and hope that Labor Day would not be a busy night. We got there just after 5 and got right in (turned out Labor Day was not in fact busy at all and the whole place never filled up the whole time we were there). It was just as yummy as we remembered from our Scottsdale visits but the highlight of the dinner for us was this:

Tyler spent nearly the whole time we were waiting for the pizza intently coloring the back of his kids' menu (which is not really a menu since they don't have kids' items but that's what they called it). This has NEVER happened before. Not even close. I think maybe it was a milestone or some sort of turning point in his art life because today at school, he apparently did this:

Now, I am under no illusions that he drew that sun himself. But still, the rest of it looks authentic. Maybe one day soon, I too can participate in the "Do you or don't you save all your kid's drawings?" discussion!

School!

2011-08-09T22:35:00.000-07:00

Today was Tyler's first day of preschool. Here is the best shot I could get of him before leaving the house. He wasn't cooperating and we were running late.

He is going 2 mornings a week for 3 hours. I am super excited to have this extra time to get some things done without him bothering me and to go to the gym. We have been preparing Tyler for this day for a few weeks now. Last Thursday we went to Meet the Teacher which went well and he already knows 5 of the other kids in the class. So I was hopeful the first day would go well. This morning he seemed excited while we were driving there and he played happily in the playground with the other kids while we waited for the doors to open.

They had activity tables set up, one for coloring and one for play-doh. Tyler spent exactly 2 seconds doing this

and then moved on to his usual favorites.

He was a bit whiny when I left but not too bad so I was feeling good. But when the doors opened for pick-up, there he was on the lap of one of the teachers with tears rolling down his cheeks. I must say this made me a little teary as well. They said he had been alternating all morning between playing happily and crying sadly. I am sure it will get better every time as he realizes that I am going to come back to get him but those tears were so sad! He did later tell me that he had fun playing with the cars and trucks and his friends and on the playground. He also told me what he had for snack and that one of the teachers got his new diaper from his Elmo backpack. I had been wondering if I would find out anything he did at school because lately he has been answering every single question with, "Yeah", so I was happy to get all this information.

The MIM

2011-08-09T22:18:00.000-07:00

Last Christmas I gave Bernie an IOU for a trip to the Musical Instrument Museum up in north Phoenix. We finally got around to using it on Saturday morning, figured it was as good a way to beat the heat as any. The building itself is beautiful, I will call it modern desert architecture. And the displays are amazing as well. They have instruments from pretty much every country and you get a headphone set that automatically plays video of the instruments being played in their native lands when you step in front of a TV, no buttons to push or anything. There is also the Artists Gallery with items such as a Clapton guitar, Santana guitar, drums from the Black Eyed Peas, etc. We spent 2 1/2 hours there - which was just right for me, a bit much for Tyler, and too little for Bernie. The highlight for me and Tyler was the Experience Gallery where you can play all kinds of instruments. You can see Tyler experiencing a few of them below.

We finished off our outing with lunch at a Vietnamese place we loved when we lived in Scottsdale - yum!

Bringing Home the Bacon

2011-07-15T13:40:00.000-07:00

Last night after dinner Bernie and I were 'discussing' whose turn it was to clean up Tyler and his table area/booster seat (we had had rice which always makes that a worse job than usual). I said I thought Bernie should do it since he had been late coming home from work. He replied that we should be happy he was working so he could bring home the bacon. Tyler immediately looked back into the kitchen asking, "Bacon? Bacon?" (He has only had bacon maybe twice in his whole life but apparently it has left an impression.)

So we had to try explaining to him that there really wasn't any bacon and we weren't sure how to do this at a language level he would understand so we just gave up. I told him that 'bringing home the bacon' wasn't meant to be taken literally and that it was just an expression. He repeated the big words 'literally' and 'expression' back to me, of course without having any idea as to their meaning so we laughed. Then he laughed hysterically along with us. After the laughter subsided we heard again, "Bacon? Bacon?" amid more glances to the kitchen.

European Adventure Part 8

2011-07-13T14:07:00.006-07:00

Going Home

After the team time trial it was time to head back to the car for our 4 turned into 6-hour drive to our Paris airport hotel thanks to a long dinner and some fun Paris traffic. Arrived a bit after 11pm, then Bernie had to return the rental car. Bonus: rental car company snafu said we had already returned the car the previous day so it was cheaper than we expected.

Monday morning, July 4, we went to the airport for our flight home. Thankfully that was only 2 flights, Paris to O'Hare and then to Phoenix, all in one day, yay! The long flight was a little trickier than the way over because it wasn't during Tyler's bedtime so we had to do more to keep him entertained. He should have taken a nap shortly after we got on but he did not. He was very antsy and our DVD player was out of battery. Finally after 6 hours I got him to go to sleep in my lap for the last 3 hours of the flight, again not so comfortable for me. Then a long layover at O'Hare during which Tyler was super excited to eat a real American hot dog!

Finally we arrived home at 9pm, just in time to see a few fireworks from the car on the way home. Overall we had an AWESOME trip and are incredibly thankful to be so blessed with such a good-traveling kid! Even though Tyler most likely won't remember any of the trip in a few years I am happy knowing that he had a great time too. Since we've been back he most often talks about hiking in the mountains and the giraffe bounce house. Also the other day when we were watching the Tour when it went through the Loire Valley, Tyler saw one of the chateaus we had visited and yelled out, "Chateau!" (Unclear if he actually recognized the chateau itself or just that it was a chateau) If anyone else feels like taking a European vacation with a toddler, just let us know!

I have spent the last several days paying bills that we missed while we were gone and going over our money situation. Turns out I severely underbudgeted the trip, mostly due to the terrible exchange rates that weren't so bad when we originally planned the trip, and the fact that I completely forgot to budget for gas, which is the equivalent of $8 a gallon. Oops!

European Adventure Part 7

2011-07-12T14:34:00.000-07:00

Days 17-20 Vendee and the Tour de France

Thursday June 30 we checked out of the campsite and drove about an hour south to the Vendee region which would be hosting the first few days of the Tour de France. Before going to our campsite we stopped at an amusement park of sorts called Le Puy du Fou, where they were going to have the team presentations for the Tour. The park is kind of like a Renaissance Festival on an even bigger scale with different villages for different time periods and different warrior and minstrel shows, etc. We saw some Roman warrior show that the kids were not too sure about except it included a bunch of animals like horses, ox, and even lions.

The kids did enjoy a farm at the park and a jumping water fountain show a la Bellagio in Vegas. We were also able to see some of the cyclists walk past us into the presentation and then bike out later to their team buses.

Then we drove the 10 minutes to our final campsite of the trip. This one didn't have any cabins big enough for all of us so we each got our own.

The kids had had a long day with not really any nap to speak of and they were very cranky and hungry by the time we got situated so we ate dinner at the restaurant onsite instead of going out to the grocery and then having to come back and cook something. Tyler was so exhausted he fell asleep in my arms at the restaurant after dinner which hasn't happened since he was a tiny baby.

Friday we had a bit of a slower day. We went to the nearby town of Clisson which was really cute. On the way there we saw this sign

It was market day which is always fun. We arrived a bit late though as most of the vendors were closing up. But Amanda and I did manage to snag some super cute sun hats. The food portion of the market was in this old wooden market hall from the 16th century. Then we had lunch at a kebab shop next to the market which was good, cheap and the guy inside was super friendly and helpful.

We checked out a church next to the market

and then the Chateau de Clisson (notice my cute new hat)

It was not like the other chateaus we had seen, more of a fortress and definitely mostly in ruins. But that made it quite fun for the kids to run around climbing up and down stairs and looking through the keyholes, etc.

View of the town from the chateau

After that we drove back to the grocery in the town next to our campsite for dinner and lunch supplies for the next two days. Then back to camp and to the pool. No grilling at this site, and we had only 2-burner stoves so we had to split the dinner duties between us.

Saturday was Stage 1 of the Tour, to finish on a hill in the area called Mont des Alouettes. We thought the hilltop finish would be a good place to be (the riders are slower on hills and therefore in more groups so you can see more of them instead of just a whooshing bunch that is there and then gone on a flat part like when Bernie and I went in 2006). We arrived to the town at the bottom of the hill around noon (keep in mind the finish of the race wouldn't be til about 5:30), found a good parking spot, got some baguettes and tarts from the boulanger down the street (the best baguettes we had the whole trip - fresh from the oven) and started the trek up to the top of the hill. We walked over 2 kilometers and were only at the 500 meter to go mark when the crowd began to get pretty thick by the rails and the way going on the shoulders with the strollers was getting difficult. So we stopped there, sat down and ate our lunch and prepared for the next several hours of waiting. I took a walk with Tyler but couldn't get very far because of all the people. I later walked by myself up to the finish but I could only get to 100 meters to go. Our spot was not bad though and there were speakers next to us so we could hear the announcing of the race (I was quite please with myself that I could understand most of the French!).

Andrew, Amanda and Olivia waiting for the race

Just before 4 in the afternoon the race publicity caravan drove by. It's a whole bunch of vehicles driven and decorated by the sponsors and they throw out items to the fans, like silly hats and keychains, etc. It is really all junk that will be thrown away but it is great fun leaping for items and fighting your neighbors. It was even more fun because there was a fairly deep ditch right behind where we were standing and the vehicles kept throwing stuff over our heads into the ditch so Bernie and Andrew took turns leaping into the ditch. At least that kept the kids entertained for awhile.

Finally the cyclists arrive!!

It seems crazy to wait for over 5 hours for only a few minutes of action, but it's the Tour de France! Then the long trek back down the hill to the car, which seemed a lot longer after 6 hours in the sun.

Sunday, Stage 2, was a 22km team time trial, starting and ending in the town of Les Essarts. The start and finish lines were within walking distance of each other so we were able to see some teams start and others near the finish. The first team would start at 2:30. We got there around 12:30, parked and walked into town but not as far as we had walked the day before. Got some takeout pizza in the square and ate on the cathedral steps.

Then we made our way close to the start line and watched the first 6 or 7 teams start.

Then we moved back to the cathedral square which was at the 500 meters to go mark and watched several teams go by there.

We were also next to the speakers again so I could hear the finishing times and placings, etc. Then when everyone got too hot in the sun we moved to a grassy shaded area behind the start line where we watched the last few teams warm up before their start. A time trial is definitely a more rewarding stage to watch since you don't spend so much time standing around for nothing, and teams go by every few minutes. When we got home we looked for highlights of the stages to see if we could see ourselves on TV. Stage 1 we could see where we were and a quick glimpse of Bernie and Amanda's yellow shirts but they were going too fast to see us in any detail. No luck at all on Stage 2. Ah well, we missed our chance to be famous I guess ;)

European Adventure Part 6

2011-07-11T14:50:00.001-07:00

Days 14-16 Western Loire Valley

Monday we checked out of the first campsite and drove about an hour to Chateau Villandry. It was a fairly small chateau but had HUGE beautiful gardens around it.

Sadly we didn't get to explore them as much as we would have liked because it was at least 95 which made us all cranky. A quick lunch of sandwiches before driving a few kms to our next stop, Azay-le-Rideau. I really liked the setting of it but again the heat kept us from enjoying it too much.

Then back to the car to drive another hour to the other end of the Loire Valley and our next campsite near Angers. This one was almost but just not quite as nice as the first one. The cabin seemed just that little bit smaller and not as well laid-out so it made it a little harder.

We did some laundry while the kids played in the bounce house.

We were wondering how we were going to manage to sleep in the 95 degree heat (it was 88 inside the cabin at 8:30pm) but thankfully there was a big rainstorm after dinner which cooled it off some and made it bearable.

Tuesday we went to the largest abbey in Europe, Abbaye de Fontevraud. Saw the huge old kitchen with super high chimneys, the kids played on a weird modernish wooden stair sculpture in the cloister which I felt took away from the character of the site but who am I to argue with art.

It was still a bit hot to walk around and enjoy it fully though. If you guessed that our dinner that night included grilling, bread, cheese and wine, you'd be right!

Random picture of Tyler sporting some crazy hair that day.

Wednesday we went into the city of Angers. We had lunch in a park by the river that looked nice when we first arrived. However we quickly discovered that it was full of broken glass so we had to be super careful about the kids, the first and last time we encountered anything like that. We saw the Cathedral St Maurice, walked around near there looking at all the beautiful buildings, old timbered ones and newer (but still old) balconied ones.

Then we went to the Chateau which was more like a fortress.

The highlights of that were the room where some 14th century tapestries that tell the story of the Apocalypse were displayed and the walk along the ramparts looking over the city.

After dinner the campsite had mini disco night for the kids so they had fun dancing around before bedtime.

European Adventure Part 5

2011-07-10T13:53:00.002-07:00

Days 10-13 Eastern Loire Valley

Thursday we got up and went out to the airport to pick up our rental car for the French portion of our trip. We couldn't keep the same one we'd gotten in Zurich because there was a $1500 fee for renting in Switzerland and returning in France but thankfully the Geneva airport has a French sector since it's so close to the border and we were able to rent a car there with no fee. Then followed a 6+ hour drive with a stop for lunch and gas before we arrived to the town of Onzain near our campsite for the next part of our trip. (Also a short stop at the toll plaza where the machines wouldn't accept our Visa card and we didn't have enough cash to pay the tolls for 5 hours worth of tollway - $70!!!! Bernie had to go inside with his passport and now we have some sort of ticket we're supposed to pay somehow via bank transfer. But maybe we will not pay and hope they let us back in the country next time!) In Onzain, we picked up our friends Amanda, Andrew and Olivia from the train station (they came from Paris) and we all made it out to the campsite. It's really more like a camping village. It had some tent plots and also a bunch of mobile homes, with a really nice pool area, bar, restaurant, etc. We rented a mobile home with 3 bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and eating area.

We decided to try the 'camping' because we could all stay together so the kids could play and entertain each other, we would be able to cook our own meals if we wanted to and it was much cheaper than any hotels, much less apartment rentals we could find. It turned out to be a really great decision. We were basically outside from 8:30am til we went to bed at night, ate all our meals outside and the kids could run around playing in the 'yard'.

Also, the various campsites we visited had a lot of kids stuff, playgrounds, bounce houses, baby disco night, etc. The bedrooms were small but there was plenty of room for all of us. After arriving we went to the onsite shop for dinner fixings, made some pasta and put the kids to bed.

Friday we went to Chateau Chambord. Here are Tyler, me, Amanda and Olivia.

I really liked the chateau itself but the grounds were not too exciting. Even the kids enjoyed it somewhat though I think. We had planned to see something else afterwards but the kids fell asleep in the car and we didn't want to shorten their naps so we just drove around for an hour while they slept, then stopped at the grocery store to get food for the next 3 days. Then back to camp to rent a grill and make dinner. Started a nightly routine of tarts for dessert after the kids were in bed.

Saturday we managed to fit two sights in, yay us! First stop, Chateau Chenonceau. The chateau was not as big or impressive as Chambord except that it was built amazingly over the river but it had huge beautiful gardens and a maze. We brought our own stuff for a picnic lunch.

Afterwards, the kids fell asleep in the car again but we decided to do another stop anyway, Chateau Chaumont, the closest one to our campsite. The outside of the chateau was beautiful, inside not as well kept up as the others with lots of emtpy unfinished rooms. It also had beautiful grounds overlooking the Loire though.

Then back to campsite for more grilling, bread and cheese, wine, tarts.

Sunday we decided a break from chateaus was in order so we drove to the town of Vendome instead. A cute town built on islands in the river Loir (not to be confused with the Loire) so it has a bunch of canals running through it kind of like Venice. We saw the beautiful cathedral and then just walked around the town and had some sandwiches and pastries in a park for lunch.

We drove back to the campsite after that, arriving back before 3 with the idea of taking the kids to the pool. But they fell asleep in the car and then miraculously didn't wake up when we got back and slept over another hour just sitting in the car with the doors open. Went to the pool when they woke up as it was quite hot. They had a good time going down a big windy slide with their daddies. Then more grilling, tarts and drinking before bed (are you noticing a pattern here?).

European Adventure Part 4

2011-07-09T20:52:00.001-07:00

Days 8-9 Geneva

Tuesday we slept in, Bernie and Tyler went out for a walk while I did our laundry. Then we went to lunch with some of Bernie's old coworkers. We wanted to go for a walk downtown to see the sights but it looked like rain and we had left laundry out to dry so we went home instead where Tyler took a nice nap. After nap, the rain had stopped so we went downtown. We walked by the lake to see the Jet d'Eau (tallest water fountain in the world or Europe, depending which source you believe) of course which Tyler kept wanting to get closer to even though it was blowing inland and getting everyone quite wet.

Then we went into the old town, where Tyler went for a ride on the carousel, then dinner at one of our favorite places for rotisserie chicken and fries.

Wednesday we went to a park next to the lake with one of Bernie's old coworkers and her 2 kids, 5 and 2. The boys played and ran around, we saw a few animals, and then we had lunch and they played some more.

A long walk back into town along the lake, some chocolate shopping, and we returned home for a late nap. We were going to go out to dinner but it started pouring and looked terrible out, and when Christine got home she was soaked, so we just went around the corner for another Geneva staple from the old days, kebabs.

Christine reading Tyler his bedtime stories

I must say it was good to be back and we were slightly tempted when one of Bernie's friends said she could get him a job. Maybe in a few more years!

European Adventure Part 3

2011-07-08T14:57:00.001-07:00

Days 6-7 Grindelwald

The next day was Father's Day. Tyler brought along a card for Bernie but I guess we could have left it at home because Bernie was totally surprised and had no idea that it was Father's Day. When we woke up it did not look good at all outside. We had planned to take one of the cable cars up the mountain for some hiking. We couldn't even see where the cable car was going though. It did look like there was some blue sky on the way so we decided to chance it, not having anything else to do indoors anyway. I had been worried that Tyler would not like his first cable car ride and would be screaming to get out for the whole 25-minute trip but thankfully he thoroughly enjoyed it instead!

About 3/4 of the way to the top, we were officially in the clouds and the temperature dropped considerably. We were hoping Tyler would walk at least part of the hike himself but the cold and wind upset him too much and he didn't understand that walking would help keep him warm so we carried a freezing kid for about an hour and a half before we got to the halfway point of our out-and-back hike.

We had planned to picnic there but since it was so cold we had to go in to get warm and order lunch at the restaurant instead. Swiss alpine food though - warm and hearty Rosti and Alpler macaroni, not as good as others we've had but good enough to get us warm again. After lunch the sun actually came out and was out for most of the hike back to the cable car station. Tyler took a nap in the Ergo for the first 40 minutes and then actually walked most of the rest of the way! He just needed a little sun and a nap to get him going I guess. He had a ton of fun pointing out all the wildflowers, rocks, mud and waterfalls.

The restaurant was just on the other side of this hill past the Swiss flag.

The Wetterhorn, we walked towards it all morning

Looking back at the path we took to get there

Tyler hiking, or running into the mud

In the cable car on the way back down Tyler kept telling us he was having fun, what a great thing for parents to hear! Another stop at the grocery for the rest of our dinner fixings and back to our hotel for a much-needed rest. Our legs were complaining after hiking 3.5 hours through the Alps with a kid on our back part of the way.

The next day we drove over to another cable car ride on the other side of the valley, this one is the third-longest passenger cable car in the world. Tyler was super excited to be going on another cable car.

At the top of that one we hiked for about an hour to the town of Kleine Scheidegg. This is the view back down to Grindelwald and across the valley to the ridge we hiked the day before.

This is the wall of the Eiger and the train tunnels below it.

Almost to Kleine Scheidegg

Eating another alpine lunch, but much better than the one the day before. Tyler really enjoyed it despite how his face looks in this picture!

After lunch we took the mountain train back down to our car. Tyler was equally as excited about the train ride as the cable car but did not cooperate for pictures.

Then into the car for the drive to Geneva, about 3 hours including terrible rush hour traffic in Geneva during which Tyler cried and cried to get out of the car. We arrived to our friend Christine's place and took all our stuff upstairs. Then Bernie went back into town to return the rental car. Tyler and I stayed and got settled in and went for a short walk. Fed Tyler some pasta for dinner, then when Christine came home from work she cooked dinner for us, so hospitable!

European Adventure Part 2

2011-07-07T14:35:00.002-07:00

Days 3-5 Friends near Zurich

We arrived on Thursday, June 16, and went to stay with our friends, Doris, Cengiz and their 9-month old son, Deniz, in their little village in the countryside about 20 minutes outside of Zurich.

Here is the view of the village from their house.

It was so cute and peaceful and relaxing! A much better way to get over the jet lag than in a hotel in the city. Tyler and I took a 3-hour nap in the middle of the day. Then we played with Deniz and later in between rainshowers took a walk through the village. We saw the vegetable garden, some cows, sheep, chickens, and horses.

Tyler really enjoyed it! Also every time we saw a grassy area, which was pretty much all the time, Tyler would yell out, "Park! Park!" I guess that's what happens when you live in Phoenix and there is really only grass at parks. Tyler then went right to bed at his normal bedtime of 8 o'clock. First and only sign of jet lag from him was that he slept until we finally woke him up just before 10 the next morning!

That day we went to a children's zoo in the town of Rapperswil at the other end of Lake Zurich. Small but nice and compact and we could get really close to all the animals (this was sadly because the enclosures were quite small, so not good for the animals but excellent for the kids).

Then we went to have a look around the schloss (castle) and Altstadt (old town) of Rapperswil. Then back to Doris' for homemade pizza dinner!

Here's a picture of Cengiz, Deniz, Bernie and Tyler.

Tyler rediscovered Nutella at Doris' (I eat Nutella at home but Tyler has never seemed to like it too much).

Trying to get a picture of Doris with the boys - but of course they both wouldn't look at the camera at the same time.

Saturday morning after we got up it basically rained all day. We couldn't go out for a walk so we just played with Deniz. Tyler had a lot of fun pushing him around in this ride-on.

Then we said our goodbyes and left for the 2 hour drive to Grindelwald in the Swiss Alps, our absolute favorite place in the world! When we arrived in Grindelwald we took a walk on which Tyler was super excited to see a rainbow (he is still talking about the only one he has seen in Phoenix which was a couple months ago).

Then we stopped at the grocery for fruit and veggies and picked up a quick dinner of brats for us and a hot dog for Tyler. However Tyler decided he didn't like his Swiss hot dog (although they are his favorite at home) so Bernie was the martyr and traded with him. We were in a small studio apartment room at our hotel which had a mini kitchen. However, we discovered that we had to pay quite a bit extra to rent the pots and pans. So we boiled broccoli in the electric kettle! Resourceful and not at all ghetto right?

European Adventure Part 1

2011-07-06T16:24:00.001-07:00

Days 1-2 The Flight(s)

Sorry if this part is boring and mostly pictureless but we must start at the beginning (and I must finish sorting pictures before the rest of the entries can be done)! We used miles for our airline tickets so our flights were not ideal. We had to leave one night early and spend the night in Dallas before continuing on to JFK and then Zurich the following day. It turned out to be fine though. Tyler is such an adaptable traveler and he was really excited to fly on a plane again (last time was at Christmas). It was the first time we brought his car seat for him to sit in on the plane and I think that helped because he knew he wasn't able to get out and he wasn't crawling all over us and wanting to jump around. He just read and watched videos for the first two flights, although no naps.

The 3rd flight, the one to Zurich, was overnight so we should all have been sleeping the whole time to be ready to arrive at 8am Zurich time. Tyler could not get comfortable in the car seat though so he ended up sleeping on me for the first 4 hours of the flight. I of course could not sleep at all during that time since I was trying to keep from moving too much and disturbing him and keeping his arms and head out of way of the carts and people in the aisles. For the second four hours, he never went back to sleep but he just rested on Bernie until they served breakfast. I thought for sure he would fall asleep instantly once we got our rental car since he'd only had the 4 hours of sleep and no nap the previous day but nope, it was like he had woken up from a full night's sleep, he was in such a good mood! A good way to start the trip.

European Adventure: Preview

2011-07-05T11:32:00.000-07:00

Have you missed me? You probably didn't even notice I was gone since I haven't exactly been a prolific blogger lately. But we just got back last night from 3 weeks in Europe - Switzerland and France, specifically. I haven't had a chance to go through all the pictures yet and blogs will be forthcoming, but here's a little preview/review for you.

Items Lost: 3

Umbrella - left at our friend Christine's place in Geneva
Bernie's sandals - left under the bed at one of our cabins in France
My glasses case - left in the seat back pocket on the plane yesterday

Items Gained: Several pounds and some chocolate (do you see the relation here?)

Highlights: Tarts, bread, wine, cheese, mountains, chateaus, Tour de France

Lowlights: Occasional cranky children (no or short naps), 2 95 degree days (thought we were leaving that)

Random Funny Story: Yesterday on the plane from O'Hare to Phoenix, there were 2 college girls who did not previously know each other sitting in front of us discussing their trips abroad to Europe. Quote "I hated Paris. I got out of there as quick as possible. I mean, like, I swear they don't even have real food there. All they have everywhere you look is croissants and more croissants and that's it. How can you survive on that?"

Jump Jump!

2011-06-16T21:00:00.003-07:00

We went to a place called Jumpstreet with Tyler's friend Alberto James. It has great big trampolines and inflatable slides in an under-7 area and for under-3s is only $4 for the entire day (if you really wanted to spend that long there)! Talk about cheap summer entertainment! We only stayed for an hour and a half but still well worth it. The boys had a great time jumping and sliding. Tyler even climbed up this HUGE crocodile slide, which you can't really tell from the picture but it was 20 feet tall!

He also found a girlfriend somehow who took him everywhere with her for awhile.

Here are Tyler and AJ on the trampolines.

Think we will definitely be returning at some point.

Two Year Pictures

2011-06-02T21:34:00.000-07:00

It seems that Bernie has some sort of (illegal?) program on his work computer that can download any image. Lucky for you all, here are a few of the pictures from his 2 year session.

I don't know why they wanted to take his picture lying down. To me, this seems like more of a baby pose.

Tyler enjoyed pretending to sleep though, this is one of his new favorite activities.

All in all, not too bad considering his energy and not wanting to look at the camera.

Two Years Old!!

2011-05-31T21:55:00.001-07:00

I can't believe that Tyler is now 2! He is becoming so grown up (except for the tantrums and repeated "No"s)! It's getting so much easier now that he can communicate pretty well and tell us what he needs or wants and plays by himself a bit more. He does or says something new every day, amazing! One example, the other day we were eating dinner together and Tyler pointed to each of us and said, "Daddy, Mommy, Tyler, family!"

My parents came over a few days before his birthday since my dad would be out of town on his actual birthday. He was of course spoiled by them. Here he is with some of their presents.

Last year we had a big party for his birthday and of course he had no idea what was going on. So I decided to do it on a much smaller scale this year and wait for next year when I hear he will probably start having some opinions about what kind of party he wants. We just had a couple of close family friends over for lunch and cake. I invited them myself but later asked Tyler who he wanted to invite to his birthday and they were the same 3 families thank goodness!

I think because my birthday was a couple weeks ago Tyler had a bit of an idea of what a birthday should be. When I went in to get him in the morning, I sang Happy Birthday to him and he was so happy, just laid in bed listening with a HUGE grin on his face. Then he got to go pick up our produce basket and get bagels at Einsteins with Daddy. Then we had a few presents before the party including this kitchen.

I am really disappointed with the pictures from the party, not sure if I am or Bernie is to blame, so bear with them please.

Eating lunch - his favorites: turkey dog, pasta salad, baked beans

All the kids getting ready to eat lunch

Playing at the kitchen with Lucy and Alberto James

Loving Happy Birthday being sung to him, his name candles spread on two cupcakes

(I hate this picture of me but I am taking one for the team and posting it anyway)

Katie, Abby and Jack helping him open his presents

Yesterday we got his 2 year pictures taken. Not any great ones but a few okay ones. At least they were a million times better than the Santa picture! One of these days he will smile beautifully directly at the camera when asked right? Last year when we got them, I was able to download them from the website in a small size. However, now it seems I am not able to do even that, and since I didn't buy the CD, you'll have to wait to see them I guess. Not too happy about this.

Big Boy Bed

2011-05-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

As you may know, we are going to Europe for three weeks this summer. And, against our better judgment, we are taking Tyler with us. Just kidding, we are super excited to be taking Tyler! He is a good traveler and we think once he gets over the jet lag it will be a great trip. Anyway, since Tyler is so tall he is now officially too big for Pack N Plays so he will be needing to sleep in real beds while we are there (although they are thankfully much lower to the ground than ours in the States usually, think IKEA beds). So we decided it would be a good idea to get him used to it before we leave. So Sunday we went bed shopping, chose one, and it was delivered yesterday.

Here is the new setup, lots of pillows in case he manages to fall/climb out, the changing table moved horizontally at the end of the bed to prevent him from falling out down there since he does still move around a lot. No top sheet because of the moving around, but one of his small lightweight blankets. And of course the guard rail.

Here he is, super excited to be in it for his first night's sleep.

Bernie was worried that he would get out and play in his room or come to find us either after getting in bed or when he woke up this morning. But he did neither, just went right to sleep like normal and waited for us to come get him in the morning.

And here he is right now, napping.

Guess he doesn't need the extra space.

Easter Weekend

2011-04-25T15:27:00.004-07:00

We had a wonderful Easter weekend and hope you all did too!

Saturday we had lunch with some friends we hadn't seen in several months (no camera though). They don't have kids so no toys for Tyler really, he spent his time alternating between being scared of their dogs and then wondering where the dogs had gone off too and moving rocks around in their backyard.

Saturday evening our neighborhood had a movie in the park night. Some people donated their projector to use and they showed Tangled on the block wall of our greenbelt area. Although we couldn't stay for the whole thing because Tyler was getting tired and becoming zombie-like, we had a great time and were thrilled that Tyler was so good just sitting and watching the movie (because his normal TV/movie attention span is less than 15 minutes). I even entertained thoughts of being able to take him to a movie in a theater soon but Bernie thinks the situation and being outside made it easier than if we were in a chair in a theater.

Sunday we got up and went to mass. We got there early enough to get a seat inside the church (there was also a tent but I didn't want Tyler to think he could run around outside) and Tyler was amazing! (Especially considering that we have become those horrible holiday-only churchgoers that I used to hate!) He behaved so much better than I expected that I am going to make the effort to start going much more often now.

When we got home Tyler checked out the goodies in his Easter basket.

Then my mom came over for Easter lunch and Joanna brought Alberto James over to hunt for eggs with Tyler.

Here they are with baskets at the ready.

Unfortunately, Tyler's basket did not get much use for a long time. He collected his eggs and put them all in lines on the grass instead.

He did later move them from the lines to the basket.

With some help from Alberto James.

Here they are together with their filled baskets. At least AJ is smiling.

Then we attempted a family Easter photo.

Tyler with eyes closed

Tyler trying to escape

Oh well, there's always next year.

A First (And Hopefully Last)

2011-04-21T21:59:00.003-07:00

After all the things we had going on the last several weeks, we have now been forced to take it a little bit slower due to this:

Wednesday night, April 13th, around 8pm - Bernie was getting ready to brush Tyler's teeth before bed. Tyler usually sits on the bathroom counter for this. Bernie looked away for 1 second and the next thing we know, Tyler is on the ground screaming. After many failed attempts to calm him down, we realized that he was seriously favoring his right arm. Then Tyler started holding the right arm with his left and saying "owie" and "booboo". So we made a trip to the ER. Turns out he fractured his elbow in the fall. Woohoo - Tyler's first broken bone! Just kidding, although given how crazy Tyler is I really am not surprised that it happened (to be fair this was not entirely his fault, not like if he jumped off the stairs or something). I am a little sad to say that in my entire life I have not had one broken bone (a few sprains) and my son has his first before the age of 2.

Anyway, the ER patched him up with the above splint and sling and referred us to a pediatric orthopedist for follow-up. This week we had the follow-up appointment. (May I point out that we were in the ER for about 3 hours and for some reason the follow-up was 2 hours - lots and lots of waiting.) More x-rays showed no further damage and now he has this beautiful blue cast.

Good news - because he is young and it is not a bad fracture it can probably come off in only 2 more weeks - hooray!!! Bad news, still no playing at the park, in the sand, going to gym class or swim lessons. Tyler and I have already been basically housebound for a week and are going crazy and still 2 more weeks. Not sure how we will survive. But HUGE thank goodness that Tyler is being absolutely amazing about it. He never complained once about the splint (except a few times that it was itchy) and has totally switched to doing everything with his left hand absolutely no problem. So far no complaints about the cast either and he is able to actually do a lot more with it than the splint.

In case any of you also brush your kids' teeth with them sitting on the counter, just a reminder to be extra careful!

Spring Visitors and Events

2011-04-21T21:33:00.006-07:00

As usual I am quite behind on my posting. We have had A LOT going on since my last post! First, we had an outing to the Botanical Garden with the Larsons to see the butterflies (and all the other stuff). All the kids had a great time and we got a few pictures.

One of many pretty butterflies

Getting ready for a snack

No idea what they are all looking at

Then my Aunt Susan and our friend Judy came to visit us from Michigan. Tyler hadn't seen Susan in about a year and Judy in a year and a half! Needless to say, they were amazed by how much he has grown and how much he can do now. Tyler really hates to have his picture taken these days, he wants to come around and see the picture on the camera instead but doesn't realize there won't be one to see if he doesn't sit for one. Here are the best ones we got.

Right after Susan and Judy left we had my high school friends over for a Chinese dumpling party. Unfortunately I have exactly zero pictures of this event. Bernie was nervous about how everyone would enjoy it but he received rave reviews, even from all the kids!

Then Bernie's parents came to visit. Tyler was so excited to see YeYe and MaMa when we went to get them at the airport that he almost jumped out of his carseat even though he was tightly strapped in! He had a great time reading and playing with them all weekend.

Tyler was sad to see them go. Luckily he can still see them on Skype often.

Kid-Free Weekend

2011-03-14T21:08:00.006-07:00

Bernie and I just spent our first weekend together away from Tyler! We went to Indian Wells (near Palm Springs) to watch the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament and had a great time! We saw a bunch of different matches including (but not limited to)

Nadal (he's tiny but he's the one in orange)

Roddick

Federer

We also saw Djokovic practicing which was fun as he was pretty involved with the fans and even hit with some after he was done (Will Ferrell was there watching him too).

We enjoyed the beautiful views from the top of the main stadium

Saturday we spent over 11 hours on the grounds and watched part or all of 6 different matches - all for $40. I consider this to be a super deal after spending $40 for nosebleed seats at a hockey game lasting 2.5 hours last weekend. For the tennis, some matches we were really close to the court, but nosebleed in the main stadium for the big ones. Still well worth the $40.

My mom stayed with Tyler at our house while we were gone. She didn't take pictures but they went here

and here (Fountain Hills)

and played a lot in the park.

Tyler received rave reviews for his behavior (thank goodness!) and Mom even said he was so good she might do it again sometime!

There weren't really too many souvenir-type items at the tournament so the only thing we saw to get for Tyler was this kind of beanie tennis ball guy.

This morning I gave it to Tyler. He took it, looked at it for 1 second, said "No!" and gave it back to me. I told him it was our present for him from the tennis tournament. He took it back and then proceeded to walk to the trash can and shove it inside. I guess we need to do better next time! Or that was his way of showing me that he was upset that we left him. Ah well, if that's the worst he could come up with, I'll take it!

Energy Efficiency

2011-03-08T21:24:00.005-07:00

Four years ago while in Geneva, I read Al Gore's book, An Inconvenient Truth. I wrote a blog post about it and the ways we were trying to be energy-efficient at the time. You can read the post here. For those of you who don't feel like clicking the link, I will put a little review right here. These are some of the items I addressed and I'm now adding how we are doing on them here in the US.

Reusable bags at the grocery store - do this all the time now, and at most other stores as well like Target, Babies R Us, etc

Air drying clothes on the line - not doing so well at this, I did do this for the first year we were back while I was pregnant, but after Tyler arrived I just couldn't be bothered to cart laundry up and down the stairs and outside to do this

Unplugging the TV and computer when not in use and turning off lights as we leave a room - doing a great job with this one. Our TV, stereo and computer are all attached to power strips so we turn off the power strip every night and during the day when we're not using them. Also still doing the light thing - even Tyler helps with this now.

Using CFLs - we are doing this maybe 60/40. We put CFLs in all the lights and lamps that we bought ourselves after moving in. The lights that were already installed on move-in like in the kitchen and hallways we left in but we are replacing with CFLs as they burn out.

(Also, just as an FYI, we keep our AC at 79 in the summer and the heat at 72 in the winter.)

I wanted to share all this with you because I just received a great confirmation that some of these efforts, which really are so tiny, are actually making a big difference. SRP just sent me a summary of our account for 2010 with the following message on the back.

(I also happened to see a neighbor's SRP bill when I was at their house the other day and it was over twice ours for the same period.)

So if any of you out there aren't doing these things yet, hope this evidence will convince you to start!

Bernie's Birthday Weekend

2011-03-08T20:53:00.005-07:00

We just had a super fun-filled weekend for Bernie's birthday (well, until the end when half the family got sick - not us again thank goodness, but my mom, dad, and Alison). Alison and Matt came to visit and they were kind enough to make sure we had lots of fun activities to do. Saturday morning we went hiking at South Mountain (Alison actually ran 12 miles in just slightly longer time than me, Bernie, Tyler and Matt hiked about 3 miles). Forgot to take pictures during the hike but here is Tyler enjoying a snack after while waiting for Alison.

Then Tyler helped Bernie open his presents.

Saturday evening my mom came to babysit Tyler (she reported excellent behavior, thank goodness!) and Dad, Alison, Matt, Bernie and I went to the Coyotes game because they happened to be playing the Red Wings. It was a great game, high-scoring, ending 5-4 in a shootout, only downer was that it was the Coyotes who pulled it out.

Sunday morning we went over to my parents' house where Tyler got some quality horsing around time with Grandpa and some reading in with Uncle Matt.

Sunday afternoon we went to the Cubs spring training game. We sat on the lawn and Tyler was quite well behaved, mostly because he pretty much ate the whole time. He had a giant ballpark hot dog, almost an entire bag of popcorn (his first ever popcorn - guess he likes it!), and he stole Alison's chips.

Near the end after a lot of people had left, Tyler and Bernie went up to the fence to get a closer look at the field.

Then Sunday night we all went to teppan for Bernie's birthday dinner. Tyler had a great time, he looked at the giant fish tank, and was enthralled by all the chef's actions, especially the blast of fire at the beginning although he did say it was HOT.

Then everyone got sick. But until then, what a great weekend! Thanks Alison and Matt for coming to visit!

And just for fun, here is the best picture of me and Tyler that has been taken in months! A lot of times I am the photographer and there aren't usually very many of us together but Bernie got a good one finally!

Transportation Issues

2011-03-03T21:02:00.003-07:00

What do you normally see at the zoo and other such places? Lots and lots of strollers. I, too, used to take Tyler to the zoo in the stroller. However, a few months ago it became much more difficult. He never wanted to ride in the stroller, but instead wanted either 1) to push it himself with NO help of even my finger to steer (kind of difficult for him to see where he's going - see pic below which is from when he was a lot younger but you get the idea)

or 2) to be carried. As you may or may not know, it is not so much fun to carry a 1 1/2 year old while pushing a stroller. So then I started not bringing the stroller at all. The first time I did that it worked beautifully, Tyler walked by himself almost the entire time. The second time, not so much. He needed to be carried A LOT. So I have been brainstorming what to do about this predicament (and in my mind, leaving him strapped in the stroller and screaming through the zoo isn't really an option - who would enjoy that?). I then had what I thought to be a genius idea - a wagon!! I figured he could easily get in and out of it as he pleased to look at animals or walk, and that if he wanted to pull or push it like he did with the stroller it would be much easier for him to do because he could see. So I went out and bought a wagon.

Last week we went to the Botanical Garden with Colleen, Lucy and Olive and we used the wagon and no strollers. (Sadly no pictures) It went beautifully, just as we had hoped. The kids got in and out when they wanted, took turns pulling it around, and generally a good time was had by all.

So I didn't hesitate to bring it this morning when we met them at the zoo. Tyler was excited and sat in the wagon from the parking lot to the entrance. Then Colleen just had to go and throw a wrench into things :). She arrived with her new double stroller, because she decided she was getting tired of carrying Olive around in the carrier and that at 4 months it was time she learned to hang out and ride in the stroller instead. And who can blame her? Not I for sure. That was all fine for awhile, Lucy and Olive were in their stroller and Tyler was pulling his own wagon. But slowly things started to fall apart. First Tyler did not want to ride in the wagon or pull it or walk, he wanted to be carried and, while it is easier to carry a child and pull a wagon instead of push a stroller, that was honestly not in the scenarios I envisioned when buying the wagon, clearly a glaring oversight on my part. Then Olive did not want to ride in the stroller at all. So this is what we ended up with for most of the day.

Wagon for diaper bags

Lucy and Tyler in the stroller (why he was fine sitting there with her and never was in his own stroller before I'll never know)

and, unpictured, Olive back in the Ergo.

However, near the end Tyler didn't want to be in the stroller with Lucy either or in his wagon. So I racked my brain and finally came up with a solution. A bribe. I believe this is the first real bribe that I've used on Tyler besides ones like this: if you eat a few more pieces of broccoli you can have a cookie. I asked him if he wanted a hot dog for lunch. He said yes. I said, okay, if you want a hot dog, you have to ride in the wagon the rest of the way. He gladly hopped in. However, I'm not sure he understood that it wasn't yet lunchtime and that a hot dog could not just be procured from inside the diaper bag like his granola bars. He did sit there the rest of the way but every two minutes kept asking for the hot dog and I just kept saying, Yes when we get home for lunch. So mission accomplished I guess.

On a side note sort of related to transportation, Tyler and Lucy also got in some tractor time at the zoo.

Family Photos

2011-03-02T21:47:00.003-07:00

Several months ago we bought some collage photo frames at Kohl's to put pictures of friends and family in so Tyler won't forget the ones he doesn't see too often and to practice names. Sadly, we just got around to putting pictures in them. But we did it and Tyler LOVES them! We planned to hang them on the wall near his bedroom but he is having so much fun looking at them every day that they are still sitting on the floor in the family room. He can name everyone in all the photos, even the blank one which is reserved for Uncle Matt (because although we have some pictures of Tyler and Uncle Matt, they are all terrible).

Aunt Alison and Uncle Matt are coming to visit this weekend so hopefully we can get a good one!

Trains

2011-01-18T14:27:00.003-07:00

Our Christmas present to Tyler was a Thomas the Train set. It is one of his favorite things to play with. He doesn't push the trains around nearly as much as he just lines them up over and over. Here it is.

Recently Tyler has started making 'trains' out of pretty much everything. Some examples:

Other vehicles of all shapes and sizes

Pot lids

Toilet Humor

2011-01-18T14:26:00.004-07:00

Here is one of my beautiful placemats on the kitchen table.

Here is the downstairs toilet.

Here is the placemat after Tyler introduced it to the toilet.

Wonder if there are any other things that have been introduced to the toilet without my knowledge...

December Wrap-up

2011-01-04T22:37:00.006-07:00

Happy New Year everyone! May it bring you good health, health that’s better than mine I hope. I have been sick for over a week now with various ailments so I apologize in advance for the hodgepodge mess that will be this blog entry. I just don’t have the energy to separate it out as it should be so bear with me. Good luck.

Our trend of multiple Christmases continued with a visit from the Larsons on the 19^th. The Larson kids love Bernie as you can see here.

Tyler also loves the Larsons, especially his buddy Jack.

Presents were opened, lunch was eaten, and the backyard was played in. Good times.

That night we went to ZooLights with my parents. Tyler loved it so much we went around the trail twice although he was very upset that the monkeys were not out at night.

Tyler was very well-behaved with the Christmas tree and stockings once we told him they were just to look at and not touch. He did touch a little but gently and nothing was broken. For some reason he was obsessed with this ornament and always took it off no matter what we said.

The week before Christmas we doled out a present or two each night so Tyler could enjoy opening. And when the box came from Aunt Susan, (don’t tell her but) we let him open them right away instead of saving for Christmas. Turned out to be a good thing since he got a bear that reads ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas’ and he loved it!

Here he is with his Thomas trike from Uncle Eddie.

Christmas Eve we had a visit from Amanda, Andrew and Olivia. Here are Tyler and Olivia chilling together before we went to dim sum.

That afternoon/evening we went to mass with my mom (we did not arrive early and were relegated to the courtyard which was fine except Tyler kept asking to go outside and we kept telling him we already were outside) and then had our Christmas here at home. More presents!

Christmas morning we flew to San Francisco to spend a week with Bernie’s parents. Of course more presents!

We tried to get some good family photos. Not surprising that Tyler didn’t exactly cooperate.

The next day we met up with my parents and Alison and Matt and went on a big group wine tasting day in Sonoma. We even got a limo for the occasion.

I think everyone enjoyed it although that was the first day of my first illness so not so great for me.

Then we had presents with Alison and Matt!

The rest of the week involved a sick mommy and lots of play time with YeYe, MaMa and Uncle Eddie.

And now we are so glad to be home and recovering!

No Words

2010-12-21T13:41:00.002-07:00

Christmas #2

2010-12-12T20:52:00.004-07:00

Today we went over to my parents' house to celebrate Christmas with my dad because Dad's schedule and ours this month wouldn't let us do it any closer to the actual date. My mom stayed up late last night getting her tree ready and wrapping Tyler's presents. Sadly, only Tyler and my dad got to open presents, the rest of us have to wait until Christmas.

Tyler was MUCH better this year than last (as is probably obvious, being one year older) and actually opened his presents with minimal help. He seemed to enjoy ripping the paper off. However, he did kind of get bored after just the first two and we had to keep redrawing his attention to finish them. So it's probably good that he is having his Christmas presents spread out or he would be opening on Christmas til midnight!

Here he is unwrapping.

With Grandpa.

With Grandma and Daddy.

Playing with his new Wheelies ramp later at home, a definite hit.

We also went down to the waterfall in my parents' neighborhood to try to get a good family picture for our Christmas card. It was kind of a disaster. Tyler did not want to look at the camera at all. Here was one take, the best one for Tyler even though he isn't looking but of course Bernie's eyes are closed. Just our luck. I haven't figured out our card yet so you'll just have to wait and see what comes.

We did manage to get this nice one of my parents however.

So not all was lost! Still a fun day! Two Christmas celebrations down, still many to go!

Christmas #1

2010-12-12T20:34:00.004-07:00

Last weekend we went to Tucson to have a holiday party with my girlfriends from high school at Chelsea's house. We drew a name for each kid to get a present for one other kid and the adults each bought a unisex gift for a White Elephant exchange. Also, there was a lot of drinking and eating (but that's a given, right?).

Before the gift exchange, there was playing outside with beautiful views of the mountains. Here are the men standing around drinking.

Here is Tyler driving a pink car.

Here is Tyler with his first Christmas present of 2010, stacking boxes.

Here are the Emslies.

Here are the Bahill-Hakeys.

And here is Chelsea cleaning up the cupcake Zac threw on the floor.

Here is Laura busily scratching her Scratchers (they were losers by the way - except possibly for the one that went missing, but I guess she'll never know about that).

Sadly, due to the kids, we had to call it a night kinda early. (Or else we're all getting old, no, that couldn't be it, could it?)

One Christmas celebration down, many to go!

It's December, WHAT?!!

2010-12-09T13:42:00.006-07:00

Wow, one entire month since my last post. Let me see what I can do to catch you all up on it.

Technically this was before the previous post, but there was a visit from Aunt Alison and Uncle Matt which included the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk in support of our mom.

Then I left Tyler overnight for the first time ever to have a Girls Night Out in Tucson. Here are the beauties before our night out on the town. It was fantastic so I hope there are more of these in the future. Thanks to Bernie for letting me do it.

Due to the BEAUTIFUL weather (some of which was even cool enough to require jackets) there has been A LOT of playing at various parks. This has been especially great since Tyler has been sick a couple times in the last month so I couldn't take him to many of his activities or to the gym.

On Thanksgiving for some unknown reason, Tyler decided it would be a great activity to empty his entire bookshelf, one book at a time, and pile them on Grandpa's lap.

Then the day after Thanksgiving we went down to Tucson to see my grandma and uncles. Tyler had a good time playing with my cousin, Lauren.

Recently he has been actually playing more with other kids instead of just parallel playing. It is so fun to watch.

So far in December we've had a few (too many) outings to Target and Toys R Us and our first Christmas party (another blog for another time). We are counting down the days to our Christmas vacation!

Running Man

2010-11-09T20:16:00.004-07:00

A Roaring Halloween

2010-11-02T22:56:00.004-07:00

In case you didn't figure it out from this post's title, Tyler was a lion for Halloween. I wanted him to be a lion because the roar was the first animal sound he said. And I found a super cute lion costume for $4!!! Who can beat that??

When I tried the costume on him the first time he was not a fan.

But Halloween night we were getting ready with his friend Alberto who was also a lion (two super cute lions - I am sure they were the cutest trick-or-treating pair ever!) and he was fine having the costume on.

Tyler and Alberto really didn't have any clue what was going on so we only did 5 or 6 houses. It was a good introduction I think. I am sure they will be much more aware next year. Here is Tyler receiving his very first treat.

My parents manned the door while we were out and when we came back Tyler didn't even want to take the costume off. He played in it and read with Grandma and Grandpa.

Definitely got my $4 worth.

Oak Creek Canyon

2010-11-02T22:26:00.004-07:00

The day before Halloween we took a quick day trip up to Sedona for a hike in Oak Creek Canyon to see the fall color. You may remember that we went for a weekend last year and saw some beautiful color. However, even though we went two weeks later this year there wasn't nearly as much color yet as last year. Proof that it has been much hotter for longer this year! (Further proof - last year's October electric bill $50, this year $125.)

We tried to find the area of our great pictures from last year again to recreate them with an older Tyler but we didn't have any luck. Here's the best we could do.

Oct 17, 2009 - Tyler was 4.5 months old

Oct 30, 2010 - Tyler is 17 months old

So we hiked the West Fork trail (highly recommend) and saw bits of color here and there but nothing spectacular like last year.

We did find an awesome little area with a perfect fallen tree for lunch.

Tyler got out of the backpack and had a super time playing around in the leaves.

Then he actually walked most of the way back out giving Bernie's back a break.

On the way back we stopped at the Bell Rock Scenic View to try to recreate another picture.

June 27, 2009 - Tyler was 1 month old

Oct 30, 2010 - Tyler is 17 months old and having none of it

Although we had a great day, we decided to make a whole fall weekend trip to Sedona a must every year. One day just doesn't cut it.

Pumpkin Patch #2

2010-11-02T22:07:00.005-07:00

Okay I am a bit behind on blogging again so bear with me. 4 days after the trip to Mother Nature's Farm, Tyler and I went to the pumpkin patch at the Desert Botanical Garden with Colleen and Lucy because it was free with our new memberships. Unfortunately Tyler and Lucy were both a little cranky and Tyler definitely didn't have as good a time as he did at Mother Nature's Farm. BUT he had a great time rocking out to a country band for awhile even though it was a little loud for me.

Here they are at the beginning, Lucy trying to get Tyler interested in the pumpkins.

On the hayride, a nice lady across from us offered to take our picture although the kids didn't cooperate.

Another hay bale maze.

Tyler didn't want to decorate a pumpkin this time, just sit down with all of them.

Here he is listening to the band.

And a video of him rocking out.

And 15 hours after we left each other, Colleen gave birth to baby #2, Olive!!! So we will have another companion on our outings. Exciting times!

Pumpkin Patch

2010-10-18T15:01:00.004-07:00

On Sunday we went to Mother Nature's Farm with our friends Joanna and Alberto and their sons, Alberto James who is 1 day younger than Tyler, and baby Diego. The boys had a really good time as did the parents. Lots of fun activities and enough shade to keep us fairly cool.

There was a hayride,

a petting zoo of sorts,

a hay bale maze,

and of course the pumpkin patch.

The boys got to choose and 'decorate' a pumpkin.

The only things missing were donuts and cider, things we enjoyed during our Halloween trip in Michigan last year. At least Tyler doesn't know what he's missing yet.

San Francisco

2010-10-11T20:23:00.007-07:00

We spent the weekend in San Francisco visiting Alison and Matt. It was an adventure as always due to the sleeping arrangements at their place and our decision not to bring the Pack N Play and Tyler's shortage of naps. But we had a great time! The weather was beautiful, warm and sunny, although I was a bit sad as I was looking forward to some cooler weather that would have required long sleeves.

Friday afternoon when we arrived Tyler showed us how non-babyproofed their apartment was. We went to the store and to pick up some yummy burritos for dinner. Then we blew up air mattresses and Tyler was a big help.

Saturday we went to the zoo where we saw lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

And giraffes eating

Tyler got to swing at the playground at the zoo

And Tyler took his only and very short nap of the day at the unfortunate time when we were getting to the Children's Zoo.

Alison and Matt had a good time at the petting zoo without him and practiced for having their own farm one day.

When we got back to their place we took a walk to a 'park' that consists of these slides built into the side of the hill.

Sunday we went to brunch, then to see Eddie's new place downtown and to the Yerba Buena Gardens where Tyler went on his first carousel ride. Not a fan as you can see.

He also played peekaboo with Aunt Alison and Uncle Matt

and hung out with Uncle Eddie.

Finally the plane ride home which turned into a bit of a disaster as it was during Tyler's bedtime so we thought (well, hoped really) that he would sleep for most of it but he didn't and was just screaming from exhaustion at the end. Really hoping that is not a preview of next summer's flight to Europe!

Thanks to Alison and Matt for hosting us and doing kid-friendly tourist things!

Butterflies!

2010-10-07T11:36:00.002-07:00

A few months ago, my sister wrote a blog about getting your Groupon. So I signed up. So far I have only purchased one thing through Groupon (was tempted by one or two others but never got around to them in time) - a discounted membership to the Desert Botanical Garden. As it happens, Colleen also purchased this particular Groupon.

For our (usually) weekly play date today since the weather is finally getting so much cooler, we decided to go and activate our memberships. And lucky for us, the Monarch butterfly exhibit is going on now! We were worried that the kids might be a little bored at the Garden compared to the zoo, but they enjoyed it, especially the butterflies. So many and so beautiful!

Tyler pointing at, but not looking at, one above his head.

Colleen and Lucy getting a good view.

If you're in Phoenix, go check them out before they're gone at the end of November!

Tyler's New Activities

2010-10-06T14:50:00.008-07:00

Reading

It has finally happened! Tyler is showing a lot of interest in books! He used to take out books and sit down with us for one page. Two pages was a miracle. My mom kept telling him that he couldn't be a Chung/Williams if he didn't like to read since we are all voracious readers (or at least we were before Tyler's arrival). But now he often listens to an entire book, even multiple books in a row of his choosing, and he even reads by himself.

Here are pictures of him reading with Grandma and Grandpa and on his own.

Golfing

Tyler got a new golf club set to play with at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Grandpa is overjoyed with his progress and can't wait to get him out on the course.

Cleaning

We also had a visit from Aunt Alison last week. Tyler wasn't sure who she was (he last saw her about 4 months ago) but quickly warmed up and enjoyed playing and dancing with her.

We'll be seeing her again this weekend in San Francisco -hopefully he'll remember her this time.

Labor Day in Cool Weather!

2010-09-10T22:22:00.007-07:00

We spent Labor Day weekend up in Pinetop at the family cabin of my friend Chelsea. Her dad was kind enough to rent it to 4 crazy families with their crazy kids. It was another get together of my best friends from high school and it was a blast! You never know how it's going to go with so many people in such a confined space for 3 days but it was great (at least for us girls I think, not so sure the husbands will be up for such a trip anytime soon)!

It was about 75-80 which was just beautiful for walks and lots of hanging out on the deck and the kids playing out in the yard.

Tyler discovered pine trees,

pinecones,

digging in the dirt,

and girls.

We celebrated two birthdays.

Spencer

and Natalie.

We laughed so much my cheeks hurt for days afterward! It is truly a miracle of nature that kids are built to sleep through the crazy laughter of their parents just one room away. Hope you all had wonderful weekends as well!

Do I Look Like Dada?

2010-08-17T16:29:00.002-07:00

Apparently I do to Tyler. When I went to pick him up from the child care center at the gym today he came running toward me saying "Dada Dada". Sad mommy.

Fun Pics

2010-08-17T12:03:00.004-07:00

Not much exciting to report recently. Well Tyler has started talking a bit more, I think he has about 10 words right now but you can't take pictures of words so here are a few fun non-word pics from the last couple weeks.

Standing in a pot, why not?

Spaghetti face

First snack at his own table with his friend Alberto

Sitting on the couch (this picture scares me because he looks like such a big boy in it)

One of his first successful block towers (the next day he made it to 6 blocks but that one fell down before I could get a picture)

Sliding all by himself

We try to go to the playground every night after dinner but really, who wants to go when it is still 107 at 7pm? Also why doesn't Tyler notice the heat as much as his parents?

A Wonderful Use of Timeout

2010-07-27T12:11:00.003-07:00

We have recently started giving Tyler short timeouts for various things like playing with the blinds or pulling out the DVD player cords and eating them. There is no way he will sit still in a chair for timeout at this age so his timeout area is the area behind our couch, closed off with a gate.

Here is what Tyler did during one timeout this weekend. I have no idea where he got this idea since I'm pretty sure I have never exhibited this particular activity for him to imitate. But if he keeps it up he may get timeouts more frequently!

Babyproofing: Girls vs Boys

2010-07-20T15:46:00.005-07:00

Well I must say that I had no idea exactly how much of a difference there is between the behavior of baby/toddler boys and girls until we went to Tucson this weekend for another get-together with my high school best friends and their kids.

Laura wanted to host since she has a pool and we were all looking forward to some good pool time with the kids. Of course it decided to be the first day of monsoons this year and so we were in the pool for literally 2 minutes before deciding that lightning was a little too close for comfort.

Here are the four of us, Chelsea, Natalie, Laura and me waiting out the storm clouds on the patio, margaritas in hand.

Here are a couple of the kids at the water table under the patio roof to keep away from the lightning.

A good time was had by all despite the lack of swimming but back to my original topic. Here are some pictures of some things in Laura and Josh's family room.

A cactus - not fake as I first assumed.

Fireplace equipment at hand level.

Electrical cords running all along the floor.

A lamp out in the open also with the electrical cord in plain sight.

Tyler found all these items in about the first 5 minutes we were there (most amusing was the puff of black soot that came out when he got to the fireplace brush). Apparently Laura's daughter, Sara, who is one month older than Tyler has never touched any of these items and therefore it has not occurred to them that their family room is not in fact babyproof.

Oh to have a girl. I am hoping next time around (and I secretly hope Laura has a boy) :).

Finally, Tyler took his first co-ed bath with Sara that night and he was nice enough not to pee on her. Aren't they cute??

Mt. Everest

2010-07-15T15:30:00.006-07:00

Tyler's latest favorite activity is climbing. I think we have a future scaler of Mt. Everest on our hands. It is driving me crazy.

It started here in the loft, where I used to have this file box sitting to keep him from getting into our books. So much for that.

Then he climbed on the futon which is pretty low but just two days later he made it all the way up on the couch.

Then he climbed into this storage ottoman only to cry because he couldn't figure out how to climb out of it.

On a chair at Grandma's.

On his new table (he sometimes can't figure out how to get down from there either).

On top of his ride-on.

Before today he had only climbed onto things that were there presenting themselves already. But today was the first time he found something that was too high (a file cabinet) and figured out that if he dragged over his musical table he might be able to climb onto that to get up higher.

Glad to know he is smart like that, but still...when is this phase going to pass? Or will it not because he's a very curious boy?

All Downhill From Here

2010-06-29T14:40:00.004-07:00

Yesterday I looked at the camera and realized that since Tyler turned 1 and not counting our trips to San Diego and Chicago, I had taken only 5 pictures of him during June. Bad mom. I can only imagine what will happen when we have a second child. I think it's because he isn't really hitting any 'visible' milestones anymore. But of course he is still super cute and deserves more than 5 pictures in a month. So I took some more yesterday of him with his new table and chairs (Love IKEA).

Here are 4 of the 5 I had originally taken.

Swimming at Grandma's.

Playing Peekaboo.

This is how Tyler winks.

Sitting at his own table.

Enjoying being a big boy very much.

Adventures in Chicago

2010-06-17T10:44:00.006-07:00

Our adventure began the day before our trip when our friends that we were supposed to stay with called and said, "Our kids are sick. One has an ear infection and one has hand, foot, and mouth disease (What??!!!) which the doctor says is super contagious so it's probably not a good idea for you to stay here." We decided a hotel would be easier than another friend without kids and no Pack N Play, etc but do you know how hard it is to find a reasonably priced hotel at the last minute in Chicago?? Pretty hard. But we succeeded although we are a bit poorer than we thought we'd be after the trip.

When we arrived (the flight was pretty uneventful), we took the train downtown to our hotel. At that time, the Blackhawks were playing for the Stanley Cup. We just got settled into our room and were trying to get Tyler down to sleep when the honking and shouting began. We are not Hawks fans and were paying no attention to the game. However, we deduced that they had won. We were not prepared for the several hours of revelry that followed though. We thought only the Europeans were so crazy for football matches but apparently Hawks fans can compete. Needless to say, we did not sleep well.

After that first night, we had a good time seeing family and friends. We were there for Eddie's MBA graduation and decided to spend a few more days so we could enjoy our old city. Thursday we hung out with Eddie at his apartment, played in Millennium Park, and had dinner with some friends.

Friday we hung out with Eddie and YeYe and MaMa, went to dim sum (adventure getting there while trying to avoid the madness of the Hawks Championship parade), and dinner at Buca di Beppo.

Here's Tyler playing golf with YeYe.

Lounging on Eddie's couch.

New favorite activity - playing under the table.

First dim sum experience.

Saturday we hung out at Eddie's again to watch the USA World Cup game. Tyler slept through the whole thing, thank goodness. It was his only real nap of the entire 5 days. The rest of the time he slept a few minutes here and there in the carrier but that time I managed to get him to sleep in the carrier and then put him down on the floor in Eddie's room where he slept for 2.5 hours. Awesome. Why don't kids nap while on vacation???

Then it was time to go to the graduation. It was clearly scheduled with families in mind - 6pm. Yep right in the middle of dinner and lasting til past bedtime. It was semi-okay for Tyler who kind of stayed on Arizona time but he was not interested in sitting in a theater for a couple hours. I spent most of the time playing with him and eventually feeding him his dinner out in the lobby. There were MANY other mothers with their kids out there.

But if I had been in my seat watching, this is what I would have seen.

And here we are afterwards with the graduate himself.

Sunday we managed to meet up with the friends with the sick but now better kids at the zoo. Here is a picture of Bernie and Tyler with half of their family, Emily and Drew.

I must say the Lincoln Park Zoo was much better for Tyler than the Phoenix Zoo. Number 1: It's free (this is only sort of better because we have a gift membership to Phoenix so never pay). Number 2: All the walls were either much lower or totally see-through so Tyler could actually see a bunch more of the animals than he can here.

Then Bernie wanted to go check out the LEGO store (to see about stuff for Tyler, mmmhmmm...I totally believed that). Here is Eddie and our friend Dan.

Finally, a funny picture of Tyler trying to amuse himself in the suitcase and finding out it wasn't so comfortable after all.All in all, a good trip and thank goodness Tyler was fairly well behaved on the flights. And now Bernie is negative for vacation so we won't be going anywhere for a good long while. At least for more than a weekend.

San Diego!

2010-06-07T16:37:00.006-07:00

Who doesn't love a quick weekend trip to San Diego?? This time it was to watch Alison run in another half-marathon. We managed to squeeze in a few touristy activities as well.

Saturday morning we had breakfast at the hotel. It was very slow service. Here is Tyler voicing his complaint about the service.

Then we went downtown to the marathon expo at the Convention Center so Alison could pick up her race packet. Then we walked along the harbor for a bit. We had a super yummy lunch at an Irish pub chosen by Matt. Tyler enjoyed some Guinness stew although no pics.

In the afternoon we went to the USS Midway where Matt's brother-in-law was stationed at one time.

Here we are with a sleeping baby.

Here I am with an awake baby on the flight deck. (His only nap of the day lasted less than 45 minutes - did not make for a fun evening.)

Saturday evening we went to my old friend from grad school, Michelle's house for dinner. Unfortunately we forgot the camera so there are no pics of Tyler playing with her 16-month-old, Ian. But they played very well together and Tyler was so busy playing that for the first time ever in his short life of just over a year, he did not want to eat dinner. Strange, but he seemed no worse off from it.

Sunday morning we got up early to go watch Alison run. Tyler was very energized. Here he is trying to jump out of Grandpa's arms.

Here's Alison after she finished the half-marathon.

Here is Tyler ringing a cowbell for her. He loved the cowbell!!

Alison had to stay longer to wait for some of her mentees so we went out to lunch and to the Cabrillo National Monument with my parents. The weather was quite dark and foggy, so no good pictures except of the statue of Senor Cabrillo himself.

Then we met Alison and Matt at the Old Town Historic Park where Tyler had some fun in the grass with them and rang the cowbell some more.

Finally, a quick dinner at the airport before flying home. Let it be noted that Tyler was 1 year and 9 days old when I bought him his first Happy Meal. A momentous occasion and one that will not occur too frequently I hope. Although at least they do have healthier options these days. Tyler had the chicken nuggets (peeled), apple dippers of which he ate one slice (that's okay - more for me, that caramel dip is yummy!), and milk of which he had a few sips. He is not such a big fan of milk so far.

All in all, a great trip except for the 20 minutes of screaming, exhausted baby on the flight home :)

A Tree Encounter

2010-05-31T21:14:00.002-07:00

Today we went over to my mom's to use the pool. Afterwards, Tyler was playing in the grass. Bernie was busy watching him. So busy, in fact, that he did not see this tree branch.

Here is the result of Bernie's encounter with the tree branch.

It's okay that I laughed since he wasn't really hurt badly right?

The Birthday Party

2010-05-31T20:39:00.007-07:00

I guess since Tyler's birthday is May 28 it will probably always fall around Memorial Day weekend. Which we've decided is a good thing because it gives us an extra day to recuperate from all the festivities!

Actually, his birthday celebrations started a few days before his birthday and continued for 4 days. Grandma and Grandpa came over two days before since Grandpa would be out of town for the actual party. So here is Tyler with his first birthday present. He was of course more interested in the ribbon.

That day was also a belated celebration of my birthday and my mom made my favorite spice cake. I was nice enough to share it with Tyler and even let him have his name candles sent by his Great Aunt Susan in it.

Here we are eating the spice cake.

On his actual birthday he got lots more presents. A water table.

A gym set (used).

Wood busy zoo.

Trying to get into the box from the busy zoo.

A beanbag chair.

Then, finally, the birthday party!! It was quite a success I think. Thanks to Laura for the tips! But sooooo sad that Laura couldn't come to the party because Tyler's girlfriend Sara was sick!!! Here is some of what they missed.

Tyler playing at the water table with Jack.

Playing in the rocks with Dillon.

After dinner, everyone was happily playing outside, so instead of bringing them all back in, I decided to bring the cake out to them.

Here are the cupcakes I made for everyone.

Getting ready with his smash cake.

This is the result of being outside with Tyler sitting on my lap instead of inside in his high chair.

And finally, to put things in perspective for us, our friends David and Amanda came with their brand new baby Zach - 2 1/2 weeks old!!! Isn't he so tiny? It seems I can barely remember the days when Tyler was that little. It is incredible how much they can change in just 1 short year!! He went from doing nothing but eating, crying, pooping, and sleeping to walking, trying to talk (we think he may have said his first word the day of the party - bye bye), playing Peekaboo, eating all kinds of real food, sleeping 10+ hours at night, putting some of his toys away, LOVING to be outdoors, and tons of other things. I am just amazed.

First Official Haircut

2010-05-22T21:07:00.003-07:00

Tyler's hair has been long since pretty much Christmas and we have attempted to give him two amateur haircuts ourselves but they did not go so well. So we decided it was time to take him for his first official haircut so he will look his best for his 1st birthday.

Here are the before pictures.

He did really super well for the first 3/4 and then started crying and trying to jump out of the chair. So it isn't quite as short as I would have liked but it is much better. Here is the best after picture we could get while he was still calming down.

And this afternoon we took him to get his 1 year pictures taken. Here you can see his haircut a little better.

None of the pictures are really super but I suppose they are as good as can be expected considering Tyler never sits or stands still for more than 1/2 a second anymore. Although I do think the photographer was really slow and had plenty of times when I thought she could have snapped a shot and she didn't. Here is our favorite.

Vegas (with a) Baby

2010-05-17T10:34:00.004-07:00

We went to Vegas last weekend for my college roommate's wedding. My mom came along to help out with Tyler and let Bernie and me have a little bit of fun for my birthday. We have been to Vegas many times over the last 10 years and let me tell you, it is a lot different with a baby. Here are some of the most notable differences.

Extra items packed for Tyler that would not be needed otherwise:

Pack N Play

Stroller

Ergo baby carrier

Cooler with food

Bag of toys

Diaper bag

Amount of money gambled (and lost) this weekend: Less than $100 total

Amount of money gambled (and lost) previous weekends: More than $100

Number of meals eaten at the Monte Carlo food court (Subway, McDonald's, Rubio's): all except the wedding dinner

Hours it took to drive to Vegas previous trips: 5.5 - 6

Hours it took to drive this trip: 7+

Don't get me wrong, it was still a fun trip and the wedding was very nice; it was just different. We still did some of the same things, like walk through some of the casinos and check out the Bellagio conservatory.

We tried to go out so Tyler could see all the lights at night but it didn't get dark early enough and he started getting cranky. Here we are at dusk in front of New York New York.

Here we are all ready for the wedding.

And here I am with the beautiful bride, Brooke.

We did do one fun thing with Tyler that we probably wouldn't have done without him. We went to the pool because the Monte Carlo has a lazy river. So fun! Tyler seemed to enjoy it more than he has his swimming lessons lately but he did still get cold after awhile because he wasn't moving around much. I'm not sure we have ever wasted our time in Vegas at the pool before and it was a nice change. Here's Tyler in the lazy river with my mom.

And I must say that Tyler survived the two days of long car rides extremely well. He took a few naps and played a lot of Peek a Boo and really didn't cry much at all. Except when we tried to put him back in the carseat after lunch on the way back. I think he had figured out by then that going in the carseat meant a loooonnnnngggg time before getting back out again.

Mother's Day

2010-05-10T10:30:00.004-07:00

Hello all you moms out there. Hope you had a fabulous day yesterday with the kids and mothers in your life. My day was pretty good. I got to sleep in until 8:30!!! And we went to Tyler's first Diamondbacks game. My parents came along as well.

Here is a picture of me with my son on Mother's Day in front of the ballpark.

Oh wait, that's not me. That's Bernie with Tyler.

Oh and here's a picture of me with my mom on Mother's Day.

Oh that's right. There is no picture of me with my mom. And no picture of me with my son. Yes, we are a very forgetful family. We did not bring the camera to the game and so the one picture taken was with a cell phone. Why was it of Bernie and not me? Who knows.

So I'm going to stage a nice picture of me and Tyler today and just tell people it was on Mother's Day. No one will know the difference right? Well, except for you, my blog readers.

Tyler Walking Video

2010-04-28T20:41:00.003-07:00

Finally he let me take a video!

Antsy Tyler + Macy's Floor = Bad Mom

2010-04-28T20:36:00.002-07:00

Today Tyler and I went to the mall with my mom. I was shopping for a wedding and baby gift for a friend. All in all, Tyler was in the stroller or the high chair at lunch for a bit over 2 hours. As we were on the way out my mom decided she wanted to look for an outfit for Tyler (what a nice grandma!). It was then that Tyler decided he had had enough of the stroller. He starting crying to get out so I picked him up which is usually enough to quiet him. Today it was not. So then I realized he probably wanted to move around since he had been sitting for so long so I put him down on the floor in the children's department at Macy's while my mom was looking at the clothes. He was so happy!

Then a saleslady came by, looked down at Tyler, looked up at me with a horrified look on her face and said, "I would NOT let him crawl down there. This floor is filthy!" Well I chose happy baby over clean, germ-free baby. Does that make me a bad mom?