New Hampshire

Here are pictures from our "drive by" hike in New Hampshire. We left Maine in the morning and got to the White Mountains area of New Hampshire around 3pm (later than anticipated). We did this hike out to the falls you see below and then hiked back, got in the car and drove to Vermont to spend the night there. We had to hit all the New England states on the trip so that was one reason for going the long way home. Another was the beautiful views you see below.



This picture is a little dark but this gives you an idea of what the hiking is like in some real mountains (unless VA and PA and MD).

The beach in Maine

These are more pictures from our second day in Acadia. After drying off and taking a nap, the weather cleared up and we ventured out again, this time to the one beach in the park. It was too cold to swim but it was beautiful to look at. We also attended a lecture on webbed-footed birds. Dylan did great, Dad...:) He sat on my lap the whole time and looked around. These ladies couldn't get over what a good baby he is. We also went to a lobster pound that night. The lobster was good but the side dishes weren't and I guess when we decided to go out for our big lobster dinner in Maine we weren't thinking of eating with plastic utensils on a deck in plastic chairs. We had driven a while to get to the place so we stayed and paid the $50+ for our fast food dinner. But I guess that's what a lobster pound is. Next time we'll stick to the restaurants. Yes, we want to go back to Maine. Of all the places we've been Acadia National Park is the one place we could see ourselves going back to. There is so much hiking to do there. And we just loved the scenery. (We would go back to Alaska too but we would like to see the southern coast next time. But it's a little more difficult getting to Alaska.)

Another new endeavour

I'm been inspired by Catherine and my brother-in-law and his wife to buy local. So tomorrow I'm going to go to the Farmers' Market in Vienna. I'm going to try buying a bunch of stuff and then making my menu for the week around what I buy. Then I'll go to the grocery store on Thursday night to get the rest of the stuff. We'll see how long this lasts. It should be fun. Maybe I'll buy some flowers too as a motivation.

New Schedules

Seems like every week I'm adjusting something with mine and Dylan's schedule/sleeping and eating strategies. This week I'm going to try to stretch out Dylan's naps (since they have only been a 1/2 hour long) by not going in and picking him up when he wakes up. He usually just whines a little (not all out crying). Maybe he'll realize it's still time to sleep. Also, I've been trying to pump in the morning and that hasn't been working so now I'm going to try to pump after lunch and after Dylan goes to bed as opposed to just in the morning. I need to pump for his cereal (2 oz a day) and to get enough for the days that I'm at work (I usually only get 9 oz when I pump at work and he needs 12 oz at day care).

I'm also trying a new gym schedule. Instead of going at 5 or 6pm on Mondays, I'm going to go to the 8pm class on Mondays so I can just go after Dylan goes to sleep. Then I'll either do the 6pm Friday or the 8:30am or 10:30am classes on Saturday. That will get me my 2 total body weights work outs per week. Then I just walk or going hike or go to a spinning class at least 2 times on the other days and that should be good for me. I'm trying to get Martin on a new workout schedule too. MWF bike riding at 6am. September is a good time of year for renewed discipline so hopefully this will stick.

Dylan update

Yesterday I took my friend Patricia to the breastfeeding support group. I got to weigh Dylan there. He weighed 16 lbs., 14oz. completely naked and before he ate so I'm saying that he weighs 17 lbs now. The consultant at the support group couldn't get over the fact that he is walking at 10 months.

Dylan is now able to walk across the room. And he has started doing it without us prodding. Yet, a lot of times, he still wants to grab onto our hands when he wants to walk somewhere.

It's fun with Dylan walking and not too different from him crawling as far as baby proofing. I'm still able to catch him before he gets into something he's not supposed to. One advantage of smaller living quarters.

Dylan is really good about playing with his books right after he nurses for the first time in the morning. That lets me have some time to get ready for the day.

More Maine Pictures

Our second full day in Acadia was not as nice weatherwise. But I think the fog made for some nice pictures around the lighthouse. It was raining a little bit but we decided to try to go for a hike anyway. It was just a "short" three mile hike (hikes in the upper northeast take a lot longer since you have to do a lot of scrambling on rocks). Well, about the point where we realized there was no turning back, it started to rain a lot harder. The last picture below is me on top of Acadia Mountain, not feeling very happy and not looking forward to the hike down. I tried to make the best of it and tried to be too upset at Martin for encouraging us to go on this hike and not bringing the canopy for the baby back pack. Looking back it wasn't that bad and I got to try out the waterproofing on my hiking boots! Probably the worst part was the waterfall that the stairs up to the hike from the road had become. And then the other stares and probable head shaking from cars passing by as they saw us in the pouring rain with a baby. But we lived and we have a memorable story to tell about our trip.

Dylan's "first" steps

Dylan took his first steps on or about August 31st. The video wasn't his first steps but they were some of the first. (Trying out Blogger's new video feature here...yea, don't have to do the youtube thing anymore!) We had a fun weekend last weekend showing him off to Martin's family.

Acadia National Park

Here are a bunch of pictures from the highlight of our Maine trip. This was the day of the big hike. We hiked about 7 miles total. The hiking was very different than what we normally do because of the different types of trees (more evergreens) and the fact that we went above the tree line. It wasn't that high at the top (about 1600 ft) but the tree line is lower there due to the weather of the Maine coast. Dylan did great. He slept for a while in the Kelty. The top of the mountain was also different because it's also a tourist attraction that you can drive up to, complete with snack bar, bathrooms, and tour buses. I sort of had this self-righteous feeling (I actually hiked up the mountain, did you?) up there but I shouldn't because the beautiful should be enjoyed by all. See for yourself. I love the mountains and ocean together.

Leon Leonwood

In case you ever wondered what the L.L. in L.L. Bean stood for, that's it. That's what we learn on our trip to Freeport, Maine. The L.L. Bean "campus" there was cool. Here's some pics there and in the hotel that night.

Portland Pictures

Finally I'm posting pics from our vacation. The first two were at the Bug Light House in South Portland.

The next two were taken at the Portland Head Light. That's my friend Jen in the second pic. She and her boyfriend (now fiance!!!) came up from Boston to meet us for the weekend. This was the first time Jen had met Dylan.

This last one is of us on the ferry to Bailey's Island. That's Nathan (Jen's fiance) in the yellow shirt. That's the closest picture he would let us take of him. He's apparently shy about his stunning good looks.

Insomnia

In preparation for our trip to Maine, Martin had been catching up on all the Steven King novels that he hadn't read. But usually after reading for a while Martin ends up also catching up on some zzzzs. That's pretty funny given the particular title he was reading....

Cute pics of Dylan eating

Family Pictures

This pics are from last month when my family was visiting.

The big 1-0

Dylan is ten months old today. He can stand on his own pretty well now. He's going to be walking really soon. Maybe this weekend when Martin's family is here. That would be cool.

Dylan seems to be sleeping a little better lately. He has taken some longer naps and is waking up a little later (between 4:30 and 5:30) before going back to sleep for 2-3 more hours.

Dylan is still only drinking 4oz bottles but that's fine. We've pretty much tried all the new foods we can until he's one. I'm hoping he gets better at eating chunkier food though. Everything still has to be really smooth for him to eat it.

I haven't done a weight check lately but Dylan is still in his 3-6 month clothes except for sleepers - he's in 6-9 in those.

I celebrated Dylan's 10 month birthday with a blueberry and creme frap at Starbucks. Until he can have sweets, I still get all his treats (which I guess he later gets). :)

Last weekend for the outdoor pool

I'm pretty bummed that this is the last weekend for the pool. Dylan loves it so much. He gets so excited when we are in the water. We can still go to the indoor county pool but it cost about $7 each time to go. But that's probably worth it. It will be a little more work getting there in the winter but Dylan needs to keep up his swimming skills right?

Trying a different template again...

I'm really sick of the blazing white background. Hopefully this time the pictures won't get screwed up.

Sign of putting down roots?

Last week I, for the first time in my adult life, reordered checks with the same address as the last box of checks. And with how few times we need to write checks out these days, I think this says a lot. I'm been living in the same place for 3 years now. Depending on how the market looks in the spring, we may be moving next year so the streak will have to come to an end. For now though, I will enjoy the fact that I haven't had to deal with moving.

WE DON'T NEED NO TEL-E-VISION.....

We discontinued our cable TV this weekend. Here are the reasons: we don't watch it enough, especially the non-network channels; we can get the network channels with and antannae (albeit fuzzy); Netflix now has live streaming movies and tv shows (like the first two seasons of The Office); CBS, the network that carries our favorite show CSI has the last four episodes of their shows on the Internet for viewing; we can find better thing to do with our time than watch TV; we get our news off the Internet; we can find a lot better things to do with the $35 per month that we were paying for our very basic cable service.

Considering that Martin's coworkers talk about wide screen TVs and HDTVs etc. on a weekly basis I'm thinking that we may be a little counter-cultural, which I usually take to be a good thing. My co-worker Tim who seems to have a claim on the definition of "American" will probably call me un-American for this like those people who don't celebrate halloween or don't drink beer and watch football or who home school their kids.

But we have some friends who don't have cable and with raising cost of cable and more entertainment available on the Internet, this may be a growing trend and we may be ahead of the curve.

So what do you think, counter-cultural or ahead of our time?

Arboreum

After the Aquatic Gardens we swung over to the arboreum for lunch (which got a little messy) and a walk around the state trees and the asian garden and down to the river. We recruited my mom to carry Dylan for a while.

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

Here are some pics from last month when my parents were here and we went to the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in (NE!) DC to see the lillies in bloom.

I hear the train a'comin'....

When my parents were visiting in July, they brought this push train toy of my brother's that my mom had saved in the attic. It was a big hit with both Steven who was visiting also and Dylan. At first we just had Dylan sitting on it and we pushed him but then we set him up behind it and off he went! He's gotten really good at pushing the train around. When he runs into something, he cruises around to the front of the train and pushes it backwards until he runs into something again. Amazing. The train would probably not pass some safety standard today because it does easily fall over onto the child (as shown at the end of the video below) but with the newer ones he wouldn't be able to push it from both sides. Regardless, the train is a new favorite in our household.