Photos

Goodbye Baby Face

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Katherine, 15 months

Katherine, 15 months

One evening this week, Rebecca and I were looking at pictures of Katherine when she was younger when all at once I realized that her baby face is gone.  It is now a beautiful toddler face.

I have certainly noticed her physical growth along with her growing vocabulary, curiosity and personality.  I hadn’t really stopped to consider that her face has matured a bit as well. Her toothless grin is now gone and actually has been for some time.

Speaking of teeth, Rebecca and I were at a picnic last fall and one of the fathers asked me what was the most surprising thing so far as a parent. I couldn’t really think of anything specific at the time.  A few days later, I found my response.  Katherine started grinding her teeth together and it sounded like she was chewing on gravel. That was a huge surprise — I was not prepared for that one and it is apparently quite normal.  I still shudder even thinking about it.

Time marches onward.

General

Our Trip To Chuck E. Cheese

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Our trip to Chuck E. Cheese

Say Cheese! Katherine, Rebecca and I

Rebecca, Katherine and I visited Chuck E. Cheese last weekend for a birthday party. Katherine is at the age where she knows that there are a lot of fun things there for her to get into, but was still too young to play with a lot of the things there even though she did her level best to exert her independence. That led to some frustration on her part.

She did a good job about holding my hand to walk around the play area, but at one point she actually stopped, pointed up at a balloon and said ‘Ooooh!’ until I looked up as well. She then quickly freed herself from my hand and started to take off. At 15 months, I have no idea where she picked up this trick and I am not sure if I am more proud of her thought process or worried about the trickeration 🙂

They have a photo booth that takes just a single token and will print out a picture that you can take home. Below is one we took together that turned out pretty well — a very good value if you ask me.

I also was pleased to note that they had a system to prevent people coming in and out with ease. Upon entry, your whole family is stamped with the same code that only shows under ultraviolet light. The numbers are randomized per family, and they make sure that when you leave, you all have the same number.  It’s a shame that this is needed, but it is a very good idea.

General, Huntington Beach, Photos

Christmas Highlights

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Now that the Christmas season for 2010 has officially wound down, I wanted to share a few highlights:

  • When we landed in LAX to visit the Swanson side of the family, the attendants said, ‘Welcome to Seattle’. It was a joke due to all of the rain that was falling there — which was actually far more damaging than we realized.  Huntington Beach, our destination, was spared.
  • Katherine, at just over a year old actually responded enthusiastically to her gifts. The craziest was when she announced ‘I love it’, while opening a Fisher Price Little People toy. She really does love these toys of characters and people she can hold in her hand.
  • Southwest Airlines – Sometimes it is wonderful to have unassigned seating and this is true when having infants. It means for the most part that if someone sits with you, they know what they are getting in for. We met a wonderful woman on the way out who was a saint in the way she treated sitting next to Katherine who was not having a good flight for the most part. It made us feel a lot better. Also, on three of the four flights we made, we didn’t have to share our row with anyone.
  • Time with family. It really doesn’t matter how much or how little we get with one another, but that we cherish the time we have. I feel like I have always had this appreciation, but this year was much different. It was the first time seeing it through my daughter’s eyes and the way she lights up getting to see her family.  It was also the first time seeing it through the eyes of an expecting wife, making the effort to visit even though I know she is exhausted. We all do it because it is important.
  • Fortunate to get home.  With all of the bad weather, we are really glad we didn’t fly through Chicago.  Otherwise, we might still be there. We feel lucky.
  • Family Pictures. I made an effort this year to attempt to get group pictures of the families from both sides as we got together. They didn’t all turn out great visually, but content wise, I am happy. I have below the pics from the Swanson and Jacobs crew respectively.
  • Sometimes, bad pictures are great. I found a few pics that I took were just noisy, blurry or otherwise ‘wrong’, but still captured a great moment.  Therefore, in my mind, they are great pictures. A few are included below.

Swanson Crew - (Back to front) David, Monique, Chris, Rebecca, Ryan, Linnea, Katherine, Bea, Luke

Jacobs Crew - (Back to front) David, Katherine, Steve, Ryan, Rebecca, Jen, Mark, Allison, Diane, Abigail, Grandma Curler, Greg, Cindy

Content trumps photo quality example #1 - Motion is everywhere. This is the way it is on Christmas Eve with kids opening gifts.

Content trumps photo quality example #2 - There are so many technical problems with this photo. However, I love the way it captures Rebecca's contentment with Katherine's joy.

Photos

Great Grandmas

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Great Grandma Curler and Katherine

Great Grandma Curler and Katherine are discussing having December birthdays.
Great Grandma Jacobs and Katherine

Great Grandma Jacobs and Katherine - This is a serious conversation.

We visited my folks today and were able to visit with Katherine’s two great grandmas as well and bond a bit more.  I am thankful that she is getting to spend time with them.

General

Brutus Libre

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Brutus Libre

Brutus Libre

We visited Chile Verde on Saturday for lunch. We love the food and Katherine is drawn to the artwork of the Lucha Libre or Mexican Wrestlers.  There were some new paintings there where both Brutus and coach Tressel were depicted as Lucha Libre. The photo is kind of blurry, but what can you expect with poor light, an iPhone and a toddler in tow?

I’ll admit that I love the artwork as well and in particular, I love this one of Brutus Buckeye.  The artist is Rob Jones.  I have enjoyed looking at his artwork on his blog.  Very good stuff.

Photos

Katherine Picks Up Dinner

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15 or 20 Percent?

15 or 20 Percent?

I thought I would have to wait for years to experience the joy of Katherine picking up the dinner check.  Instead, she picked up the check this evening — literally.  My joy was dampened as I realized she used my credit card.

Photos

Blame It On The Rain

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You've Gotta Blame It on Something

You've Gotta Blame It on Something

This past week while attending Adobe MAX, I was walking to the L.A. Convention Center past the Grammy Museum and noticed the various awards in the sidewalk for the main winners for each year.  While walking over the 1990 plaque, I noticed that for the category of Best New Artist, the winner was ‘No Award Given’.  It didn’t take too long to figure out that it was Milli Vanilli.

I find it odd that this would be how they described that award category.  Milli Vanilli did indeed win that award for that category that year, but it was later revoked due to the lip-syncing issue.  Saying that no award was given is not accurate.

I think the plaque would have been a good opportunity to discuss the issue up-front as it makes more interesting history and does not leave Milli Vanilli off the hook.  As this plaque is currently, both Milli Vanilli and the Grammy’s get to pretend the incident didn’t happen.

Photos

Petoskey Water Fountain

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Petoskey Water Fountain

Petoskey Water Fountain

This morning, I made toast with American Spoon Sour Cherry Spoon Fruit. It reminded me of our babymoon in Petoskey, MI last year. I decided to go look at a few photos we took along the way.

Apparently I thought it would be interesting to take a photo of this water fountain that was sponsored by the Rotary Club.  For some odd reason I can’t quite explain, I still find it interesting

General, Photos

Fall Fest At Fancyburg

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We went to the Fall Fest at Fancyburg Park in Upper Arlington today.  I never knew they had such an event until yesterday, so we decided to go as they weather was nice.  I didn’t know what to expect, but it was a very nice and well attended event. Katherine is still too young to get into all of the activities they had for kids, but there were plenty of things to do including a huge inflatable slide among other inflatable play areas.

Inflatable Porpoise Slide

Inflatable Porpoise Slide

There were stations for making scarecrows, carve pumpkins and many other activities.  In a few years, Katherine should have a great time at this event. As it was, she seemed to really enjoy the atmosphere — she loves being around other children.

One of the first things we happened upon was a show by Mark Rosenthal of Animal Magic.  He combined showing and teaching about exotic animals with magic.  We didn’t get to see the whole show, but we did see a leucistic rat snake . The difference between a leucistic snake and an albino is that the leucistic snake has no color.  An albino will have pink in the eyes whereas the leucistic has black eyes.

Leucistic Rat Snake

Leucistic Rat Snake

This was a very nice surprise of an event for us and I am sure we’ll be back next year.