Julia's Birthday!

New Year's Eve also happens to be Julia's birthday. She was born on the last day of the 60s, 12-31-69, which I find so cool. We went to Duarte's in Pescadero with family for a feast of abalone, burgers, crab, cream of artichoke soup and olallieberry pie. Took in San Gregorio Beach afterward. Great day. Real nice. Here are some pics.

- Ron

Sunday in the park

Summer Walking

Anatomy of a bonk.

A guitar is a drum... evidently.

New Record

Summer's new record is 8 steps. Yesterday she stood up from the middle of the floor and started walking. But no pictures to post. We're too busy trying to keep up with her!

The Walking Begins...

Well, Summer is not quite "walking" yet but she is at the beginning stages. Her record? 4 steps. But she can climb on anything. The other day I was trying to clean something. I tried to block her off by barricading the area with a large rubbermaid container. Ya right! I turned away for one second and the next thing I knew, she was on top of it! She can scale a flight of stairs like a mountain goat and has tried to climb in the bathtub a few times. The bathtub thing scares the heck out of mom!



Anyway, here are some pics of her standing up. She likes to stand up while holding objects. Somehow I think it helps her balance.

Discovering Autumn

One windy day last week Summer and Mom played the game of "Catch the Falling Leaf." As the leaves fell from the many trees outside of our apartment, we tried to catch them, catching five leaves altogether. We brought them inside where Summer had fun throwing them in the air.



The next day she enjoyed pushing her car through the leaves. This was the second day she had her car and was walking behind it like a pro. Of course, she had to stop and observe the fallen leaves on the way. We are lovin' this Fall thing, since we didn't have much of a Fall season in San Francisco. -J

Birthday Party

We had a little party for Summer at Grammy's with Julia's immediate family. We didn't want a big to do, but we wanted to make sure Summer had a cake. And who better to make that cake than Grammy! Thanks for the banana cake, Gram!! Whoa! Candles!

Summer's new favorite person, Cousin Tommy

Present Time: Enjoying one of her new toys while wearing her new hat

Next stop, Monterey Bay Aquarium

We went to the aquarium on Summer's birthday, and she loved it. We all did, really. It's built to a scope to let you up close, yet inspire a nice level of awe... and ahh... and aww! Happy Birthday Summer!

We went to the zoo.

We went to the zoo on Tuesday, Nov. 13. We have mixed feelings about zoos, but in the end we feel it is best to expose Summer to more rather than less. We present, warts and all, the San Francisco Zoo.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Great... I'm older. But days like this make it worth while.

- Ron

Summer gave me cool robot magnets. So she got a big kiss...

...which quickly turned into a Daddy/Summer/Buster wrestling match.

Then we went for a great hike at the Bayshore wildlife area. Lotsa cool birds.

Pelicans, hiding their black-tipped wings.

Then we topped off the afternoon with lunch at Dittmer's.

Summer's First Halloween! (Not for the faint of heart)

Here are some shots from Summer's first Halloween in the wild. We cruised the downtown Mountain View neighborhood, scored some candy, and Summer seemed to enjoy all the strange sights. She was a butterfly.

Here she is riding the good ship Mommy.

Here's a scary ghost thing in front of someone's house.

I think I know how they made this skeleton fly.

More random cuteness.

I think Ron would have been scarier without Summer's pink fuzzy butterfly hat.

Julia looking very un-scary.