California Top 10

We returned home to Denver this afternoon, only to be greeted by the most monstrous storm we have seen in quite a while. T-storm and flash flood warnings with some tornado sirens mixed in, make for a trembling, pacing, drooling, bloody-nosed Wally. I missed him so much.

So, while we dry out here in Colorado, I'll quickly share some of the best California moments, accompanied by pictures from Doug Jones (of www.imagesbydougjones.com, of course).

In no particular order...

10. High five!
My dad taught Autumn to high five one night at dinner. Soon she'll be "that guy" high-fiving everyone in the seats near her at Broncos games. You know that guy, you've sat by him many times.

9. I swim like a sea horse!

This ramp was endless entertainment

I jump off the slide!

Autumn spent two whole weeks in swim lessons in Santa Cruz. She was in the sea horse group, which is as low as it gets in swim lessons. More than one person has asked me what the heck Autumn was doing in swim lessons. Well, unfortunately her report card is still being proudly displayed on the fridge in Shaver Lake, but most of her skills can be described in these pictures. On this day just my parents took her, and the other two sea horses in her group were absent, so my mom got a private lesson with Autumn and Valerie, her fearless instructor. Autumn was obsessed with swimming. I had a hard time paying attention to the instructor because she was constantly splashing the water, trying to eat it, sticking her face under, yelling, etc.  I'm hoping that a little fear, or at least caution, will set in before next summer when she'll be fully mobile.
The next group up from sea horses are the barnacles. Autumn was so looking forward to being a barnacle next summer, but her dreams were shattered when the bottom of her report card said.
"We look forward to seeing you in the Sea Horse group next summer!" So, no go on the barnacles -- we'll just have to keep practicing...and turn two.

My teacher Valerie

I even like going under water!

8. I'm on a boat!
For those of you who aren't in the loop, my parents now spend their lives driving, and living, between their two homes -- the cabin in Shaver Lake that we've had since I was very young, and their new(ish) townhome in Santa Cruz. The cabin is much less cabin-y than it was growing up, and the townhome is quite a step up from the years spent sleeping on the sailboat in the Santa Cruz harbor. So, well done mom and dad, you guys have definitely made choosing our go-to summer destinations very simple. We are booking our rooms in both locations for the next 15 years, at least. Thanks. But anyway, we thought we'd save sailing for another year with Autumn. However, she did get to go out on the Lake a couple of times, on the pontoon boat. She thought it was pretty cool.

 

Out for the count.

7. Life's a Beach!
As I'm sure all babies do, Autumn loved her time at the beach. The sand, the birds, more sand, the waves, freakin' sand everywhere -- heaven! I think these pics say it all.

Hi guys! I'm at the beach!

Hats are for old men.

Everyone clap, we're at the beach!

...And then there's the ocean...

Time to get out already?

6. For mom and dad, life's a beach party!
A fond memory of our wedding, which was in Santa Cruz almost exactly three years ago, was going on a wine tour in the Santa Cruz mountains the Thursday before the wedding. We had the tour bus drop all 30 of us off at the Crows Nest restaurant, which is right on the harbor and beach. Every Thursday evening they set up a beach party, with a live band, beer/cocktails and delicious, cheap food. Sweet. Although the beach party we experienced this time was infinitely more tame (no future sisters-in-law dancing with weird Santa Cruz locals), we still had a great time. Autumn too, until Nana and Pop Pop took her home early so we could enjoy a baby-free beer.

Beach parties have good beer

Beach parties have sand

Beach parties make me thirsty!

5. I make funny faces.

Rspberries on a boat

Also like most babies I know, Autumn was so excited to learn how to blow raspberries. This happened when she was just a wee one, maybe three months old or so? Anyway, do most babies grow out of this phase? Because Autumn hasn't. Not even close. In fact, I think she does this more now than she ever has -- when she's tired, when she's bored, when she's in a good mood, when strangers stop paying attention to her in the airport, or the Avis rental car station -- you get the idea. While this is still pretty funny to us, it's even funnier when her raspberry face gets caught on camera. Sometimes she'll throw one in there unexpected, other times my dad is guilty of encouraging it. She also has some other weird faces lately, so we'll include a few of those too.

Raspberries after bath. How many chins do you see?

I'm very special

And very sweet. This one is included here because she never looks this innocent.

I make my focused face when I stand up

4. Family, old and new
Autumn got to see her great grandmother for the second time, her California grandparents (who don't spoil her at all, by the way), her "Big E" (or Uncle Eliot, who is really weird and wants to be called Big E for some reason), and her Almost Auntie Sara (who finally, has been upgraded from "lady friend Sara" to this -- congrats El and Sara on the recent engagement!). The lucky baby also got to meet her Big E's future in-laws, the McGlynn family, minus little brother Joe. Mary and Terry (Ma and Pa McGlynn) rented a cabin about 100 yards from ours over the 4th of July weekend. Sara's sister Katie drove down from SF with her boyfriend Terrance (I know I spelled that wrong, sorry Katie!), while sister (and babysitter/baby eater) Erin, flew in from Vegas with new hubby Adam. As only the McGlynn sisters would, Katie and Erin had some very random and awesome t-shirts made for Eliot and Sara to wear in honor of their engagement. Very fun weekend indeed.

She really loves Big E these days.

Brandy is my brother's pitbull. She eats babies, and when she moves here she'll have to be in hiding. Her new name will be Bran Frank.

Reading with Nana

Almost Auntie Sara

Erin and Katie with the happy couple

Yep.

3. Fun times in the cabin's backyard.
Summer's in Shaver Lake are somewhat indescribable. Few people believe that you can drive just an hour away from Fresno and be surrounded by 100 foot pine trees, in temperatures that are 25 degrees cooler than in the valley. Sure, we've got the Rocky Mountains in Colorado -- and don't get me wrong, they are amazing in their own way as well. But I'll never forget my first trip up to Breckenridge when I moved here seven years ago. One of the first things I asked was, "why are the trees so little?"

Horseshoe buddies, or something more?

If you're confused about this in any way, you need to make a trip to the Central Sierras. You don't have to visit my parents, but I would highly recommend it. Their backyard is a real and true forest, but with some more "urban" space for a deck to hang out on, a horseshoe pit, and a hot tub. We have had some great times in that backyard, and this year was no different. On Sunday we celebrated 4th of July with a Jones-McGlynn margarita competition, horseshoes, and family and friends. The Rolphs, Wrights and Dockerys even drove up for the day.

Let the margarita-thon begin. Cheers!

Kiss from Riley. She's going to be a fun big sis soon!

2. I look amazing in a swimsuit. 

This top is supposed to cover her whole belly. Oops.

Autumn seems to have inherited her uncle Eliot's baby body. My parents could never find shirts that would fit over his Winnie-the-Pooh belly. Never fear, however -- Eliot ended up being a tall, skinny young lad. We have many classic family pictures to confirm this, but we'll spare everyone for now. Picture skinny sweat pants (before skinny jeans were cool), and awkwardly short shorts. So, we're very happy that Autumn is enjoying her baby rolls, and that she's definitely not afraid to show them off in a bathing suit. Now we'll just have to buy her some suits that fit...which is probably the size for two-year-olds.

This suit also has matching bottoms, but they fit worse than the top.

These legs were made for bathing suit season!

And so was this hair!

1. I'm a dirty one.

We gave up the battle to have a clean child in public when...well, probably the first time we took our child in public. We're happiest when she's happy, and she's happiest when she's into everything, so if we all want to be happy, she gets to be dirty. So I'll leave you with these, as they seemed to transcend all locations and activities during this awesome California summer.

These white pants don't stand a chance!

Mmmm, hummus!

Dirty on the boat

Dirty on the 4th. Happy 4th of July from Autumn, Emily and Brian!

8 months

A few days late this month, since we were busy recovering from the Em Brown/Scott Morrison wedding in San Diego -- an event 11 years in the making, by the way -- on Sunday the 12th. Such a beautiful setting at the house Em grew up in in Del Mar; views of the ocean from most rooms of the house and the gorgeously landscaped backyard. They really couldn't have paid for a better venue. Brought back memories of heading down there for spring break during college. We'd have picnics under the palm trees in the backyard (Pacifico the beer of choice those days), attempt to order a fancy drink at the posh restaurants bars down the street from her house (we weren't 21 -- got denied every time, but still tried almost every day). It was so good to see Em and Scott and to finally celebrate their big day. It was also great staying with Amy and Jesse, and getting to spend some time with little Jack, who is almost two, and who I hadn't seen since he was three weeks old. What a cute little guy! And of course, so great to spend some time with Mary and Patrick as well. The day of recovery on Sunday was complete with a trip to the Stone Brewing Company. Nothing better than enjoying some craft beers in the sun with good friends.

On Monday we left San Diego and headed up to Long Beach for a few hours to visit Kelly and Marc and their new precious addition, Ava. What a beautiful little girl! I still maintain my strong opinion that Kelly and Marc should have never abandoned us in Denver, but they seem genuinely happy back in CA and things are going really well for them…so I'm trying to get over it.

The next stop on this particular California adventure was Santa Barbara. We got to spend a night with Chris and Cheryl, who also shouldn't have abandoned us in Denver -- but they've got a great thing going on down there as well.

So now we're up in Shaver Lake, enjoying some quiet time at the moment. With the rough part of the trip behind us (one plane ride and the six hour drive from Santa Barbara to here yesterday), we're looking forward to many fun events ahead. More on that to come.

Jumping at Jazz in the Park

Over the past month, Autumn's changes seem to have been somewhat more subtle than previous months, but we'll give it a shot anyway. These few pics are just from my iPhone. We'll get some good ones going once Grandpa Jones gets in on that action.

--She's crawling EVERYWHERE, and pulling herself up on EVERYTHING. In the past two days she has started to push herself away from whatever she's standing on. She thinks she is amazing when she stands by herself, and actually, we kind of do too. Yesterday she went on for around 20 seconds.

Diaper boxes/fireplace blockers/best entertainment in the house. Go figure.

--Babbling nonstop, especially when she's in a good mood. Until a couple days ago it was almost always "da da da da da da", and now it's a mix of all sorts of random sounds that crack us up. She sounds like a little drunk person.

Can anyone tell my why that red baby toy is shaped that way?

--Becoming hungrier for attention, mostly from strangers and new people. She loves being in new places, so when we were in the airport, car rental place, etc., she would look around to see if anyone was looking at her -- and if not she'd start blowing raspberries until she got some attention. Then she would start laughing, talking, smiling, etc. A guy on the plane commented that she's going to be trouble when she's older. We're hoping he's wrong.

More please!

--Working on getting her two bottom teeth. This has been going on for a while, and right before we left I had taken her to the pediatrician thinking she'd had another ear infection -- but her doctor said she had two teeth that were a "day or two" away from coming in. It's been a week now and still no chompers, but we'll see.
--Eating everything. Really. We haven't found a food she doesn't like this month. Spinach, broccoli, carrots, peas, potatoes, all fruits, baby cereal, puffs, baby Mum-Mums. Everything.
--Last week she weighed 18 1/2 pounds. She's still pretty chunky. We like it.
--Starting to wave at people, dogs and other random objects -- she has no idea what the purpose is, but she likes to see people smile, so she's all about this. Clapping is coming along, but for now she sort of just flaps her hands like the autistic kids I work with. Perfect.

--She had to say goodbye to her first love this month. Baby Axel, her daycare BFF, is moving to Arizona before we get back from California. I know they're just babies, but Axel and Autumn were like two peas in a pod. They got along so well, and would get so happy when they would see each other. We spent a little time with Axel's parents last month, much to the babies' delight. It was sad saying goodbye to the little guy. We're secretly hoping Arizona isn't all it's cracked up to be.

And now for what can probably be considered my favorite picture in our Autumn arsenal. Here's the scene: playdate (I hate that word, can't believe I just typed it) and BBQ with Autumn's favorite friends. They all have such distinct and awesome personalities. Axel is the handsome, dashing young lad who flashes his awesome dimply smile at the drop of a hat. He's a big boy - still immobile and less tough than he looks. Abigail is Autumn's role model of sorts. She cautiously explores new tricks and skills while Autumn eagerly watches, and then Autumn tries them out herself usually exactly a month after learning from Abigail (they're exactly a month apart). Where Abigail clearly differs from Autumn though, is in her genuine curiosity of the world around her. While every new item that Autumn comes along immediately goes in her mouth (including things like ear plugs and pine needles, unfortunately), Abigail will pick something up and fully examine it for minutes at a time -- turning it to view it at every possible angle...before eventually, maybe, tasting it. It's pretty fascinating. Then there's Sam. Poor guy has spent most of his 4 1/2 months of life in the company of older girls. He never seems to mind. If you were to ever mistakingly walk into one of our baby parties, you would be able to identify Sam as the cute, nicely dressed guy....chillin'. Pretty much anywhere. Sometimes he chills in his Boppy, sometimes on the couch or in his Bumbo seat. He's the most content little guy in the clan -- so happy to evaluate the scene and all of his potential dating options. So, you get the drift. Well, in the picture below, Axel's mom Megan was the photographer. She was attempting to get all of the kids to look at the camera, so she calls Autumn's name. Autumn turns around with Axel's ridiculous pacifier in her mouth (she's quite the paci stealer, which we'll do something about at some point), and Axel apparently was not ok with this. Also check out Sam and Abigail doing their things. Love it.