Already a Busy Fall!

It was early November of 2006, a young'ish' lucky girl from Montana met this great looking, funny, charming, and muscular guy from Bellingham.  About a year later, that girl was married to that very modest guy....and poof, four years and one kid later we're celebrating another anniversary.  It's been a great four year, and there will be many more to come.  I love you babe!!!

Every now and then, or really every weekend, daddy gets to spend some time with his favorite daughter.  OK, really his only daughter (but still his favorite).  So, while Karen is out training for an upcoming race, or busy volunteering with the parrots, Sydney and I get to spend some quality time together.  The pictures in this post are from last weekend, in which we got to spend some time playing at Hovander and visiting with the animals.  Afterwards, we rounded out our outing with a quick trip to Woods Coffee.  And since you know me, it really took Sydney a lot of arm-twisting to make that happen :)

With only minor setbacks that are few and far between, Sydney is pretty much now 'house-broken.'  Oh, whoops, I meant potty trained.  I always mix those up.  In fact, she hasn't gone on the newspapers...er, I mean in her diapers, he he...in quite some time.  This should help us with some of our upcoming adventures.

In other news, we continue to prep for an upcoming trip to Montana.  As a family, we've endured 15 hour flights from Australia, 3 hour flights to and from California, layovers, and everything that travel brings.  We've got a daughter that has been on more continents and in more U.S. states by the age of two than most people have by their teens.  So, we are only hoping this well-traveled toddler will be open to a 14-hour car-bound 'road trip.'  While flying to Montana seems more appealing, the advantage of having a car is important and gives the flexibility to visit Karen's friends.  This also opens up the possibilities of experiencing different things along the way.  We hope we can keep our little blond one entertained through enough books, activities, and an occasional movie.  The idea of a road trip...the adventure, the excitement, and the fear, are all a very fascinating combination.  If we survive, I'm sure we'll have great stories and pictures to share.  So stay tuned!!!

 Have a great weekend!!!

Resisting Urges

One of the great things about being a dad to a two-and-a-half year old is the fun perks that come with it.  Playing around, tickling, rough housing, and all of those activities make life fun.  Lately though, it has been an interesting time because I have had to resist multiple urges to tickler her.  Sydney, in her advancement in potty training, is now mostly out of diapers during the day.  This is great and we are very excited about this, but the drawback is knowing that I must resist the temptations to tickle her with the same intensity as before (so as to avoid any potential 'accidents').  As she gets a little older and her ongoing success of potty training is secure, then I can increase my level of activity.  And let me tell you, that little blond girl is full of identified tickle zones.  Under her neck, as well as her armpits, are a couple of key areas.

In family news, Sydney recently got to help celebrate her Great Great Grandpa's birthday...who happened to turn a young 85!  I can only hope that the family genes for long-life pass down to me, as well as Sydney :)

Sydney also looks forward to spending time with her Nana from Montana...in...well, Montana.  This will be a road trip, so hopefully we will be lucky with a happy toddler and smooth traffic.  And perhaps the weather will be nice, too.  It'll also be great to spend some time with Karen's friends that live there.  And Sydney also volunteered to take her shift driving.  While I thought this was very thoughtful, I'm not quite sure she can reach the pedals and steering wheel at the same time.

It also appears that Sydney will rejoin swim class this fall.  This is great since it looks like her welding class, as well as her heavy construction equipment class, have both been canceled.  She's always loved swim class, so it'll be nice for her to get her fins wet again.  Until next post...

Have a great longgg weekend!!!


(And thanks to my Mom for the first and last pictures)

We had so many great pictures from our recent trip, I thought it would be nice to use this post to show a few more of them.  We got a number of photos of Sydney's favorite rides, and her overall resume of thrill attractions is growing.  Hard to imagine she's almost three, and she's already conquered some of the best rides!  She will always have a soft spot and looks forward to return trips to Disneyland, but she definitely now has her sights set on DisneyWORLD.  She understands it's much bigger, and her thirst for adventure is ravenous.  Her next visit will certainly define her as a Disney veteran, but these pictures will always serve as a record of those first couple  of trips when she was young, innocent, and two!

While the castle says it all, I thought I would at least mention that this week there is another 'happiest place on earth.'  That place, as you would likely not suspect, has been the bathroom.  Sydney has done excellent with her potty training the past few weeks, and it's been almost a couple of weeks since she has had a diaper with 'substance.'  Even beyond that, she regularly says when she needs to go.  We certainly are excited about this transition.  She's had progress before, but she's hit a new plateau for consistency.

There's much more that's been happening, but that will have to wait until next time!!!

Have a great weekend!!!

Disneyland...Part Two!!!

I often wonder if Sydney has been sprinkled with pixie dust, because she has now been to Disneyland twice in the last six months. Although the recent trip was the result of a work trip, I still consider her a very lucky little girl.

Again, Sydney loved all of the rides. Since Karen physically isn't a resilient 'circular' rider, dad was the recipient of many rides. This resulted in no fewer than four Carousel rides, three Tea Cup rides, and two Astro Orbiter rides. All were rides that went round and round, and most were experienced with a little blond girl yelling "faster...faster!" While I had no control over the actual speed of the carousel and other rides, I did have some impact on the Tea Cups. The more I would bear down and use my monstrous biceps to spin our cup faster, the m,ore Sydney would just laugh and laugh with excitement.On this trip, Sydney got to meet a number of characters, some of the same and some different than in January. This trip's list included Tinkerbell, Iridessa, Pluto, Rapunzel, and Flynn Ryder. She saw many others in passing. As excited as she was to meet them, she got shy with each character (probably a factor of her age). I'm sure she'll break out of that stage soon.

Not surprising, Sydney (as well as Karen), was willing to throw away femininity and show that they were certainly not shy when it came to park food. That's right, Disneyland ice cream bars and churros stood no change once in the path of these two...he he! But honestly, who doesn't love those things. Each meal and refreshing treat seemed to give everyone a little boost and willingness to be in the next line.

Outside the parks (Disneyland and California Adventure), Sydney enjoyed some time in the pool as well as performing one of her favorite activities....elevator button-pushing. All in all, a great few days with many fun memories!

Just a future note for Sydney-just remember your daddy stood in the searing heat for 40 minutes, risking heat stroke, keeping a place in line so that you could meet Rapunzel :)

My two girls are still hotter than Rapunzel!



I will always deny that I rode a lady bug!

Have a nice weekend everyone!!!



A Picture is Worth...

Sydney recently had her picture taken with her BFF Maggie.  Rebecca Brethauer took these amazing pictures, so instead of rambling on in another post, even as intellectually stimulating and humorous as every single post may be, I decided to share these great photos instead.

Have a great weekend!!! 

Friends, Fireworks, and the Fourth!

Every few weeks Sydney gets online and Skypes with her cousin Reina.  Reina, who is just two weeks younger than Sydney, currently lives in Okinawa, Japan, and typically comes back to the U.S. each July.  While Skype is great to keep in touch, Sydney thoroughly enjoyed having a house mate for the week.  She loved playing, coloring, sharing, and talking with Reina.  This also meant that bath time was a little more fun, and it also gave her the first chance of playing with makeup (they of course will not be allowed to actually wear it out of the house until the correct age of 37...ha ha!).

It was great spending time with Chris and Jillian, too, who in addition to serving as Reina's parents are just cool people.  We don't get to see them enough so it's great to make the most out of the time they're here!
 
This past weekend also marked the 4th of July.  So, with extremely close supervision Sydney got to experience her very first fireworks.  The only purchase for this 4th was a couple of sparklers, and she decided that she liked them very much.  I'm sure we won't be able to get away with just a few sparklers forever, so we'll enjoy these low-key years while they exist.

Sydney also enjoyed her second cinematic experience...at least from within the actual movie theaters.  She watched Cars 2.  She was very excited to watch this sequel, as she has viewed the original film a few weeks ago.  She did, on occasion, say that she liked 'Two Cars,' but we made sure she understood that it was the second movie, and was not a movie just about two different cars.

We have a ton of pictures from Reina's visit, so we look forward to posting more of those in our next post!!!

First visit...





Second visit...



Third visit...



Scarves Up!

There's something blue and green of which Qwest stadium had not seen the likes of before...and that, of course, is Sydney.  She got to go to her second official Sounders match.  She was very excited to make her return trip to cheer on her team.  As with the first trip, Grandpa Don also made the travel.  Linda was also able to join us for the game this year.

So, as is Sydney's nature, she doesn't do anything half-way.  She made sure if she was going to go to support her team she would make the most out of it.  As a result, she decided sporting the blue shirt that day, but more importantly it was key for her to remember her tutu, her Sounder Monkey, and the Seattle Sounders fan's weapon of choice...the scarf!

"Are you blind ref!!!"

GOOOOAAAAL!!!

We only had a minor set back during dinner, where towards the end she decided that she would not swallow her food, but rather let it sit in her mouth and liquefy.  This granted her the time out she earned, and despite sitting outside of the restaurant for 15 minutes, she still did not swallow her food.  Personally, I think it's just gotta be nasty if your food is now juice, swishing around in your mouth.  Once we passed that hiccup, though, she was a princess the rest of the time.  She got many comments about how cute and adorable she was.

She not only would join in the chants (fortunately one chant she did not know the words to...yikes), but she even looked at us on occasion, raised her her scarf high above her head, and would say "scarf up daddy."  Overall, she had a great time.  Of course, the following day this led to "I wanna watch soccer game," almost as if we can just go anytime.  Certainly I appreciated the enthusiasm, but the organization actually has a schedule they follow, and aren't able to play on the whims of a two-year old...ha ha!  We look forward to taking her to more games in the future.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!