Jefferson Park

The day couldn't have been much better. We hiked about 12 miles cover a couple thousand foot elevation gain and had an awesome time. This pic is taken from Jefferson Park Ridge. We hiked down into the park pretty much straight ahead of us until we got to the base of the mountain. There is no trail to the top of the mountain and it's my understanding that this mountain is the most rugged in Oregon and isn't summited that often.

Smiles for mommy

I have gotten some pretty big smiles and some good laughs from baby E but she saves the best for mommy. See how she is looking to the side...that's were mommy is at. It's pretty standard for her to do this. It's funny and sad at the same time. I think she knows dad as the boring guy who comes home late at night, swaddles her and puts her to bed. That's boring. Mom gets to play with her during the day. If it sound like I am a little jealous, that's cuz I am. If I could stay home and never work at my job again, I would do it in a heartbeat.

What a wreck...or two

I recently went mountainbiking with some kids from church but what they failed to tell me or what I failed to ask was what kind of biking we would be doing. It turned out to be downhill mountainbiking whereas I have only done crosscountry biking. I didn't really know that it mattered that much what kind of bike you have but apparantly mine does not work very well for downhill biking. It would be like trying to use cross country skis for downhill skiing, technically you could get down the mountain but it wouldn't be pretty and you would probably crash a lot. I did.

When we first got there, people were jumping this man made jump where you went down a hill, shot up the jump and landed on a wooden man made landing. As I watched others do it I realized that I have never done anything like this before but I didn't want to be outdone by anyone. As I prepared to head down the jump I said out loud, "what is the worst that could happen? I could crash". I did just that. I headed down, hit the jump and got plenty of air and distance but when I hit I was too far foreward and went over my handlebars and landed on my shoulder, arm, hip, and leg causing scratches and bruises to all those areas(some pretty good ones too). After that I only took smaller jumps until we headed up the mountain for the single track downhill.

On the way down I went off this little ramp that they built on the trail with a small drop off. My front tire went down first and I went over the front of my handlebars and landed right on top of my head, rolled the the side, and then my bike fell on top of me. I was pretty much done after that. I cracked my helmet and broke my sunglasses. I rode down the rest of the mountain and ended up bending the sprocket on my bike.

All in all it ended up being a pretty painful and expensive day but also a pretty good story.

Indian and the Moon Totem Pole

This was the unveiling ceremony for a totem pole that was donated to the school. It's a pretty cool totem pole and was donated for the lost children of the school.

Yummy

A While ago she found her right hand and now the wife says she has also found her left hand. It makes it nice so I don't have to worry as much about being on binky duty. One thing that makes me laugh about baby E is how wide she makes her eyes. I think if you look over a lot of the pics I have posted you will notice how wide her eyes are open. It's almost like she tries to open them wider becuase she wants to see more of everything that is going on around her.

Crafty wife/Beautiful baby

Wifey made this little bib that baby E is wearing. When I married the wife, I had no idea she was very crafty but it comes in handy for cool stuff like this.

Cutest kid in the world

Alrighty then

She is looking at me in one and her mom in the other. Can you guess which is which?

Beat down by the river

When we hit the rapids there were six people in this boat but I found myself floating down the river with my paddle in hand wondering exactly what happened. I actually know exactly what happened and thought it was the coolest thing I have ever had happen while rafting down a river. This is a class 4 rapids section and if you look at the picture where we are nearly engulfed in water, you will see me to the front of the boat on the bottom part of the picture. Before we hit the rapids, I was nearly at the front of the boat but in this picture, I am actually in the process of flying backwards off the boat into the water. Some people don't like getting thrown in the water but it made my day when it happened. The funny thing is that before hitting the rapids we had decided to take another route as we had encountered some misfortune earlier in the day and some of the people in my boat did not want to go over the difficult section of the rapids. Fortunately, our boat lacked the skill to manuever the boat where we wanted and therefore ended up going over the most difficult section. The rapids tore our boat apart, took the hat off one guy, took anothers oar, and threw me in the river. Good times.

A happy baby

Today when she was smiling at me and making some really cute baby noises, I couldn't help but have watery eyes. She is soooo precious and cute.

Not a mustache

She's so cute when she's sleeping. As a side note, this is not a mustache-it is a 5 o'clock shawow with additional shawows from the way the pic was taken. I will never have a mustache...ever.

SSSSHHHHH

These pics got put in here in reverse order but this is just one minute to the next. I am shhhshing her in the second pic and it seems to work quite well to calm her down.

First photo of a smile

This is the first one that I have and I'll try to put some more in later. She has started smiling a lot right after she is fed. I think she still smiles at her mom more but I think I am gaining some favor though it's actually hard for me because I don't get to see her and spend as much time with her as I'd like. I am a little jealous of the wife-until she starts screaming and I remember that I couldn't do it all day long:)

A couple of cuties

I have a hard time wanting to read to her becuase she really doesn't seem to notice or care that we read to her but I suppose I should.

Civil War

We took baby E to see a Civil War Reenactment at the park. I had never been to one and thought it was actually quite cool but hard to watch with a 4 week old baby fussing. Maybe next year will be better unless the wife is pregnant(she's gonna kill for even suggesting such a thing when she reads this.

Blessing

Wifey's mom bought a dress and modified it to this great looking dress for Baby E to be blessed in.

Bath time

I swear I'm not putting cold water onto her.

I think I am more open minded than it says:)

You Are 24% Open Minded

You may be surprised to hear that you're not very open minded... and a little judgmental.You tend to dislike others that are different from you. While you may be open to a few new things, you don't reach far beyond what you believe.And it's likely that you don't even want to discuss different points of view!

How Open Minded Are You?

What I have to look foreward to

Baby E and Grandpa

Backroads near Mt. Hood

Timberline

Baby E and Grandma

A scream or a yawn?

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 90% Conservative, 10% Liberal

Social Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Ethics: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

How'>http://www.blogthings.com/howliberalorconservativeareyouquiz/">How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

little princess

In the past I used to do everything to avoid using the work "cute" as it just didn't seem manyly enough. Now I cannot find a word better suited to describe my baby and many of the things happening on a daily basis.

Nap time

Few are the moments it seems that our nap times sync up like I want them to.

Kick to the head

As with most of the women in my life, my daughter has quickly learned that I often need a swift kick in the head to keep me straight.

Parenting

At one point after baby E was born, we had five adults staying in the house with the sole purpose of taking care of the baby and I was still tired. I can't imagine being a single parent with this kind of responsibility. It is different then I thought though not really any easier or harder I just couldn't really prepare myself for it all. This morning I got out of bed around 11:30 after waking up every 2 hours to help hand her to mommy for nursing, then I try to birp her, change her diaper and get her to go back to sleep which even if everthing goes well doesn't leave a ton of time between sessions for sleep. When I woke up I was not exactly refreshed and I thought this is what it will be like one wifey's mom leaves. It is nice to have 6 weeks off work but I imagine it is going to be very difficult for both the wife and I when it's over and I have to go back to work and she is stuck doing most of the work(at least during the week).

As for all the pics without titles or comments...well, to be honest baby E doesn't really do that much. It is cute to take different pics of her while she is sleeping or lying around but there is very little variation in anything she does so the pics will just be variations of similiar situations on a different day. I try to capture different facial expressions but as she doesn't have control over that yet it's hard to catch much other then her sticking her tongue out and crying.

Lay off, I'm hungry