Sunny San Diego! Warning: This is long!

Matt, Grady and I had a fantastic time visiting with Uncle Cliff, Aunties Joy and Noel, Uncle Brad, and Cousin Tristan. 

The trip started out with a bang, as we ran into the Portland Blazers' mascot, Blaze.  I totally love Blaze, and seeing him at the airport was magical.  I saw him.  He saw me.  We ran toward each other like old best friends.  Grady has clearly inherited my love for Blaze.

 We were super excited to finally get to meet Tristan, who is absolutely adorable.  

We joked that Tristan was an east coast baby and Grady west coast, because Tristan literally ran circles around Grady.  He did about 5 things to each of Grady's deliberate one.  It was pretty funny to watch.

We hadn't been to Cliff's condo before, and it's a great bachelor pad.  Gas fireplace, great views of the city and the ocean, right on the beach.  Needless to say, within minutes of arrival, the place was completely trashed.  Within an hour, Grady had thrown up on the floor.  (Grady is fine - small stomach virus, which I caught in a more virulent form last night.) 

The boys were pretty much indifferent to each other, although they did have a few fun bonding times together.

 We had a pretty action-packed weekend. 

On Friday, we went to the zoo. 

We saw lots of animals - giraffes, elephants, zebras, hippos, rhinos, camels....  Grady was especially intrigued by the monkeys.

 He also had fun playing with Tristan around the hippo statue.

And popping up with cousin Tristan next to a seal. 

Grady couldn't keep up with all the excitement, and fell asleep just before the lions and elephants. 

The next day, we went to Sea World. 

We saw one of their shows, where people swam with the dolphins and whales soaked the audience with big rushes of water pushed off their tails.  Grady was pretty fussy at first, but after a costume change (I think he was hot), he enjoyed it.

Hm, I can't remember what Grady was looking at here, but he looks pretty interested!

The coolest part of the day was seeing the polar bear jump in for his lunch.  Unfortunately, Grady was asleep for this.

The penguins were also pretty cool.  Again, Grady slept through this one.

All in all, it was a fun morning!

In the afternoon, we went to Torrey Pines state park.  It was a nice walk, and had absolutely stunning views.  Unfortunately, at this point we were tired of taking pictures so I've just got a few cell phone shots of Mr. G with Uncle Cliff.

Grady was also a really big boy and went into the Ergo carrier on the back instead of the front.  Look how relaxed Grady is....

The rest of the time we hung out, played and cuddled with the babies, and I tried to steal Brad's tortillas.

I'm just realizing we never took a group shot of all of us!  Arg!

Grady did a pretty good job on both flights, with constant entertainment and some fussing.  His favorite activities were reading the safety instructions,

Playing peek-a-boo with the rest of the plane, and eating.  His favorite (and the messiest - poor choice on mommy's part) being a chocolate graham cracker.

It was a really fun trip, and so great to get to see everyone and meet baby Tristan!   Cliff was a wonderful host, supplying us with diapers, avocados, bananas, burritos, and anything else we needed. 

Quick post

I know it's been a whole week (sorry!) but this post will have to be relatively short as we scramble to get ready to visit Uncle Cliff, Joy, Noel, Brad and TRISTAN!  Grady can't wait to meet his second cousin and we already have a lot of fun stuff planned!  So, I'll just get right to it.

Grady celebrated his first St. Patrick's Day like the (part)Irishman he is.

And Besy

Grady looking sweet from the front

But oh man, check out that side view!

Having fun with the tambourine.

And then not.

He's been really enjoying his ball pit lately, too!

 The other things that happened this week not captured in photos -

We gave Grady a bath in the big bathtub, and he was beside himself.  It was like a water park, scooting up and down, trying to climb up and creating a little wave pool.  It was hysterical. 

Grady has also made some big strides in figuring out how to get back down once he stands up.  It's a little scary, but he does it! 

He's started clapping his hands to his face when I say "OH NO!"  I think he's also started signing all done when he's finished eating, although the more definitive declaration continues to be decidedly throwing everything on his tray onto the floor.  I think he's close to saying or signing "light," but not quite yet. 

Now for those of you who don't care about the cats, you can stop here.   Over the weekend, I accidentally left a towel on the floor.  Besa claimed it as her favorite sleeping spot, and slept there all night on Sunday and Monday.  Last night, Fuzz wanted to see what the fuss was about.

Bes waited patiently for the towel back. I eventually scared Fuzz off by crinkling a piece of paper, and Besa immediately moved in.

Fuzz tried to charm her way back by kissing Besa, but then....

And Fuzz succeeded in claiming the towel again!  Poor Besa!  That happened two times too! You'd think Besa would have the clear advantage, but Fuzz is solid.  You'll be happy to know that when I woke up last night in the middle of the night, they were both sleeping peacefully together on the towel!

Giggles and snot

That pretty much sums up from February 1 until now, actually, but serves well to describe this week too.

As I mentioned last post, we are finally all back in one place.  It's nice to have the whole family together again.  Besa has decided not to let us go again!

Matt has been really keeping up with his running, and ran a 5K on Sunday to test his time.  He did great, coming in third in his age group at 18:38.  Grady and I came out in the rain to cheer.

Can you see Matt?  (He's in white on the far left.)

We celebrated Matt's successful race with Grady's first "ice cream."  There's a frozen yogurt place down the street from us, and they have little sample cups.  We gave Grady some vanilla, and he seemed to think it was okay but nothing special.

We started walking home, and the next time we checked on him this is what we found!

I guess he liked it after all!

Grady continues to love standing up.  Today he started standing up in his crib too, which is unfortunate since he still can't get himself back down.   Here he is quite pleased at himself for conquering the dining room chair.

And at the table.

I am not up on the child development stages, but Grady started putting objects inside other objects this week, which seems like something. Here he is showing off his new skill.

We were all successful in not getting sick for about a week, but Grady mysteriously picked up another cold earlier this week.  It got bad enough today that I picked him up early from daycare.   He was definitely crankier than usual, but not so cranky that he could frown through a bath.  I had a hard time narrowing down these pictures, so here are a bunch of him having a good time splashing in his bath.

 Sleepy baby

 Big splash!

 More splashing

"Artistic" splash shot

Practicing waves

 Warning: don't expand this picture or you will get a good snot close-up

I'm hoping today was the worst of it and he will be on the road to recovery tomorrow. 

One more random video before signing off.  I forgot to post this video of Grady laughing hysterically at something totally random.  I love it when he cracks up for absolutely no reason.