Christmas day 2009

Joanna and I made the drive to Marsing, ID to spend the holiday with the family. Joanna did all the driving on the way up because I was completely wiped out by some sort of coughing sickness that robbed all my will to do anything except sleep.

Nevertheless, we arrived at Nancy and Bruce's house and while Violet and Joanna had a good time I went to sleep. The next day I felt even worse so on Thursday I finally caved in and went to a doc-in-a-box quick-care place and found out I had bronchitis that was trying to turn into pneumonia. I received a scrip for Zithromax and a bottle of codeine and today I feel muuuuuch better. Turns out I also gave it Joanna, and now she feels like she got run over by a truck. Tomorrow we'll go back to the quick-care place for Joanna. For the moment Vi seems to be symptom free.

Newsflash, today was Christmas! Christmas is a good day to be a Violet or a kitty (see pics below). While sitting here this evening composing this post, sipping on a SoCo and Coke, and feeling a little uneasy with how fortunate we have been this year, I tried in earnest to select pictures of the girl today that were fun, but I got distracted by a few other non-Christmas pics that got me all teary-eyed.

Best wishes and happy holidays! Peace be with you and your loved ones.

Violet (and Mama) 2 days before arrival

Violet on the way home from the hospital

Violet preparing for the coming year

Violet enjoying her new bear from Nancy and Bruce

Violet seems to be hardwired for horse riding. Go figure!

Violet goofing around at Grandma Joanna's house.

More goofing around.

A very good day to be a kitty.

Mini Family Vacation

On Monday I left for the AGU conference in San Francisco. I was presenting a poster at the CLARREO session and attending lots of scholarly sounding talks. Some of the talks were cool, some were confusing and most were kind of like some sort of plumage display that you might see on the nature channel. Monday through Friday were the conference days that I was scheduled to attend. A particularly negative reacation to some Pakistani food prevented me from attending the Tuesday sessions, but other than that the conference was productive as far as I was concerned.

On a typical conference trip, Joanna tries reasonably hard to stifle looks of either disappointment or contempt for the few days before I leave because I am allowed to get the hell out of Logan as she remains behind. Ah, but not this time! Thursday afternoon the girls showed up so we could spend the weekend together in the city! I met Joanna and Vi at the airport and we all rode BART from SFO to downtown. No pictures of Vi on the train but Vi really likes the subway.

Random BART station pic.

Our one day on the town has been a good time so far. We went shopping (for all three of us, in fact), we ate lots of different food, we walked around, and we saw lots of people who are black, or Asian (if you stay in Utah long enough and you begin to forget that people come in other configurations than "pasty white"), or homeless, or standing on the corner shrieking about some kind of perceived injustice. Sometimes one person can embody all of these things at the same time. We saw lots of seemingly normal people too, but those aren't as fun to write about.

The good thing about Vi is that she makes friends wherever she goes. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has smiled and waved to her - even the people in restaurants will put down their mobile phones and interact with her for tens of minutes. As we walk down the street the traffic stops, the throngs of people part, jaws drop and people simply wave and throw flower petals in our path.* Vi has magical powers, I tell you. At least we get good service from the waitresses we have had.

Here are Joanna and Violet enjoying some morning sun while we drank
our coffee and Vi played with gingko leaves.

Joanna and Vi in front of the Martin Luther King monument in Yerba Buena Park.

Two more of Joanna and Vi walking around Yerba Buena Park and picking flowers. :-)

* - Reports may be somewhat exaggerated.

Go Violet, Go!

My birthday present from the Dolny Family, and a tribute to little Violet's biggest accomplishment in the past month or so.

Violet really likes Kokanee, Mike's new dog. I think the feeling is reciprocated as well!

And finally, the picture that got cut off of the last posting. It is a couple of months old I think, but it is still amazingly cute. Violet does love bathtime...

A Tad Bit Chilly

It's been cold lately. I'm sure everyone reading this has their own, equivalently extreme experience in the past few weeks, but we woke up to 16 degrees below zero this morning. Luckily it hasn't been particularly windy.

The entire reservoir in the valley is frozen over, although there are a few spots of open water in other areas. The Logan River is still flowing as well, which allows the animals and birds a few places to fish and drink. There has been an American Bald Eagle in the area lately, and he or she seems to be keeping close to the open water.

Violet has been oblivious to the cold weather. She is quite busy perfecting her toddle, exploring a new level of the house (what she can reach above her head), and now both unloading AND loading things. She loves to help unload the dishwasher, particularly the silverware. She'll proudly hand one of us each piece of silverware one-by-one so that we can put it away. She also enjoys unloading "her" drawer in the kitchen, which is full of oven mitts, dishtowels, and a few pieces of generic tupperware. I put that drawer together at the suggestion of our friend Jen Pollard, and it has proven to be a hit with little Vi. She unloads it piece by piece, often with shrieks of joy as she finds items hidden under the towels. And once she is done unloading, she now takes great joy in loading everything back inside it, piece by piece. She seems to enjoy doing the same with her bin of wooden blocks as well. We can only hope this becomes a habit!

Violet is also working on ever more signs these days. She made up her own sign for hair (grabbing a handful of hair and pulling it away from her head), has figured out the sign for "where?" and is working on the signs for giraffe and bunny rabbit, as well as others. She is certainly dedicated to her communication skills!


She is also working on eating with utensils. She's getting pretty good at it.

Mac and cheese with a fork.

* sorry that the formatting has been crappy lately. Something is up with Blogger!

Not Much to Say, But Lots to Show!

So by now you are all aware of Violet's new mode of transportation: her feet. She has amazed us in the past few days, going from her first tentative steps to now walking everywhere. She is so excited to walk! Here's a taste of the past few days:

Violet likes just about any food we offer her. She seemed very happy with the pancake Mike made for her this morning as well. And when we gave her the homemade applesauce that went along with the pancakes, she was ecstatic!

Although I don't have complete videographic proof, Violet is picking up more and more signs these days. She now knows (and can appropriately produce) the signs for: more, milk, dog, eat, and all done, and she appears to understand the signs for water, shoes, fish, ball, book, cat, mom, and dad. We are also just starting to work on the signs for drive, cookie, and cracker. Ah, the world of language!

Yah! Oh no!

The moment has arrived. Violet is officially bipedal. Yikes!

Not Violet's first steps, but some of her subsequent steps.

We were so excited and then in the same thought we said, "Oh no... we're in trouble now."

Happy Thanksgiving

Ran across a few pictures from last week of Violet at daycare. Thought we'd share them with everyone.

We had a nice Thanksgiving dinner with our friend Karen this evening. We missed being with family, but had a nice time at home. We hope you all had a nice time as well!

La pelota primera por Violet!

I had a great afternoon with Joanna and Violet this weekend when I landed in Salt Lake City after my trip to Boston. Joanna picked me up from the airport and first we went to the Red Iguana and then we went to the Gateway Mall and spend the afternoon shopping. I will admit that after only a few hours of sleep the previous night and the 6 hour plane ride I wasn't at the top of my game. I started losing steam early in the afternoon but I still had a good time with my girls. One of the shops at the Gateway is Dick's, where I picked up Violet her first football. I mean real football, not crappy American football. After overthinking the purchase for 15 mintues I settled on a handsewn size 3. I think she likes it!

Violet is a natural left middie.

While Mike's Away...

Not much time for a big update, but the current news is that we've got about two new inches of snow since this morning! Very cool indeed. And although the chickens and cats seem to think it is rather annoying, the horses don't seem to mind and the humans (Violet and I) and dogs think it is great. Yay for snow!

We've taken Violet in for a few pictures at JCPenney recently, and here is a preview of what you may be getting for Christmas/Solstice presents this year:

Grandpa is here!

My dad is here for the next few days. He is pretty good at keeping Vi occupied while Joanna and I take care of stuff around the house. See?

We also celebrated Vi's birthday (again) now that Dad is here. It started with cake but then things got a little out of hand...


Today the weather and clouds were beautiful. This AM the sun was lighting up the hills behind our house.

And this afternoon the Jet Stream was very evident. This particular formation is a good example of gravity waves.

New family member?

Well today we added another potential critter to the herd.

It's been kind of lonely at the ranch lately with 3 horses, 11 chickens, 6 ducks, 3 cats and 1 kid (human, not juvenile goat) and only 1 dog. So we stopped by the Cache Humane Society to see if we could find another friend for Trooper.

It's kind of wierd to "shop" for a dog. All of them seem eager to be friends and I could see myself adding most of them to our herd. It's more that my usual modus operandi is to let animals pick me, not the other way around. However, this one little guy was just hanging out... loooooooking at me, licking my fingers. So I took him for a walk and we sat together for a while and it didn't take long to decide that he was the one that we should take home for a one-week test drive. It's a test drive because with all the critters around our house it takes a special kind of pup to integrate with Vi, Trooper, the horses, etc. It helps that Joanna sits on the CHS Board of Trustees, so we got a bit of "special" treatment in the adoption/test drive process.



He doesn't have a name yet, we keep trying different names out to see what sticks. He sure is photogenic, though. About 6 months old, we think. Total puppy. We don't even know if he's house trained. All smiles and play. He will be good for morale around here as the long, dark winter begins to set in.

The moment is soon upon us

When Violet will be walking. We picked Vi up at Ellen and Denny's house today and as we were pulling into the driveway, what did we see?

Baby car credit: Cassie, Denny and Lance. Thanks for the loaner!

rollin' rollin' rollin', keep those doggies rollin'

I suppose that title could have several meanings but since it's late and I have a long heritage of sloth I'll let you enjoy these vids at your own pace. Besides, Julie recently uploaded a video so I feel compelled to respond in kind.

I Absolutely Cannot Believe It...

On Violet's first day at daycare she ate lunch in a highchair. From day two on, she has eaten with the "big kids" at their communal table. She actually sits in a regular (child-sized) chair and eats with the bigger kids.

This may not sound like a big deal, but just wait until you see the pictures..

.they blow me away! I simply cannot believe that A) she is old enough to do this now, and B) she is becoming a big kid!

Violet has also made some friends at daycare, and her "old" friend, Henry, is good company as well. Here, he's observing her developing skill of going down the stairs safely.

A Big Day

For both of us, actually. Today was Violet's first day at daycare! And therefore it was my first day to be able to stay at USU and get tons of work done!

Violet took about 20 minutes to assess her situation at the Sunshine Academy this morning, and then dove right into exploration. She seemed perfectly at ease, and when I left, she gave me a huge smile and a goodbye wave - perfect!

I thought I'd download some pictures of Vi and post them here, but that is proving to be more difficult than I had imagined. Odd. At any rate, you are welcome to go view them at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/beckierose50/VioletSFirstDay?locked=true&feat=email#

Violet pics start with no. 8 (she's in the stiped shirt). They show a nice progression from finding the stacking cups (a personal favorite of hers) to exploring, playing with her friend Henry (black shirt) and some other kid whose name I cannot remember, to investigating the wagon, additional playtime, lunch, and finally, naptime! I can hardly believe it, but Violet actually took a nap on the "big kid" cots! (Don't stress - the cots are approx. 2 inches off the floor.)

All in all, a great day for both of us. Violet will continue to go to daycare through this week, then for another week in mid-November, then likely another week in December, and then full-time starting in January. And lucky for us, the Roses are going to lower their rates a bit starting in December...our bank accounts are thankful!

A few pictures for the heck of it:

Violet was traumatized a bit (by what we do not have any idea) by her post-birthday cupcake bath in the laundry sink. Maybe she thought she was going into the washer?

Vi got not one, but two growth charts from Cassie, Denny, and Lance. One for Gramma and Grandpa's house, one for home.

Lance demonstrated his ability to get on the rocking horse all by himself.

And then he demonstrated his ability to ride it right off of it's sheepskin mat and part of the way across the room!