monkeys, rhinos and zebras, oh my!

We went to the zoo! In the summer! And we didn't die of heatstroke! Today is so nice - it's 2pm and like 75 outside, I think. It is sprinkling once in awhile, and you can't see the mountains because there are low clouds in the way. LOVE IT.

The zoo was fun. Kate is getting better about actually seeing the animals, I think. It is kind of hard to tell, but sometimes she'll look in their general direction and smile. She had a bottle before we went, along with some sweet potatoes, and I stopped at Sonic for a burger and tater tots (mmmm...tater tots, love those cravings!), so we were pretty good to go. I brought Cheerios and freeze-dried fruit for her to munch on, and we hit the road. Dana and Eric met us there, and we started at the monkeys. Those are kind of hard to see unless they are moving, because they are dark and have a pretty dark background, but Kate saw them and watched them swing for a few minutes.

Hi, giraffe!

Ooh, birdies.

Rhino!

Then Daddy's airplane flew over, and both kids saw that! The zoo is right in the landing pattern for the DM runway, so it was perfect - I think that was the first time Kate has actually seen what I'm talking about when I say, "Look, Daddy's airplane!" She usually gives me a weird look like Mom, Daddy is not here, what are you talking about? So we went to the zoo and saw airplanes. We also saw the giraffes eating trees, otters swimming in the water, and rhinos walking around. If they weren't moving, she wasn't interested.

They were both worn out after about an hour and a half, which was good, because so were we. We were walking back to our cars, talking, and mid-sentence I cut Dana off: "They are so not using my car as a picnic table." But, they were. A group of about 12 adults (adults!) and children were just 'cleaning' up their picnic from the trunk of my car (I'm sorry if your SUV is too big to use as a table, but that does not really make it okay for you to use my car as a feasting surface). They did a crappy job of cleaning up, too, leaving a smear of mayonaise (GROSS) and their receipt tucked under the fin on the trunk. What the hell? No, I did not say anything because they were several feet away from the car by the time I got there and really, what would it have accomplished at that point. I needed Julie - she would have come up with some snappy response that would have made them think twice about doing that again. Alas, I wiped up the mayo with the receipt and stood there speechless as Dana wondered aloud where people's manners are these days.

i LOVE this

What you can't see is that the thermometer reads 68 degrees, and 65% humidity. What you can see is the rain soaking the stone fence. Awesome. Since it's such a nice day outside, we are off to the zoo. Woohoo!

such a big girl

Kate brushed her own teeth for the first time this morning. Then she played in the trash while I was out of the room getting a washcloth to clean up. Mmm. The teeth-brushing part was very cute; mostly she just chewed on the brush, which is what I guess she should do considering she only has 2 teeth.

Now she's wailing because she doesn't want to take a nap: huhhhh, huhhh, mmmaamaaaa, mammaaaaa, sniffle sniffle. I hate to hear that cry (it means there are crocodile tears coming out of those big blue eyes), but I'm pretty sure she's tired. I could be wrong; she did sleep in this morning until 7:30. That is virtually unheard of. So the 8:45 nap had to be postponed. Till what time, I'm not sure....we're trying 9:30. Aah, the crying has ended, 9:30 seems to be good.

more appealing photos than last time, I hope

So sorry to those of you who opened my blog yesterday only to find a gigantic picture of a tarantula. =D Today I have less distasteful photos, I think.

What is this? It's the heavenly substance known as homemade raspberry jam. Kate and I made it this morning. MMMM. Here's Kate helping:

Kate's 'help' consisted of her licking every piece of tupperware in my kitchen. But she sure looked cute doing it. My next task is to make chocolate gelato, and I hope to get that done before she wakes up from her afternoon nap...

firsts

I have lived here for almost a year and a half, and yesterday was the first time that I saw a tarantula. It was at Albertson's, in a gravel bed near my car. It was dead, lying on its back in the dead spider pose, but it was still about 2" long and rather wide. I had to look twice to make sure I was really looking at a tarantula, but there it was. Man, they are furry!

I still have not seen a rattlesnake here in Tucson (for which I am grateful), javelinas (still can't believe Tim didn't take a picture of the 8 that were in our yard last fall, eating my pumpkin), a black widow spider, a gila monster, a mountain lion, or any of the number of other desert animals that live here that I can't think of.

I have seen:

-bark scorpions
-roadrunners
-coyotes
-wolf spider (on Kate's dust ruffle, ICK)
-a horned toad (on my night flight last summer when we were walking to the airplane, of all places)
-woodpeckers
-quail
-huge ENORMOUS beetles that like our pool (this one isn't all that big, only about 2"; the others I have seen have been that long, but fat)

A beetle that was in our pool filter, clinging to Kate's ball for life.

The horned toad is interesting - it can shoot an aimed stream of blood out of its eyes to confuse predators.

And of course, the greatest predator of all lives with us in our house:

Starbuck, destroyer of...peace.

hot, steamy mornings in Tucson AZ

Uff. It's 8:30am and 92 degrees. It's rather humid, too. Yesterday it was 110. Hot hot hot. It does make a dip in the pool feel oh-so-refreshing, though.

I got to have lunch with Elizabeth yesterday, quite accidentally. I was headed to Bookman's to trade in CDs and videos, and went to Beyond Bread afterwards with Kate. I figured I wasn't going to be able to find anyone to go with me at such late notice. So after I finally got a seat (mind you, I have Kate in a stroller, a soda in my hand, am carrying my name placard to let the staff know where to deliver my soup and sandwich, and 2 [two] people who saw me clearly heading to an empty table in the busy restaurant outright raced me [and of course won] to the open tables), I heard 'Jen!' from across the room. Elizabeth (who had a baby girl, Cate Lorraine! 2 1/2 weeks ago) is standing in line, looking all awake and refreshed. She joined me for lunch and we got to talk mom talk and compare baby stories. Cate is adorable; she looks so much like Sam right now, but I am sure she will start showing her Elizabethan beauty soon. Christy also showed up with Jack and Taylor to have lunch with her husband, so it was a regular Dragon reunion in Beyond Bread yesterday.

Jess came over to hang out with me and Kate later, and we swam swam swam. It was 110, afterall.

bad commercials

Maybe I'm watching different TV shows, now that I'm a mom. Maybe I'm just obsessive-compulsive and can't get things out of my mind when I hear them. But there are some commercials out there that need to die a quick and painful death. Particularly the ones with 'jingles'. I am talking about:

-the Ford commercial with that Idol guy (I get what I want, I get what I need...blahblahblah, is it stuck in your head now too?)

-the mayo commercial where they sing a stupid song about not being able to get the mayo out of the jar. How dumb.

-Oscar Meyer. What is it with this one? "Oh I wish I were an oscar meyer weiner, that's what I'd really like to beeee-eeee-eeee..." ARGH.

I know there are others, but these are the only ones that have stuck to my brain so far today. Perhaps I need to watch less TV. (I really don't watch much, I swear.)

forwarded emails, revisited

Some version of this has been going around for ages. But it's kinda fun, and seeing as how I haven't been very good at posting posts, I'll "borrow" this from Katie.

Some things you may not know about me:

A) Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Grocery store checker, Ballard Market
2. Financial Planner
3. Commercial Real Estate Analyst
4. part-time roof construction (I have no idea how I landed this job in high school, nor do I remember what exactly I did that didn't totally mess up the roofs)

B) Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. Thomas Crowne Affair
2. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
3. Napoleon Dynamite
4. Swingers

C) Four places I have lived:
1. Seattle, WA
2. London, England
3. Songtan, Korea
4. Sanford, NC

D) Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. Battlestar Galactica (did anyone see the new preview on SciFi the other night? Awesome! I am such a geek.)
2. 24
3. House
4. CSI:

E) Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Phan Thiet, Vietnam
2. Hong Kong
3. Maine
4. Tallinn, Estonia

F) Websites I visit daily: (or semi-weekly)
1. hotmail
2. blogspot
3. yahoo
4. food network

G) Four favorite foods:
1. sushi
2. berries
3. cake
4. breakfast foods

H) Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Pacific Northwest
2. Show Low, AZ
3. sailing in the San Juans
4. at a home Husky football game

What are some of your answers? Leave 'em in the comments section!

and the award for lack of posts goes to...

Me me me! But, I do have an excuse, which I can finally share with y'all: we are expecting a baby at the end of January! Kate is going to be a big sister, and she is so excited about it. She has so much fun with everyone who visits us, and then looks at me forlornly when they leave. "Where did they go, Mama? Bring them back." So next year she will have a new friend to play with.

Grampa's here!

The kids will be 16 months apart, and my due date is 30 January. I had my first OB appointment last week, and because he couldn't find the heartbeat with the doppler, I got an ultrasound. I'd post a copy of the photos, but frankly it just looks like a really really tiny alien. I am almost 13 weeks, and am so looking forward to the time when I am not tired. I have been exhausted, and with Kate, I can't nap whenever I want to. That part sucks. But so far so good; I haven't had any morning sickness, and I mostly feel fine except for being a zombie.

Last weekend, my Dad, stepmom, stepsister and her friend all came out to visit for a couple of days. Kate loved it. We went to Colossal Caves on Saturday to excape from the heat, and went to dinner at Rocco's that night. We also celebrated Tim's 37th (gasp) birthday which was last week. It was Kate's first time in a really dark place, and I'm not sure how much she liked it. She did enjoy sipping water out of Tim's water bottle and then spitting it on his arm.

Ana, Jess, Jen, Kate, Tim, Jim & Simone

still here, just busy busy

mmm...tortilla chips!

I guess it's been a busy week - I haven't updated for days! We had a nice 4-day weekend last weekend, so we kept busy with...stuff. I'm not even sure what! We did have my sister and her husband over for a bbq on the 4th, and enjoyed the pool throughout the day. The rains didn't start until after the fireworks (which we saw from our backyard). Kate slept through the whole thing.

So the week was a short one. I went to a dinner party with some girls at a local restaurant on Thursday night, and got a flat tire on the way home. I was in Tim's car, it was 9:30pm, I was wearing a dress and heels, there were about 2 streetlights on the whole street I pulled over at, and there was a thunderstorm. How fun. I called Tim and begged for my knight to come rescue me. Oh, and I had the car with the carseat. So Tim had to ask our wonderful neighbor Rae if she could come over and watch Kate while he drove over to fix my flat tire. She left her 3 kids home alone so she could babysit Kate. I spent a good part of Friday afternoon baking cookies for Rae.

We had Jess babysit Kate for us on Friday night so we could go to a Lt Col-select party, and last night we celebrated Tim's birthday by having an awesome steak dinner at McMahon's and then going to the drive-in to see Superman. Kate's had a lot of babysitters lately, but she's doing pretty well with them.

She has her top 2 front teeth coming in, and the bottom 2 are getting bigger every day. She's taking little steps on her own (mostly if you trick her with food, or tempt her with something she's not allowed to touch, like the telephone or the camera). She'll walk a couple of steps before she realizes what she's doing, then drops to her knees so she can crawl.

Here are a few videos we've taken over the past week:

http://media.putfile.com/crawling-with-the-squeaky-duck

http://media.putfile.com/walking-and-shaking-her-head

http://media.putfile.com/2-steps-27

mt. lemmon

Yesterday we planned to go hiking on Mt. Lemmon, and then have some lunch. But we got up there and were hungry to begin with, so we had lunch first. Lunch lasted about 2 1/2 hours (if you've ever been to the Mt. Lemmon Cafe, you know that this is about standard). Then Kate got cranky (it was, after all, past her naptime, plus she didn't get her own slice of pie), and it started to rain. So, we pretty much just went to Mt. Lemmon to have lunch (and pie), and get soaked.

I have never been up there on a holiday weekend. It was PACKED. I guess we did get a little hike in: the walk to the cafe from the car. We decided next time we would bring lunch in the car and eat on the way up so we could actually walk around on a trail while we are up there. Hopefully we'll get to do that next weekend or the weekend after. It's a great place to hide from Tucson's heat, as it's close by, yet about 20-25 degrees cooler, more if it's raining. Yesterday it was a cool 59 while it was raining. Awesome!







Just give me some pie, people.













Where's my slice?













Look at the rain on the sunroof, Dad!








We also saw X-Men III last night. Eh. It was okay. Not nearly as good as the first two. But it was a night out alone, so that was great!