Get the latest photos and ramblings from Corinne, Mike, and Anders living in the Columbia River Gorge.
Corinne and Anders were in Seattle the weekend prior to Thanksgiving for the rescheduled Seattle shower, so they just stayed there for the following week. Actually, getting them to Seattle actually turned out to be a logistical challenge. Corinne didn't really want to do that whole drive by herself with Rocket; if he got cranky or hungry on the trip she would have to stop to resolve it, prolonging the trip. And since I was planning to work the Monday through Wednesday of Thanksgiving week, it didn't make much sense for me to go with them. We ended up having Donna take the train to Vancouver, WA where Corinne picked her up and she acted as a driving companion. Rocket ended up sleeping for the whole trip after all, but it was a less stressful trip as a result of having the backup available.
Leif and I drove up early on Thursday morning to join the rest of the family for the holidays. We stopped along the way to take some photos of a wooded area that burned about a year ago. The overcast sky and low-hanging fog made for an interesting setting.
Rocket's arrival preempted both the Gorge and Seattle baby showers. My theory is that Rocket knew that everyone thought he was a girl and therefore he wanted to arrive before receiving a bunch of cute dresses. Both showers were eventually rescheduled for November, after giving us a few months to recover and adjust.
When I was in Seattle prior to Thanksgiving, Aunt Joie served up a delicious dinner of corned beef. What is better on corned beef than sour cream with lots of horseradish mixed in? And by lots I mean sinus clearing amounts.
Well, the next day, there was a little blood in Rocket's spit up. I was a little suspicious of the horseradish and a call into the doctor confirmed that this was probably the case. Oops. Should I have known that?
I guess I'll be taking a horseradish (and wasabi?) hiatus for the foreseeable future.
- Corinne, Mike, & Anders Rocket
One item which we haven't mentioned here - our furnace stopped working sometime towards the beginning of October. And it was only at the end of November that I finally got it fixed. Yes, I know, that's a long time. And with a newborn in the house, it's even worse! It's a long story...
Ever since we moved here, this furnace has given us trouble. First there was a blown gasket that resulted in exhaust fumes leaking into the house. Then the furnace would occasionally not come on, like during our Florida trip in January. Well, this year that latter problem went from intermittent to frequent to constant. No wonder some people have dubbed the "Heatmaker" brand as the "Hatemaker".
So for almost two months, we heated the house solely with the wood stove. The stove is actually fairly efficient at heating the place, although it certainly takes more work. We also went through our firewood stash much faster than we had planned, particularly since at least one of us was always home taking care of Anders.
Finally! Eight days after Anders smiled at his Dad for the first time, he has finally smiled at his Mom. I guess he heard me discussing his lack of smiles with the doctor today and decided to get with the program.
Rocket turned two months on Nov 20th, but we didn't do anything exciting other than try to take photos after he should have been in bed.
Sometime last April, when Corinne was about 3 months along, my parents booked their first trip to meet the soon-to-arrive addition. Since they had to book a flight to get here, they decided to play it "safe" and schedule their trip to start about 3 weeks after Corinne's due date of October 14th. Of course, that's not exactly how it went. When they arrived in early November, Rocket was already a month and a half old!
We spent most days at home with lots of napping and snuggling. After all, the main purpose of the trip was for Grandma and Grandad Daly to get to know Anders and give Mom & Dad (that's us) a little time off.
Last Thursday morning, I was holding Rocket and when Mike greeted him, Rocket had big smiles for his Dad. It's now Sunday and Rocket has not yet smiled at his mother, you know, the woman who feeds him! Rocket's grandmother Lee reports that this morning he smiled at the garbage can. Well, that's just great...
- Corinne, Mike, and Anders Rocket
Here's another video of Anders, this one from a few weeks ago. He starts out sleepy, but then something wakes him up.
We don't usually talk politics here, though our leanings are generally well known. But we just had to exclaim our pride in being an active part of making American history!
- Mike, Corinne, & Anders Rocket
- Corinne, Mike, & Anders Rocket
Before the weather gets cold and snowy - which is coming soon - we have tried to get Anders (and us!) outside to enjoy the crisp fall weather. Most of his outside time has so far been confined to walks to the mailbox, although Corinne did walk him down to the river and around the meadow once while Loren was here.
We were invited to a Halloween party by our friends Rob and Nikki - so of course we had to come up with something to wear. It's always been difficult for us to come up with good costumes, but after some last minute scrambling we think we came up with two ideas that we could do with materials on-hand and that were better than the default "sleep deprived parents". Corinne had the idea for me to go as Joe Six-Pack and she would be a Hockey Mom, but we couldn't pull together any hockey gear. In the end Corinne was a head of lettuce, complete with real lettuce leaves on her head. Sorry, Rocket - no costumes for you until you can control the movements of your own arms.
My Joe Six-Pack costume required a six pack of beer (obviously), which is something we don't usually have on hand but is easy to pick up on the way to the party. When we stopped at the local convenience store to find some cheap beer, I saw something that I'd never seen before: cans of "Budweiser + Clamato". Sounds pretty horrible to me, but I guess I don't drink Budweiser by itself, so I'm probably not the target audience. We didn't buy any.
The party was great fun, and it gave us an opportunity to hang out with a few of our friends who have babies of similar age: Rob, Nikki and their son Bridger, who is 3 months older than Rocket; and Jamie, Andy and their daughter Lauren, only 2 weeks ahead of ours. At several points during the night, the couch was dedicated to nursing. Apparently all of the mothers agreed that nursing is much more fun in a group.
We stayed for a few hours, but we didn't want to push our luck. Soon after the pie eating contest was over (hence, my face), we packed up the car and headed back home.
- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket
