Visit to Oregon

Sorry its been a while since the last post...we've been busy.. We took Ari on her first trip to Salem over Memorial Day weekend. Ari was a superstar. She was very content in the car. We stopped a couple of times to nurse, other than that we barely heard a peep. It was wonderful to see the whole family and spend time together. We had one of our friends, an aspiring photographer, take pictures of the family while we were down there. She did an amazing job...i couldn't narrow it down very well, but here are some of our favorites:






We also had some quality time with 2 year old cousin Jana. She was very helpful with ari:
And we go to see Aris great grandpas and great grandma.


One of many cute pics of Ari's cousins Jana and Kara
And a candid pic of the grandkids:

Random Events

Ari is becoming more aware of her surroundings and we've taken some cool pics of her checking things out.

Here are Daddy and Ari reading the Poky Little Puppy. Great story, if you keep digging holes under fences, you will get no dessert. Write that down.



Here's Ari checking out the piano in her crib.



Here's Ari putting her very long fingers to work on the same piano.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was wonderful. Daddy and I went out for a nice dinner on Saturday and Ari and Daddy gave me a card that was waiting for us at our middle of the night feeding. On sunday we went to a late brunch with the family. This was the first time my grammy was going to meet Ari.

Ari and mommy on mothers day:

Ari, mommy and my mommy on mother's day

Meeting great grammy...grammy was so excited to see Ari. She immediately held out her arms to hold her.
and couldn't take her eyes off of her the whole brunch.

Grammy and her daughter, grand daughter, and great grand baby.

Play Date with Reese

Last week we played with our friend, Reese. She'll be 1 yr on Thursday and she's quite the character. She was especially interested in Ari's binkies. You could see her train of thought..."Hey, I have a binky too!" She found one of Ari's and would alternate it with hers, always keeping the other one close in her hand.

She really wanted to share them with Ari too...She would stand over her swing and hold out the pacifier, expecting Ari to reach up and grab it. When Ari didn't she tried throwing it to her, very nicely, again expecting Ari to grab it and put it in her mouth. She tried this several times with all the binkies she found. You can see Ari has a couple of binkies on her tummy.
Reese also like Ari's bouncer.....
but had some trouble getting out of it.
Playing catch with Ari....

Bloomsday 2008!

Bloomsday is a 7.5 mile race that is a longtime Spokane tradition. This year Ari, mommy and daddy, gamma and gampa E, Auntie KTO and grampa OB braved the crowds ( 43,000 people) and participated. It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun. I think we will have better memories once the blisters heal and the soreness goes away.


The new family getting ready for the big race. Ari is in the front pack.

She slept most of the time. The Villanova hat is a tribute to her daddy's cousin.
Gamma and gampa 'warming up' for the big race. I should note here that our pre-race breakfast consisted of lattes and starbucks pastries.
The crew inching our way closer to the starting line
It only took us an hour and a half to get to the starting line.
And we're finally moving. I think we're in 41,309th place.

Half way there! 40,871st place.
Doomsday hill....Mile long hill at 4.5 miles.
Mile 7...almost there. You can see just how competitive we were by stopping to take a picture. We likely would have finished at least an hour earlier if we didn't stop.

Finally...the finish line!


and we're still alive.

There's a first time for everything...

This was a big weekend for our little girl...She had a lot of new experiences. Friday night started off with her first green machine softball game. Unfortunately it wasn't her first green machine win, as we blew an 8-1 lead in the bottom of the 7th. Oh well, we had fun.

Auntie KTO was called up from the minors for the game.

Derek being a ham
Reeses Pieces getting into the game
Ari slept for most of it, as usual, but she looked great in her red sox gear

and a happy baby as we were getting ready.

Cute Pics!

As usual, we keep taking tons of pictures of Ari...her are some cute ones we wanted to share