2009 Daddy-Daughter Trip

Cassie's school had summer vacation last week, so it was the perfect opportunity for John and Cassie to take their Daddy-Daughter "trip" this year. Cassie is still a little young for us to feel comfortable traveling overnight with one of us on our own, so our "trip" didn't leave the greater Bay Area, but we had three days of fun adventures. We spent the first day at the San Jose Children's Discovery Museum where Cassie got to play in a cool loft and discover interesting toddler exhibits. The second day was spent at the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo where Cassie got to see lots of cool animals like leopard sharks, a peacock, a red tailed hawk and some bobcats! The highlight of the trip was an adventure to the Monterey Bay Aquarium where Cassie was fascinated by the big fishes in the kelp forest, the big school of circling sardines, and the awesomely fun water bouncey in the toddler zone. So much fun!

That's a big gun!

Last month, John organized a trip to Las Vegas for his friend Ryan's bachelor party. The highlight of the weekend was an excursion to a special gun range off the strip where you can shoot just about any gun you can dream of. This is one of the few places in the world where anybody can walk of the street and rent a fully automatic machine gun! John got to shoot the M249 belt-fed light machine gun (pictured here), the M4 assault rifle, and a 0.308 Police sniper rifle. Good times!

Shoes, Shoes, Shoes!

To put it simply, Cassie LOVES shoes, our little girl has a shoe obsession (it may have a little to do with shoes typically meaning she gets to outside)

Her eye's light up whenever she hears the word and responds with"Sh, Sh, Sh" as she tries to sound out one over her favorite word. She's always trying to put on our shoes, loves her "Squeaky Shoes" that Nai Nai got her, and loves to stomp around in her two sizes too big "clown shoes"as we call them. She frequently disappears into our closet and we wait in suspense to see what pair of shoes she is going to bring out with her (she has yet to discover the Manolo Blahniks -- then we are REALLY in trouble!)

Cassie's first drawing

Cassie is learning a lot lately. I'd guess that she recognizes around 100 words at this point, and is able to say a few words as well, knowing what they mean. Some of the things she understands and responds to:

• Let's go to Cassie's room
• Let's change Cassie's diaper
• Can you lie down?
• Do you want to go in the pool?
• Are you all done?
• Do you want more?
• Do you want to eat?
• Where's the fire? (In reference to the fireplace in Goodnight Moon book)
• Where's the kitty cats/red balloon/dog/fan/butterfly/dragonfly?

She now says "daddy", "dogdog" and "hi" correctly. She also "roars" when she sees tigers or lions in her book or on TV. She tries to say "cheese" and makes attempts at other animal noises like "moo", "baa" or "purr." Carrie helped Cassie discover crayons the other day and Cassie drew her very first picture!

New Home Challenges

So we're pretty much settled into the new house at this point. The basics are done, Cassie's room was painted pink again, we unpacked everything including the garage, we've setup all our essentials like the bedrooms, office, dining room and living room. John fixed all the major maintenance items on his own including: installing three new sprinkler heads, three all new drip lines, a broken main irrigation line, broken drain line in tiki bar sink, replaced screws in kitchen and garage cabinets, replaced shower head, tightened loose sink, fixed broken drain mechanism, replaced missing drain filter, replaced two overhead lamp fixtures, re-wired broken 3-way light switch, changed all electrical outlets in kitchen, replaced half a dozen burnt out bulbs, programmed four garage door openers including installation of external keypad, built shelves for shed and cleaned up 8 months of neglected landscaping. The picture on the left shows the tools required and the rocks dug up to fix just one sprinkler head. We've started on the next stage of items that probably require a third party. We had a backed up sewage line that was covered by the home warranty. At the top of our priority list right now are adding a second HVAC zone, fixing a broken pool/spa heater, and installing a pool fence. Needless to say, we've been very, very, very busy.

Cornstarch and Water

Cassie gets to do all sorts of fun things at school: Sing-a- longs, books, playing outside in the yard, exploring the water faucet, giggling with her friends, climbing the loft, sharing meals with her friends around the table, dance parties....

As part of the babies sensory development (and just pure fun) they give them cornstarch and water on trays to play with and explore. Cool texture, interesting to mix around, safe to eat, and especially fun to dunk your face in and smear all over your body!