New posts on the way!

Sorry I have not updated in awhile but I have lots to tell. Pictures from Eaan and pictures from our trip to the BVIs. I will be posting soon. I promise!

Vacation!

It is about 5 hours before we are going to leave for the airport! I can't wait! British Virgin Islands here we come! There will be plenty of pictures when we get back in the beginning of July and expect to see a bunch. I am excited and nervous about the plane ride. 10 hours with Jourdan & I in one seat does not sound like a good time to me. Should be fun!

Vacation Time!

Torrey Pines

Leah, Jourdan & I have been going on hikes in Torrey Pines for the past couple weeks. Eaan & I would always go before he left for deployment, now I have a new buddy until he comes home.

We had some strudel in the morning so we decided to take an extra long hike. We walked all the trails...about 4 miles or so. We even had some music for our hike. There was a man playing bagpipes. Nice music to walk to. It was a beautiful day. It was awesome and we were beat by the end of the day. Jourdan on the other hand was relaxed and ready to play. I mean he got to ride around in a backpack all day long. He slept and looked at all the scenery. And Jourdan only peed on Leah once! (Last time he peed on her twice)

Jourdan & I have been hiking and running 2 miles a day to get in shape. Well Jourdan has just been enjoying the ride. Finally, I lost all my baby weight, just in time for the British Virgin Islands! We will be leaving on Saturday morning and I guarantee that there will be plenty of pictures when we get back. Last time my mom and I took almost 3,000 pictures between the two of us, yes you read right, 3,000. So when I get to Maryland I will be posting lots of pictures from our vacation. I can not wait until we leave! Only 4 1/2 more days until a much needed vacation!

Baby's First Haircut

Last week Jourdan got his first haircut.

I know you are saying, "How much hair can he have to cut?". Well he does not have that much. We, meaning Chelsea my old roommate, just trimmed around his ears and along the bottom. His hair was growing over his ears! He did well and Chelsea did not cut his ear off...that is a plus! The look on his face was priceless. He did very well. Than of course we styled his hair in a mohawk...my favorite baby do.

Wild Animal Park & Grunions

This past weekend we went to the Wild Animal Park here in San Diego with some friends.

It was a whole lot of fun. I liked it better than the Zoo because the animals have so much room to run around and play. We were able to pet some of the animals and than feed the birds.

We saw a huge Lion. I do not know how thick the glass was between me & the massive beast but I let myself believe that I was safe and he could not get through. Although I would just have to run faster than the slowest person and I would be ok...

We saw tortoises and gorillas. We also saw cheetahs, giraffes, rhinos and elephants. There was a baby elephant that was so adorable. I am so glad I have wonderful friends out here that help keep me busy while Eaan is gone. They love Jourdan and help me out tremendously. I could never thank them enough.

What better way to spend a beautiful day?

Our day was not over yet. We still had another Grunion run later that night!

The Grunions came out for us under the full moon! We were so excited! Jourdan slept through the whole thing but it was still a lot of fun. We were not allowed on the Navy beach because the Navy Seals were training. That was ok because we could still watch them from afar while we caught Grunions...

What a great wrap to our day.

Mo-Hawk

Enough said...my kid is going to be the cool kid in school.

106 degrees

I know, I know it's been awhile since I have put a post up. We had a great time in Phoenix. It was about 106 degrees...pretty cool. We hung out with family and relaxed. It felt great. The only thing I do not like is actually having to drive to and from Phoenix. The drive starts out great, first you hit the mountains in San Diego county...
this is the first 1 1/2 of the drive...




and than...









nothing...



for the last 4 1/2 hours.

So after becoming incredibly bored I am forced to find entertainment. This involves taking pictures of myself. I know, scary.

Jourdan just slept and hung out in his car seat.

But after we arrived we had a blast. Jourdan loved playing in the kiddie pool, at first it was traumatic but once he got used to the water he was fine.

Phoenix...Here we come!

We are going to be in Phoenix this weekend. I hope its not too hot. We will be back on Monday night, hopefully with plenty of pictures. Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Weekend!

Who let you go outside like that?

So Eaan has been gone for about a month and I finally received some pictures from him. I am guessing this is not within Navy regs...

The one on the left is the other Aircrewman out with Eaan and if you could not tell the one on the right is Eaan. They were deployed last year together also. Eaan is in Japan right now and will be moving on to his next port soon. Nothing much to report on his front. He has been flying a lot and apparently growing his hair.

I really do not know what else to tell everyone other than yes, these are the men that are fighting for our freedom! lol

SoCal Grunion Run

You have not truly experienced Southern California until you have gone Grunion hunting (and no, this is not like snipe hunting).

Time for a short Grunion lesson.

Grunion are small silvery fish that are only about 5 or 6 inches long. They are usually found in Southern California and Baja California, Mexico. The best beaches in Cali are Del Mar, La Jolla, Mission Beach and Coronado Strand. (We opted for Coronado) Between March and September every year the Grunion come up all the way out of the water onto the beach to spawn. They only come up on certain days, before the new and full moons, like clockwork. Always after the highest tide, which of course is about 1 am. The females come out of the water first and lay their eggs in the sand and than the males come up after and fertilize the eggs. At times there can be thousands of Grunion on the beach at a time.

To find out more about Grunions: The Amazing Grunion

What is so entertaining about hunting for Grunion, you ask? It is the way you catch them. Basically you chase after them and pick them up! It is quite entertaining to watch.

Unfortunately when we went we only saw a few Grunion, although there was a sand artist (he was entertaining). I was not able to hold one but my friends were able to. We looked like crazy people out on the beach at 1 am.

Ok we looked crazy because we started running around and taking silly pictures...

Jourdan woke up and wanted to know what was going on, bedhead and all. (And no, the wind is not blowing his hair!) We really wanted Jourdan to see a Grunion but we did not see anymore after he woke up.

So all in all we had a successful Grunion run! We will be out there next month too!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was so much fun. Some of Eaan's family came into town and we went to the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla and to Coronado Beach. The kids had a lot of fun & I got to spend the day with Jourdan. We just wish Eaan was able to be here.

Jourdan loves the Aquarium. He likes to look at the fish swimming around. The beach was a lot of fun too. Sand got EVERYWHERE! Jourdan had a lot of fun crawling everywhere. He wanted to go into the water. Maybe next time. It was a little to cold to go into the water.

Jourdan had another first yesterday. He finally got his FIRST TOOTH! I was so excited! Now that I know his mouth hurt, I know he was not purposely making me want to rip my hair out. Poor Little Guy!

Growing, growing, growing!

Jourdan is growing so fast. He is doing so much. He crawls like a madman...he loves to follow the cat around. He is pulling himself up and standing anywhere he can. He cruises around the furniture, talking baby talk the whole time. Jourdan's new favorite thing is to pull all of his toys out of his baskets...basically pulling anything out of everything and than leaving a path of destruction. He follows me everywhere and gets jealous when I hold other babies. He does not want to share mommy. I can not believe he is 8 1/2 months old already!

He ♥s watching Baby Einstein, My First Signs.



He has not learned any signs yet but he still has time.

He misses his daddy like crazy. I made him a photo book with pictures of Eaan in it. We look at the book everyday. When I ask him, "Where is Daddy?" and he points to Eaan's picture and says Dada. It is so cute! Jourdan misses Eaan so much. Jourdan looks for him to come through the front door whenever I talk about Eaan.

Eaan is in Hawaii and having fun on his cruise so far. It is funny that it's called a cruise. I would not describe it that way. Eaan should be sending pictures soon. He is currently unable to access the Internet but that could change. He only has access to e-mail.

"D" (Deployment) Day

Today Eaan left for deployment at 5:30 this morning. Only 5 months left. Hopefully Eaan will be able to post blogs & keep everyone updated on what is going on with his deployment.
I took some pictures of Eaan & Jourdan reading stories & saying goodnight before he left.
We ♥ Eaan and we are going to miss him so much.
Be safe & come home soon Daddy.

SPIDERS!

Yesterday Jourdan had another first...

HE

ATE

A

SPIDER!!!!

It was so gross. I had to remove the spider from his mouth. I do not think I got the whole spider, I think he swallowed part of it. EWWW!!

We were having a nice day at work. As we were getting ready to leave I noticed that Jourdan was not making any noise. Hummm, my first sign. I walked over to him as he was sitting sweetly on the floor, being VERY good. He looks up at me with a strange look on his face. "Why, Jourdan...what is wrong?" And that is when I see it...a spider leg hanging out of his mouth! I was freakin' out! How gross!

The best part was that Jourdan did not understand what was going on. So as I was trying to get the spider out of his mouth he felt it was necessary to close his mouth as tightly as he could. He was crying because I was trying to get my finger into his mouth to push out the spider. So I proceeded to use a good old fashion bribe!

"Jourdan, do you want a snack?" Of course he did! And that mouth came right open, but instead of his snack going into his mouth my finger went in to get that little, disgusting, eight-legged creature out of his mouth. Of course this traumatized the poor child. I think I scared him more trying to get the spider out of his mouth than if I let him actually eat the spider.

Well needless to say I think I got about half the spider out and oh say, 6 legs...yeah, I know. I get chills just thinking about. As I wiped the little crocodile tears from his face, I let him wash the remnants down with some juice and cheerios. Ahhh, a happy baby once again.

I WISH I had gotten my phone and taken a picture!

Bunnies Taste Yummy

The simplest of things make Jourdan happy.
Like this little blue bunny that I got for $1.
He likes to crawl around and hold the bunny in his mouth.
I guess it tastes good.
Who knew...why did I buy all those expensive baby toys???