Nate

Yesterday, Nate started "fake laughing." He doesn't smile when he does it--he just makes the laughing noise, kind of like someone just told a joke and he doesn't get it. I think he hears us laughing a lot and wants to imitate it even though he doesn't quite know what it means.

His top two teeth have started coming in this week. That just has to hurt.

We're off to Bible study tonight, and then I'm driving up to Thousand Oaks with Colleen (and Nate too) tomorrow to attend a baby shower.

Unexpected fun

I took Nate to the Spectrum yesterday to watch the fountain he likes to see. Just as I was sitting down with him on the ground, a girl from Kiddie Kandids (it's a portrait studio) came up to us. She said she was training and would like to take pictures of Nate, and I would get a free 8x10. Nate was in a good mood so I said yes. It was so fun! For the first pictures, they put Nate in a big cooking pot and put fake vegetables around the pot, and then they put some flour on his nose and cheeks. Oh, and I took his shirt off. ;) They also did a couple of regular close-up shots that ended up being really cute, and they did another of him "topless" in a galvanized tin old-fashioned bathtub with baby soap, towels, bubbles, etc., on the floor next to it. That's the one I got the free 8x10 of. I'm going to frame it and put it in the guest bathroom. The last one they did is of him standing up holding onto my leg (while I'm standing up too) and one of my hands holding onto him. It was fun to have the employees (three of them) oohing and aahing over Nate. :)

About me

Oh yeah, and I created a Johari window like Ashley did. Check it out!

San Francisco

We had a great two days in San Francisco this week. Nate and I left from John Wayne airport on Tuesday morning and arrived at Oakland just a few minutes after my mom's and Kathy's planes landed. We took a van to the beautiful Hotel Monaco and quickly got settled before we walked around the city a bit, finding our way to Chinatown after waiting out a few minutes of rain.

On Wednesday, we ate breakfast at the hotel, let Nate take his morning nap (in the crib they set up in our room), and then were off for a full day: we walked to the Ferry house (shops where my mom bought some delicious white balsamic vinegar), took a trolley to Pier 39, ate lunch at the Crab House, watched the sea lions, took a cab to Mission Dolores and toured around, took another cab back to Ghiradelli Square (where I had a delicious mocha), walked to the Cannery (more shops where my mom bought Nate a toy in the John Deere store and bought me some socks in Sock Heaven), and called it a day soon after this. We ate appetizers back at the hotel while we waited for my mom's two other friends to arrive from Arkansas. They got to the hotel around 7:30.

On Thursday morning, we had another good breakfast at the hotel, Nate took his nap, and I got ready to go! My flight home from Oakland was at noon. All in all, Nate did very well and wasn't too fussy, even with the disruption of sleeping somewhere else and not getting his usual naps. He slept until 7:00 both mornings (this is good)!

It was a fast but fun couple of days.

My favorite picture: