Hannah goes to Daycare

Starting this week, Hannah is going to "daycare" two afternoons a week. It is not really an organized daycare, just a neighbor who is taking in a few extra kids, since she stays home with her two girls anyway. She is REALLY great and Hannah seems to love it there! Jodi's girls are 3 and 5, and she now has Hannah , another little boy Hannah's age, and another 14 month old girl. They have LOTS of toys to play with, and the 5 year old thinks Hannah is her own personal dolly! HAHA They have even started teaching Hannah a little bit of baby sign language!

Mom and Dad think this is a WODERFUL arrangement, and on our first free day, what do you think we did to celebrate? If you guessed BIKE RIDE, you are right! We also made a nice dinner together. I think our lives just got a LOT better. We think it will be good for Hannah too, since she will get to play with some other kids and have a little change of scenery.

Hannah visits Grandpa Lenford

Yesterday my mom took Hannah over to visit her adopted great-grandpa Lenford. He lives here in Lodi and he fell in LOVE with Hannah when he first met her a few months ago, and asked us if he could be her "adopted" grandpa. He doesn't get around too well anymore, so we try to have her visit him whenever she comes to town. They seem to have a special affinity for each other!

Hooray for Grandma and Grandpa!!!

I have no idea how I got so lucky, but I have the GREATEST parents in the world!!!

It has been really difficult for me to work in my office since Hannah has become more mobile. She has started crawling over to my office door, pull herself up and bang on my door! Soon she will probably be shouting MAMA!!! Needless to say, it is not the best working environment, so we decided it would be best to move my office to an upstairs bedroom. Since this is the last week of the quarter and I am trying to meet a quota, I decided to stay here in Lodi this week and work, while my mom watches Hannah. Randy flew home to set up my new office and talk to some people about part time childcare options. Mom is even missing out on a few golf games this week. What dedication! Mom and Dad, we love you both and we REALLY appreciate it!!!


Storytime with Grandma


Hannah helps Grandpa get the mail!

Amazing Walking Baby, 8 months, 5 days!!

We knew Hannah was going to be an early walker awhile ago, but this is crazy! She started taking a few steps on her own, going back and forth between Randy and me on Friday night, and has been getting noticeably better by the day!! Here are some videos~(click the forward arrow in the web album for additional videos)

From Hannah walking videos

Party at the Conners

My mom, ever the socialite, invited a bunch of people over Saturday night to party! I was so excited to see all these people that I hadn't seen in so long! Our guests included Dan and Chris Wyrick (Dan was my 6th grade teacher, ) Angie and Chris Meyer and their kids Hudson and Brock (Angie has been my good friend since grade school and high school, they live in Sacramento) and Pat and Carl Rosich (Angie's parents, our good friends, and Pat was our wedding coordinator.) My aunt and uncle Royal and Vicki also came from Tracy, and so did my parents good friend Sylvia Ahn. My grandmothers and Grandma O's friend Virginia were also here.


Hudson enjoys swinging in the backyard.

















The kids play with all my old toys. They were quite a hit, even with 2 and 4 year olds!

From Party at the Conners

Dan and Chris Wyrick and Carl Rosich.

Rest of the pics, click here.

Hannah goes to Sabbath School

This past weekend Hannah went to the English Oaks SDA Church with Daddy and my parents. The cradle roll theme this week was "Noah's Ark." For those not familiar with cradle roll, it is just the kids class that they have before the main church service, for ages 0-3 or 4. Hannah had fun with Daddy and all the other kids.
She got to give her offering in the boat.

Hannah wore Mommy's old dress from 1973!!! It went nicely with her gold sandals from Aunt Kelly.




Hannah sails in the Ark with the other kids at Sabbath school. The little girls in the white dresses are the Nakata twins, Kimberly and Kaitlin.






Her favorite part was pounding the ark with the hammer! (The little boy in the suit is the son of Tim Karagounis and Tate Snarr.)

MORE PICS

Day 3- Calistoga

Our third day of cycling we headed over to Calistoga, which is a cute little town in the North Napa Valley, famous for mineral water and mud baths. Before we left we stopped by to see an old friend of mine from high school, Cari Martin (Carson.) It was brief but good to catch up. She has 3 girls, ages 10, 7 and 3. Her husband is a fireman and they live in St. Helena.

We went north on Silverado trail, crossed over in Calistoga and started down Hwy 29. We turned up a really steep hill called Diamond Mtn Road, that the guys at the bike shop had told us about. I was feeling a little tired after 3 days of riding but my

From Day 3-Calistoga

IRONMAN husband went all the way
to the top!! It was a great way to finish
up our trip. We are hoping to make this an annual trip. We decided to head back to my parents' house Thursday night rather than staying over, since I was missing my baby!!! Of course she was fine with Grandma and Grandpa, and she was asleep by the time we got home, but 2 1/2 days is a LONG TIME! hehe

HERE are the rest of the pictures.

Cycling Day 2- Lake Berryessa

Today we rolled out of bed around 9 30 am and hit the road for our second day of cycling. We headed out to Lake Berryessa through the grape vinyards, via Pope Valley. It was a really steep descent, and I was getting a little worried about having the energy to make it back up! The cycling conditions couldn't have been better, not too hot and only a little bit of wind.

Coming back was pretty hard, but luckily our legs held up, with the help of several Cliff bars and several bottles of gatorade. We came up the backside of the mountain called Ink Grade, of which a good portion was about a 7%, for about 4 miles. After doing a ride like that, we felt we deserved a nice dinner! We went out with Greg
and Aimee out to Rutherford Grill and
had some excellent food and
of course, wonderful company!
Here are some pics of our food.
MMMMMM...
it doesn't get better than this!
MORE PICS and video...

Cycling Napa Valley- Silverado Trail

We started our vacation by picking up our rental bikes in Yountville at Napa Valley Bike Tours. We decided it would be easier to just rent bikes than to lug our own on the plane, but Randy brought the most important components, our pedals and saddles with us so we could put them on our rental bikes. We did a loop of about 35 miles up the Silverado trail, part way up Howell Mtn. Road, by Elmshaven (to say hi to Ellen!) and back down to the bikeshop. It is really beautiful in the Napa Valley this time of year, and we could smell the fermenting grapes while we rode, since it is harvest time.

The guys at the bike shop were awesome, they gave us maps for bike routes for a few days worth of riding, our bikes were great, and they even let us take showers at the bathroom in the back of the shop when we got back all sweaty from our ride! We give them a major thumbs up!

We are staying up at Pacific Union College (where I went to college my freshman year) with my friend Aimee and her husband Greg in Angwin, just up the road from St. Helena. Aimee and I went to school together from 6th grade through my freshman year of college. Her dad was my 6th grade teacher! I have lots of great memories of this place. Aimee is a professor of biology now at our alma matter! She teaches lots of fun classes like plant and animal biology, greenhouse gardening, flowering plants, etc. Greg is a chemist at one of the local wineries. He tests the wine for all kinds of impurities, sulfers, and pesticides and the like. As you can see, our friends are geniuses!! They made us a delicious dinner of pasta and chicken, with fresh tomatoes from their garden. Thanks Greg and Aimee for the wonderful dinner and the hospitality!
Click here for the rest of the pics!

To Grandmother's House We Go

Monday we flew up to my mom's house, arriving at Sacramento in the afternoon. Hannah was SUCH a good girl for the whole trip. She made friends with a little girl in the airport, entertained everyone on the plane with her big smiles, and didn't cry or anything on the flight. She didn't go to sleep either, however, which made for kind of an exhausting time for us, as she was bouncing around on our laps the whole time.

We got to Grandma's house late afternoon and Hannah was enthralled with a new selection of toys! Well, not exactly new....my mom has all my OLD toys (circa 1973!) that she has
been saving for 30+ years for her grandkids!! I might have had more fun playing with them than Hannah did! HAHA


My mom's friend Kathy Payne brought over a new little car/walker, and Hannah LOVED it. She pushed it around for a good 45 minutes.

Click here for the rest of the pictures and videos.

Bathtime

Every baby should have some great bathtime photos, so I have been trying to get some of Hannah for awhile now. The problem is, she likes to stand up in the tub and she is intent on trying to grab the faucet or the shampoo bottle, or enthralled with her toys, and she is never smiling, so I can never get any good ones. Of course, Hannah lights up whenever Randy comes into the room, so yesterday I got smart and enlisted his help and!~viola, smiling baby in the tub! Thanks Daddy! The first two are WITH Daddy pics, the second two are what she normaly looks like, all cocentration~haha. We like taking a bath in our big tub :)

Eight is Great!

Today is Hannah's 8th month "birthday!" Mom and Dad celebrated by leaving her with Leah and Charlie and going for a rare bike ride together! We are getting our legs warmed up for a week of cycling through the Napa Valley this week. We will be heading to Lodi tomorrow to my mom's and dropping our little bundle of joy off with Grandma and Grandpa for a week, while we go visit our friends and get some exercise and much needed together time. Click here for pics of Hannah at months 0-7.