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Eli and I are in Oregon for a month. We just got here this week. Isaac flys in tomorrow and will be here for a week and a half. It is so nice to go outside and not be sweating to death. We've been spending our days outside on walks, at the park by my parents house and in town. We watched some boys trying to learn how to maneuver a kite-boarding kite in the soccer field by our house before they tried it on the water. The wind would pick that kite up and carry the boys several yards away from where they started. After seeing them flying through the air and landing on their head a few times, I decided that I will never try kite boarding. For someone who is already naturally clumsy and prone to accidents, throwing an enormous kite into the air, while being strapped to a board on the water, in the windy Columbia Gorge sounds like a death wish.
Eli is experiencing all sorts of new things here - like grass, which he still is not a fan of. We went outside and I sat him down in the grass and he refused to crawl or move, because he didn't want to touch it. We got the bright idea to lay him on his stomach, so he would have to touch it, and then watched and he layed there, panicked, with his arms and legs in the air. Pretty funny.

Another first - his first haircut. Here's the before picture. Despite my mom telling me how much she likes the haircut, I miss his baby curls and shaggy hairdo already.

No more curls - he looks like a little boy now.

At home, I make Eli's baby food, so he only had natural, no preservative, home grown goodness from us. But here, I can't stop my parents from sharing their sugary treats with him. I was giving him a bath last night and asked my mom to watch him for a second while I grabbed something. When I came back, his face was covered in the ice cream cone she was sharing with him and he loves it. Today my mom and I were in town and we stopped by Mike's Ice Cream (for those of you who know Hood River) and as soon as we went inside and he saw a women holding her ice cream cone, he started jumping up and down and panting like a dog. He's addicted.

Eli and his cousin Kaden.

Well, Isaac comes in tomorrow, and we're heading to the beach. I'm looking forward to a 4th of July that I can actually go outside and enjoy. We'll see how Eli likes the sand at the beach. Be prepared for upcoming posts with lots of pictures - my dad has a fancy camera and his grandkids are his favorite subjects.

Kamla's Visit

One of my good friends from the Jerusalem Center was visiting Arizona this week for a work conference, so I spent a lot of time this week visiting with her. It was so good to see her. We rarely have visitors down here in AZ - go figure (really, what about our 120 degree heat isn't appealing?) - so I love it when someone actually does come down to visit, especially a friend who I haven't seen in a long time. Yesterday Isaac, Eli and I went and invaded the resort she was staying at. We had a great time swimming, which is the only thing to enjoyably do in this heat.

Kamla, Eli and I





The pool had a great slide, which we stood in line for, along with a bunch of 12 year olds. . . Here's Eli and Isaac going down the slide.

We spent the night at her hotel, and Eli had to sleep in the pack and play, which he hates (he hates sleeping in general). With all the new stuff to look at in the hotel room and the pool to play in, he didn't sleep at all. Amazingly he wasn't too cranky from lack of a nap though. Here's Eli in his own personal prison - the pack n' play.

Playin at the Pool

Mabye I'm a Little Too Excited

For my birthday next month all I asked from Isaac is that on Aug. 2nd he take Eli for the day and have a Father/Son outing, so that I can purchase and read from cover to cover Stephanie Meyer's new book, Breaking Dawn, which ends the Twilight series and should answer all those questions that the other books leave you asking. I swear that this is the last time I start a series, unless all the book in the series are published. It's like waiting for Harry Potter 7 all over again. So, to satisfy my obsessive compulsive side, and for all you Twilight fans, here's a countdown. Katie, this is all your fault.

Get this widget!

Artwork???

So Isaac and I have some different opinions of what artwork is. Last night, I took him to the movies for Father's Day. He chose the Incredible Hulk. They were handing out free Hulk posters at the window. After the movie, we picked up Eli and came home. I fed Eli, put him to bed, and went into our bedroom where Isaac already was. Now, when we got the poster, my thought was that it would end up in the trash later that night. Apparently Isaac doesn't think the same way as I do, and where I saw trash, he saw artwork for the bedroom, which I discovered when I walked into our room and looked on the wall. It is a little too green and ugly for me to wake up to every morning, but in honor of Father's Day, we're keeping it up until tomorrow. Then I told Isaac I was setting it on fire - he claims it will not burn since the Hulk is stronger than fire. We'll see.