Elise's 1st camping trip

Elise went on her first camping trip with her dad this past weekend, where we met up with on old friend of Eric's and new friend of Elise's: Geoff. Unfortunately Jessica couldn't make it because she had to conduct some research and was also volunteering along with Jake at the local senior center.

The camping trip was to Pinnacles National Monument. We spent Saturday relaxing at our campspot. Elise got to meet Geoff for the first time, and enjoyed her opportunities to pull on his beard, and to get some botany lessons. Hopefully she retained the most important message which Geoff kept repeating: "these plants are good for looking at, but not for eating..."


On Saturday, after getting our camp set up and getting Elise well fed and settled into the great outdoors we went on a little practice-hike with her in her new backpack carrier. It worked out great, she was excited to have a great vantage from up above and soon was asleep with the motion of her dad walking along.


That evening Elise got to see her first camp-fire which she was mesmerized by --but after about 15 minutes, she was out like a light. The night got very cold, but bundled in her bear-suit, lots of fleece blankets, and sharing her dad's sleeping bag, she managed to stay snug and toasty. The morning was quite chilly, and she was content to pass the first few hours tucked away where she knew it was the warmest:


We made breakfast, and let Elise play in her corral a bit before heading out on our hike.


On the hike, we saw tarantulas, and enjoyed many nice vistas from the high peaks.


Elise slept most of the way up, and woke up as we neared the ridge line. She was quite excited at the top and was hooting and making all sorts of happy-sounds. It was pretty cool to think that she was enjoying the same gratifying "on-top-of-the-world" emotions that drives us out-door lovers to climb to high places with beautiful vistas.






Now we are back to our usual. Elise is cozy at home, and mom, dad, and Jake are busy with their school work, and all the other demands of day-to-day humdrum. Fond memories of this outing just might be creeping into her daydreams- I know they certainly do with mine.

Elise is 8 months old!

Its hard to believe, but, yes, Elise is 8 months old today.

She is still doing her belly-crawl, but has recently started pulling herself to a standing position. Who knows -- maybe she'll start walking without ever crawling on all fours.

Besides standing, one of her other new favorite things to do is to crawl through her Ocean Wonders tunnel.

She's recently started cutting her two top teeth (consistent with her bottom teeth, they are coming in at the same time). The tip of the tooth on the right finally poked through the gum yesterday, and by the looks of it, the other one is not going to be too far behind.

Elise and I recently took a trip to Cincinnati to see some family. She was awesome on the plane -- actually, all 5 planes we rode due to layovers, switching planes, etc. She slept a lot, would wake up occasionally - smile, laugh, and talk to people around us - then go back to sleep.

On our first flight from Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz, there were very few other passengers so she got to sit by herself for a little while. Here she is intently watching the safety information video before takeoff...what a good little traveler, huh?


She seemed to have a great time in Cincinnati --playing with cousins and our good friends the Hooks, seeing aunts and uncles, and hanging out with Nana. And, of course, they all seemed to really enjoy spending time with her too. Here are some of my favorite pictures from our trip, and as you'll see, she definitely was not lacking in attention.

Here she is being held by her cousin Marley...
Here she is being taken for a walk by her cousin Rainey...

Here she is with India (daughter of a close friend), who was reading her a story...

Here she is sitting next to her cousin Brianna, who (although you can't really tell) is 7 weeks younger than Elise...

and, last but not least...here she is hanging out with with my mom, her Nana...