Tuesday, April 29, 2008

13 Months Old

Wow, where did the time go? Yesterday Cory turned 13 months. People always guess he's much older though. I think mainly because he has so much hair! According to the doctor last week he's 22 pounds, 4 ounces, but I'm guessing it was more before he got sick. Still that's about the 50th percentile so average. He's also grown an inch to 31 1/2 inches and that's in the 90th percentile. Are we surprised? :)

This month he learned how to walk! He's still not super sure he wants to, and crawling is so much more efficient anyway! But he will take a few steps without anyone coaxing him and he'll take more than a few if you are trying to get him to come to you. He's also getting a new tooth. It's a molar and I think causing him some pain so he's been chewing on anything he can get in his mouth and drooling buckets. It's pretty funny to see his little Piglet or Pooh figurines with their head stuck in his mouth!
He can also wave, but I can't remember if that's new this month or last. Sometimes he will do it "on command", but more often than not it's after we've left the building!

I like my bunny, Mom!


Check it out, I'm a lot bigger than he is now!

Two questions: I'm debating continuing the bunny pictures every month because they don't show as much difference now. I'm wondering if I should go to every other month or just drop it all together. Opinions? Please leave a comment!

Also, if you're so inclined, the voting is open in this photo contest with my picture from yesterday. Voting is only open until midnight tonight so go and vote for me! Or vote for someone else if you wish! I'm pretty far down the bottom of the poll so you'll have to scroll down in the little window.

Monday, April 28, 2008

For Mom

My mom came down yesterday just to be with her grandson. (well, and me too, but mostly him!) He's 13 months old today. He doesn't know how blessed he is to have his grandma, who adores him, living so close.
He giggled like crazy when she came in the door. I think that adoration feeling must be mutual!


We went outside to take some photos and satisfy this crazy idea I had. He's just learning to walk and I wanted to get some of him walking. My ideas never seem to turn out exactly the way I'd pictured, but at least I got some cute photos.


I'm blessed that my mom is so close by and wants to spend time with me. Some days my son drives me crazy and I'm sure I did the same to her, but she still loves me, maybe even more now, if that's possible!
This year will be my second Mother's Day, just barely! My son was dedicated on Mother's Day last year at only 6 weeks old. I didn't have a clue then what I was getting myself into... and probably still don't! All I know is, he's stolen my heart completely.
Maybe now I understand, just a little bit more, what my mom has done for me all my life. So, thanks, Mom. And Happy Mother's Day!


This post (specifically the first picture) is entered in Mother's Day contests at 5 Minutes for Mom, Are We There Yet Mom, From Dates to Diapers, and Mommies United.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Stir Crazy

This morning we went to church. That's the second time I've been out of my house (well, other than to get the mail) in 11 days! Ay yi yi! Poor Cory caught something nasty and it took him about 6 days to get fully over it... but he shared it with me. It took me about 6 days to really feel good, ie, ready to eat something more than crackers again. It was the weirdest "flu" I've ever had. Stomach cramps that came and went. If I hadn't known I didn't have my gallbladder anymore I'd have said I was having more gallbladder attacks. Yuck. Brian stayed home from school on Monday to take care of us and then he caught it finally on Friday... except after sleeping for most of 12 hours he was fine. So not fair!

So then yesterday it was a gorgeous day and I finally got my house cleaned from top to bottom. Yay! Windows open (and washed), floors clean, bathroom and kitchen clean! Maybe now the ants will go away... although I'm not going to hold my breath because just this morning I found 4 of them crawling around in the bathroom. Do they think there's something good to eat in there? Ew!

Amongst all of this I had managed to go grocery shopping on Wednesday (although it wasn't a great idea - so sad that I had to ask some old ladies sitting at the Starbucks in Safeway to watch my cart and Cory so I could go to the bathroom!). Now I have all this food that I have to hurry up and make before it goes bad! And I had even planned ahead so I would have all the ingredients I needed for a weeks worth or more of dinners. So frustrating! I wish I had a bigger freezer and I would just make the dinners now and freeze them. That would be handy!

Anyways, here are a few pictures from awhile ago. Unfortunately the quality isn't that great because somehow the ISO on the camera got turned all the way up to 1600. Which is great for outdoor action shots, but horrid for indoor/flash shots. Bummer. But at least it's only that and not something wrong with the camera again, which was my first thought when I saw the quality!

Cory loves his snuggly blanket that Grandma got him... I was going to take it with us the other day and put it on top of the diaper bag. He crawled over, got it, and did this:

Little Linus Boy!

This is what he does when he goes to bed as well.
Showing Grandma how he can walk - the day after his first steps.
Playing Peek-a-boo with the new snuggly blanket I bought him with his birthday money.This is one of his new favorite games!

Now see, wasn't all that random rambling worth it for pictures of my adorable son? :)

***

BTW, check out this cool apron being offered by A Book Worm's Diary! It's all natural hemp! Since I don't currently own a decent apron this would be a fantastic prize!

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Feed Note

I'm trying out Feedburner. So if you're subscribed to me in a reader and you don't see any posts for more than a week? You'll probably have to update your subscription. Just sayin'!

Monday, April 21, 2008

SBP6 - The Long Road Home

Here are Parts One, Two, Three, Four, and Five if you missed them!

And finally, we start our journey home... I'm not kidding, it's a journey, all 19 hours of it!

We got up about 4:15. I was hoping Cory would sleep until just before we left, no such luck. We left the house a little late, about 5:15, but still managed to make it to the airport in Las Vegas in plenty of time. Along the way we saw a nasty wreck on the opposite side of the freeway and a helicopter circling for landing. I hope the people were okay.

Not that we needed to worry about missing our flight because... our 9:10 flight didn't leave until after 10:30. I forgot to check my watch, but I think that was about the right time. There was no problem in Vegas, but there was so much fog in San Francisco that we couldn't have landed. Thankfully they didn't have us boarded yet so we were just hangin' out in the terminal. Much appreciated.

And it wasn't a big deal that we were late because we had a 3 hour layover in San Francisco. But then when it came time to board there... no plane. I don't know where our plane was coming from, but it landed after we were supposed to have left so by the time they did the turn around of people and we got going it was another hour later. Which of course means it was after 5pm getting into Seattle instead of 4. The most interesting parts of these flights though was that we had a thoroughly flaming flight crew. I suppose part of it could be that both went through San Francisco, or that we were flying on Virgin America. Whatever though it was just a little... odd. I'm not used to seeing that many guys with super feminine gestures!

Getting the luggage was pretty painless, hooray, and Tim and Wendy were already there to meet us. We headed out to find some dinner and discovered that it was hailing. Which meant that it was probably snowing on the passes again. Joy of all joys. After one Pho place was closed and we couldn't find the other we started looking for a place to possibly get new tires... no luck on Sunday night at 6:30pm. Oh well. We did find a funky Americana diner that had pretty good food. Tim enjoyed feeding Cory and Brian fell asleep at the table.

By the time we got back to their house and got our car and left it was 8:15. We had a 3 hour drive to go. It was of course snowing going up Snoqualmie pass, but I was so tired I only woke up once when we were going slow following some other cars. I don't think there was too much of a problem. We got to Cle Elum and Brian had to pull off for a nap. Unfortunately Cory woke him up after 15 minutes. So half an hour farther on we stopped again and this time he got a 45 minute nap. After that I was trying really really hard to stay awake to keep him awake, but not having much success. I was dozing off and then would wake up and say something totally random... like:

What's that glow over there? Oh, nevermind, it's just a tree

or

Wrap that up with a really big bow

or

That's not fair! (Brian says, what?) That's not fair making her move when she's giving birth. (Who?) That cow!

Needless to say I think the laughs he got from my randomness helped him stay awake! We pulled in at a few minutes after midnight and the poor guy had to work the next morning!

'Twas a good trip though! So far, no word on the pregnant lady having her baby!

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Mea Culpa

Originally when I read about the craziness of BPA I sent an email to all my mom friends as well as posting here. Well, it appears I was misled. Since I have already written to them I will simply post that email here.

It appears I owe you all a giant apology. So, I'm sorry for scaring you!!!

I have been doing a lot of reading on the subject of BPA's in plastics in the last 2 days. Here are a couple things I've found out. First of all the highest level of concern that the US Toxicology report lists is a simple "some" concern about BPA exposure for infants and possibly behavioral/neurological affects. (see link: http://zrecs.blogspot.com/2008/04/national-toxicology-program-concurs.html) This report has not even been peer reviewed yet, that's scheduled for June. Which means that it might get thrown out all together.

But the biggest thing I found was this link from a friend of mine.
http://www.stats.org/stories/2008/should_baby_bottles_feb9_08.html
The entire website is about how we interpret data and their goal is to correct misleading or false media reports about science. Statistics can be twisted to say pretty much anything you want them to.
This article in particular talks about how Europe, Japan, and even a separate US study have all found the levels of BPA leaching out of plastic to be so low as to be considered non-existent. And the study that is causing all the uproar here is based on really bad science and one guy's hypothesis that trace amounts of this chemical (which mimics estrogen) can have the same effects as large doses. Plus these studies were done on mice and rats which digest this chemical differently than humans do. In this case that means that the effects on humans wouldn't be the same at all.

Do with this information what you will. The links are still good if you are looking for totally BPA free plastics. However I am relieved to know that this appears to be a major distortion of the truth and my son is not in dire jeopardy because of one chemical - which kind of doesn't make sense anyway considering how many years this has been used and we haven't seen things like what happened to the thalidomide babies.


What I meant by this last line (which I now see could be rather confusing) is that if all the bad things could really happen that they are claiming this chemical does then we would have seen it long before now.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Relief

Well, I am somewhat relieved to discover that my son's favorite sippy cup is actually NOT on the list of cups containing BPA like I feared last night. There was a little factory code on the bottom that said E3 and I thought that meant it was a #3 plastic. So don't be fooled! It must be in the recycling rectangle or else it's just some random number they have printed on there. Whew!
Here's the site specific to Nuby that has pictures of all the safe vs. unsafe cups and bottles. I also found a place to buy replacement nozzles (Good For the Kids) so I'm happy about that since Cory stuck his finger through the top and now it leaks everywhere.
To find out if other brands of cups/bottles and dishware is safe see The Safer Landing or Z Recommends. See if you can find a picture of your specific item because many of them are named similarly with one being safe and another not. That's what caused my confusion over Cory's cup.
This page at Z Recommends also has a great graphic to help you figure out which brands are good and which are not.

Speaking of Cory... he's still not feeling well. Today he spiked a pretty high fever, but thankfully one of my best friends is a nurse and one of Brian's good friends is a doctor so I have resources! He's been keeping down fluids and a little cracker and toast so I think we'll be okay. He's just so sad when he lays around and whimpers. :(

Thursday, April 17, 2008

The Nightmare Day

Literally and figuratively, unfortunately.

It started even before I woke up with this crazy dream...

Where first I was in a tent with some caged animals and I was running from some bad people. And then one of the bad guys caught me and poured acid on the back of my neck and my wrists. Somehow I managed to get away and was hosing myself off outside this lady's house when some boys started shooting at me with blow guns and darts dipped in acid. I go in the lady's house to try to hide and she refuses to call the police. Also it seems that there is nowhere in her house that is not visible from the windows. Eventually the boys get inside and when I ask how she says, through Macy's. 'Cuz you know her house was connected to the mall and the doors were open. Weirdness! And actually one of the freakier dreams I've had in awhile.

And then when I woke up and Brian brought Cory in to nurse, he promptly threw up in our bed. Poor little guy.
After stripping the bed and wiping the baby down we weren't going back to bed. I eventually tried to nurse him and put him back to bed. I went to sleep on the couch while Brian got ready for school. About 20 minutes after he left I hear Cory kind of doing his moan thing (it's normal) so I go in to get him and find that he had thrown up all over his bed. So it begins: bath, laundry, nap, rinse, repeat.
He didn't throw up too much more and I had hopes he was getting better, but he wouldn't eat anything all day. And then it started coming out the other end. Good thing he likes baths because he got three today. He also had a fever, but it seems to be responding to Tylenol. It's just so sad to see him not want to crawl around and play with his toys, but just roll a little bit to reach one or two.

So, you can see how I spent my day. Reading books and snuggling as well as doing lots of laundry. I did manage to switch out some of the photos in my header while Cory was sleeping though!

Then to top off my day I discovered this website: Z Recommends. Where they talk about all the baby products that are or aren't safe due to the bisphenol-A chemicals in plastics. The main thing you need to know is that any plastic container with the number 3, 6, or 7 inside that little recycling triangle means BAD NEWS! I found both my baby bottles, Cory's favorite sippy cup :( the sippy at my parents house, and one of Cory's favorite teething rings all had those. The saddest part though? My beloved Nalgenes are a number 7! How many years have I been drinking out of them?!!!
At this point the research shows more harm to young children due to the lack of an enzyme which removes the chemical from your body. Older people have more of this enzyme so it's not as big of an issue. However in small children it can possibly cause behavioral issues as well as early onset of puberty.
Good news is that Canada is probably going to ban this and hopefully the US will come down hard as well as companies bend to consumer pressure. Nalgene finally admitted (after many years of reassurances that it was safe) they are making a new line of bottles, due out this summer, that don't have this chemical in them. In the mean time, I discovered that the Gatorade bottles Brian brought home for Cory tonight are an okay type of plastic. I guess that's my new water bottle.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

SBP5 - Red Lake and the Joshua Trees

Read about Parts One, Two, Three, and Four if you missed them!

Thursday and Friday were mostly down days, doing a bit of laundry before we headed home. Friday the guys went out looking for a geocache (see my intro here), came back, and then decided to go up to Red Lake in the evening to light off some of Brian's pyrotechnics. Of course it's better at night! And then also to look at the stars. They had some fun with the camera on a tripod, long exposure, and a flashlight...
This is Brian

Macaiah and David

Saturday afternoon they convinced me to leave Cory with Dahlia and come see it. I wanted to see the Joshua trees, too. Pretty amazing!

You don't usually climb cactus trees... unless you're David Dyer!
Little boys will play in the dirt...

They are really tree like except the inside is more straw like than a regular tree. You can see in the background that there was a whole "forest" of them.
These are the nasty cholla (pronounced choy-ah) cactus that we were trying to avoid on our crazy hike. They are about waist high.
Oh yeah, did I mention that it was free range area? There were cattle guards everywhere, but I think we were on the wrong side of one here.
This is Red Lake - not too far from the Joshua trees. It's basically a dry lake bed, and it's red, hence the name. It covers about 25 square miles I believe.
So we just drove out on it. That's Macaiah on his bicycle... and he wasn't even that far away from me so you can see how big it really is.Fun with shadows

Boys being boys... tied a metal round sled to the bumper of the car. Macaiah got the best ride because Brian was too heavy entirely and David was just heavy enough to get some good friction going and his bottom got rather hot!
So the "men" had to come up with their own idea of fun.Crazies!

We got back at dark and then had to pack to come home. Our plane left Vegas at 9am so we had to leave the house by 5 to get to the airport on time. Fun times! Oh, and the getting home part was another adventure... to be continued!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The Hubby Meme

I got tagged by Grace at Sandier Pastures (she lives in Dubai!) to do this meme. And I figured since this blog is about Married Life and I hardly ever write much about Brian that I should probably do it!

How long did you date? ummm, before we were engaged? about 5 months!

How old is he? 30 this summer!

Who eats more? Him, usually! ;)

Who said “I love you” first? oooo, this is bad, I don't remember! I'm guessing him.

Who is taller? Him by about 9 inches, and I'm not short either!

Who sings better? He does, and he likes to harmonize (Roberts genes there!)

Who is smarter? Define smart... ;) I think he knows a lot more about math and science, but I like to think I know more about some other things!

Whose temper is worse? uh, probably mine.

Who does the laundry? Me

Who does the dishes? He tries... but I'm home more so it's about 50/50.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Which way are you looking at the bed?

Who pays the bills? Me

Who cooks dinner? Me, usually.

Who drives when you are together? Almost always him, unless it's a long trip and then I drive a little.

Who is more stubborn? er, me I'm pretty sure.

Who kissed who first? He kissed me... but it's not like I didn't want him to now!

Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Him - see above, I'm stubborn.

Whose parents do you see the most? Mine, by factor of distance, half an hour versus 7 hours.

Who proposed? He did, of course.

Who is more sensitive? Depends.

Who has more friends? I like to keep up with everyone so I have a million friends, but close friends, he probably actually has more.

Who has more siblings? We each have one sibling, opposite gender.

Who wears the pants in the family? Meaning? Who makes all the decisions? I like to think we make them together most of the time!

Now, I would like to know about the man in your life, Edna, Not the Queen, Jill, Andi, and JJ. Oh, and you if you'd like... or not! ;) But you should all go check out these ladies, they are a fun variety of reads!

I'm still working on the pictures for the next vacation post... my computer is being super sluggish tonight so Photoshop doesn't like me. But in the meantime, watch this! I promise it's not painful! =)


Monday, April 14, 2008

He's Walking!

So tonight I was talking on the phone to the great grandparents and Cory decided that he wanted to walk over to his toys on the floor rather than get down and crawl! This is the first time he's walked more than 2 steps and done it to something that wouldn't catch him or without coaxing. 5 or 6 steps until he lost his balance. Way to go little buddy!

Part 5 of our vacation will be posted soon!

Sunday, April 13, 2008

SBP4 - The Grand Canyon

Here are Parts One, Two, and Three of our trip.

Wednesday we went to the Grand Canyon. It's about a 3 hour drive from our friend's house so we left as early as we could... which after staying up until midnight meant we left about 9am. The countryside was pretty in the desert sort of way, but unfortunately we were driving right into the sun so I didn't watch much of it.

And here is the Grand Canyon.

This is the view from the top of the trail down into the canyon (I actually wrote trial instead of trail... rather appropriate considering there are signs at the top warning you about how hard it is, not to attempt hiking up and down in one day, to bring lots of water, etc.)

See, we were actually there!


If you click on this picture to blow it up you can see the trail down at the bottom of the valley (running up and down in the picture). That's about 3 miles down. We hiked down for about half an hour and then turned around and came back up.

This is what Brian and Cory really think of Mom taking all those pictures...
A view looking North East. from a different viewpoint.

Wow, Mom, it's so big!

A little perspective.
The canyon just over Brian's right shoulder has a trail at the bottom (Bright Angel) that snakes up the left side to the North Rim and a lodge over there that's only open in the summer. The North Rim is closed during the winter, it's way less accessible and since it's 1,000 feet higher gets a lot more snow. There was still some snow on the south side where we were when we were hiking down the trail. Made for a nice muddy (poopy) mess on the trail considering all the people and mules that go up and down every day. Yum...

And then when we got home (driving into the sun on the way back as well) we got to open Cory's birthday presents!

Look, Mom, a new hat! (we'll see if he can keep it on, here he's trying to take it off!)
Poor little guy had a reaction to the sunscreen from Monday so his face was all broken out.

The kids saw that Cory really liked their Duplos so they decided they wanted to share and gave him a bag full. He loved it and I just thought that was so sweet that they were willing to give away their own toys!
Wow, these are all for me!

We stuffed them in random corners of our suitcases... I wonder what the security people thought seeing them go through the scanners! Brian's bag had a tag in it saying it had been checked...

Saturday, April 12, 2008

I quit

Seriously, I never imagined it would be this hard to do a home party business. I lived with a girl who did Avon for awhile and it didn't seem to be this much work to get people interested. Sheesh.

I had an open house today. Granted I probably could have been a little better about advertising and letting people know earlier, but still, I had a good list and I had 1 (ONE) person show up.

At this point I'm about ready to just pull the plug. I've been going for 6 months and haven't even broken even. It just looks like a giant money sink hole when it was supposed to be supplemental income that we needed.

I guess I promised I'd give it a year, but I'm definitely not spending any more money on it. If I don't break even with the Christmas sales I'm done. I can stay "active" by placing one order a year and I'll probably do that just to get the toys for Cory and gifts, but otherwise it's becoming just another thing hanging over my head that I have to do.

Lesson learned I suppose: I'm not a salesperson, especially on my own.

Friday, April 11, 2008

SBP3 - Cory's second 1st birthday party!

Dahlia and Akiva made this snazzy cake in a giant Pyrex measuring bowl so Cory could have a birthday while we were there (we flew on his 1st birthday). We finally got around to frosting it and having it for dessert on Tuesday. (after we recovered from our hike)

Here's Dahlia's masterpiece!

It's the mountain we climbed the day before... complete with us on top!

Cory's more interested in the frosting than the candle...

Uh, oh, here we go again, Dad!
Here, let me wipe it on you!

Oh yeah, I remember now, it's yummy!

Yay for frosting, Mommy!


Gotta get it all in!

The cake part is good, too, I suppose.

Can't miss a bit!

Contest Edition

I promise to try to have the next installment of our trip up tonight! In the meantime here are some cool contests going on where you can win stuff...

This post will be updated all day while I'm adding contests.

***

Remember the free chicken I won and then couldn't use? Well, this time I could actually use it since it's for frozen chicken that I know my stores carry! Head on over to Momsational to win... and did I mention that a toaster oven is part of the deal? :) We could use a new one since ours was bought at a garage sale (used!) before I went to college!

***

The Opinionated Parent is giving away a maternity gown for the hospital. Since I do eventually plan to have at least one more child this would be super nice! The gowns are homemade by Kimberly Budd and called Girlie Gowns. My favorite is the bubbly blue print.

***



Thursday, April 10, 2008

Book: Trouble the Water

This week, the

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

Trouble the Water

Thomas Nelson (March 11, 2008)

by

Nicole Seitz


Once again I read this book in one day while on vacation. I couldn't put it down, but for a very different reason than the last one.

Trouble the Water is the story of three women. Honor Maddox has had a very hard life. She comes to St. Anne's Island to try to start anew, but ends up trying to commit suicide. This starts her on a strange journey of recovery through which she meets a group of Gullah nannies and a lady called the Duchess.


The story is told by Honor, her sister Alice, and the Duchess. You have to pay attention to when the narration switches (and also the times) or you get really confused! This book had a few twists that I wasn't expecting, but that makes for a good story because you wouldn't want to be able to figure out the ending halfway through now would you? I can't really tell you much more without giving too much away.

So if you'd like to read this book yourself leave me a note with a way to get a hold of you and I will draw for a winner one week from today.

SBP2 - Wild Crazy Hiking Adventure

Back to the story...

Saturday and Sunday were pretty laid back, well, except for the time that Brian, David, and Macaiah went climbing down in a mine... but I didn't go along! ;)

Monday the guys wanted to go hiking and eventually it turned into everyone going. Of course that meant it took us quite awhile longer to get ready. My first clue that this wasn't going to be an easy hike was all the stuff we had to take with us. Food, lots of water (hi, this is the desert!), ropes(?), camera, diapers, baby, check!

We finally got to the trailhead about 2:30. Which was good because it was a lot warmer at that elevation than at their house. I would have hated to start at noon.

"Trail head", looking back the crazy road we drove up on.

The trail was supposedly .8 miles to a canyon. As the crow flies.

Except there wasn't any trail - well, unless you count a wild donkey trail that cut in and out.

And we were going up the side of a hill through nasty churro cacti. (there may be a picture of those in a later post)

Prickly Pear cactus
The cacti were in bloom so that was pretty!

Barrel cactus next to my Nalgene. About 50 years old to get this size.
You are not allowed to take any cactus home... except we did because we found a small (very small) one of this variety that had been uprooted already.

We got to the top of the first hill and went down the other side...
this is the view from the top of the first hill

See that cleft in the rock right in the middle of the picture. Then look to the left of it. That was the "valley" we climbed up, curving around to the right to get to the top of the second hill.


Akiva, David, and Taval in the "wash" in the bottom of the first valley
(which means you don't want to be in it when it rains or you will get washed away)

Our 8+ months pregnant friend, Dahlia, on this hike!

Little trooper, Akiva (4), who didn't want to go at the beginning, but I think ended up having a good time!

Cory getting a chance to check out the rocks. He spent most of the trip on Daddy's back in the Ergo baby carrier.

Super cool hiker dude, Macaiah.
Rest stop at the top of the second hill. Check out the crazy cool rock features!

View down into the canyon from the top of the second ridge

Which was gotten to by rappelling. I don't know what we would have done if somebody hadn't brought a ladder in for the bottom half. Did I mention we had 4 children under 6 and a very pregnant lady with us?


Needless to say, by the time we even got to the canyon it was after 5 o'clock. And we didn't want to be caught in the dark. I was not super impressed by the canyon as I guess I was expecting more of an oasis. There was a part where the water had dug out kind of a cave, but, you guessed it, only the guys got to go down in it.

We headed back and followed the wash around the side of the 1st ridge rather than going over it again. About halfway back it was getting pretty dark. Dahlia was having a hard time stepping down, and there was no trail half the time (remember the wild donkeys? well, apparently they make trails that go nowhere!). We did have a couple flashlights (that should have been one of my warning signs!) and finally made it back to the cars around 8pm and full dark.

On a side note, I just realized today that it was barely dusk at 8pm up here where we live. Amazing how that is affected by your latitude!

We made it home, Dahlia didn't go into labor, and that was the hiking adventure!


(Are any of my Costa Rica '98 buddies reminded of Pico Blanco yet? :)