It’s already the middle of July, sorry again
for the long delay. Here’s what’s been
going on in the last month.
Landon is 17 months old!
He is weighing about 24 lbs (we think that’s what our scale said the
last time he stood on it) and is about 31.5 inches tall. He still only has 8 teeth, but one of his
molars is trying to make its way through.
He continues to get up 2-3 times a night which is no fun, but that’s
even something we are used to now (but wouldn’t mind changing). He’s starting to talk more and more but most
of the time only those of us who are around him all the time can understand…and even then
it’s tough. Our favorite sayings of his
are “uh-oh,” “there it is,” and “one minute.”
His “ya” with the shake of a head is very adorable too. Not that we don’t enjoy some of the other
things he says, these are the cute(est) ones. Our big boy also loves to point where Mochi has gone "poo-poo" which has led him to telling us when he's either going to go or has gone poo-poo. With this, he has been going "pee-pee" before his bath on command. We've decided to buy him a little potty with the hopes to start the potty training process. We aren't pushing it, but are going to go with it since he's showing the signs. He continues to love swimming and anything having to do with water (messing
with Papa’s sprinklers). We also love
watching his imaginary play. He loves “cooking”
with us and at times by himself when we aren’t doing it, stacking blocks, and
pushing his trucks around the house.
Lando’s also continues to copy-cat everything: climbing up the ladder
with pvc pipe like Papa did to put up misters, pretending to use our camelbaks as
a hose, washing his motorcycle rocker like we do the car. So many fun things that we love watching him
do.
End of June:
BBQ with the old soccer girls: A few of us from our old
soccer team got together for a BBQ. We decided to have a swim party but of
course it was the crazy weekend in June that was quite cool and swimming didn’t
sound like much fun. The boys did jump
in for a bit, but otherwise we just sat and relaxed. We wish more of us could have gotten
together, but we still had a great time.
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| Liz, Paco, Giovani, Jenae, Marcos (Kelly and Levi had already left) |
Hoe down at Chris and Kat’s:
Since it had been awhile since going to the Folsom Rodeo, Chris and Kat
decided to have people over for a Hoe-Down before heading to the Rodeo. We passed on the Rodeo but had a great time
hanging out with everyone. Yes, dressing
up was required. Thanks to Landon’s
babysitters who are cowboy boot fans, Shani was able to borrow a pair and John
waited an extra day to cut his hair so he could style it "correctly." Landon then joined in the cowboy attire for a
few pictures.
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| Our Little cowboy |
McKinley Park with Sophia and Liz: It has been ages since Shani has been able to
get together with Liz and Sophia and it worked out perfectly to meet at
McKinley park. The last time Landon and
Sophia had seen each other was probably before they were walking and maybe
crawling. Thankfully it hadn’t been that
long since we’ve seen Liz, but it was still much too long. The kids had a great time at the park
together as did the mommas! Our little
signing buddies kept signing “more” for the swings. So cute!
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| "more" swings |
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| Landon and Sophia |
Sac Zoo with Michelle:
Landon’s wonderful babysitter took him to Sac zoo when she watched him
one day. They had a great time running
around and going on the carosel. Landon loves
the birds since they move often and usually make a lot of noise. We are sad Michelle will be leaving us at the
end of summer, but she’s been a huge part of Landon’s life for the past 5 months and we couldn’t be more thankful!
4th of July:
As always we spent of the 4th of July around the
pool (and volleyball court) at Nonni and Papa’s house. This year was a much more relaxing year for
us. Not sure if it was because we had less entertaining to do or if Landon being older made it easier. Who knows, but we had a great day. Great Grandma Hori and Uncle Bry also made it
up for a visit. We haven’t
made it down south in awhile so it was so much fun having them up. Plus Landon’s grown so much since his 1st
birthday when they were here last. Happy
late 4th of July and God Bless America!
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| Landon riding Kobe |
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| Landon getting Japanese crackers from Great Grandma Hori |
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| Great Grandma Hori, Uncle Bry, and Landon |
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| Kelley Cousins: Wes, Amber, Chris, Kat, Misty, Steve, Marcie, Cole |
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| Parker, Grace, Landon, Gabby, and Avery playing with ice |
8th Wedding Anniversary:
Although we don’t officially celebrate until the 17th,
we had an early anniversary trip together as family. On July 5th we headed to San Luis
Obispo for the night. We stopped by our
winery in Paso (for Shani) then Firestone Brewery in Paso (for John), before
heading to Thursday night market in SLO.
This was our first visit with Landon and we were so excited to make it
on a Thursday. Although the time in SLO
was much shorter than we would have liked, we at least made it. Aunt Margaret drove up to eat dinner at Farmer’s with us which was a lot of fun.
Landon (and John) went down the bouncy slide that was actually fairly
tall (two stories?). The first time Landon went down
with John and the second time he went down on his own. He kept signing more but we couldn’t spend
all night at the slide…well he could but John was getting tired climbing up to
the top.
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| Thursday Night Market with Auntie Margaret |
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| Farmer's Market Food! |
The next day we woke up and hiked Bishop’s for
ole-times-sake. We also needed a little
work-out because the hike we were doing later wasn’t quite “hard enough” to be
a work-out. We didn’t spend much time at
the top--we remembered having more space to walk around up there
but when you have 16 month old there isn’t much space. After that we made it to Firestone’s for
tri-tip sandwiches and off to Big Sur for back-packing. We decided to take Landon back-packing
overnight where John proposed. For us it
has been 9 years since we’ve been there.
It was just as beautiful as we remembered, but there was much more
poison oak. We survived without getting
it thankfully! The hike was a nice
little one (although a bit tougher than we did remember) and also a great time
as a family.
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| Our little hiker (Daddy insists on bring Woody, not Landon) |
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| Bishop's Peak |
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| Landon pretend cooking |
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| Landon helping Daddy start a fire |
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| The river we had to keep Landon from falling into |
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| Big Sur |
We then got up Saturday morning to drive to Monterey. We stopped and walked around Carmel a little
bit before checking in early for Landon to nap.
John was sweet and booked a room at the Monterey Hotel on Cannery
Row. We never usually spend that much on
a hotel but for the first time we actually felt we got our monies worth. We checked in early, showered, and took naps
before the official check-in time plus we were walking distance from everything we
planned on doing. We walked Cannery Row,
Landon put his feet in the sand, and we had an amazing dinner (thanks Grandma
Hori and Nonni and Papa). The dinner was
at a bit fancy restaurant and lasted way too long for having Landon with us (2
hours!) but he actually did great. The
next morning we woke up and went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Landon had a great time although it wasn’t
looking at the things we felt we paid the money for, but what did we (Shani)
expect? He loved the sardines swimming
around in circles, the kelp tank, and the touch pools except he wanted to pull
things out and they had to stay in the water.
He also had fun looking at the otters with daddy. He could care less
about the penguin feeding and
jellyfish. His most favorite part was
chasing a pigeon outside which had nothing to do with the aquarium. Oh well. It was a very fun and quick trip down and then up the coast
but we had a great time. We’ve really
enjoyed spending more time as a family lately...and in a relatively stress-free way. It's been perfect. It’s so nice to feel like
we are in a smooth rhythm of things lately.
Hopefully we can keep this going for a bit longer!
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| Landon getting used to walking on sand |
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| One of Landon's favorite exhibits at the aquarium |
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| Loving the touch pools, but breaking the rules |
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| "there it is" -Landon pointing to the penguin |
Lastly, we just got back from a quick overnighter
backpacking trip in Desolation Wilderness area (near Lake Tahoe) to Sylvia Lake. We are trying to get as much back-packing in
as we can this summer. We figured once
more kids are added to the mix it will be awhile before we can go again (no more kids yet!). The trip started off
great with breakfast in Placerville with Nonni and Papa then to the
trailhead. Nonni and Papa joined us for
a couple miles before heading back home.
We then hiked the last three miles in.
It then started getting rough.
There is nothing more Shani really hates while hiking than mosquitoes
(well maybe rattlesnakes) and we were getting swarmed (by her standards). We tested out our new “natural bug spray”
which actually worked well. But they were
still everywhere. Add that to a headache
and being tired, it was almost going to be a no fun trip. However, John found a place to pitch the tent
that was about 30ft higher up the mountain side and 100 feet off the lake that was almost mosquito-free. Yay, Daddy saved the day! We then had a good dinner and headed to the
tent to keep from being mosquito dinner.
We got up bright and early (5:45am) the next morning thanks to Landon
and packed up to hike out. Definitely
another fun trip as a family!
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| Papa, Nonni, and us at Lyon's creek trail |
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| Where we set up camp at Sylvia Lake |
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