Nice way to spend a Saturday

Climbing Mt. Hood...

bad cold, bad night

Charli is having her first bad cold, which has resulted in her first bad night. :( She woke up last night at 3, and couldn't get back to bed for 2 hours because she was so stuffy and congested. Of course, that means I couldn't get back to bed either...

Today she is still congested, and we have finally started making proper use of the snot snorker - you know it's proper use because now she hates it. It really helps, though. Well, it helps when I can actually get it into her nose, anyway. She's become very adept at avoiding what she doesn't want to have done, e.g. having a spoon put in her mouth, having her nails trimmed, having her diaper changed, having her face wiped, having her snot snorked...

Even though she's sick, she's still very happy in general. She's a little needy, but smiley and loving all the attention that comes with all the visitors. We have a lot of company coming today, so it's a good thing she's not all over the map. I hope she's a lot better tonight, or I'm going to have some serious second thoughts about this camping thing this weekend.

everyone's here

Well, the house is definitely full now.

Mom and Dad arrived yesterday, and I'm glad to say that this time, Charli seems perfectly comfortable with Dad. Dad's pretty happy about it too. I have had his picture in her picture book for months now; maybe that actually helped. Sam arrived today, and Charli loves everyone.

We've decided to skip the Tahoe weekend in favor of staying home mostly, and spending one night in Yosemite before Kim and Brent leave. They don't want to skip any parts of the hike, so they need to start back up in Yosemite, where they left off. Brent rented us a perma-tent, which is, well, a RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE tent with a concrete floor and room to sleep 4. We also had to rent a van big enough to get us all there, since the 7 of us and our gear are definitely not fitting into our Matrix.

Preview for Kim & Brent...

Today we began our mountaineering training on Mt. Hood and on our way
to the training area we crossed over the Pacific Crest Trail! All I
can say is that you guys have a lot to look forward to in Northern
Oregon!

California is burning...

I managed to get to SFO in plenty if time for my fight up to Portland
for the 2008 installment of the 9 Guy Trip. This year we have but 7
of our 9 guys, but I don't anticipate that putting a damps on things.
My flight boarded on time and left about an hour late. It's no big
deal though, as it gave me a little time to catch up on the sleep I
have missed in the days leading up to my departure.

Now that I am safely on board and en route, I have some time to sit
down and look around. By some disastrous twist of fate, there is no
tonic water on this plane, so I will do my relaxing without my gin &
tonic. Heineken will have to do. They cost $6 now and United is
still not making any money!

But enough of my hardships. I looked out the window and saw something
potentially much worse - wild fires all over northern California. I
must have seem 6 or 7 separate ones, finally deciding to take a
picture of this one, which I believe is the northernmost extent of
these things.

Normally I wouldn't be too concerned about these, as "fire season"
happens every year and this is part of the natural cycle, but this
year they will be hitting a little closer to home as Kim and Brent
continue their hike up the Pacific Crest Trail this weekend. Brent
tells me that about 100 miles of the trail is currently closed due to
fire, and they don't really know what they are going to do about it.
Not finishing the hike because of sickness or injury is disappointing
enough, but not finishing due to external factors beyond your control
would be even worse. Hopefully this won't be the case.

I have started my initial descent into PDX, so I'll sign off for now.

getting ready for the baby

We started getting the baby's room ready this weekend - we finalized our color scheme, got paint, and started painting. The colors are really nice (I'll post some pictures later), and they look great with the glider cushions we got. I am trying to make one wall look oceany, but currently it looks sky-y. Still nice though, and I have a lot more work to do on it! Soon I will be able to put up the whale and turtle wall hooks Mom bought, and some lights... Maybe I should get some of those cute letters to spell her name? It's going to look really nice with her crib!

What's that you say? Charli's almost 8 months? Whatever. She's lucky she gets a nursery before she's 6.

Anyway, that's what we spent our 4th of July weekend doing. It felt pretty productive!

In other news, we have surprise visitors. Mom and Dad are coming out on Thursday, and Sam is coming out on Friday, and we were all going to go up to Lake Tahoe to meet Kim and Brent for the weekend, as this weekend was supposed to be the time that they were closest to SF during the PCT hike. Unfortunately, Brent got really sick - bad water somewhere on the trail (or the worst case of food poisoning we've ever heard of - 3 days!), they think - and they took a day off in Yosemite to see if it got better. Then they tried hiking some more, and it didn't go so well. Brent was NOT better. So yesterday we got a call from Kim, and then they caught a ride with a friend of a friend and showed up on our doorstep! The house is a wreck, the guest bedroom unlivable, and they are here just in time to help us finish painting and clean everything up. How fortunate!

Anyway, Brent seems to be on his way to recovery (although you'd never know from looking at him - he's lost over 20 lbs on this hike, and the last few days have not helped). At least he's keeping a bit of food down. We will drop them back off in Yosemite after the visit this weekend, and we haven't decided if we'll head up to Tahoe or not (I'm leaning towards not).

Kelly, we need to get you out here! I know you'll have great ideas for the nursery!

*klang*

WAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!

That's what I woke up to this morning. Of course, if I hadn't been asleep, Charli wouldn't have fallen off the bed...

Yes, it's true. I let Charli fall off the bed this morning. I am a bad mom. Usually she hangs out and pulls my hair and lips and kicks me in the neck and stuff, so I can't fall asleep, but I guess she had long enough to get bored this morning, and eventually went to explore elsewhere. She climbed over Brian's pillow and fell onto the metal feet of the stool by the bed. She recovered quickly, and apparently still loves me, but I still feel terrible. Bad mom! Bad mom!