June photos

Some friends of ours, Kim Burkholder and Gary Gautche, have cabin up in the Pecos Wilderness about an hour north of S.F. and they invited us up last weekend. We did a great hike through meadows of wild iris and aspenland picnicked under ponderosa pine around their cabin. Sasha loved being outdoors all day, picking up sticks and pinecones, and naming familiar objects.

Sasha's first ponytail. We actually went to get her hair trimmed for the first time yesterday. She did not want to sit in the chair and barely let me hold her while the lady clipped fast and furiously for less that one minute. Money well spent in my opinion

This made me laugh out loud when I walked in to the bathroom to see how the bath was going for Phil.

I feel very fortunate to have made some good friends this past year in Santa Fe. I would go crazy if I didn't get out with other moms on a regular basis. Here is a picture at a recent water playdate and Kat's house (center). Sasha really seems to enjoy hanging out with other little ones too.

Sasha in her new home

I just keep remarking to Phil what a good stage we're in with Sasha right now. There have definitely been some not-so-great stages which is why this last month has just been such a pleasure in comparison. For one, she just doesn't seem to cry as much anymore. She still cries every day (I wonder when that will end?), but some days she'll go until early evening without ever crying. How nice! Also, new words are escaping her lips every day which is so fun and amazing to observe. Yesterday Phil was pleased as punch when he came in from work and she said "Cool car, Daddy" then "Football, football. Go Colts!" later that evening. He's obviously had a hand in determining which words she learns first. A few weeks ago he taught her to say "hippee". Why? I don't know, but now she says that word A LOT. Very useful, Phil.

Sasha now has a dedicated playroom. She can't wait to get there after breakfast each morning and spends many hours there each week. It's a bright sunny corner room with a picture window looking out to the Ski Basin, so I enjoy hanging out there in the morning with my coffee on our old stripy couch that has been degraded to playroom status. That thing will hide any stain!

Bubbles! For the record, Sasha wore this same dress exactly 1 year ago to Phil's residency graduation. I don't think we have a pro-baller on our hands!

Grandma and Grandpa Smucker's Visit

Jan and Jon came out soon after we moved to help out. It allowed Phil and I to get some things done while they watched Sasha, but we took plenty of time off too to just have fun together. Phil, Jon, and one of Phil's friends went fly fishing one day and Jan and I went to a Southwest tapas cooking class one morning at the Santa Fe School of Cooking.

I was pround of Jon for attempting the Bjorn (yes, we still use it to carry our 1 1/2 year old--she loves it and she's such a little thing that it still doesn't kill the back).

One afternoon we went hiking at Bandolier State Park, an hour away, where you can explore ancient cliff dwellings in this canyon--most require some ladder climbing--think Mesa Verde.

Sasha preferred to walk or be carried as opposed to riding in her hiking backpack like we wanted her to.

Moving Week

Since our new house is only 7 minutes away from where we were renting, we had the luxury of being able to pack up and move gradually. Phil and I packed boxes during the evenings and made countless trips with wagon over to the new house. We did hire people to move the big furniture. Phil took a whole week of vacation so one of us could take Sasha duty while the other one unpacked. Overall it went very smoothly, the only mishap being that we discovered as we were moving a bedroom set down to the basement that there was no key to the basement (there is a separate outside entrance to the basement). Phil ended up having to break into it...not a big deal.

Sasha literally packed all our tupperware into this box. It was such a rare moment of helpfulness that I guess we felt compelled to capture it on "film".

Our first meal in our new dining room: Dunkin Donuts after our first night sleeping at the new house.

Sasha and Phil frolicking on our new platform bed. We had a little....errr....mishap with our old bed. It's been repaired and now serves as the guest bed, but it was a good excuse to get a new one.

San Diego trip

Phil's annual neurosurgery conference was in San Diego at the beginning of May. Sasha and I went along for the ride. Other than the aforementioned hand, foot, mouth disease that struck at the end of the week, we really enjoyed the city. Phil and I got a babysitter one night and had a night out on the town which was nice because every other night Sasha was tuckered by 6 pm with the time change so we spent the other nights in the hotel room. We enjoyed the rooftop pool and hot tub at our hotel and many walks down by the marina. Above we were watching Shamu (sp?) at Sea World. And below depicts Sasha's favorite part of the theme park: a Sesame Street themed play area. I wonder how many of those kids ended up with hand, foot, mouth disease? Ha! We didn't know she was contagious at this point.

Lounging at the pool.

The last picture we have of Sasha with a pacifier. It's history now....

April/May/June Action

After over a month of making due with Phil's work laptop, we finally have our new computer up and running (our old motherboard died) so I will attempt to catch you up on what we've been up to. Since the end of April we have closed on our new house, taken a trip to San Diego for one of Phil's conferences, moved, hosted Phil's parents for a week, and gotten our new house in order. Sasha suffered a bout of hand, foot, mouth disease (blisters throughout her mouth and on her palms and soles of her feet--a very unpleasant week for all of us) and an eye infection, but is rarin' to go again. Here we are on the first trip to the new house as the homeowners. As we pulled into the driveway, Sasha said "home" with a big smile.

Sasha is wearing one of my shirts from childhood that my Yoder Grandparents brought from Switzerland.