A sad death

Well, I have really fallen behind on posting, but my life is truly crazy and since I am home at 5pm and in bed around 8pm there is not much time to blog. I came home on Thursday to a power outage and unfortunately our desktop computer never came back to life. I think its days of life are over. The very sad part is a bunch of our pictures were on it and are now lost. We had been saying for a while we needed to burn them to a CD, but of course that never happened. So, now I need to learn how to resize and work with iphoto on my mac so that I can post more pics. The blog seems pretty plain without them.
Not much to say about the pregnancy...I still have good and bad days, but I think the bad days are slowly disappearing. I am entering my 14th week of pregnancy and have my big ultrasound on April 20th. Avery still thinks she is having a brother.
Avery has slowly started to want to use the potty. Last week she used the potty at school and everyday after that she has wanted to wear panties. Of course she is very picky with what panties she will wear. She always wants to wear her yellow care bear panties. So far, we have not been successful at home and I am really not excited about this whole training thing as I have to get up every 5 minutes so Avery can sit on the potty for 2 seconds and then joyfully exclaim "ALL DONE!" and then thinks she deserves her jellybean reward. Oh the joys of mommyhood.
Only 51 more days of teaching until summer vacation. I never knew that when I was a student my teachers looked forward to summer more than I did, but I am very ready to be free of my 51 6th graders. :)

How about burrito?

We have been slowly looking at names for the new baby so today I asked Avery what we should name him/her. I went through a list of names, all of which she said no to. She then decided to start giving me suggestions such as burrito, her first choice, then great grandma, then poppa. Trevor is also a popular one...probably because she has been watching a video of cousin Trevor in the bath all weekend. (about 20 times I think :) Of course, we still don't know what the name will be but I think we will take burrito off the list.

Whatch'ya doing? and a pregnancy update

This has become Avery's new favorite phrase. She asks us many times throughout the evening..."Mommy, whatch'ya doing?" She has even started asking Roger and Liberty this question. I have no idea where she picked it up, but it is pretty funny to hear her saying it all the time.
I have been feeling pretty sick lately, unfortunately. I started to feel as though I was going to get away with an easier time this pregnancy, but the last few weeks have been pretty bad. I feel worse in the evenings and have taken to going to bed around 8pm or so. My clothes are starting to become a bit tighter, but hopefully I will not grow as large as I did with Avery!

Time at the Park

I asked Avery what she wanted to do today and she said "park and ice cream". These are her two favorite things because Daddy had the week off and took her out to the park a few times and out for ice cream with her Baskin Robbins gift certificates. We decided we would take her to the park and hope she would forget about the ice cream. (It has worked so far!)
There is a great park at the end of our street and we had fun on the slides, swings, and the teeter totter. Here are a few good pics.

September Baby on the Way

I went to the doctor today for an ultrasound to confirm my pregnancy. We have known for a while, but today finally saw the heartbeat. Everything looks great and we should expect a new brother or sister for Avery in September!

Future American Idol - Avery sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Avery sings "Jesus Loves Me"

Avery sings ABC's

Ink Face

Jaron and I were chatting and all of a sudden turned around to find Avery covered in black ink! She had found one of my stamp pads and decided to paint her hands and face. We could not resist taking some pics before we cleaned her up!

Cutie and a dog

2 Years Old!

On Sunday, January 14th, we celebrated Avery's 2nd Birthday! We had a fun family gathering at our house and after Avery watched Dora the Explorer on t.v. and was no longer grumpy, we dove right in to opening presents. She received lots of great gifts like a Dora doll, books, Bible music cds, a sesame street medical kit, a stuffed dog, and a cute coat rack!
After that we were ready for cake and icecream. Avery had a great time blowing out her candle...she did it four times!
A fun and exhausting day for a now 2 year old.

Just Like Daddy

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Well, it has been a long time since we have posted anything new. I guess we were overwhelmed with too much work before Christmas break, and then too tired and exhausted (lazy) over the entire break to do anything. Now that we are back in the groove, I have decided to get back to it!
We had a wonderful vacation. Jaron and I enjoyed 2 weeks off...the benefits of working at a school...and especially enjoyed having the time to spend with Avery. My sister flew out from Maryland and stayed for a week over the break which was nice. We celebrated Christmas Eve at my grandparents house in Gilroy. We did an ornament exchange this year so our tree was full and beautifully decorated as you can see from the pics. On Christmas day, my parents, uncle Scott, and my sis were here at our house. We had a relaxing time and a great meal.
On the 30th, the Olson family came out to our house for a second Christmas. It was so fun watching all the kiddies open their fun gifts. Avery especially loved her stepstool made by grams. She uses it everyday!
On New Years Eve we headed out to Derek and Amy's house for the night. Our camp friend Chops (Chris) and his fiance
Kirsten were there as well. We had great fun playing games and watching good ol' Dick Clark's Rockin New Years Eve. We actually stayed up until about 1:30 or so. Not bad!!

Tahoe Trip

Avery and I headed to Tahoe with my parents while Jaron was in Baja. Unfortunately, I was sick the one full day and night we were there, but my parents did take Avery for her first
adventure in the snow!
On the way home, we were able to get video of Avery singing her ABC's and twinkle twinkle little star. Check it out!

A Happy Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Pittsburg this year. We headed up on Wednesday after school was out and stayed until Friday evening. We had a great meal of turkey and pork loin with all the trimmings. Derek, Amy, Kaylin, and TJ were there with us also and it is always so much fun to be together.
On Saturday, my parents and my uncle came over for another Thanksgiving feast. We had a great time with our entertainment provided by Avery. She is always such a crackup.

Pismo

On the way home from Baja, I made a detour and stopped to visit friends in Arroyo Grande. We made a morning run to the Oceano Dunes to take my truck for a spin. Good times.

SCORE/TECATE Baja 1000

I took a trip to Baja last week to attend the Baja 1000. This year the annual race started in Ensenada, and made its 1047 miles south to La Paz. I once again "chased" the race, providing support to a class 12 "Score Lite" race car. My friend Kent and I arrived in Ensenada on Wed. and met up with the White Knuckle Racing crew. We checked out the pre-race festivities at contingency, it's a great chance to check out the race vehicles and eat a churro or taco. Thursday was race day. Kent and I watched the leaders go by at race mile 15, and then waited to see our car go by...then headed to the next road crossing to stay ahead of the car. After another visual with the car running well we leap-frogged ahead to BFG pit #1 where we would put on the car's light rack (the desert gets pretty dark at night) and the car would be fueled...smooth pit stop. Our teams heliocopter which had been following the car up to this point also landed for fuel. This is where I got to jump into the heliocopter, and we continued chasing the car down the course. This was my first time in a chopper, and also offered and incredible perspective from which to spectate a desert race! The car had a power steering failure about 150 miles into the race, so we touched down while some local spectators and stranded racers made impromptu repairs. We flew ahead to let our next pit in San Felipe know what to expect when the car got there. I got out here, and the heliocopter headed for the airport since flying at night is illegal in baja. The car made it to the pit, but repairs were not possible that meant the next 850 miles would have to be completed without power steering...but the car conquered the granddaddy of off-road races and crossed the finish line in about 32 hours. After the car left San Felipe Kent and I enjoyed some fish tacos in town and enjoyed camping on the beach Thurs night. This was one of the best baja trips yet.

Trick or Treat

The day before halloween, my dad (grandpa) brought Avery a pumpkin, which had Elmo's face carved into it. Avery called it her "elmo pumpkin". It was a huge hit with her.
On Halloween, Avery went to school dressed up as a koala, though everyone thought she was a mouse. I made it to her school just in time to catch the halloween parade. When I got there, Avery had a brownie in one hand and two cookies in the other. I triedto guide her as we walked with the other kids in the parade but she was so distracted by her food she just kept bumping into things and walking in the wrong direction. Kids
were crying, there was food everywhere...it was
great fun.
Later that night, we went to the Harvest Festival at our church. Avery took her cute trick or treat bag made by our friend Kelci, and walked around to all the classrooms collecting candy. She said trick or treat and then thank you to every person that handed her candy! Her bag was quite full at the end so it was dragging along the ground as she would not let daddy or mommy help her. Her favorite words as of late are "Avery do it".
We had a fair amount of "trick or treater reaters", as Avery would say, come to our door so we enjoyed passing out all of our candy. Overall, the day was fun!

A visit to the pumpkin patch

"Chickens...bock-bock"