On Our Way to the Pool

Hmm, some updates.

Bill is climbing stairs like crazy.

He likes to stand on the edge of the couch, and can walk along the edge supporting himself with his hands.

Trying to get him used to sleeping in the crib more during the day, he typically isn't happy when we put him in there unless he's already asleep.

Bill has started making a lot of noise when he wants things, trouble is we can't always figure out what that is. For now, it is mostly limited to visible things beyond his grasp.

I lowered the crib mattress to it's lowest spot this morning, it seems to be better for preventing him from climbing out.

Last night, we had a run in with a pit bull that pushed its way out of a front yard gate. Butch protected us but was quickly pinned by the back of the neck. I tried to pull them apart with the leash, really didn't have anywhere good to kick. Steph got her pepper spray from the stroller and sprayed into the middle of it. We think that eventually drove it off around the time its owner came out. I screamed quite a bit at her, emphasizing how ridiculous it is for a dog to be able to get out and attack a family like that. We filed a report with Seattle Animal Control. This was less than a block from our friends' house, where they have a 1 year old.

Butch didn't seem to get any cuts from the melee. He is a real trooper. The rest of us were just shocked at the ferocity.

Well, gotta get off to visit Mom for lunch.

Cle Elum Ridge Run

Daddy got away for a long run today. The plan was to run the Cle Elum Ridge 50k route near Cle Elum. It took exactly 2 hours to get to the trail head this morning, and I started running around 8am. The trail gets steep pretty fast and I ended up walking a bunch. The big challenges on this run are water and tread. There wasn't any water to be found for roughly the first 12 miles, this won't be a problem in the race but was a serious problem for me. I had my filter bottle full and 12 oz's of Coca Cola for those 12 uphill miles. The tread is tricky because the trail is typically used by dirt bikes. The dirt bikes leave bath tub sized potholes almost everywhere. This made for constant fancy footwork.

The trail parallels roads for parts, so I did cheat a little and use the road as a shortcut when it was obvious.

After 12 miles, I was afraid that the dry first third of the run was going to cause some extra cramping. So I cut the route short and followed a very steep 1377.1 trail down to the return trail along NF Taneum creek. The last several miles back to the trailhead were tough to keep moving but I eventually made it to the car.

Roughly 22 miles and 5 hr 40 min, with quite a bit of walking.

My new running gaiters work great, kudos to Dirty Girl!

Back home, a nice big meal with the family. Yum!

Safety first

Today, Bill and I did a little Triathlon. After Mom left for work, we started out by driving to the park(about 3 miles each way). At the park, we used the Baby Jogger and ran about 2.5 miles. Then we drove home. We had some lunch and I fixed up the bike and trailer. We rode by bike the 3 miles to the same park, but rode the 1/2 mile out to Colman Pool. It is a beautiful July day in Seattle, aka 60 degrees gray and windy. We swam the half hour lesson, did the Hokey pokey and then rode the bike back home. The hill going back home was...a big hill. Bill was able to catch some shuteye on the return trip. After a little extra nap, we had cheerios and yogurt for a snack.

We had to forgo the helmet on the bike trip, the seat pushed on it too much. But right after I took this picture he did a head plant in to the floor, the helmet took it, and he hardly noticed the impact.

Lemme out!

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No fence gonna keep me in

New toy

This is interesting

Cheerios

I never knew how pivotal cheerios are to an easy life. Cheerios, kudos to your inventor.

Nana and Paupau visit

We had a great time with Nana and Papau during their visit. We stayed in a house( a tall & skinny) in the lovely Rainier Valley off MLK for a very sunny and warm weekend.

Highlights included a fly fishing trip near Cle Elum, a visit to the Museum of Flight and Sunday Brunch at Salty's on Alki. The brunch was an orgy of crab, shrimp, salmon, oysters, eggs benedict, omelets, etc with about 14 feet of dessert table to finish off on. It was great to spend time with both of them.

Bill enjoyed having family around and was quite a trooper for all the adventures.

Always eat your vegetables

1st half preview of the White River 50

I was thinking about doing the White River 50. It's a 50 mile race near Mt Rainier, with abou t 8700 ft in elevation gain. It's in 2 weeks. They posted the route online, I also went to the Seattle Running Company and bought the maps for the area. The race director works there, and he highlighted the route on my map for me. The race is divided into 2 pretty much equal halves with the first half climbing more.

This morning, I set out to preview the first half. This would be a 23.5 mile solo trail run with a heck of a lot of climbing. It starts with a lazy 3 or 4 miles and then heads straight up. Once up, the trail pops out onto cliff tops every now and then for some killer views. Later on, there are some nice alpine meadows. The high part was over 6,000 ft in elevation which had me sucking air and very tired. I walked quite a bit.

Coming back down was alot of downhill, hard on the knees. The last few miles, I was ready to not be running.

Steph had Bill all to herself today, it sounds like they had a great time.
Bill is propping himself up all the time now, quite the mover.

Yikes, that was fast

So far, we have only had to protect against Bill going down the stairs. This morning I went upstairs to quickly make the bed. I came back and found him halfway up the stairs. Of course, I carefully grabbed my phone to take a picture. He's only been able to climb a step since yesterday.

Bill likes to grab anything you don't want him to grab. Overall, it is a lot of fun taking care of him. We have some great moments together, and everywhere we go people say "That's a really cute baby". He's really enjoying grabbing food and manipulating it. He is really hard to get down for naps, he'll be completely asleep in your arms until the last 6 inches above the crib mattress.

Today, we ran errands. We needed to grab painting stuff for the house at Home Depot, and new gates at Target. I also needed to get ready for my long run tomorrow and got maps for the area that the run is in. It's going to be a 24 mile solo preview of the first half of the White River 50. Tomorrow is the only time it will fit into the schedule early enough before the race. If the preview goes well, then I plan to enter the longer run.

Hmmm, what color goes with ....

1 Oreo

Ready for Grandma and Grandpas Visit

Happy 4th

Broiing Broing

Broing, Broing, Broing.

5:15 am, Bill has been let loose on the upstairs floor. For the last 10 minutes, he's circumnavigated the room as we rest our eyes and lie in bed listening to him travel around. Broing, broing. He found the door stopper.

Middle Fork Snoqualmie Trail Run July 3rd

Rainy weather canceled our plan to take Bill out in the canoe today. So I went ahead and did the run I was planning for Friday morning.

I drove out to the Middle Fork Snoqualmie Trail and started my run at the Gateway bridge around 10:40 am. The river was raging and covered in a foggy mist. I made it pretty quickly to my turnaround points on my prior runs. It's really hard to gauge how far that section is, time-wise it should be at least 6 miles. Running the trail feels like a mix between jogging and a game of soccer.

At the Dingford Creek trail, I ran across the bridge and up to the trailhead just to get my bearings. Then decided to head further up the Mid Fork trail. I was thinking I would try to get to the Goldmeyer Hot Springs bridge. After several miles completely by myself on the trail, I got to Thunder Creek. It was raging, a crossing would involve wet rocks, a jump, a log shimmy, and possibly wading. This seemed dumb and I was getting tired. So I turned around and headed back to Dingford.

On the road, I headed back towards the car. It read milepost 18 near the trailhead and as I walk/ran I counted off the miles until feeling beat enough to hitch a ride. I took this picture along the road around 2 pm or so, the fog was still around.

It never rained on me, but I was drenched completely the entire run from stream crossings, sweat, wet branches and high humidity. I never stopped walking or running for 4 hours and 23 minutes until I flagged a ride for the last couple of miles.

Crawl, Crawl, Crawl, Crawl, Crawl

This baby is on the go. He's wearing his Daddy out. Really, he is wearing me out. By the time Steph gets home, I'm exhausted. It's hard to tell what he wants, but it tends to be somewhere just out of reach that you don't want him getting a hold of.

Bill is crawling so much that he had worn the pads of his toes down. I'm hoping that socks will give a respite for them to heal, but seems like a long shot.

The hair on the top center of his head is starting to get longer, wispy. There is a section that likes to stand straight up.

He really likes eating with his hands. Manipulating things into the slimer. They often fall and stick to his clothes or chair, or just drop to the floor where Butch is waiting.

I just gave Bill a ring of dried pineapple to chew on for the first time. He's spent the last 5 minutes grabbing and licking and chewing on it. It is now a slimy mess, but it's keeping him busy.

Highland Park Wading Pool

Yesterday, we went to the Highland Park wading pool. On the way there, I saw the neighbors getting ready to hangout in their yard with Megan their 8 mo old. So I invited them, and we all went to the concrete puddle at the park. Bill had a good time and even took a little nap. He is starting to get a little tan, even though we slather him in sunscreen.