We're still battling with Zach over bedtime. The pediatrician and most of the books out there say no more holding him until he falls asleep, so we're working on getting him to go to sleep on his own. This sounds really simple, but usually involves a 2 hour bedtime routine, lots of tears (his and sometimes mine) and more stress than I'd like. We're making progress, but it's slow. Zach just gets himself so worked up when we put him in his crib! We try letting him cry for 10-15 minutes, then go in to try to settle him down. Sometimes it works, sometimes he just gets even more wound up. Last night was 3 rounds of crying and screaming and it just breaks my heart.

We went to the Sonoma County Fair yesterday. The fairgrounds are a whopping 5 minutes from home. It's so funny - Bryan grew up with the Minnesota State Fair and I grew up with the Puyallup Fair, both of which are pretty large. I guess we just took it for granted, because that's what we were used to. When we would go to the San Diego County Fair, we kept expecting more stuff. The Sonoma County Fair was nice, but small, and a definite emphasis on the agriculture aspect. They only had one hall of "stuff" - you know, the wonder chamois and miracle knives and all that other junk that sounds so good when the guys are doing their spiel. We had some lunch, wandered around, took Zach to look at the sheep and goats and cows. We also watched the Splash Dog competition (although Zach was napping by that point) - man, some of those dogs can really jump! Of course we forgot to bring any of the cameras, so no photos.

We took Bailey to her new vet to establish care and get some heartworm meds. Everyone in the office is really nice, but I felt like the vet was doing a hard sell on too many products. First of all, she kept referring to Bailey as "him/he," and I'll forgive some of that because she's not a very girly looking girl, but after you've inspected her girly parts, I expect you to know she's not a boy! She also told us that our girl is a "senior" (gah!) at six and a half. She wants us to buy these joint supplements (that probably would be good, but at $70 a month?), diet biscuits and food (because she's about 5-7 pounds overweight) and ...something else, I forget what. It's a slippery slope - I suspect they wouldn't recommend these products if they didn't believe in them, but I have to wonder what the markup and profit margins are for these products. She'd have had better luck if she'd picked one product to focus on!

Bryan's mom will be visiting in about a week and a half, so we're trying to do our research for fun things to do. We're not super hosts yet, since we don't know the area well. It was much easier in San Diego - we knew where the good restaurants were, the pretty vista points, the interesting (and/or random) stuff to do. San Fran has so much to do it's almost overwhelming, and we're easing into that slowly. Bryan's crazy schedule doesn't help, since we only have every other weekend for exploring.

Right now, I have laundry to do and a desk that looks like ... well, we won't go into what it looks like, but if I don't do something about it soon, I won't be able to find my PowerBook!

You know, I read somewhere that hockey has the longest season of any sport, with the least amount of off time. It seems true to me, but boy, these months without any hockey feel like an awfully looooong time. Our new cable provider does have the NHL network, so I guess I could go watch some of the "classic" games they air, but it's not quite the same when you know how it's going to turn out!

I dunno, I have to confess that I have my doubts as to what the Wild will accomplish this year. I'm incredibly bummed at the loss of Rolston. Parrish cleared waivers and has been bought out. Carney's gone, Hill is gone, Fedoruk's gone...that's a lot of leadership that just disappeared from the locker room. They're still saddled with Skoula, who can be very Jekyll and Hyde in his performance. None of the new additions are super-big marquee names, and they still seem weak at center. Gah!

The Wild will play San Jose in November and March, so hopefully we'll be able to take Zach to the Shark Tank (HP Pavilion) for a game or two. The shark head thing they have looks pretty cool, I wouldn't mind seeing it in real life. And of course, there's always my fruitless quest to have Derek Boogaard sign my jersey. After 10 unsuccessful attempts, I think it's more of a joke than anything else now.

(sigh) Two more months to preseason...

Here's some video of Zach enjoying nature in our backyard. I apologize for the crappy camera work - as a kind, loving parent, I was laughing so hard I was trying not to wet myself and the camera jiggled more than I would have liked.

It's been a busy couple of weeks. My mom came to visit in early July, and we had a nice visit. She flew into the Sonoma County airport, which is about 10 minutes away (as opposed to Oakland or SFO, which are about an hour, hour and a half). It's a teeny airport. As in, one gate and baggage claim that consists of a metal roll-up window where the baggage guys pass the suitcases through. It's even smaller than the Bellingham airport! It does, however, have daily service to Seattle, LA, Vegas and somewhere else. The flights are run by Horizon/Alaska, and they're the turbo prop style planes that always make me a little nervous. Picking up my mom was our first trip to the airport here, so we gave ourselves plenty of time to find parking (first 2 hours are complimentary!) This was my mom's first visit since January, so there's a big difference in terms of what Zach is doing now. He showed her how well he can crawl all around, all the different things he eats, his standing-up skills and the ways he likes to play in the bath.

We were having a heat wave with triple-digit temperatures, so we mostly kept things low key. On a couple of the cooler days, we did a little wandering around, and checked out a few of Sonoma County's wineries. There are dozens and dozens of wineries in Sonoma and Napa, ranging from names you'd see in the grocery store (Kenwood, Kendall-Jackson, Chandon, Gallo) to smaller wineries that produce only a few hundred cases per year (like Martinelli - not the cider company). There's really something for everyone, from real wine snobs who know what they're doing to enthusiasts looking for something new, to novices like myself who find the science part really interesting. Many of the wineries offer tours and tastings, and we only visited a few of them (Martinelli, St. Francis, Gundlach-Bundschu and Valley of the Moon) with my mom.

We had all kinds of excitement while my mom was visiting, from the ant invasion to the finding of two wasp nests that were under construction (good eyes, Mom!) to the ridiculously hot weather. Unfortunately, toward the end of my mom's week, Zach picked up a stomach bug, which made him, uh, maybe a little less fun to deal with. It was quite the eventful week! We had a great time just hanging out and chatting and enjoying Zach, despite the insects.

Zach's nap and bedtime issues are still continuing, although maybe they're getting a little better? One day after he'd recovered from his stomach thing, he refused to take a morning or afternoon nap, so by 2:30, Bryan and I loaded Zach and Bailey into the car and took off to explore the Russian River and Bodega Bay area. We just wandered along the coast on Highway 1, and when we saw the signs for Goat Rock State Beach, we were intrigued enough to stop. Bailey enjoyed a run on the beach and Zach got to look at the waves, shells in the sand and some crab shells.

Zach did eventually take a little bit of a nap in the car, and Bailey really needed a nap after her run!

Bodega Bay was very pretty and looked like it would be a good spot to do some camping once Zach's a little older. We have plenty of time to do more exploring, and a huge list of places to check out. If you know the Bay Area and you have any suggestions, drop me a line, we're always up to try something new!

I'm shamelessly stealing this from a friend who posted it on their blog, but it's pretty cool and I've watched it at least a dozen times since last night, so check it out: (Okay for kids and/or viewing at work)



If you're intrigued by this like I was, you can visit Matt's site for the whole story behind the video. You can also check out all his videos on You Tube. I particularly recommend the Outtakes one, the comments are great, and the 2006 version has me incredibly jealous because he has footage from Antarctica.