You can never have enough olives, but...

......3 gallons approaches enough.

This year I got my act together and cured olives.
I meant to do it last year but I was all busy popping out a kid. Whatever.
Brian was really nice and helped me pick olives near my lab.
In the rain. I know, he's awesome.
We thought we pulled a pretty good haul... until about a week later.
When I squeezed an olive and a tiny worm shot out
and hit me in the cheek.
That experience counted as one of the top 5
grossest things that has ever happened to me.

So I threw all those olives away, and talked to
El Machinist de la Chemistry Dept.
He told me about this secret little street, lined with mature
olive trees, untrimmed so that the low lying branches
are laden with blushing olives.
Sound pretty good huh? He motioned off to the west... "I think it's off of Cowell... it's on the left, you'll know it when you see it."
So I load my car up with an ice bucket from my lab, a stool I stole from El Machine Shop,
and I head off. West, towards West Cowell. West.
And I don't find it. Driving, driving, nothing, driving.
I have an epiphany... an olive epiphany. I get the idea that it seems like the type of place that would be off South, on Hutchinson.... which is parallel to West Cowell. An easy mistake to make. So I drive my stolen bucket and stool south, over to Hutchinson.
And I find it! It's a secret little one lane street with big olive trees and tons of olives on low lying branches and....it's called Olive Tree Lane.
I only spent about an hour, but I filled my bucket. After throwing away the leaves and crap, it turned out to be about 3 gallons. 3 glorious gallons:

We've cured them, marinated them, eaten them, shared them.... and we still have about a gallon. Anyone want olives for Christmas?

Incidentally, this olive issue caused me to get a library card. So that I could check out books about how to can olives. So that we wouldn't have to eat them all now. FYI: the library has no books with recipes for pressure canning olives. I think it's a conspiracy.

Casualties of War... er... I mean the holidays

It's hard work being so cute.

Christmas Child Labor

Our little elf has been helping wrap presents this year:

Mostly this consists of her playing with the wrapping paper, but hey, we'll take what we can get.

Ba Humbug

So, on our way to get a Christmas Tree, we decided not to get one. Here's the reasoning.
We talked about whether we really want to ever get one.
We decided that it kinda depended on how Miss M felt about it. We're leaving it at that for now.

Belated Thanksgiving....

I didn't really get to say much about thanksgiving. It was pretty nice.
It made me think about the last year; it's been a ride.
I'd like to run down a couple things that I am particularly thankful for.
First of all, these people. And the fact that we can all be together.
Really, there isn't any substitution for 8 great parents.

And this gal, who has been along for the ride despite being on quite a ride herself.

Then there are these two, who still like us
even though we are three now.
Plus they have the abalone, we have the abalone mallet.
We make a great team.

For these people, and the fact
that they think that playing
boccie ball in a funny hat is ok:

I'm kinda fond of this monkey too. On a scale from

0 to awesome, he's pretty awesome.

And finally for this one.
She's only about the best thing out there.

Uh.... how did this happen

How is it that we have a 1 year old?! I can remember back when I was pregnant... geez... I can remember back before we were married... and now all of a sudden Maryn is a whole year old.
We keep telling her that since she is old and worn out we're gonna sell her back. She calls our bluff.
Last weekend we had a birthday party for the little miss M. It was fun, she was super cute.
Uncle Larry, who has been doing some professional photography, was kind enough to take some pictures of the whole shindig.

First bite of cake:


















She has a great time opening presents:
































































We survived a whole year.... only like 50 to go.

I had a vision... an x-ray vision that is

Question - What is the difference between this:
and this:



















Answer - The possibility of a Graduate Degree.

Oh, and all the little dots are x-rays. But whatever.

That's right non-believers. I am about 8 steps closer to really graduating.
It might actually happen.
And by might, I mean it better damn well happen.
And soon. 'Cause I don't know who is more likely to break down, me or the machine.
Who am I kidding, it's totally the machine.

She'll tell you all about it.

Maryn will tell you all about how her teeth hurt:



It's so ridiculous it's a little cute. In a pathetic way.

Roseola?! That sounds delicious!

Evidently, the undergrads in my lab think that Roseola sounds something like Ravioli, which is yummy.
Sooooo.... Maryn was diagnosed with Roseola this week. I don't know how they could tell, the only real clue was this:






















Yeah, that's right. A rosey rash. All over her body.
We're just about done with it so on with the funny part.

We've come up with some illnesses that are worse than roseola:
Boboliola - when your face looks like homemade pizza
CocaColaeola - when your skin gets all bubbly.
Bonoboleola - When you look like a miniature chimpanzee
Scorpioleola - When you start blogging about your family on the net.
Bozoeola - when your nose gets all red and swollen. Crap. Maryn might have had this.

24 hours and 3 degrees

This weekend: Approximately 98 degrees F. Generally perfect*.


Monday: Approximately 101 degrees F. Wholly cow, pissed off.

It's amazing what a few degrees can do to the happiness level of a baby.
Maryn isn't doing so hot right now, but she's getting though it.
At least we were able to have an excellent weekend with her at the cabin.
Hopefully it'll all blow over soon.

*data might be skewed. So what.

Halloween 2007

Halloween was a total success this year in all aspects.

First, this was the first year I've dressed up that I didn't have to make
an emergency "Mom?!" call to get my/Brian's costume together.
Maybe I'm almost grown-up.
Naw.

I was a devil, Brian and Chris dressed as the Guinness Guys (click to view):

We thought it was Brilliant!

Maryn was a .....



















Because seriously, she's got the chicken thing down:



















But later that night she had a change of mind. She started to contemplate her future....

She's thinking about how astronauts get more T.V. coverage than chickens.


















Other than that, Alex and I successfully created spooky cupcakes for Maryn's daycare.
















Can you say yummy?
I can confirm that Martha Stewart is in fact a demon and has successfully possessed me. Anyone know a good exorcist?

Tooth Watch, Month 11. The month she figured out it hurts.

We've had to update the data:

As you can see, we were on a good course until tooth 3. Then all heck broke loose. Extrapolating from this data, I anticipate super complainy-ness for tooth 4.

Or, as Brian puts it:

Now that the first top one is out, she seems to be happier, but it was very whiny there for a couple days! The next top one is coming in soon, so we're stocking up on baby Tylenol.

Maryn and the Brocoli

It's safe to say that Maryn doesn't like broccoli. Yet. Which is fine with us because her gas is already bad enough.
Her aversion to broccoli and her new found motorboat sound has given us something new to laugh at. It looks like she is trying to get a fly off of her lip or something.

Mom + Burp sound = laughter

On Monday I decided my next career move would be to stand up comedy.
It was an easy room, all I had to do is make burping noises.

Unless you double click on the video and then click on the second to the far right button,
it will look a bit squished. Sorry 'bout that.

First Plane Trip: A success.

This last weekend we traveled to meet family in San Diego. Alex was able to arrange a fancy limo to take us to the airport.
Here's a little piece of advice: If someone ever asks you "hey, would you like me to arrange for a limo to pick us up at the house and take us to the airport?", the answer is heck yeah.
But when you arrive and the chauffeur opens the door for you, it's hard to pull off the "look at me, I'm so cool arriving at the airport in a limo" deal when you have to go to the other side and unstrap the baby car seat. But still, limo ride to airport = cool. And by cool I mean toally sweet.

We arrived late on Friday night. Did you notice how I didn't mention the horrible first plane ride for Miss M? The one filled with crying in ear pain, fidgeting and crankiness? Yeah. That's because it didn't exist. Here is a two photo synopsis of the plane ride.

Stage 1:

Stage 2:
















On Saturday, we spent the day at the park with family and honoring Grandma Jan. The food and company were great and we wore funny hats while playing boccie ball. My kind of party!
Here's another little piece of advice: If you ever have to play boccie ball with the devil for your soul, pick me as a partner. Evidently I kinda kick butt. But only if I get to wear a funny hat**.


On Sunday Brian, Miss M and I went to the San Diego Zoo:





Ok, ok, that was a re-enactment. But the real thing was pretty fun too.
We were able to get there right as they were opening, which was super cool because the animals were pretty active. We got to see the gorilla kids playing and beating on the glass in front of us, the polar bears wrestling and the tiger roaring. There wasn't a big animal that we didn't get to see doing it's thing. Even the usually sluggish hippos were playing in the water.
M watched the monkeys and got to pet some animals at the petting zoo:


















All in all it was a great day followed up by a nice family dinner:
Maryn had another quiet trip on the plane, but we could tell she was happy to be home:

Home is where your crab is.

** Actually, kick buttness is not guaranteed. It was probably beginners luck.
.

The New Face of Trouble:

On Tuesday morning I go to wake Maryn up, and this is what I find. Maryn standing in her crib. By herself.
The camera happened to be near the door, so I reached for it and snapped a couple pictures. Notice the tired eyes, the "mom, stop taking pictures and picked me up already" pained look on her face?

It's a bit different than most mornings when I come in to find things like this:
So Brian has had to lower her crib so that she doesn't fall out. Which now means that it is sooooo low that you practically have to get in it with her to lay her down. It's better than a trip to the hospital though, so I'll take it.

Data that I have collected this week:

You read it right. Although she willing to crawl up to 7 feet to get at something that is not good for her (dirty shoes?!), she is willing to crawl 0 feet to toys.
Figures.