Millard Canyon Falls Hike

Yesterday we went on Bronson's first "real" hike, in the nearby San Gabriel mountains, right at the very end of Lake Avenue (for those of you who've visited, Lake is where the Trader Joes is) to Millard Canyon Falls. I was web surfing the other day and feeling sick of big cities and manicured lawns when I came across this hike. It's nice to know that forests and rivers aren't too far away.

So, the hike is 1 mile return and there's a nice waterfall at the end. However the waterfall is just a trickle in the summer, much more spectacular in the winter/spring when we've had a little rain. Not that we got that far :) I think we got about half way, then found a nice area next to a clear pool in the river and sat and had our lunch. Bronson and I dipped our feet in and got dirty. Matthew helped us clean off. It was relatively easy hiking terrain, but there is a bit of climbing and slipping in the dirt that made it a challenge for our 1 year old. When B is 2 maybe he'll be better suited to it, we definetly will be going again. A suprise bonus is that apparently when dining in the forest Bronson will eat whatever you give him, he ate cheese which he has avoided in rectangular form for many months, rice crackers which he won't touch at home, even... MIXED fruit cup! He generally likes his fruit cups limited to one colour and shape of fruit, thank you very much.
Bronson pushed dad aside from this rock and claimed it as his resting spot.

In other news, as far as pregnancy goes, I am 10 weeks along, yay double digits! I'm feeling pretty sick in the evenings and early morns on my bike ride to work. I'm doing a blog update @ 3am while eating fruit loops, so I guess midnight snacks have started. Blahh. We have taught Bronson that "baby" is in mom's belly, so when we ask where baby is, he points and sometimes he gives baby a kiss. For no real reason I feel like it's a boy and we talk like it's a boy. I do plan to find out, but in true 2nd child fashion (so my mom tells me), I have put off seeing a doctor and won't have my first appointment until next Thursday, at which point I should already be able to hear the heart beat, and the baby is already the size of a kiwi. I do feel guilty seeing as my first appointment with B was 2 weeks after I found out, and even then the doc had made me wait that long to see her. Oh well.

Bronson's b-day party is Monday, and real b-day is Wednesday, so I have a busy week ahead, but my co-worker is back from vacation, so no more 6:45 work mornings, now I'm back to 8 - 12 and I couldn't be happier about that.

Disneyland & a visit from Bronson's god parents

Well, last week was an exciting week, especially for Bronson. On Monday we met up with Sabrina and Mike in Anaheim and went to Disneyland for the day. The 5 of us shared a room that night at the Disneyland Paradise Pier hotel on site, so B and I enjoyed an afternoon nap and swim to break up the excitement of the rides and characters. In the afternoon we watched the parade, then in the evening we stayed up for the awesome fireworks display. Good times.

Bronson had an especially fun time the next morning when he and I went downstairs to the character breakfast while everyone else slept in. He met Pluto and Minnie and Lilo and Stitch. He has a huge crush on Minnie and since we were there so early the characters really spent alot of time dancing and playing with him. They gave him 2 pins to commemorate the visit and he treasured them for the rest of the day, pointing out to everyone the characters he'd met that morning.



I'm thinking that I'd like my next trip to Disneyland to be with a Grandma who will take the kids on the rides while I stay back at the Disneyland Grand California Hotel and Spa and get a massage from Mickey.


For the rest of the week Sabrina and Mike stayed with us and we spent time sight seeing and playing board games and sleeping while Sabrina and Mike played with Bronson. I am a really bad hostess and did not take any pictures of them, in fact no pics since Disneyland. I will try to steal some from Sabrina's blog when she gets around to posting... I don't know what the hold up is, she's been home for like 48 hours.... :)

Jenn's email and website

Sorry for anyone who's tried to email me over the past week, it was probably rejected. I needed to re-register my domain name, so my website and email are both hosted on my own domain and were not working. Everything is back up now, though! So, email at will!

Bronson's Birthday List

Howdy folks. Bronson's birthday is coming up on the 3rd of September. Hurray!

We set up an Amazon wishlist for him here: Bronson's Wishlist. You'll notice that his day with Thomas the Tank Engine in Winnipeg had quite an impression on him...

Also, there is a book that he'd like which Amazon doesn't carry called Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time. The book can be ordered from the Dinotopia Website. Note that the author is willing to sign an ordered copy at no charge.

As for some news, Bronson is doing quite well. I don't have any pictures at the moment, but here are some websites that he's been enjoying:
Where the Hell is Matt?
Nasa HD Launch Videos

Enjoy!

Down by the Bay...

We're back from a 9 day trip up to the Bay area - 4 nights in a dorm room in Berkeley and 4 nights in a motel in Stanford. I missed my kitchen.

It was a nice trip - Matt had a workshop in Berkeley and B and I explored the campus, as well as going in to San Francisco twice. In San Francisco we visited the Modern Art Museum and took in the Frida Kahlo exhibit. Bronson liked the monkeys. We also went to the De Young and saw the Chihuly exhibit - I really liked this one, it was really neat. See pictures of it here http://www.chihuly.com/

(these photos courtesy of Chihuly's website)

Bronson really enjoyed the Berkeley grounds, he hasn't had much of a chance to play with fallen leaves and needles, and he made lots of piles around campus of these. He also found many half cool pine cones, and squirrels got quite upset with him invading their turf, and stood in low branches chattering at him. But, the best part of Berkeley is their mascot - the bear.

Our dorm room in Berkeley overlooked the Greek pavillion, where concerts are held. It sounds like you're right in the stadium, it's so loud in the room, and it was too warm to shut the windows. So, not only did we get to hear the warm ups in the afternoon while we tried to nap, but the actual show, screaming audience and all would be later that evening, while we (well, B and I) tied to sleep. The first show was John Cougar Mellencamp, it was alright because I recognized some of the songs, though the women screaming was a little much. The day we left was Dolly Parton - I was glad to get out. I'm not one for country.

On to Stanford in Palo Alto. A very interesting place, much more us than Berkeley. By the time we got here, I was tired, however so we did not do too much sight seeing. We saw the beautiful campus and the amazing cathedral in the middle. The campus is huge, 2nd largest single campus in the world, second to Moscow, Russia. We went to the nice outdoor mall and saw nice relaxed computer people who were on break from Google, meeting up with the wife and kids for lunch. Everyone here wears their phones clipped to their ears, and are most likely wealthy, but not in a showy way. Matthew was excited by Silicon Valley "there's the Sun headquarters... you know what they say about Sun...chuckle chuckle" and "There's the company we bought our oscilloscope from!" It was nice, great art store near the motel, but the motel had an outdoor pool that was not heated, which put a damper on the stay for me. We even heat our pools down in So Cal - why would you not in the cold cloudy Bay area!!! To be fair, Palo Alto had "civilized weather" as Matt put it, but still!

Anyhow, we made the 7~ish hour drive back last Saturday. B was great on the drives, on the way there we stopped at a few rest stops to play soccer, but on the way back we stopped mostly for me needing to eat and visit the washroom - which brings me to my news, and proves to me who reads my blog and who just looks at the cute pictures - we are having another baby. I am 8 weeks pregnant and quite ill, but yes, alas Bronson will be a big brother and I will have to cross out the "You don't have these" notes I wrote in to his books when they say "Here is my sister/brother".

In yet other news, my good friend Christina (Spence) Proteau is in the new edition of Sports Illustrated profiling some golf thing she was at. She represents team Canada in international womens golf play and is pretty good at it :) So take a look and I cam probably get her autograph for you if you want... I've been saving them up over the years :)