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Well, it's a gorgeous California day outside, and Cory and I are in the living room, on our laptops. It's a holiday, yet we are doing what we are paid to do every day, sit in front of an LCD screen and type. Our excuse is that the lil' one is upstairs sleeping. It's not like we can go surfing or para-sailing during nap time, c'mon now! She's not feeling too good, we fear it's ear infection #8, which her doc said at the last one that "if she gets another one I would really recommend the ear tube surgery." :( Not good. But if it would give her some relief, it would be worth it. Plus I hate every time she gets a stuffy nose, worrying that she's in pain. We shall see...

Hope everyone is enjoying their 4th! We're having a relaxing day thus far, and once naptime is done we're going to a friends' party. Then this weekend my parents are having a pool party, so that should be fun as well! The summer is well underway, just hopefully I can manage to enjoy while craziness at my job ensues. I should've put more thought into the role I wanted before signing up for my big annual deadline on August 30th. It just means my July and August are crazy busy, and that's precisely the time I want to leave work early to go play in the sun with baby!! I will still attempt to have a work-life balance, even if it means late nights on my computer...

I always feel like I need to sign off these blog posts, perhaps I'm an "old school" blogger, or just polite. So goodbye blog, hope all is well!

Spring Lake, NJ is my vacation destination hot spot of 2007. Audrey and I just got back from a wedding there, my G-town roommate Courtney married firefighter Brian. I had never been to the "shore" before, and it was quite pleasant, the perfect vacation to relax with my favorite baby girl. We had a great time at all of the various wedding parties, and even on our afternoons alone we did some great bonding. It was fun!

But now I'm back to the real world, gearing up to cram four months of work into two. My July and August are just crazy months, and it's a shame since it's beautiful weather outside and all I want to do is leave work at 4pm and play with my baby. I am being fairly successful with my 7am - 4pm schedule, I'm hoping I can stick with it even in the crunch times and simply work from home in the evenings. I don't want work to get in the way of baby play. When you are doing so much, it's important to give everything it's time, but not sacrifice the important time of others.

I'm looking forward to a fun filled weekend of doing not so much, which I'm excited about. We may hit the open houses this weekend...I say that so nonchalantly, but I'm actually scared shitless about getting back in the housing market chaos. Last summer just sucked so royally bigtime. And I don't want to repeat the whole debacle. Plus, wherever we land I want to be there for a long time, thorough Audrey's schoolin'. Might not happen, but that's the intention. So it makes the decision that much more important. When we were buying the house in Fremont, we knew we wouldn't be there more than 5 years, so if we made a mistake we knew it wasn't forever. We now know what an incredible royal pain in the ass selling and then buying a new house is, so we would rather be there for the long haul. Which means the house has to be that much more special and perfect.

Okay, all this blather and no pictures! I know. She's still as cute as ever. She liked dancing at the wedding, it was too cute to watch her toddle around. She's really got the walking thing down - I let her walk from the car to the house when we get home from daycare. What a big girl!

I know, I know. Isn't it funny that the last time I posted (over a month ago?) I had actually set up another blog? Ah well, all I can say is that life is busy. I've only got approximately 3 more months until classes end, and I swear, it seems worse than pregnancy at this point. Yes, I'm very ready for school to be over so that I can reclaim my evenings and free time for play rather than reading and work. I am torn, however, just because I do really enjoy my classes this semester; I'm getting totally into social responsibility - it's hard not to want to make my work more meaningful to ensure a healthy future for my daughter. I'm trying my hardest to parlay my studies into something better at Dreyer's, to try to affect my company for the good, and hopefully it will work. Baby steps, for me and Audrey alike! So here's an update on the litte one... no actual steps yet, but she's been crawling so much her little knees are like strawberries. She's having a blast, though. She's actually pretty well balanced, holding onto the coffee table and sitting up on her knees. Sometimes she can push up onto her feet...ack! Still seems too soon to be walking, but I know it won't be long.

Like it? I decided Audrey was 8 months old, so it's time to put away the baby stuff and move into a new style. Don't worry, we're not getting ready to ship her off to college or anything. She is getting to be a big big girl, though; she's nearly crawling, she can get into position and then wiggle her butt around. She's quite proud of herself. She's gotten herself into a sitting position on her own a few times, but she'd still prefer to use the "scream till Mommy helps you" trick. Which is fine by me. I've decided one of my favorite things to do is play with her in bed - I get to lounge around and be silly, and she gets to play "pull Mommy's hair" and "gouge Daddy's eyes out." It's quite fun! It's actually a great thing to do when we get home from work/day care; she can be quite fussy, but it we take twenty minutes she's usually giggling and having a great time.

If all you want to see is pictures of Audrey at Christmas, click on the link and cease reading my blog. I'm too lazy (plus I'm at work right now) to post them individually, but you can see them on Flickr.

We had a nice holiday season, although I'm happy it's January and we can move on. It's funny how I spend weeks and weeks in anticipation of Christmas and it's silly to do that, because it always seems to be full of some sort of drama and chaos. Maybe next year, I'll start anticipating twelve months early...

Anyway, I'd better get back to making the world's best ice cream, enjoy the pics and I'll write again on MLK Jr. Day.

I guess I only blog around holidays, albeit they are abundant this time of year. I am finally done with this semesters' worth of work, yay me! Only one semester to go!! I really enjoyed this semester, I learned all about leadership and competitive strategy. I am looking forward to next semester...Behavioral Finance. Perhaps I'll learn why smart people can sometimes make stupid real estate decisions. Anyway, I'm a bit nervous, as I usually am, at the beginning of the semester; I want my classes to be engaging and interesting, yet I don't want them to be too much work for fear I'll implode upon all the stresses. We'll see...

I've actually worked out two days in a row, go me!! I have a friend that just purchased a Stroller Strides franchise, so before she begins classes in SF, she's bringing me along to classes in the East Bay so she can learn from other franchisee owners. I'm so glad, too, because they are fun and a great workout! It's basically personal training for mommies with strollers. Audrey loved it - she slept for a good 45 minutes. :) Plus I got to meet a few more mom's here in Oakland, so that's never a bad thing.

I was so inspired by the SS class, so today I walked Ollie down our hill and back (it's quite a hill), then I did an erg when I got home. I had the radio on while I was ergging, and Live 105 was doing a flashback weekend or something, so they played "88 lines about 44 women." Yep, that's a flashback all right! I've been having several flashbacks; I was wearing my LBRA red sweatshirt the other night, and Audrey was sucking on the hoodie drawstrings, which is what I used to do in class in high school. Didn't think back then that someday I'd have a baby that would do the same thing! Craziness.

Anyway, that's enough blather, click on for some pictures...

So, it seems like I'm blogging about once a month. Not the greatest, but I'm trying! Things have been going well... Audrey is still all giggles. She's been loving every kind of food we give her, but her weight is down to the 50th percentile. Doc says nothing to worry about, but I'm going to try to chub her up a bit more. She's in the 90th percentile for height (27 inches) and apparrently she has a large head, 95th percentile! Thats my girl. Anyway, I've gotta be brief this month (I know, you just started reading) but it's almost my bedtime. I did come bearing pictures though...that's usually what keeps me from blogging, I feel like I need to include pics each time, and that's hard. But I did a little photo shoot this morning, Ollie and Audrey were playing so nicely that I had to get the camera to capture it.