On Saturday June 7th Denise did the Fontana 5k in 47:37minutes, all while looking great doing it.
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“A video of baby AJ Rolling
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“Nothing too terribly exciting happened at the Pedroza’s this week, so it’s time for our favorite filler: cute pictures of AJ!
Look at that puffy hair! It lays down perfectly flat on the side and in the back. However, at the top of his head it sticks straight up, very funny! In the back the baby bald spot is almost gone, since AJ turns his head to sleep and isn’t constantly rubbing the back of his head anymore. He is getting really good at flipping from front to back and back to front, but he hasn’t yet managed either rolling, the army crawl, or the normal crawl. His left side is the “”hinge”” and he pushes off from the right going back to front, front to back several times in a row before getting tired.
He grabs and holds with abandon now, but hands are mostly for getting things to his mouth. He has a soft stuffed animal in his crib. When he grabs it, yep, he puts it on his face! Everything goes in the mouth. He can mostly maintain a hold on his bottle, if we put his hands on his bottle. He doesn’t yet reach for it, but if we put his hands there they’ll stay there supporting the bottle for at least 5 minutes at a time. We still use the “”soothy”” pacifier, mostly at church. However, if he’s not too tired he tends to grab for it and move the pacifier so he can chew on the thick rim rather than suck on the nipple. I think those first teeth are coming soon.
This is one of the easiest ways to make AJ laugh: the baby as a hat game! John rubs AJ’s tummy against the top of John’s head. If AJ is wide awake this is sure to make him laugh and laugh. One of his other favorite things is a little music box attached to a crib mobile that plays Brahms’ Lullaby. I think it’s the music he likes; maybe it’s the rotating animals, maybe both.
One more picture for the road. See you again next week!”
For Mother’s Day my mother came to visit me! Here are my parents with AJ. Isn’t AJ’s bib cute? Grandma made it for him. 🙂 It was great to have them visit and look forward to our next visit.
On Tuesday May 13th we went to visit the Mojave National Preserve. There we collected more stamps and saw lots and lots of desert. At the Kelso Depot Visitor’s center AJ got a chance to get into the saddle for the first time.
Both before and after the trip to Mojave we spent a little time in Barstow. Barstow is an interesting city. It’s been a way station for lots of people over lots of different trails. We stopped at the town’s welcome center, part of which was sponsored by a company we are very familiar with in our family. There were lots of murals in Barstow, including one about the “”Southern Route of the Mormon Trail””.
There were lots of Route 66 insignias and it was interest to note the ways that this vibrant city is adjusting. One sign made us laugh, but we couldn’t resist eating dinner there.
It was pretty good! The interior was an odd mix of the old Mexican Restaurant and the new Sushi Place. Now, of course, Barstow is a major stop on the 15 freeway. One sign informed us that Barstow is home to the very first Del Taco. Tragically we didn’t stop, leaving this cullinary treat for another time.
On our way home, we confirmed that the Pacific Crest Trail does pass within 15 miles of our home, passing under the I-15 at the 138 hwy exit. John is very excited about hiking this portion of the trail this summer, when he’s out of school.
Happy Trails!”
On Tuesday we went to visit Joshua Tree National Park . This visit officially started our quest for National Park Stamps. This is a program run by a company called Eastern National, and is not an “”official” part of the Park System. However, the Park System loves it because its entire purpose is to increase visitors to the parks. The stamp program has two parts. First are the ink stamps that you can stamp on your page at each park, for free. Many national parks and historical sites have more than one stamp available. You’ll see on our page that we got three from Joshua Tree, two of which are identical. There are actually 3 more stamps available at the park, but 2 were in places that weren’t open due to lack of staff and one was in a visitor’s center that we got to only after it closed.
The second part of the stamp program is colored stamps similar to postage stamps that are issued every year. For $8 you can buy a set that includes one stamp for each region, and one bigger national stamp. A new set is issued once a year.
So, those of you that are living near national parks, you are on notice, we will eventually be coming to a spare room near you. (And since there are 391 National Parks, National Historic Sites, National Historic Battlefields, National Recreation Areas, and National Trails, there IS a stamping site near you!)
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This is the quest of several years, probably several decades, but we already have plans for our next park: Mojave National Park.
While in the park, besides driving between visitors centers in order to collect our stamp, we also took a tour of the Keys Ranch. It was a very interesting property. Bill Keys was a property manager for a gold mine that was petering out. Once the mine owner died he sued for back wages, and received the land in 1910. How he managed to survive a raise a family in the desert in the middle of nowhere is truly remarkable.
AJ enjoyed most of the tour, however, by the end he was ready to get back in his car seat and go back to sleep. (Besides his sunglasses, we do totally cover him in sun block, but often forget his hat.)
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One of the ways Bill would make cash money was to bring his wagon and collect everything that failed prospectors, failed ranchers, and the Army left behind. (The Army had a training camp out the in the desert during WWII.) He would then use whatever he gathered for his own purposes or re sell it to the next set of ranchers/prospecters. Some of my favorite images are the armored car chicken coop and the “”Home Depot of the Desert””.
Gotta protect those roosters:
Pick a Part Desert Style:
This last picture reminds me so much of my dad!
Have fun all!
“It was slow week here at the Pedroza’s Place, so I’ll give you AJ’s Top Ten Favorite Things:
10. The burp rag as toy. He’ll pick at a cloth placed on his tummy for 10 to 15 minutes in fascination.
9. Sitting in his Bumpo and watching Mommy make dinner.
8. Wiggling, twisting, turning and generally seeing how he can move.
7. Talking! He often wakes up in the middle of the night, sings to himself for about 20 minutes and then goes back to sleep. He will also often “”talk with”” anyone who’s cuddling him and talking to him.
6. Being supported so that he can put weight on his legs and practice standing up.
5. Chewing on body parts: his fists, his feet, Mommy’s arm, Poppy’s shoulder; all are up for grabs. (He, however, isn’t a big fan of just his thumb, the whole fist is better)
4. Mommy tickling him all over and Poppi “”razzing”” his tummy. The way Poppi does it, it makes a somewhat high pitched sound and AJ loves hearing the elephants in his tummy–he’s been known to laugh and laugh.
3. Eating, mostly a bottle. He’s getting better with the spoon, but really isn’t there yet.
2. Grandparents 🙂
Lastly, AJ’s number one favorite thing in the world:
(drum roll)
Sleeping
(12 to 13 hours at night and 6 or so more hours interspersed during the day. He sleeps allot!)
Type to you all next week
–Denise”
On Tuesday April 22nd we took a day trip out to Anza-Borrego. It was near the end of wildflower season, but we did see a few. We spent some time in the visitor’s center and the cactus garden. From the visitor’s center we followed a self guided tour down “”erosion road””. It was fun to learn a little bit more about the geography of the desert. It’s amazing how the bland desert can get some more character when you know what you are looking at. We even got to try our hand at a little bit of (mild) off-roading. There a wash that you follow to get to the best overlook in the park, Font’s Point. It was marked and the park service encourages you to go if you are in a 4×4, which we were. It was such a mild case of off roading that we never even put the Kia into four wheel drive. The overlook was amazing, and the pictures don’t do it justice. After visiting Anza Borrego we couldn’t resist a side trip to Julian. Julian is a little town that was once a mining community and is now making it’s money by being scenic and mining the tourists. Their claim to fame is their apple pie, yum!! AJ was great. By the time we were eating dinner he was ready to be held though. That was his limit for spending time in a car seat and/or stroller. So, we passed him off and lingered made sure he got his minimum daily cuddles. Check here for all our pictures, I’ve included my two favorites on this page.
“So, three exciting and notable things have happened since my last blog. (And you will soon learn how dull our life is, we have a pretty low bar for exciting around here, fair warning).
For number one, I’m really cheating a bit, because this happened two weeks ago, but I was covering our Spring Break, so, drum roll please…..
AJ has started solid food!! Well, if you call rice cereal solid food, which we do around here. He’s not yet that into it. We keep trying. These two pictures are of the first two days he ate from a spoon. I like the first picture because he seems to be saying, “”Really, this is food? You expect me to keep eating this?”” The second, is, of course, John giving it a try.
You’ll all be happy to know that his four month appointment went fine, he’s gained and inch and 3+ pounds, putting him at 25 inches and 13 lbs 11oz, 50th percentile for height and 25th for weight.
Now number two, cue drum roll….
Abuelo Pedroza came to visit, just for an afternoon. AJ’s namesake was recovering from a case of herpes zoster, i.e. shingles, so even though the site was covered, and they weren’t even scabs (they were more like scars) for safety’s sake, he didn’t get the chance to hold AJ this time.
And, last of all, number three, cue drum roll…
John’s big project at work launched and he made the news. Well, not really, but his project did! He’s been working on creating a form online so that people can report non-emergency property crimes that don’t have a suspect. (Basically crimes that the police are going to be able to very little about, but for which you need a police report number for insurance purposes.)
Check out the online form.
You can also watch a news blurb about his project.
The local report in the newspaper quoted his ultimate supervisor, and a different report had an interview with his boss’s boss. The closest he got to being mentioned was the local PBS affiliate that mentioned that “”a supervisor”” would review the report. That’s John, “”a supervisor””, since right now he reviews ALL the online reports. He’s does think it’s a little funny that after all the work he (and a few others) did, the people who got the credit are the people who did nothing more than approve the project. That’s life in a bureaucracy, and I’m sure most of you have similar stories. After being rolled out for a week, and several days of patching broken links, etc, he says the reports are really rolling in today. He attributes this to the fact that the on-hold recording for the Telephone Reporting Unit now informs people that instead of waiting on hold for an hour plus they can file their report online.
So, that’s our three exciting things. Talk to you all next week, if not sooner.
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“For our last day of Spring Break we went in Los Angeles on the Metrolink Train. Two round trip tickets for the three of us were $38. This is probably slightly more than the gas for the Metro, but less than for the Sportage, and a bargain when you consider that we didn’t have the aggravation of driving in LA traffic or the cost of parking.
AJ enjoyed the train, and fell asleep for the second half of the trip. We arrived at the beautiful Union Station about an hour and a half later.
As you can see from the above picture, we brought the big stroller. It was wonderful! Yea for a stroller AJ will sleep in. 🙂 As I’m sure most of you know, a well rested child=a happy child=happy parents! Almost exactly across the street from Union Street is Oliveras Street, where strangely enough is a wonderful museum dedicated to the city’s chinese heritage, The Chinese American Musuem. Unfortuanatly the CAMLA didn’t allow pictures of any kind. However, right next door was an old fire station, with displays set up.
From there it was a couple blocks walk to the “”new”” Chinatown, a planned community built in the 1930’s when the original Chinatown was destroyed to make room for Union Station. While somewhat touristy, LA’s Chinatown is much less touristy than Oliveras Street, and is still a place where people actually live, not to mention eat, we enjoyed lunch and desert!
Once we had browsed and munched our way through Chinatown we were one stop down on the Metro Gold line and rode the Gold line back to Union Station. From there we made our way back across the street to Oliveras Street, where things were busier than they had been earlier in the morning. We browsed some more, and enjoyed visiting the Avila Adobe, LA’s oldest existing home.
After all that excitement it was time to go home, so back to Union Station. Overall it was a fun, exciting day, and we learned that hauling a twenty pound stroller in and out of car, and in and out of a train is well worth the effort! Next week I’ll do a more detailed AJ update, unless something more exciting happens between now and then. Ta Ta for Now.”
John finished the winter quarter on Thursday the 20th of March. Thankfully we know he passed both classes, with a B and a B+. Not enough to get him on the honor roll, but enough to get him out of there, which is the important part! John had Sunday through Thursday off of work, and so we endeavored to enjoy a “”from home”” spring break.
On Saturday we left after John’s work to visit my parents for Easter. A good time was had by all!
We left Monday morning and visited the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. Visiting a museum with a four month old infant is a unique experiance. We certainly didn’t go see the galleries straight though. However, with breaks for diaper changes and eating and especially with the aid of the Snugglie we were able to see most of the museum. Also, since we didn’t have as much time in the 19th and 20th century galleries as we would have liked, we now have a reason for coming back! I know that in the picture AJ looks like he’s facing in, possibly suffocating, but he prefers this position, occasionally turning his head to the side.
After the museum, we joined the TLJs for dinner at The Counter in Santa Monica. YUM!!!
What a handsome group of guys!
Tuesday we relaxed and did nothing more than see a movie. (College Road Trip) It was goofy and predictable, but fun, and Donny Osmond was very funny! For those with out our “”sophisticated”” taste in movies, feel free to wait for video. 🙂 On Wendesday we drove out to Yorba Linda for a visit to the Richard Nixon Library and Musuem. Once again our visit was not quite as long as it would have been with out AJ, but without AJ I wouldn’t have taken the time to admire the gardens (while he took a nap). This slightly blurry picture is of AJ and me in the kitchen of the home in which Richard Nixon was born in (literally born in, in his mother’s bedroom) and where he lived until he was 9. Besides the exhibits about Nixon’s life, and the boyhood home, the museum also includes an actual Marine One that Nixon (and other Presidents) used.
Thursday was our last day, and our fullest. I’ll blog about that on another day. ”