asilomar

Stayed at the beautiful Asilomar Conference grounds for the Midwives Alliance of North America Conference. Matt met me there and watched G during the day while I soaked up all the great midwife-joo-joo around me.

monterey aquarium

talking to a fish:

the "toddler zone," she cried bloody murder when we had to leave:

San Francisco Trip

Shopping in San Francisco with Cousin Hank

Jumping Cousins in San Francisco

little chef

We have a stainless steel kitchen table with an open lower shelf for bowls and kitchen devices. Whenever I am cooking, Gigi likes to "cook" too, by banging around on on the lower level. It is the perfect height for her to concoct some imaginary culinary delights.

celebrating 1 year

Playing "this little piggy" with great-grandma Rasmussen:

Inspecting her great-grandpa Rasmussen, who shares her same birthday:

Rough-housing:

Gigi sandwich:

Thomas grandparents and cousins:

Presents (her parents didn't get her anything, of course--but her grandparents and cousins really came through):

happy 1st birthday "little g"

Matt came up with this carrot cake design. Genius, no? The mane is toasted coconut. Gigi loves all things growling, so we thought this suited her. More to come about the cake and what she did or did not do with it (I'm awaiting the pictures to be uploaded from our "nice" camera--Matt, the pressure is on you now).

making her own birthday cake

thomas family reunion 2009

hiking above alta

stuck

boobs cruise

Betsy in Cabos San Lucas:



Lover's Beach (sans my own lover):
View of our ship from Lover's Beach:


Gigi has a discerning sand palate and prefers the sands of Cabo over all others:

Sisters:

Gigi waiting to board our ship (note the black eye). Her black eye featured quite prominently in all of the cruise photography. She looked like such a miniature crawling quasimoto with her two lonely teeth and a big black eye. They didn't even try to sell me on any of the cruise photos.

One last note on the cruise: This was my first one and David Foster Wallace was right about the whole experience. I kept thinking of a combination of his commentary and visuals from the last half of Wall-E. As for the company, being with the ladies of my family made the entire trip a success.

african rains

My sister Liz sent this to me. Enjoy!

bouffant