Getting Anxious

Mom and Dad aren't the only ones getting anxious for baby. Carson is enjoying all of his old baby stuff as he looks forward to his baby brother ariving.

One of his favorite books right now is 'The New Baby' by Mercer Mayer -- although we change the words from baby sister to brother.

Bigger by the Day

13 days and counting...

Very nice of them

The motorcycle shop gave Carson some motorcycle stickers today. While talking with him on the way home, I said, "That was nice of them"; to which, he replied, "that was VERY nice of them."

The motorcycle stickers went on his bicycle as soon as we got home.

Cars

As you can see in all of the pictures take recently, Carson's Lightning McQueen car never leaves his hand. He absolutely loves the movie "Cars", which he saw for the first time this week.

The motorcycle's tires are lost!

Tired of being cooped up in the house with all of the smoke in the air, Carson and I decided to work on the dirt-bike today.

Carson helped me take the wheels off of the Yamaha WR450f and bring them to the shop to get new tires mounted. He's pretty handy with tools. He works on his motorcycle (bicycle) while I work on mine. His repairs typically involve taking a screwdriver to each screw on his bike and trying to turn it.

When Angela came to the garage to see what we were doing, Carson said, "Look, Mom! The motorcycle's tires are lost!"

Smoked In

Reno has been inundated with smoke from all of the California fires, so we've tried to stay inside as much as possible this week. Carson missed going to parks and the other activities that he normals gets, but he was still a great and happy kid. I had to cancel my dirt-bike ride today for the same reason.

Makes for a boring week on the blog... But that's life.

Whole Foods

We all got off to a very early start today, so we decided to head to Whole Foods, which opened up this week. They had a local farmers market outside, then lots of great looking food inside.

One of the vendors had a section of a beehive with all of the bees in it. Carson loved it.

Cutting the cable

We cut the cable this week. We had cable tv, but they just doubled the rate, so we cancelled. We have switched to over-the-air high definition. The picture looks really good. We usually watched local channels anyways; now they are free and look better.

Angela's Shower

I went to my shower last Saturday, it was such a nice little party! Most of my family that I have here in town was there to celebrate the arrival of the new baby.

My mother-in-law, Nan.

Anita Hicks (Nan's sister), Corinne Ross (married to Nan's brother), Nan Knight and Joanna Ross (married to Keith's cousin). They're busy decorating the quilt Sofia made for the baby.

Sofia Lykes, the wonderful woman who threw this shower for me! Thank you, Sofia!

Love this blanket, made by Lori, my sister-in-law. Can you see the little race cars?

There's Lori, in the middle.

Thank you to all who came, I had a great time!

Made In China

Grandma & Grandpa Knight just returned from an amazing trip to Japan, Hong Kong, China, and Bali. While there, they were able to pick up authentic, 'Made in China' kites, five for a dollar.

Grandpa Knight turned out to be a kite expert and taught us how it is done. Carson had a good time playing with the kite and with Grandpa.

Guy-time

While Angela was at the Baby Shower that Sofia was so nice to organize, Carson and I decided to spend some guy-time together.

Carson put some tools in his pockets, said, "I'm a tool guy", and was ready to help. We fixed some minor details in the house. We also went to the Army surplus store and Sportmans Warehouse (pictured).

Baby Quail

How is it that pets require specially formulated diets and regular visits to the vet, yet animals are gorgeous and healthy in the wild?

On my dirt-bike ride today, I saw a dozen baby quail -- tiny puff-balls on legs, running down the road. I also saw baby bunnies, lizards, squirrels, and this beautiful baby horse.

Our Little Mechanic

Carson made his first repairs to his bicycle today. Its brakes needed adjustment and tires needed air. He's already quite a mechanic.

He loves the motorcycle style bicycle that Grandma & Grandma Aksland got him for his birthday. It's, "just like daddy's (motorcycle)."

Our new home can be seen in the background.

(Sorry about the hazy pictures. Carson is also a budding photographer; he just hasn't learned to keep his fingers off of the lens.)

It's you, not me...

Centex (and sub-contractors) spent the entire day working on various problems with our new house. They ended up pulling up carpet, cutting holes in the floorboards, rehanging a door, and re-installing the kitchen sink garbage disposal. Quite a day. They will be back at least tomorrow and Monday.

Warranties are great. While I was remediating the mold in our old house, I got so sick of house projects. I'm so glad to have someone else do the work. I can finally say, 'It's your problem, not mine.'

Shooting the Breeze

To celebrate the successful release of a new program at work, the CEO and CTO flew to Reno and took the development team out for an afternoon of Sporting Clays.


For most of us, it was little more than 'Shooting the Breeze'; but it was really fun.

His name is mud!

It's amazing how quickly things go from this:

to this:

For future reference, draining a pool into an all dirt backyard is not a good idea. But we had fun playing with Carson's new water gun from Grandma & Grandpa Knight while it drained.

Cute & Happy

When asked if he was tired today, Carson said, "No, I'm just cute and happy."

9 Months

What 9 months of pregnancy does to a person...

BTW: baby due in 28 days!

Current favorite names:
Tucker
David
Zander

Possibly middle names: ??? maybe Sanford (from Silas Sanford Smith) or some other family name.

Wildflowers

I went for an early morning dirt-bike ride yesterday. I probably saw 30 horses including several babies; add some wildflowers and the desert can look amazing.

Camping at Desertstone

This weekend, Carson and I had our first father-son camp-out at Desertstone.

With all of the earthquakes that we have been having, we decided to add to our emergency supplies with a tent and sleeping bags. Carson got his own sleeping bag for his 3rd birthday a week ago. Of course, once you have a tent and sleeping bags, you've got to break them in.

So we decided Desertstone was the place, or more specifically, Desertstone Ct -- our new house (I'm too much of a wimp to take a three year old on an actual camping trip).

We didn't sleep in the tent, but had a lot of fun playing.

For those who care: we went with a Nemo Moki tent, GoLite Venture sleeping bags for Keith & Angela, and Northface sleeping bags for the kids.