California Coast Tour- January 2010

Tim and I were sitting around talking about travel plans. We wanted to do something and the ideas were quite varied. We talked about Florida, Texas or New Mexico. We decided to stay south because it is January, and most of the nation north of 33 degrees latitude are mostly covered in snow. We weren't sure if we wanted to fly all the way to Florida considering Mads has never flown and we wanted to adjust her on a shorter trip. We are also going to Texas in March, so it seemed a little redundant to go on vacation. Tim's captain, Shawn, has been saying we should borrow his trailer, so we decided to take him up on the offer.

MJ loaded up and ready to go!

Our very long rig.

ubiquitous leaving Temecula shot ($1 if you know what intersection this is)

Leo Carrillo SB in Malibu

Peaceful and serene, until 11pm when loud and obnoxious collegiates decide to descend upon the utterly empty campground and park RIGHT NEXT to us. I had to pray to God for forgiveness regarding my thoughts towards those people. They stayed up til around 2am; upon waking at 6am, they were gone. Demons? I think so.

Morro Rock (look at Squishy-face-so cute!)

This is the Kid Comfort III from Dueter and it is a nice ride for all involved.

the Mommy:

Bergon fam:

Tim gets really, really excited about large waves crashing into large rocks.

We drove up to San Simeon, and the weather that was supposed to last all week (rain) finally hit us. We took a short hike to the estuary and then read (I was finishing Breaking Dawn) the rest of the day.

our spot a San Simeon SB

we camped at San Simeo because it is the closest campground to Hearst Castle, the real draw for us to take this trip. Here is the castle from the courtyard:

the Neptune pool:

this is the "employee pool" blue mosaic and real gold accents:

back at the rainy camp, Mads practices standing:

"Hi Dada" (that is a Tim half-smile)

She did great in the pack! We had so much fun on our trip that we decided to extend it. We routed out a continued journey to Big Sur and woke up the next morning to sunshine and blue skies.

It was just our luck that January is Elephant Seal birthing all along the mid-coast. WE got to see thousands of seals and even some only a few days old. This little guy was stuck in a small stream and was quite annoyingly barking at his mother. Madeleine loved watching the seals and enjoyed hearing their shrill and guttural sounds.

an old school house in San Simeon heading North

our San Simeon campsite in the sun:

Mama & MJ:

Dada & MJ:

life loves:

Mads is gripping Tim by the hair here, she doesn't really know how to ride on shoulders yet =)

Stopping to see the Elephant seals, we had a snack. Tim had to close the door because the birds almost flew right in to take his sandwich:

I wanted to see if the bird would eat out of my hand, but Tim reminded me that I tell everyone not to feed wildlife, so I just ate the Doritos myself.

Heading towards Big Sur (Point Sur Lighthouse)

our campsite at Big Sur Campground (by the river)

the Redwoods by our site:

Madeleine enjoying the morning at the Bug Sur Bakery with Bongo.

Cutest baby ever; no, seriously...EVER:

rocks on the coast:

taking a little hike in the Julia Pfeifer Burns SP

at the waterfall:

yes, we did:

but only for a short and slow ride:

taking the tunnel to McWay Falls

In front of McWay Falls at the Brown homestead (Waterfall House):

At Pfeiffer Beach:

Back at the Big Sur Campground the next day, we let her touch the freezing river:

in the summer this place must be great for tubing!

Tim loves MJ:

He lets her do wild things like taste twigs:

baby lying on the grass as Mom and Dad eat In-N-Out on the way home:

We stopped in Salinas to see the John Steinbeck house; If I could build a custom home, this may be one of the choices:

On the return home, we stayed in Grover Beach, one of the "5 cities", including Pismo Beach:

At Grover Beach you can drive and camp out on the beach dunes. We decided not to chance it with a borrowed trailer and muddy conditions, but we did walk out to the dunes to enjoy the coastal view.

Sweet baby girl

We had a wonderful time and Madeleine did really well. She did get tired of her carseat, but the trailer was really the best. It was so nice to have all the modern conveniences yet still be "camping". I could definitely see us buying a fifth-wheel one day. Our sleeping on the ground days may be over =)

Love, Lauren

Madeleine's seventh month- January

Hey everyone !!

January 12, 2010

January has brought lots of new foods for Madeleine. She ate carrots, zucchini, butternut squash, mushroom ravioli, ground turkey with whole wheat penne and more. I still make all her food and she is nursing 4 times a day. This month she slept like a baby and didn't wake up at night, going right down to sleep around 7:30-8:00pm. She started vocalizing a lot more, though she is not interested in crawling at all. She does not like being on her stomach either. She did start standing fairly well, and we'll see if she skips crawling. A major portion of January was dedicated to a little coastal vacation that I will blog about separately. Other than that, just continuing to grow and be beautiful and precious. All the ladies in the nursery say she is happy and doesn't cause any problems for them on Sundays at church or Thursdays at CBS. Isn't she beautiful?

Love, Lauren

Pizza Night!

YUM YUM YUMMY!!!!

This actually happened on December 31, 2009, but I am trying to get some stuffed blogged here, and timelines just aren't working anymore.

Tim decided it would be fun to make our own pizzas; I agreed!

So we set out for Trader Joe's where we bought dough, tomato paste/sauce, and toppings.

Our pizzas were very unique and personal and they both turned out fabulous (Tim rolls dough better than I do though!)

Tim chose mozzarella with mushrooms and olives on white crust.

I chose mozzarella with crab meat, spinach and feta on whole wheat.

Here are some pics:

Tim rolls out his dough:

He makes a pretty good round:

My pizza is more, ummm......free form! (yea, that sounds good.)

Mommy & baby watch Daddy:

Daddy serves us a slice and Mommy enjoys TJ's festive ale!

Love, Lauren

Days On

When Tim is home, I usually enjoy just following him around like a love-sick puppy. We do everything together and are basically joined at the hip. But, when he is not at home, I usually try to get a lot done. Today was a full and productive day, but some things happened that really made it special.

#1: I used my calendar: Tim bought me a nice planner for 2010 (@Christmas) and I used my Marvy Uchida Le Pen markers to plan today. I usually do this, but since we've been on vacation on the coast, I got back into it today. It's amazing how just making a list of tasks helps keep me from procrastinating or side-tracking. I also took the time to pray over my day and ask God to bless it, or show me ways that He would have me change/augment it.

#2: I faxed paperwork in to save us money on our car insurance, mailed some returns, ordered a chin-up bar on Amazon, did some laundry, cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed the floors, and boxed up MJ's out-grown clothes and did my CBS Bible study. Pretty productive!

#3 I finished my first week of P90X- I was tired today, and almost didn't do it, but I did- and I already have some muscle tone showing. It is HARD though.

#4 Some really sweet things have been happening with Madeleine. She has started SNUGGLING! When she nurses or when I pick her up from a nap, or when we're just sitting together, she nuzzles into my chest and neck and sucks her thumb. It is amazing. She will also wrap her hand around my neck and grasp my hair at the nape of my neck- it is so tender and sweet. Another fun thing happened when I pulled out the seal mobile. On our vaca on the coast, we saw thousands of elephant seals up on the beaches to birth their pups. She was very taken with the yelping and guttural sounds from the seals. At the ranger station in Big Sur, there were these amazing mobiles made by Flensted. Well, the ranger needed to clear out the seals, we really wanted the butterfly one- which sent Madeleine squealing- but we got the seals for only $3.00- usually they retail for ~$35.00. Well, I opened it up today to hang it, and she screamed in delight. It is expertly balanced, simple and modern and I actually like that we have seals because now it reminds us of the trip and the experience of seeing the seals during our wonderful family trip. The third joy with her was dancing to Simon and Garfunkle- we clapped our way through a feeding to Cecilia and then danced and chased the puppies around she was laughing and it is so cute to see those adorable teeth poking through the top and bottom gums. Oh, those teeth are just TOO much!!!! Finally, I'm really amazed at how much we are learning to communicate. Today, I was going to my parents house to do some laundry (our washer is out until Tues.) and she started to fuss when I put her in her carseat. I told her, "Hey, no fussy-fuss, we're going to Nani and Popi's house. Nani and Popi's house." She quieted down and looked at me like she understood where we were going. It was very interesting. The same kinda thing happened when I took her on a hike in our Kid Comfort Pack in the meadow by our house. We were hiking when we saw a song bird, it was in a tree and had a lovely little "tweeeeeeeeeee,twee twee twee twee" call. I tried to find out which bird it was on the internet, but I am no bird person. Anyway, I pointed out the bird in the tree, signing "tree" and she watched it. I sang to it and it sang back. She made a little grunting noise and I did it again. Then the bird flew away and she followed it. This doesn't sound advanced, but she was in the kid pack which makes it hard for her to move her head from side to side and when she followed the bird, I felt her weight shift in the pack. She's definitely making lots of connections using me as the bridge to noticing things. I might point something out, but once she connects to it, she analyzes it and sometimes "talks" to me about it through squeals, shrieks, laughs, grunts or just "aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh". I found myself tearing up as we were dancing to music earlier realizing that one of my greatest joys in the world is being with her. I feel so sorry for the women who can't stay with their babies!! I would never want to be missing out on these sweet, sweet moments. She's growing up too, too fast. And March is fast approaching...*

It was a great day, and now I am going to read my daily reading in Leviticus...so happy I'm keeping up- skip a day and you're reading like 10 chapters =) I am also reading The Art of Racing in the Rain which Tim gave me for Christmas. I am really liking it. I haven't forgotten about my TTB posts, I just haven't made time to do any more. Maybe once things settle down at home, I've just got too much cleaning, decorating, playing to do.

Love, Lauren

*originally, I "planned" a very precise timeline for the next pregnancy. I have a wedding in April 2010 and one in January 2011, so the idea was to get pregnant in March, be able to fit into the dress for '10 wedding, deliver in December and work out hard for the '11 wedding. But then I remembered the reason God lead us to use Natural Family Planning (though we are not Catholic): it's HIS timing, not ours. So, when God leads our family and blesses us with a baby-it'll be the perfect time, and we'll be ready.

Gorgeous

I know ALL kids are cute... But...have you seen our baby lately!?!?!?!

tracydodsonphotography.com

Love, Lauren

MJs Sixth Month: December 2009

Madeleine is growing so quickly, and even as I write this, she is 8 months today!! I am a lot behind on my posting, but I will try to catch up!! I am still reading through the Bible and will do my Leviticus reading tonight- I hope you are all still hanging in there too! In December we were busy with celebrations, as our pictures will attest, but we celebrated Christ's birth most often and His redeeming work in coming to make a way for us to the Father.

Mads cut four teeth in December! She sat up on her own and even started waving (which I just read doesn't usually occur until 8-9 months-who knew!). The wave is adorable and it makes many people coo over her. She also started into solids in earnest. We tried squash, zucchini, beets, carrots, peas, avocado, butternut squash and more.

She moved to a four-hour schedule, nursing and eating at 7, 11, 3, 7 & still dreamfeeding at 10ish.

She has been vocalizing much more and loves the cats.

We attended Riley's Los Rios Ranchos Currier and Ives dance and dinner in early December with lots of friends.

I think the pictures will give you an idea of our month, so enjoy!

Love, Lauren

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