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Ethan is now six months old!  We’ve made it without damaging him in any visible way.  Woot!

We just experienced the infamous five/six month growth spurt.  Phew!  I’m glad that’s over.

Other than that, we are having a wonderful time.  Even when Ethan is teething and uncomfortable, we can always get a laugh out of him.

We have started solid food, which is a very messy experience so far, but still fun.

Tom and I are still working from home so that we can be with Ethan, although we recently started having a nanny watch him for a few hours twice a week.  So far so good.  I love that we can spend so much time with him.  He is so much fun to have around.  I love waking up to his smiling face every day.  I can’t wait for him to start talking.

He’s been sitting up on his own for about a month, which he totally loves.  He rolled over a few times last month, then decided to just yell at us whenever we put him on his stomach.  Hmmm…. We’ll see if he crawls, of just skips straight to pulling up and cruising.   The dude has some great balance.

Ok, enough bragging about my gorgeous, amazing, wonderful, boy.  Here are some pictures from the last two months.

So, Ethan is now four months old.  He’s just over 14 pounds and about 27 inches long.  For those of you not sitting in front of a baby growth chart, that is about 50th percentile for weight and 90th for length.

I’m still breastfeeding him and plan to continue until I get pregnant again.  Ethan is a very quick and efficient eater, so it’s actually more convenient to breastfeed.   I’ve learned so much these last few months and can’t wait for baby number two because I’ll actually know what I’m doing right out of the gate.

Every day he seems more aware and able to communicate with us.  He has been a joy to have around since day one, but he is especially fun now that he can sit and stand up (with a bit of help .  He seems much happier now that he’s more independent.  We found a carrier he likes, which is wonderful.  He’s not the type of kid to just lay around, and he isn’t big on daytime naps, so it is very helpful to have him in a carrier part of the day.

Here is a link to a few videos.

After ten long months of waiting (nine months, hah!), Ethan has arrived.

He was born, two weeks late, on December 6th at 12:17am.  He measured a healthy 8 pounds, 9 ounces.  I was hoping to have a home birth, but as it turned out I had to be induced due to the fact that I had been in pre-labor for five days (with no sleep) and my water had broken.  We were ready for that possibility, so we had a very good backup doctor ready.

Everything went very smoothly and he came out exceptionally healthy and as hungry as a week old baby.  Our biggest challenge was getting him to wait for my milk to come in, which he was not happy about.  Luckily, that occurred rapidly and he has been very calm and happy ever since.

It is so much fun to get to know this new member of our family.  He seems to be more aware each day and gives us new noises and expressions constantly.

Here are some pictures.

A photographer friend of mine did some maternity photos for us as her baby shower gift.  Here are some of my favorites.

The photographer is Olesja Mueller.   I was really impressed with how she captured this time for us.

As many of you know, Tom and I are expecting a baby in less than four weeks!  I have been very bad about posting pictures on this site. but I will be posting frequently from now on.  I have had a wonderful time with my pregnancy, thanks to a lot of good advice and a lot of reading.  I was disappointed in my initial experience with my Ob/Gyn (too many false positives and some unnecessarily stressful months as a result).  I currently love my midwife (Leslie Stewart), and my backup Ob/Gyn (Dr. Wu, head of Obstetrics and Glendale Memorial).  It has been smooth sailing since I switched over to them.  Here are a few albums chronicling the prenatal journey so far.

Baby Shower Pictures
My shower was more of a co-ed pool party.  I have been to so many showers in the last few years that I wanted something different.

Baby Ultrasounds

Belly Pictures

In August, we spent a week in a cabin up in Mable Lake, Canada. Mable Lake is about 5 hours North-East of Vancouver.It was so wonderful being out of LA. We learned some very important lessons on this trip:

1. Water skiing in the rain is COLD!
2. No one looks sexy on water skiis.
3. Every passenger of a boat driven by Arin Morfopoulos comes home with many mysterious bruises.

4. Never play Risk with Jessica Morfopoulos. You will be slaughtered. (Who can hold Asia, I mean come on!)

5. Cabins have septic tanks. Septic tanks occasionally become full and need to be emptied. It takes about a full week (the duration of our trip) to get someone out to empty a septic tank.

6. It really sucks to hike up to an out house at 4:00 in the morning, with an Ipod for a flashlight, even if your husband is sweet enough to come with you to protect you from man-eating out-house spiders.

If you want to see the pictures, here you go.

Some of you have asked me questions in the past about Scientology. 

I found a blog, by a Scientologist, that has some great, in-depth answers to many of the questions that I have been asked.  It also has links to many of the legitimate church websites.

Here’s the blog: Answering Questions About Scientology

I recently took a quick trip to beautiful Taos, NM to visit family.  Here are the pictures.

As many of you know, we recently traveled to New Zealand to witness the elopement of our two best friends.  Tom had the privilege of acting as the minister, and I, despite my very amateur skills, was given the job of photographing the ceremony.

We started the trip in Auckland and drove down to New Plymouth.  The wedding was held on a lovely bridge in Pukekura Park.   It was absolutely perfect.  Click here for the photos. 

 

After the wedding, we took the ferry to the south island, where we visited Picton, Lake Tekapo, Queenstown, Milford Sound, Haast, Franz Joseph Glacier and Christchurch. 

We did a whole lot of hiking, some horse back riding, jet boating, and sky diving.

If you’ve never been to New Zealand, it’s totally worth the plane ride (only 12 hours).  It is, by far, the prettiest country I’ve ever seen (sorry Switzerland).  The people are also extremely nice.       Click here for the South Island photos.     

        

So, Arin and Jessica will be “eloping” to New Zealand in May and my husband and I will be going with them.  Yay!  Here are some pictures from the bridal shower.

Fresh Air recently re-played two interviews that I found really interesting.  One is with Ray Davies of the Kinks, the other is with Belle and Sebastian front man, Stuart Murdoch. 

If you like either band, definately check them out. 

You may also want to browse through the Fresh Air archives.  There are some amazing interviews in there. 

There is a wonderful voter information section on KPCC’s website.  It has all the key data on the issues and candidates for the November 7th California election.

The site is at http://www.webboar.com/

I was really happy when I found this.   I try to research the issues before each election, but it’s tough to find good, non-biased information.

They even have a “choose a cadidate” quiz for governor.  I had already decided, but this validated my choice.

No more excuses for not voting.  Yay internet (and public radio)!

So, I am finally getting some wedding pics up here, after only 2 years! These pics are, obviously, Tom and I in May 2004 at Descanso Gardens.  I picked a few of my favorites from each source; professional, my father’s camera, and the disposable cameras we had on each table.   I hope you like them!  If you have any interest in any of the Christopher Glenn shots, let me know so that I can order them for you.

Professional Photos by Christpher Glenn

Dad’s Camera

Table Cameras

Photo by Christopher Glenn

Last night we threw a surprise birthday party for my dad. 

 

The theme was “the boy who never grew up�.  Here are the pictures.

In celebration of the 4th, I went to Seal Beach with a good friend and her son, Mike.  I took a bunch of pictures of him throughout the day.  Click here to see them. 

 

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Tom and I just recently took a little trip to Palm Springs.  On the way back we stopped in Jemet (woohoo!) for some Sail Plane action.  Other than the fact that I almost lost my lunch inside the little plane, it was awesome.  Here are the pics.

Last night Fox 11 news did a story on a friend of mine, Taron Lexton.  He directed a human rights music video that I’m sure most of you have seen called “United”.  The Fox story featured an interview with him and you even can download a clip from youtube of that “United” video.  He is currently working on more PSA’s for Youth that are really amazing.

There is a link to the Youth website on my sidebar.  You can see the United video there.  There are also links and info on Fox11.com.    I love it when good people get such great press!

Just some pics from Memorial Day.

The fellow next to the beauty in the pink tank top is my dad, Jeff.  Here are the pics.

I’ve been on a big scanning run lately. Here are some shots of mountains and flowers and other random stuff. Let me know what you think.

It’s been a crazily cold weekend here in LA. Arin, Tom and I took a little hike this morning in the snow, just fifteen minutes from home. Here are the pictures.

Here are the pics from the Tahoe birthday bash. I don’t really have anything to say about them, so here’s the link.

Jessica and I took a little detour on our drive back from New Mexico to visit the Grand Canyon. Neither of us had ever seen it, despite driving past it many times over the years. We forgot our camera so the pics are from a rather crappy disposable. Check them out here.

Back in May I visited my sister in Chengdu, China where she has been teaching English since last January. During my trip I was able to travel to Beijing as well, right in the midst of the May holiday. I haven’t captioned the pictures, but they are pretty self explanatory.

The dark haired fellow in the pictures in Leland, a close friend of my sister, who was also teaching English in Chengdu at the time.

The cute blond couple in some of the pictures, especially of our Great Wall backpack, are a Danish pair that we met in a hostel in Beijing.

The Great Wall section that we visited (HuangHua) is totally un-renovated. This was by far the highlight of the trip.

I found that we really take for granted all the opportunities we have here in the US. So many of the people I met in China wanted nothing more than to find their way to the states. They are really friendly and caring people. In Beijing, Chinese students will follow you down the street practicing their English. One evening when I was locked out of my sisters apartment, I had a very long and strange conversation with a security guard. He was so excited to practice the English he learned as a kid that he was reluctant to let me leave.

They are also very eager to take pictures with any fair haired tourist. You will see several pictures of my sister with random people. It was tough getting across Tiananmen Square with Jessica and the Danes in tow because they had to stop every few feet to pose for a picture.

It really is a different world. Here are the pictures.

I’m finally getting my pics up online for those of you who have been asking to see them. I’m starting with the most recent stuff. Last weeked Arin and I went on a three day backpacking trip in Yosemite. Click here for the pics.

Here’s the pics from our European honeymoon/ backpacking trip.

We flew in to London and took a train over to Saint Hill Manor in East Grindstead. To see the pics, click here.

Then, we traveled on to Belgium, visiting Brussels and Namur.

And on to Paris.

Then all over Germany ….

then to Innsbruck, Austria.

And our all time favorite country, Switzerland.

Lastly, we stopped in Venice for two days before traveling by train back to England to catch our flight home.