An Unexpected Guest

I had a surprise visitor today

A tiny tiger who wanted to play

Into my kitchen he crawled with great speed

And his exploration, I dared not impede

From dishwasher to oven he stood with great pride

At which point I thought it best we go outside

There in the grass he wanted to stay

And found a small leaf upon which to prey

He sat...

...and he prowled

He gazed...

...and he growled...

Then for fear of the sprinklers we called it a day.

The End.

Things I've Lost...

My hair
After 9 months of healthy, pregnancy-hormone infused hair, I found myself pulling out string upon string of hair in the shower. The resulting baldness was mostly noticeable in the front around my temples. It's finally starting to grow back, so now I have lots of orangey-red inch-long baby hairs in really awkward places all over my head. I figure it will get back to normal riiiight about the time I decide to have baby #2.

My grad school weight
Not that I'm complaining, but all of my grad school weight (and then some) came off immediately post pregnancy. I thank the gestational diabetes diet for that fun post-pregnancy surprise! Before you hate me for saying that, I also promptly gained back 15 pounds after I stopped breastfeeding and started eating like a normal human being again. So, now I'm back in the same boat as most new moms. Still trying to lose that last 10 pounds.

My mind
Seriously? When does the whole "mommy-brain" thing stop. I've given up counting how many times I've done something stupid like "lost" my wallet and then discovered I was holding it. "Lost" my keys and then discovered them in my pocket. "Lost" my cell phone while it was in my other hand and I was simultaneously sending a text. It's ridiculous.

My cell phone
Speaking of cell phones. I became the mom I always said I would never be. You know, the one who lets her child do something they shouldn't just to keep them happy? For Luke, it WAS letting him chew on my cellphone. I tried to take it away from him while we were shopping in Target and he got very distraught. In order to keep the peace AND get out of Target quickly with my sanity in tact, I gave it back to him. The result:  water damage from baby drool. I spent three days trying to dry it out in rice (an Internet trick). It worked well enough for me to turn on the phone and retrieve most of my phone numbers. The battery, however, is toast. (I did, however, gain $70 by deciding to cancel my cell service and just use my work cell. Goodbye phone number of 10 years!)

My backspace key
Thanks to the rice trick for the cellphone, I accidentally got a piece of rice under the keyboard of my work laptop which resulted in the backspace key popping off. It is now taped on and is basically functional. Not sure I want to explain to OIT how THAT happened.

I did "gain" this guy though, which seems like a fair enough trade. :)

The Latest

Luke - 8 1/2 months

In the last 5 days, Luke:

--Debuted the nubs of his first 2 teeth (they aren't fully out yet, but I can see and feel the little white caps)

--Started "real" crawling, not just the army crawling he'd been doing for 3 weeks...

--...Immediately lost interest in crawling and started pulling himself up to stand whenever possible. (Now crawling really only exists to get him from one piece of furniture or another.) This new "skill" also necessitated a change in the mattress being adjusted to the lowest height possible.

Just waking up

I couldn't figure out what he was doing in the swing. Then I figured it out, he was trying to make the fish in his mobile "dance." Babies are nothing if not resourceful.

Last weekend was a busy one (aren't they all?). On Friday, we helped our friend Nancy celebrate her birthday with sushi and some dance movie action - Step Up 3. As to be expected, the plot was so-so, but the dancing was incredible! If you're interested, watch this clip. (Fast forward to around the 8 minute mark for the really awesome final dance scene.)



On Saturday, we dropped Luke off at his grandparent's house in the east bay, picked up Jeff, headed to the Peninsula to pick up Sommer and Mike, and then over to San Jose for a birthday/housewarming party for Mike's sister Jenell who is now married to Justin's college roommate Dave. (Yes, Justin and I are proud to be responsible for this love connection.)

We left the party a tad early so we could all hit up the new Will Ferrell movie (it's kind of a Perry tradition to see Will Ferrell movies together.) The flick was rated PG-13 and Jeff (who's 20) got carded. Mike laughed about this for the next 3 hours. Poor Jeffy. What are we going to do without him when he moves to Hollywood?

On Sunday we came home and then Luke and I immediately left again for a reunion in Sacramento with some of my dearest high school friends. Two years ago when the girls met up, they each had an infant, last year when we met we were all pregnant. This year, well, you can see below. Four friends, eight kids. Needless to say there aren't a lot of deep conversations occuring during these get togethers, but it's always so fun to be with these girls! Even though our gatherings are few and far between, our time apart never really seems to matter. I guess that's the mark of quality friendships.

The babies were great - it's the toddlers that are a bit harder to wrangle. Gives new meaning to the term "herding cats."

Luke and Logan

This weekend's agenda. STAYING HOME! The house is a disaster. Every outside light bulb is burned out, piles of clean clothes are waiting to be put away (we don't have enough drawer or closet space so we really procrastinate on this chore), floors need to be mopped (they've already been dusted thanks to Luke's belly), and drawers and cabinets need the much-anticipated baby proofing.  I've decided I can only do one of three things in the evenings - 1) Clean 2) Exercise 3) Laze around/Sleep. This week I chose option 3) and couldn't make myself put down the book "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. Two thumbs up.

Okay, there's the update! Back to work!

Vacation Highlights

Some highlights from our vacation last week to Newport Beach:

Visiting the "Original Frozen Banana Stand" on Balboa Island with Sommer. Our family LOVES Arrested Development, so anything remotely related to the show is pretty exciting. Apparently, this banana stand was the inspiration for the one in the show. Hooray! Or should I say, Annyong!

Taking Luke to Disneyland for the first time. I can't tell you how many times I have said that I would never take a small child to Disneyland - the stroller factor being reason numero uno. I figured he wouldn't get anything out of it and was okay with that, but he actually really seemed to enjoy it. We took him on Pirates of the Caribbean and he sat wide-eyed, looking from one side of the boat to the other the entire time.

Since Justin works for a company that has a membership, we also got to eat dinner at Club 33, the exclusive members-only club at Disneyland. (For those not "in the know," Club 33 is behind a secret door right next to the exit to Pirates of the Caribbean.) We went there for lunch last year and decided to try something different and do dinner. A-Mazing. Seriously the best food I have ever had in my life. One of the early courses (there were 5!) was rock lobster with a peach risotto thing. I thought I might die it was so good! The pictures we took just don't do the food justice, so I won't bother posting them.

Fast forward to later that night...we didn't pace ourselves correctly and had to run from Space Mountain over to California Adventure to make our fastpass time for the new World of Color water show. (Side note:  As a general rule, I DO NOT ride space mountain. Or any other roller coaster for that matter - except Splash Mountain. I LOVE Splash Mountain! - Anyway, this time, in a moment of weakness, I decided to go on Space Mountain with the rest of the "kids." I tend to write my own obituary - or newspaper headline - when I ride roller coasters. For example: "Young Mother Dies as Roller Coaster Cars Collide in Fiery Crash" or "Freak Disney Train Accident Kills One."  Anyway, things turned out fine this time around, but when we got off we only had 9 minutes to run through the fireworks crowd over to California Adventure to get our space in line for World of Color. (I mention this only because it was kind of exhilarating and it helped us work off the aforementioned five-course meal.) We made it and the show did not disappoint. It was amazing! It more than lived up to my expectations. It is unreal what they can do with water.

On Thursday we got to do a short tour of Warner Brothers. A good friend of our family is a VP at the WB and he took us around the lot. He had missed out on a special tour he was supposed to do for work, so we got to go with him and get a really behind the scenes tour of how all of the movies and tv shows are transferred from film to digital format for distribution on DVD or to the various networks. The coolest part of this was going into the vault of master films. Almost every TV show and movie Warner Brothers has made on film is in this vault. It is super cold inside because they have to protect the film and there are rows and rows of film cannisters. For this film buff it was crazy to see (and even touch!) the master copies of huge blockbusters like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. So awesome!

We also got to sneak in and see the Friends set, which has been set up as kind of a mini-museum near the prop department. They let us sneak in between tour groups, so we only had about a minute to pose and snap some pics. Last year was The Office, this year the set of Friends! Random cool stuff always seems to come up on these trips.

Later that night, part of our group went with our Warner Brothers friend and the rest of us decided it would be a good idea to head back to our Newport villa with Luke. On the way home we decided to take a detour and swing by Beverly Hills to take pictures of Luke (for obvious reasons). Along the way I happened to mention that I had always wanted to go to Torrance High School. It is not only the school that doubled as "West Beverly High" in Beverly Hills 90210, but it also doubled as Sunnydale High, the high school from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which happens to be one of my favorite TV shows ever. (You'll either understand this obsession or you won't. It's kind of a cult fave.)

From wikipedia regarding Torrance High School:

Torrance High's unique architecture and relative proximity to Hollywood make it an ideal location for major television programs and motion pictures. Among its credits:

• In TV, Torrance High served as the facade of fictitious West Beverly High School in the Fox Network series Beverly Hills, 90210 and in the CW's current spinoff, 90210; as Sunnydale High School, the alma mater of Buffy Summers in the WB Network series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer; and as a location for the short-lived Fox Network series Skin, and currently is the filming location of the hit NBC drama Medium.
• The movies saw Torrance High used as the high school setting for the Freddie Prinze, Jr. movie She's All That. Torrance High also played a prominent role in The Wild Life, Not Another Teen Movie, Bring It On, Whatever It Takes, Cursed, Wild Things 3, Bruce Almighty, The Hot Chick and Less Than Zero. In 1984, a documentary entitled All American High was filmed over a period of a several months by Keva Rosenfeld.

Sommer saw that Torrance was on the way back to Newport from Bev Hills, so we decided to live my dream! At first I felt a little guilty because it was getting kind of late and I didn't want to keep Luke up too far past his bed time, but...I chose to be a bad mom and take fun pictures of my son at this famous location. The high school is huge, and pretty well-secured. We lucked out and band practice was going on, so we were able to get into one of the parking lots and walk right onto campus. The sun had almost set, so the school was kind of eerie. It had a very vampire-esque feeling. (Ha ha.) I am really glad we stopped. My sister and brother in law are the best for humoring me!

 

Other highlights:  We went to the beach and Luke enjoyed playing in the sand. Luke also enjoyed eating the sand. (He didn't attempt until we were almost ready to leave. I turned my back for a second and BAM! mouth full of sand.) You can see him contemplating the sand in the picture below.

I left a lot out, but this is already long enough. Suffice it to say, we had a really great and relaxing time. This Perry vacation was one for the books!

 

Past Perry Vacations:
2004 - Disneyland and Universal Studios
2005 - Grand Canyon and Las Vegas
2006 - Costa Rica

2007 - House Boating at Lake Shasta with the Nelson Fam

2008 - Kauai (minus Som and Mike who were on their honeymoon)

2009 - SoCal - Disneyland, visit to The Office set

2010 - Newport Beach and beyond

2011 -  TBD!

Luke Dancing

It all started with one of those greeting cards that plays music. My aunt bought Luke a card that played "the Hamster Dance." He really liked it, so we played it for him all the time. Eventually he chewed the card to pieces, so we bought another one. My dad even downloaded the song as the ringtone for his phone - we soon found out that Miley Cyrus has the same song for her phone in her movie, which is just a random side note...don't ask how this fact was discovered. Anyway, we play it for Luke all the time and he gets really excited. There's also a youtube video with a bunch of crazy hamster dancing around. I think it's a horrible seizure-inducing video, but he still gets to watch it all the time when I'm not around. He hadn't heard the song for a few days because we're on vacation, so we played the video for him yesterday and this was the result.

It looks like my mother-in-law is bouncing him around, but that's all him. Lord help me!

A TRI-ing experience

(yes, I made him a shirt that says "my mom tri's")

I decided to take up triathlons again. If you've followed my blog for a few years, you may remember that after my running phase I started to get into tri-ing. I did a couple sprint distances, then I started graduate school and then had Luke, so now I'm finally in a place where I want to start training again. As many of my mom friends can attest, it is HARD to make time for exercise. I set my alarm for 5am everyday so I can squeeze in a short workout, but I consistently hit the snooze button for 30-45 minutes before I HAVE to get in the shower. With that option out, I try to do stuff after Luke goes to sleep, but by 8pm there are dishes to be done, laundry to be folded, and toys to pick up - and let's face it, I'd be in bed by 9pm every night if I could! Justin and I were trying to take turns going to the pool, but they recently started closing it early, which makes that impossible! And we cancelled our gym membership a couple of years ago to save money. Suffice it to say, working out is hard and I need something to motivate me. I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to do a triathlon relay with my Aunt. Originally it was supposed to be Justin in the swim, Aunt Pat on the bike, and me in the run. Justin ended up being scheduled for work that day, so I agreed to do the swim and the run. I am by no means "in shape" right now, but I figured I could do both events - even if I wasn't very fast. I usually swim about 3/4 of a mile in a workout and had just done a mile+ a few days before, so I was pretty confident that I could do 1/2 mile open water swim with no problems. When I arrived at the recreation area and watched them set out the buoys, I quickly remembered that a 1/2 mile in open water looks very different than 33 laps in the swimming pool. Halfway to the first buoy I thought I might die. Or have to get pulled in by one of the kayaks. Fortunately, by the time I hit the first buoy I was over the proverbial wall and  able to push through to the finish and run through the transition. (I was so thankful I didn't have to do the bike portion this time around!) The run was good for the first two miles, not fast by any stretch of the imagination, but manageable. By the time I got through the turnaround and was heading back to the finish I was hot, tired, and my legs were chafing, so I decided to suck it up and do a little run/walk combo to finish out.

(pre-race)

Overall, we weren't last, which was my goal! My aunt pushed through and did an amazing job on the bike in her first competitive bike event! And in the end, there were several people behind us, so YAY!

(post race)

My co-workers have all decided they want to get in shape, so now everyone is training for the See Jane Tri triathlon on September 25th. Six of them are planning to form two relay teams and two of us are going to do the whole event. We're all excited and it's fun sharing stories of our training! Here's to better health and fitness for all!

Orange and Black

I can't believe it is already July! Seriously, where does the time go? We had a great alumni event a couple of weeks ago and I feel like I still haven't fully recovered. (A four day weekend helped things considerably though!) Now that the event is over, our office is focused on packing! We move to our new, temporary office next Monday, which means all of our boxes have to be packed and ready to go before we leave on Friday. Our office is filled with florescent orange moving crates like these:

Pacific Alumni Weekend 2010 Retrospective:

My family celebrating our "Tiger-ness"

Work friends

(This was around hour 13, so we were all a little over it)

But....we did get to leave around 9:30pm, which is WAY earlier than we've ever gotten to leave before! 

Several of us stayed to enjoy the alumni dance party and the fruits of our labor!

(And yes, I am SO hardcore that I make the I love you sign instead of devil horns)

Enjoying the fabulous sounds of Donnie & the Wayrads

The Alumni staff and our PAW student workers on the last day

(It always feels like the end of camp!)

Next year's alumni weekend will mark a significant reunion milestone for ME. 2011 is my 10 year COLLEGE reunion! I still can't fathom that I've been out of school for that long!

Happy Thoughts

This is the busiest week of the year at the alumni office. We have our big 3-day reunion celebration this weekend and no matter how well we prepare in advance, the last week is always intense. So, with that in mind, I thought I'd spend a few minutes reflecting on things that make me happy this morning. Here they are (in no particular order):

Starbucks Chai Tea Latte

Blowing bubbles

This color combination

The book "Knuffle Bunny" 

Swimming laps on a June evening

Oh yeah, and this guy :)

What's making you happy today?

June

Here's a recap of June so far:

We went to our cousin Johnny's high school graduation party in Watsonville where Luke met baby Audrey for the first time and the boys got to enjoy some fun time in the pool. Along with Justin's parents, we stayed the night at Seascape in Aptos as a little pre-birthday celebration and enjoyed a little bit of time on the coast.

On my actual birthday, Justin encouraged me to take the day off from work to celebrate. I've never taken my birthday off before, and found that it actually made the day really special - like a holiday! We drove over to Sausalito and met Sommer for lunch at Scomas on the water. We walked around town, got mistaken for "real" sisters in a kid's boutique, and enjoyed a couple of hours together before heading home and meeting up with my parents for dinner in Stockton.

A Sommer Perry Nunan original

I also got my new cruiser bike, took dorky pictures with balloons, and had Luke model my new birthday pillows.

I also got a couple of other decorative type things that I've been wanting for ages; and finally, FINALLY got pictures in some frames and hung on the walls. All in all, a great birthday week celebration!

Last weekend we went to our friend Bella's 2nd birthday party at an indoor kid's gym in Walnut Creek. Luke was a big fan of the ball pit and the giant ball.

"How you doin?"