Cast your vote!

Tomorrow (Tuesday) Dr. A will be having an amnio because she will be of "advanced maternal age" when Jellybean comes along. Boo.

But there's a bright side: we have the chance to find out the gender a wee bit early. Here's your chance to show off your amazing predictive powers. Vote early, vote often.

The McMillers Have Given Notice!

See ya, apartment!

We're all lined up on the house purchase:

• Received final loan approval? Check.
• Inspection didn't show anything terrifying? Check.
  
• House appraised to sale price? Check.
• All buyers contingencies removed? Check.
  
• Given 45-day notice at apartment? Check.

Close date is September 16th, we take ownership September 18th, and we're out of our apartment October 14th.

We'll have a month of overlap where we've got both the house and the apartment. We're going to use the time to schlep all our stuff over to the new place, go through years of crap, and do some minor repairs.

By the way -- this photo from the apartment's website is what we see off of our balcony. I'm definitely going to miss the pool.

Erinisms

Said with effort: "Oooh, eh-bee."
(Said when attempting to lift something heavy.)

"Mi-mi, Da-dee."
(Said when I'm in her way. Translation: "Excuse me, Daddy" )

Said with arms crossed across chest for comic affect: "Sooooooo!", as in "So, how's it going?"
(Just like it sounds: being funny.)

Said pointing at Steve our cat: "Seeb! No!!"
(I guess Dr. A and I tell Steve not to do things a lot)

Movie Night: Finding Nemo

I'm having a hard time getting my brain around this video. It looks like Erin is going on eight years old.

Note the Jiffy Pop. Dr. A says it was quite the center of conversation in the checkout line at Safeway.



Also of note: we had to fast forward through the scary parts in Finding Nemo. Seriously, they need to come up with a rating that's like sub-G or something.

Pizza, acrobatics, music

Friday night in Lafayette:

Walking around outside the pizza place.


Then more kid-oriented live music.

On Telegraph, Ur-ine for a Real Treat

The McMillers hit Berkeley today for a walk. Highlights include (but not limited to):

• More urine than you can shake a stick at. And I can shake a lot of sticks. It was early morning, before most shops had opened up, and before the street vendors had set out their hand-made hemp-and-bead wares. I guess it was before the daily hose-down.
  
• Crappy doughnuts. Berkeley, really: how could you?
  
• An amusing jogger wearing a sports bra, running shoes, and sheer pantyhose that went up above her belly button. That's it -- no shorts. And no, it was not a butt that needed viewing.
• The portion of the trip unanimously voted Most Exciting Disaster: A broken water main causing this huge river down like five separate streets. We're into natural disasters like that.

Wacky Times in the East Bay

That's right, nothin' but crazy shenanigans in Lamorinda.

Mount Diablo Challenge

For the past few weeks I've been thinking about running up the local peak, Mt. Diablo. It keeps sitting there, saying, "Hey, B, I wonder if you can run up me. I'm probably pretty fun. Check me out.". So, Sunday morning was the First Official Brian McFeely Mount Diablo Challenge. 20 miles, 3700 vertical feet. 4 hours 11 minutes. Four Clif Bars. Many salty pretzels. Two tarantula sightings. Booyow.

It's a big, squat mountain, and it was interesting to be on foot moving up it -- it felt just like they say, like moving up the side of a big, sleeping monster. Views were beautiful but smoke from fires in the state obscured the bay. Ms. A and Erin met me at the top and drove me home.

House pictures

We just signed a huge stack of disclosures today. We now know everything there is to know about California real estate law.

Shay-bing

Passing the buck

Brian: "Ooosh. Who farted?"
Ms. A: "Wasn't me."
Brian: "Erin, did you fart?"
Erin: "No, mama fart."

In Escrow, Yo!

We just had an offer accepted for a house in Orinda. The inspection is Wednesday. Keep your fingers crossed.

More details soon -- right now I have to go collapse in a chair by the pool.


"I know how escrow works!"

More photography by Erin

Looking up:

The world, just above the knee:

Toes. Now fuzzy:

My favorite of the group. Very modern.

"I hear the secrets that you keep...."

A few nights in the past week I've been woken up by the little voice coming from the other room. It still (and may always) elicit the instantly-awake-leap-out of bed-ready-to-race-to-the-adjacent-room-to-soothe response. The last few nocturnal chatter, however, were each one sentence, then silence, occurring sometime around 4:45 AM:

(Thursday night/Friday morning) "No! Mine!"

(Saturday night/Sunday morning) "Yeah? Daddy. Open!"

The kiddo talks in her sleep. I've always wondered what she dreams about.

Confession #1

Brian just headed off to his first foray back to PDX for work-related purposes.

We are not home more than 5 minutes before Erin is set up in front of the TV, watching Elmo, munching off a small plate of McDonalds fries, small hamburger, and milk.

Thank goodness his trips are only every 3 weeks.

Update: Well, she taught me. She eschewed the fries & burger and instead ate cherry tomatoes, noodles, and yogurt and quickly tired of Sesame Street and asked to color. There's hope yet.

Nurturing skills - still in progress

Eating In The Fourth Dimension

A Screaming Good Time

A Saturday Distraction

xkcd. So much to love.