Lots of Firsts

So in the last couple of months, Lily has really been accomplishing a lot of new things! So I thought I'd post about all of her firsts from the beginning. All the ones I've written down and remember, anyway.

Feb. 11th - Her first real smile

Middle of March - her first shower (she loved it, much more than taking baths)

May 3rd - her first giggle

May 12th - First time eating rice cereal in a bottle

May 26th - First day at the beach -we went to Whidbey Island with her Lemmon grandparents

May 30th - Sat up without help

May 31st - Fell asleep in her crib by herself (she usually needs to be held to fall asleep)

June 1st - First bath that she enjoyed

June 1st - Ate rice cereal from a bowl for the first time

June 11th - first airplane ride (also first time being going to CA)

June 12th - first time in a swimming pool

June 16th - Rolled over all by herself

June 24th -She got her first professional photographs taken - she did really well too

June 24th - First time being baby-sat by a non-relative, and she did great! Thank-you Stephanie!

June 25th - Slept for a whole 7 hours at night (it's almost the whole night long!)

So, there you have it. It seems like she's growing in leaps and bounds over the last two months, and it's been a lot of fun watching her and helping her learn all sorts of new things. She's so alert and interested in everything in front of her, constantly reaching for everything too! She's our cute baby!!

The Rest of CA Vacation

So, I finished Wednesday through Sunday, and that leaves Monday through Wednesday-

Monday the 16th -
Ben and I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain - without Lily! It was our first time letting Lily be with someone else for so long. Needless to say, I was nervous, even though she was in the best of hands, my mom's. I was really nervous to leave, but actually, once we did go, I didn't think about it nearly as much as I thought I would. Which was good, cuz I wasn't worried.

We had fun at Magic Mountain, but not as much as we were hoping to have. The lines were long, which was understandable, but we were hoping to catch a break because it was a Monday. Also, it took forever just to get in, which was silly, because if they had had clear signs telling people where to go and what to do, it would have been much quicker. And lastly, at least three of the big rides we were really looking forward to had "mechanical difficulties". two of which we weren't informed until after waiting in line for 45 minutes to an hour. That sucked. But the rides we did go on were fun, and it was very nice to have a whole day to ourselves and feel like individuals again, as opposed to just parents.

Afterwards we went out to eat at Red Lobsters and came home around 10:00. A long day, but really enjoyable. And Lily did really great with Mom, which was happy. I feel much more comfortable leaving her now, and maybe soon I'll even get her an unrelated baby-sitter!

Ben and I at Magic Mountain :)

Tuesday the 17th -
We were going to go back to Magic Mountain and probably Hurricane Harbor too this day with a whole bunch of relatives, but a lot of people couldn't come, so we decided not to (for which I don't think I'll ever be forgiven by my brother!). Instead, we hung around Shannon's house, a couple cousins came over and my Aunt Sheryl too, and mostly just hung out. We went swimming again, though this time Lily took a nap, and later in the afternoon we all went to see "Horton Hears a Who" at the dollar theatre. It was a cute little film. When we came home we ordered pizza. Yum.

 
Anna and I swimming. She's getting so much older! She's 10 1/2 and it's always so much fun to hang out with her.

 
Lily was having lots of fun with her elephant after the movie. I was making it touch her face & making kissing noises and she thought it was hilarious!

Wednesday the 18th -
This day was spent mostly in packing and traveling, so, not so interesting, but we did go and see Brandon, my cousin who broke his back, before we left. It was good to see him and see that he was doing ok. Crazy Musick kid! :)

And that's basically it for our California vacation! It was a lot of fun, very nice to get away from Washington for awhile, and very nice to come home to Washington after a week of Bakersfield heat! Of course, now that Lily and I are back to our old routine of being at home by ourselves, both of us are pretty bored. So I'm going to have to start getting out and going to the park or something more. Lily really really likes being outside, it's really cute. She'll be crying and half the time if I take her outside she'll stop right away and start looking around and cooing. So we'll have to start doing more outside activities.

Sitting on the grass with her Dad. The outfit she's wearing is one of my favorites of hers, it's so adorable!

My mom enjoying being a grandma. So precious!

Musick Family Reunion

So last week we went to Bakersfield California for a Musick family reunion which was very sunny, very hot, and lots of fun. We left for it on Wednesday the 11, and got back this last Wednesday the 18th. It was Lily's first time doing lots of things, including her first time out of state and her first plane ride!

WEDNESDAY the 11th:
Lily and I picked up Ben from work at 1:00, drove to my parents (an hour long drive) and then left there about 2:30. After another 50 minute drive we get to the airport, where we rush through security and baggage, grab some food for the plane, and board the plane at 4:50 (about 20 minutes later than we were supposed to board, but that was a good thing because we were really rushed for time). Then we sit, and take off about 5:15, and it's a 2 hour 15 minute flight to Los Angeles. Lily sleeps through most of it, waking up to eat about the last half hour. We get there at 7:30, get our bags, get our rental car (don't even get me started about how stupid rental car agencies are! Lying little...) and leave LA about 8:30. After another car ride of over two hours (with 7 of us squished in a mini-van with 7 people's worth of luggage!) we finally arrive at my Aunt Shannon's house! Hallelujah! 

Lily and her Daddy on the plane. Of course, I held her the majority of the time so he could program! ;)

Thursday the 12th:
This is the first official day of the Musick Family reunion, but it didn't start until the evening with dinner and a movie, so we mostly hung out with family, and Ben and I took Lily swimming in their swimming pool. It was fun, more so for us than for Lily, but she started enjoying it after getting used to the colder temperature of the pool. I think she also felt a little unsafe when we were letting her float some (always with support, of course) and that made her nervous. But she got used to it quick enough to enjoy it for a few minutes. Then she fell asleep. :)

We went to the dinner about 5, where we saw mamy cousins, second cousins, and first cousin once, and twice removed! (Ask my Dad's cousin Jeannie about which is which, she's very good at explaining it.) Dinner was lots of yummy lasagna and all sorts of salads, and afterward we all sat down to watch "Enchanted." Some of us might have left early, but it was still a nice kick-off to the weekend.

Lily and Mommy in the pool.

Lily fell asleep while her Daddy held her.

Friday the 13th:
Wow, I didn't realize it was Friday the 13th until I just typed that. Ironic, considering... well, you'll see.

Anyway, this is the day we went to Avila Beach. It was so very sunny, and despite putting sunscreen on twice and spending a lot of the time in the shade, I still got a pretty bad sunburn on my neck and Ben on the backs of his legs. But Lily was ok. She basically slept the entire time. There were times she was awake to eat, and a few times she was awake with my mom holding her (my mom really enjoyed her grandma duties this week!) but that was it. Ben and I spent some time playing beach volleyball,, walking along the water (too windy to get in and we didn't feel like changing into our swimsuits and exposing even more white skin to the unforgiving sun), and helping my cousins dig a very big hole.

I mean, this hole was deep. My cousin Kenny said he wanted it to beat the Grand Canyon. They worked on it for a couple of hours, and by the end of the day it was over 6 feet deep. You can't quite tell in the picture, because it started out wide and then got more narrow, so it looks shallower because the ledge is technically part of the hole too. Anyway, it was fun. Took about 10 minutes to fill it back up again, and that was fun too.

The sad thing about the day(Friday 13th, I'll remind you), is about 30 minutes before we were set to leave, we got told that my cousin Brandon was going to the hospital because he hurt himself. We didn't get the whole story until later, but what happened is that he was climbing a cliff-thing and decided at one point that he wanted to jump into the ocean 40 feet below. He figured he would have to jump in between two large boulders to make it safely down, and well, he didn't. He hit one of the boulders on his way down and broke his back, literally. But fortunately he's not paralyzed, and when we went to see him before we left, he was already out of the hospital and walking around on crutches with a brace on his back. Everyone just said it wouldn't be a Musick family reunion without someone doing something crazy and getting hurt. Last time (ten years ago) it was my cousin Bear who got hurt, curiously enough, cliff-diving. You think we'd learn our lesson. :)

 
Lily laying on Ben's chest under an umbrella. Yes, she's very bundled, but it was very very windy and cold unless you were laying in the sun.

Ben, Josh, Kenny and Jenna in the hole they dug. They actually hit water and it started filling in the bottom foot or two.

Saturday the 14th:
This day didn't really start until about 1:00, when we all met up at the church building for outside games. Of course, Ben and I were burnt and not feeling great, and it was so so hot that we spent the majority of the time inside the church building just playing with Lily. Some of the outside activities included a rock wall and a giant water slide that the teenage boys (and maybe an adult or two!) ended up breaking because there were too many of them on at a time. But it was very entertaining for everyone. We had a BBQ dinner of hotdogs and salad, and then went inside for a talent show. I didn't get any pictures of the talent show, I ended up taking lots of video though with the video camera. We have a lot of very talented people in my family. It was a lot of fun.

 
Dimples!!

 
Lily has a thing with faces right now, it's really cute. This was the day we had to wear our family colors, so the Arthur Musick Jr. Family was all in red.

Lily with her great-grandparents, Lynn Musick and Arthur Hayes Musick, Jr. The reunion was for everyone related to his Dad, Arthur Hayes Musick Sr.

Sunday the 15th:
Last day of the Reunion! We all went to church at 10:00, and afterwards we had a luncheon in the gym ( we were very blessed to have the church buildings to meet in). While everyone was finishing up eating, we had a couple of people talk about their Dads and what they remembered most and admired about them. It was nice to get to hear some things about my great grandfather and great uncles that I didn't know, and also to hear things about my grandpa. I think my grandpa's really special, and it makes me sad that he has to deal with Parkinson's. But my grandma takes really good care of him (she's really special too) and I'm glad that Lily has been able to meet them both and hang out a couple times with them. Whenever my grandpa holds her you can tell he really loves her and that he's happy. It's sweet.

And that's all for the family reunion. Most everybody went their separate ways after that, though my family (Ben, Lily, and I, my Mom, Dad, Anna, and Josh) all stayed until Wednesday to hang out some more. But that's another post for later. This is already too long!

Memorial Day week

So we've been behind in our blogging, so it's time to play catch up.  We're hoping to get a few posts out soon.

My parents came up for Memorial day week and stayed with me and Emily and Lily and it was a lot of fun. We got to do some of the touristy stuff around Seattle and just spend time with my family.

 

The first day they were here we went to Snoqualmie falls.  It was nice, but pretty hot out.  We walked down with my parents, but they were too worn out to walk back up, so we drove to the lower parking lot and picked them up.

 
Lily & her daddy at the bottom of the falls

 
All three of us at the bottom

On memorial day we took the ferry to Whidbey Island to spend a day at the beach.  In typical Washington fashion, it was overcast, cold, and a little rainy, but no sunburns!  This was Lily's first ferry ride and her first time at the beach.  There were some steep sandy bluffs that people were climbing up, and sliding down on.  I decided to be adventurous and give it a try.  I ended up stumbling at the bottom and face planting into the ground. It was awesome!  We have some video of it, but it was on Daniel's camera.  I'll have to get it from him and post it.

The three of us at the beach

I included this one because Emily is so cute!
Lily doesn't look so happy though

My sister Katie who lives in Portland, and my brother Daniel who lives in Auburn were there and we got to spend some time together.  We each have a baby girl about the same age so it was nice to have them playing together and having cousin time.

Chloe and Lily playing together

 
Lily and Rachel with Emily

At the park Lily sat up by herself for the first time!  We're very proud of her.  When she first started, she'd fall over pretty easily and would lean forward a lot, but she's practically a pro at it now.

 
Lily's first time sitting up

And it wouldn't be a blog post about my parents visiting without some pictures with them in it.

It's not easy getting a picture with my mom smiling
I'm rather proud I got this one

The best part of the whole trip was that I got to beat my dad at mini-golf.  I'm getting that score card laminated!

 
All of us mini-golfing
Notice how I'm smiling and my dad's not!