pink eye

Aria has pink eye again. and when i told one of my friends this, he jokingly said "she's got poop* in the eye!" i laughed, but then it occurred to me that some people might think this is how you get pink eye. well that's the bacterial version which may or may not be caused by poop, and is less common than the viral version. the bacterial version causes more puss and goop, while the viral version has a watery discharge. the viral version is related to the common cold.

to sum it all up: my daughter does not have poop in her eye. :-)
and if you have a cold, don't rub your snot in your eye.

*poop was not the word used...

shout outs

here's some shout outs! The grandma and pop pop one is for all four of you :-)

Grandma and Pop Pop: watch her face as she forgets who else she's supposed to say hi to!

Aunt Jennine: sometimes she says "there's Aunt Jennine's car!"

Tia Maria and Uncle David

Cousin Felipe

counting

our little counter, we just have to work on the perpetual-ness of it! (that and she likes to skip 2 for some reason, but she definitely knows what 2 means)

Labor Day Weekend

We had a really nice Labor Day weekend at my parent's Cottage. Here are some pictures from the trip...

Aria enjoys playing on the beach in the sand.

Aria takes a moment to relax with Daddy. Doesn't she look comfortable?

"Weeeeee, again!"

Pop Pop showed Aria how to fish (so cute).

We got on the boat to test out our fishing skills.

Curly Girls

Yum! Homemade icecream is the best.

camping

Three weekends ago, I went backpacking with a couple friends. it was the big schloss trail in western VA (i think the mountain range is literally on the border of WV and VA). a nice 12 mile hike, to a final altitude of about 3000 feet. I had been camping before, and hiking, but never both. it was fun, but boy was i glad to take the 25-30 lb pack off for good Sunday afternoon!

We got to the bottom of the trail on Saturday at about 11am. Got everything together, and set out. the trail is a big loop, with the first half mostly through the forest, not much to see. after about 7 miles or so, we found a good campsite, rested, setup our tents, made a fire, cooked dinner (freeze-dried chicken stew yay!), and went to bed. I like sleeping in a tent, it's like a fort! i played sudoku by flashlight until i got real tired, and went to sleep despite the cacophonous noise of all the insects and frogs.

loud is an understatement. i woke at about 1am to find that most insects and frogs go to sleep at some point too. the moon had come up by then and i was half expecting to see some scary weird animal silhouette prowling by my tent. i was disappointed.

we woke at about 7 the next morning, packed up, had a quick bite, and set off again. we were walking along the peak of the range at this point, with several lookouts while heading up to the peak.

the view of Big Schloss from a lookout about 2-3 miles away. Schloss is German for castle, and it really does look like the ruins of a castle.

we reached the top of big schloss by 11sh, and relaxed for a bit before heading down. here's John taking a catnap.

On our way back down, the path was only about a foot wide and had thick brush on either side. John was in front, and i was right behind him. we were moving at a nice pace, and then we heard the rattle. John froze, and we backed up. we tried to get a picture, but i had to enhance it a bit because of all the leaves. you can just make out a dark shape in the middle of the picture, diagonally. below that is a picture of the eastern diamondback rattlesnake for reference. the snake was about 3 feet long and 3 inches in diameter at its widest point. luckily, it was already heading away from us, and not coiled up. it was running parallel to the path so we had to make a wide path around it, hoping we didn't run into another one in the thick of the brush.

all in all, a fun weekend!

she's too easy, TGIF babbling from goofydaddy

after about a week of taking Aria to her new classroom, she still wants to go to the old one (it doesn't help that it's right next door). so instead of walking her to the room, I have to carry her. once we're in the new room, Aria's all business and puts her water and lunch in her cubby, then goes to play. today she gave her teachers hugs hello! I got two hugs, a kiss, and a "bye-bye daddy".

There are two children in Aria's class who are working on their separation issues currently. Aria is intrigued by this, and it has a calming effect on her. She kind of stares at them as if to say "what's wrong?" one of the kids gets more upset when i come in to drop Aria off because i remind her that she was dropped off and her daddy left her too. I feel bad everyday when this happens. She sees me and starts crying even more while looking at me and screams "daddy!"

back in April when we started putting her in daycare, Aria went through that to some extent. it's cool to see how grown-up and evermore independent she has become.

we have a set routine now, Aria brings a toy along for the car ride, and knows that it has to stay in the car when we get to school. when i say that it's time to go to school, she loves getting her shoes from the shoe bucket by the front door. then she'll say "Aria bring caterpillar to school?" and get him and then we get in the car. when we pull into the parking lot, she says "we're here!" and tosses the caterpillar into the seat next to her, and tries to take the car seat buckle off. she carries her water and lunchbag in to school. She's so easy! and I am glad for that.

Aria has a purse with a phone, keys, glasses, and some other things which she sometimes likes to bring with her in the morning. yesterday morning, she pulled the glasses out and put them on by herself. i had to snap a picture with my phone!

NY and Hershey Gardens

On our way back from Massachusetts, we visited my Aunt and Uncle in New York. they moved a little north of where they lived for a long time and i was a little sad to not visit their old house. I have a ton of awesome memories of visiting my relatives in that house. we had so much fun with my aunt and uncle, and one of my cousins and his family. after dinner, we went to the park nearby, and Aria loved running around to all the different slides and see-saws! no pics of that because we forgot the camera, and too bad, because when Aria was on a swing, she asked "mommy and daddy swing too?" so we did, and she thought that was hysterical! who knows...

That night we drove to a hotel near Hershey and headed to Hershey Gardens bright and early the next morning. we do have pictures of that!

Aria pointing at a butterfly.

Aria liked all the flowers. the video is her sniffing the flowers.

next post will be my hiking/camping trip. then labor day post finally!