Chris & Paula: September 2007

I know its hard to believe. Its been quite a summer and after nearly two months since my last update, I'm not even sure where to begin. Let me first say, we've been busy...so that is my excuse.

Chris' sabbatical was a big success and we made the most of every single minute of it. As you may know from our picasa page we spent nearly three weeks traveling through Northern California (plus mammoth) and Southern Oregon. If you haven't seen the photos check out http://picasaweb.google.com/pschwalje We may be completely crazy b/c we took our 7 month old and our dog...but we had a great time and wouldn't change a thing.

After that, we spent about two and 1/2 weeks at home...recovering and doing house projects including painting our kitchen and family room. Those days flew by and it seemed like we barely made a dent in our to-do list.

Then we headed back east to visit our friends and family. What a trip?! I know I speak for Chris as well when I say we wished we could have stayed longer. We thought two weeks might have been too long, but at the end it still felt like we barely touched the surface...I will be posting pictures from this trip on picasa in the next couple of days.

A few days after returning we decided to head to San Diego, California to see more family and enjoy the beach for a couple of days. We had planned this trip for labor day, but moved it up due to some flooring issues that had to be fixed the week of Labor day. Anyway, it was a lot to return and leave again, but SO worth it. Chris took me on my first boogie board and Riley made her first trip(s) into the ocean. She loved the waves, but wasn't so sure about the chilly water (which by the way was at record highs that week). We're from Arizona...we don't really do cold.

We came back, I played in a soccer tournament in which my team took first place...yahoo!!! And then we moved into a hotel for a week while they fixed our floors. We decided to make the most of this and stay in one of the valley's resorts...with its 8 story water slides. YAHOO!!! In between checking on the house, we floated on the lazy river and enjoyed the wave pool.
After all this, we had one last week at home before Chris returned to work. Those days went by so fast. But we really had such a good time...it was such a wonderful opportunity.
We finished off the sabatical by making a trip up to Sedona to celebrate our anniversary. We had a nice lunch and went up to Junipine to take some pictures and show Riley the beautiful place we got married.

The day before he returned to work, Riley caught her first cold...which we then caught. This made for a slow first week, but now we're all up and running.

Now about that Riley...who really is the highlight of our life and our stories...She is growing up so fast. She's up to so much...In the past month, she got her first tooth (it's still only about 1/2 way in), her first cold and took her first steps. She's been walking around furniture for a while but about 3 or 4 weeks ago she started some 'free-walkin' which is exactly what it sounds like. She'll walk a few feet and plop down on her behind. And let's just say there's no motivation like a little four legged creature named Dazzle or anything electronic. The majority of our "Nos" have something to do with Dazzle..."No Riley, don't kiss Dazzle back." "No Riley, you have to eat baby food, not the dog food" "No Riley you can't take a bath in Dazzle's water bowl". "No Riley Dazzle doesn't want you to pull on her ears or ride her like a horse" :) Or "No Dazzle, Riley is not your ice cream cone."

Let's see what else can I tell you about this kid? I'm convinced everything she does is so amazing like no one else has ever done it...like she claps and does high five and waves and shakes her head no (only she does this even when its not at all meaningful). Oh and she likes to carry things around in her mouth when she crawls...we're not sure if she thinks she is a dog or is just smart (you know frees up her hands to do other things). She can crawl up the steps (but of course we don't let her :) Oh and my favorite new trick is that she puts her toy cell phone up to her ear and talks on it. And she brushes her hair...of course, the bristles are often facing the wrong way, but it is cute nonetheless. Oh yeah, and she most recently learned to pet Dazzle...for real...I think from watching us.

Ok, so this is a long update, but I'll be trying to shoot for more frequent shorter updates going forward.

My creatures (Dazzle & Riley) are callin' so I have to run for now, but we hope everything is going well in your worlds and we'd love to hear from you too.

Paula & Chris