Tuesday, October 8, 2013

The Great Pumpkin

Since Makenna's next surgery is (in)conveniently scheduled for one of my favorite holidays, we made sure to get a jump start on the Halloween festivities this year. Wait, who am I kidding? I start scheming about what to be for Halloween sometime in November (yes, do the math) and have gone on full out reconnaissance missions to find the perfect pumpkin patch in my adult years, sans kid, because I love this time of year and everything pumpkin so much. 

Office Halloween costume contests? Owned. Holiday Decor? Decorated.Trader Joe's pumpkin section? Forget about it.

So after silently disowning my husband who suggested we go to the local 'patch' in the mall parking lot (sacrilege!) we went on good recommendation to a place down in Rancho Bernardo and were so happy we did. We got to take her on her first hayride, pick pumpkins straight out of the patch and take her picture with a lot of funny shaped gourds. Boom! And she seemed to enjoy it. Especially the hay. . .she liked the hay.

Aside from the sweaty post-headband Bozo the clown hair do, I'd say the day was a success!

Hayride


Pumpkins just her size
A little out of her league






Missing her story time days







VIP Status

This past weekend we participated in our first Rady Children's Hospital Shamu and You Walk down at SeaWorld. While we joked that this was my mom's first 'race' she had ever competed in, it was even more of a 'cruise' than a walk with frequent stops to check out the marine life (and stuffed, fake marine life wannabes) along the 'course.'  The park was closed but they brought out some of the animals to keep the kids entertained, well, not so much our kid who was happy to play with her feet most of the time, but other kids, sure.

I've participated (and gently encouraged Mark to participate in) a handful of these types of events in the past but it was definitely an emotional moment for me crossing the starting line and hearing the announcer give a shout out to Makenna for being a 'VIP'- Very Important Patient, as I never would have imagined that we would have ever been on this side of it, especially with one of the littlest VIPs there. But we were so happy to be there and support the doctors that have done so much for our little goose, and for us since we know she is in the absolute best hands (her tummy surgeon has taken a personal interest in her and does research on her syndrome in his 'spare' time).

And a HUGE thank you for the donations in support of our team - we are so grateful and we hope you can join us for this fun event next year!

Shamu himself! (or herself!)
No Goose, that isn't your aunt
Flamingos!
Proud of our little VIP!




Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Summah Time


Now that summer is officially over, well by calendar at least because it's still a solid 80 degrees outside here, I thought it was about time to recap some of the summer highlights. Mostly because I've already forgotten 90% of what happened but I'll just make up whatever I can't remember so this post sounds a little more exciting. 
One thing I do remember was there was swimming, lots of swimming. We took a couple warm up laps in the Gparents pool to get her psyched for her first swim lesson this past week and the extra effort seemed to pay off because she seemed to love it. And by 'love it' I mean there was no crying and she half fell asleep on the back float portion of the class. Good thing this kid is a water baby because let's face it, she didn't really have much of a choice.

Carlsbad Waterworks - First class!
Back floatin' like a boss
Dip!
 She also made her first trip to the central coast to Nonna and Pop Pop's house to help Nonna recover from her knee surgery. It was a pretty quick trip but she snuck in some time to tickle the ivories while we were there and it sounded about as good as any music I've heard coming out of that piano so she's definitely a Salcido.


Back in July we were excited to welcome my cousin Tina's family all the way from Peoria, Illinois. After spending some time at my aunt and uncle's in Washington they all hopped in a (big) car and made their way down the coast to our place. She loved playing with her cousins and having a house full of kids to entertain her.  Luckily we were able to hook them up with some good weather and a stop at Legoland.  I think Makenna enjoyed it, or at least what she could see of it through the opening in her stroller.
The Nester crew
Meeting the cousins
Aunt Teetsie and Uncle Jerry
Lego boat race
Beach time with Uncle Jerry
Don't know what he has to do with legos, but he was there, so we took a pic with him
Cousins Catie and Libby (Proud Mom moment - first Roxy outfit! )
There was also some eating which has been fun. Like a true Italian she LOVES to eat, it's the digesting that needs some work. I don't know if you necessarily need the play by play because, well, you've seen eating before, but this series of pictures just cracks me up.




There was also just some run of the mill 'hang outside in your swimsuit and duck tub' type of afternoons.


We made our way up to the Bay Area to celebrate the wedding of our dear friends Katie and Vince. On top of getting to see all of our besties and their babies, we got to reunite at Santa Clara University. It's been a hot minute since either Mark and I had been back so it was great to celebrate the mass at the mission and cruise the campus for a bit before stopping by the 801 porch where we met.


And if Mark had been writing this post, which of course he wouldn't be, but let's just imagine, this part would have been first: Dubbie's first Padres game at Petco Park. While feeling a little low that the Chargers lost the morning game in the last 15 seconds and the Padres couldn't buy a hit, I think he still had a pretty good day.



And summer wouldn't be complete without a trip to the races. Makenna got the VIP treatment while hanging out in her sun dome on the hot Sunday afternoon watching the ponies, while a handful of people passing commented on how pretty jealous they were of her cool digs. But she did enjoy hanging out with her cousin Dom while her Momma picked the winners and her Dada squandered away her winnings with his picks based on actual "research.' Research, phooey.

We're already looking forward to a more sun-friendly baby and lots of time at the beach next year!










Monday, September 9, 2013

My favorites

There's a good chance I won't be winning any photog awards for my killer cell phone pics any time soon, but I thought I'd share some of my favorites to celebrate Dubbie's half birthday. Since a picture is a thousand words. . .I'll shut up now.

Enjoy:)
























We love our blue-eyed little Goose!