Well, it only took 4 years, but we finally figured out how to best spend summers in Texas…don’t. That’s right, this year we made sure all of our vacations were scheduled during the super hot summer. So here’s a quick run down of our schedule:

June: Ripken & Mommy took a quick trip to San Diego (more on this below)
July: Visit the Beebe side of the family. Should be lots of fun! Camping, boating, 4th of July and more!
August: Visit the Neibert side of the family. More fun! Hershey park, Little Buffalo, lots of family time and more!
September: Vermont. One of my clients is having a party to celebrate the launch of her product and it looks like we’ll be attending the event.
October: San Diego. This is my birthday present. The plan is to rent a small place on the beach and spend lots of time playing in the surf and sand.

Ok now for some Riley updates

1. Crawling. Last post Riley was doing the army crawl. This is still her fast means of mobility (except when she’s in her preferred Baby Bjorn) but very recently she started crawling on her hands and knees. We all cheer her on when she does this and she gets the biggest smile!
2. Teeth. She now has her 2 bottom teeth in. She still chews on everything she can get her hands on so I wouldn’t be surprised if more are on their way.
3. Solid food. well, she’s getting better at this but it certainly isn’t her favorite. I don’t think she likes to sit still long enough for the baby food. That being said, she does love these little finger food thingys. I don’t think she cares for the taste or texture and she can only get them into her mouth OK, but she sure does love grabbing at them!
4. 6 Month Check Up. Went pretty well. She weighed in at 17 lbs 15 oz (round up to 18 lbs = 90th percentile), 27 inches long (80th percentile). More vaccinations with pretty minimal crying. Doctor said she is early for crawling and early for teeth.

Ripken and Mommy in San Diego

Oh my did we have fun!! Here are some highlights and then finally some pictures of the kiddos.

1. Trolley Ride and Major League Baseball: I took Ripken and Ian (my friend’s 3 year old) to the Padres day game. We hopped on the Trolley to get there (I LOVE public transportation!) and was by far the best part of the day for the boys. All morning they kept asking me…”is it time for the trolley?”
2. Beach: we hit the beach twice. The sun wasn’t really shining but that was fine with us! Rip played in the sand, played in the ocean, collected some shells, called a seagull a ‘goose’ and then watched that ‘goose’ fly away with a bag full of food.
3. New Friends: Rip made lots of new friends. Ian, Claire, Gracie, Jared, Elise, Maddie. For the most part he got along great with everyone. There was a tense moment when Rip first met Gracie and announced ‘I don’t like Gracie’. After waking up a little and Gracie giving him a popsicle, Rip did change his mind and they played together very well. As a matter of fact one night they were playing so well they didn’t go to sleep until 10:30 p.m. And that was only after they literally passed out from exhaustion.

Overall Rip did fabulous and I couldn’t have asked for a better time with my son!