Evie's 28th Week

This week, Evie has more than doubled the number of states she's been in (from 2 to 5) and met the rest of her grandparents and great-grandparents.  We left on Friday and flew from Nashville to Denver, with a quick 40 minute layover, then Denver to Portland.  Then we drove from Portland to Battle Ground, WA to visit Abba and Grandma Pat, so Evie's 3 newest states are Colorado, Oregon, and Washington.  She was delighted with all the new sites in the airport and loved her perch from the Baby Bjorn.

It was a breeze getting through security with her.  I just had to walk through the metal detector and avoided in the invasive body scan.  They even let me continue to wear her in the Bjorn.  Evie loved looking around at all the people and their luggage, and especially the random canines that people were bringing on as companion animals.

She did quite well on both flights, though the first one was better since she slept most of the way.  She had gotten up at 9:30, which is an hour earlier than usual for her, and hadn't napped at all by the time we took off at 3:30.  It took her a bit to get comfortable, but she had a nice 2.5 hr nap on our first 3 hr flight.  The next flight she was a little bored and fussy, but napped some, jumped some, and enjoyed staring at the people behind us if Seth and I lifted her up where she could see them.  The descent into Portland did seem to bother her ears a smidgen, but that was the only ear-achey episode.

We drove to Abba and Grandma Pat's that night, where Evie entertained.  She had napped in the car and so she was pretty well-rested, enough to show off all her rolling over and standing up tricks.  We spent the night there and enjoyed catching up, seeing and hearing the details of the new home in Florida Abba and Grandma will be moving to in March, and hearing about their recent travels to southeast Asia.  Evie was delighted to see both of them again, and was enthralled when Grandma Pat talked to her.

After seeing Abba and Grandma, we met our friends Mia and Dave in Portland.  Mia was a fellow stage manager with me at UCI during grad school, and they also happened to live next door to us in Santa Ana.  They had their baby, Amelia, 6 weeks after Evie was born, so we enjoyed swapping survival stories and watching the babies play together.

I love Evie's princess look in the picture directly above.  We had a great time seeing them, and we're so grateful that Amelia was willing to share her toys.  Evie also got to meet and touch her first live cat, Sue Bee.  Thank goodness Sue Bee is used to babies and doesn't seem to hate having her fur pulled out of her head by the fistful, because before I could stop her, Evie was grabbing and yanking.  I think she likes kitties almost as much as she likes puppies.  Though I don't think they'd like her manner of petting.

After our visit with Amelia, we traveled down to Oakland, OR to see Gram, Grampa, and Uncle Parry.  Gram was absolutely overjoyed to hold Evie.  I've never seen Gram's face light up so much.  She and Evie chatted and played for a couple of hours before we needed to head to Roseburg to check in to our hotel.

On Monday, we went to visit Seth's Dad (Greg) who adored meeting Evie.  He has been in a nursing home for several years because of the advanced stage of MS, and when we arrived, the home had a group of carolers there, so several of the residents were sitting in the lunch hall listening to them.  That's where we found Grampa Greg, and so we sat with him and listened to the carolers which delighted Evie.  She made quite an impression on the carolers and the residents with her big eyes and smiling face.  

Yesterday, we went back to visit Grampa Greg and found him playing Bingo.  We stayed and helped play, and Evie charmed the other Bingo players.

Grampa Mayne was up and about when we arrived yesterday.  He'll be 95 on January 13th, born the same year as my Pappaw, and he's still kicking, so he got to hold Evie and spend some time watching her play.

It also snowed yesterday, so Evie has now seen (but not touched) snow.  Here we are outside Gram and Grampa's, with their beautiful mountain in the background.

Last night, we took Grampa Greg to see the Festival of Lights, which is a largish Christmas light display in a local park (similar to Starry Nights for those of you in Memphis).  Evie slept the whole time, but the rest of us enjoyed it.  

In case you can't tell from all the pictures, Evie seems to be teething some more.  She's constantly got her fingers or cookie (the yellow flower-shaped thing) in her mouth.  She's taking it much better this time, though, and seems to know how to self-soothe.  She's sleeping pretty well in the pack-n-play in our motel room, so the trip is pretty enjoyable.  Here are a few other fun shots I thought I'd share:

Sitting up independently (not a skill she has mastered yet, but we're close)

Playing in her bassinet at the hotel

Plastic cups are amazing!  And so are her big eyes!

Today on the agenda is taking Grampa Greg to Wild Life Safari.  It's one of my favorite things to do up here too, so we are looking forward to that.  Hopefully Evie will be awake and she can see all kinds of new animals since so far she's only seen dogs and a cat.  And maybe a sheep or two.

Another new and funny thing for her: she has started squenching (yes, I invented a new word) her nose at me whenever she first sees me.  Apparently when I smile at her, I smile and also wrinkle my nose.  So she now will squench her nose and breathe out of it at a fast rate.  It's pretty adorable and I will try to capture it on film.

Off to update Evie's Travel Map.