Tatiana was sitting in the backseat with her, and Calista would put the coat over her head for a few seconds, take it off, and laugh hysterically. Today she started playing again, using a towel in the kitchen. It was one of the cutest things I have ever seen!
In the DC area, we get Veterans Day off. We went to work on Monday, then had the day free on Tuesday. Kinda weird, but I am not complaining. We took the opportunity to explore a National Wildlife Refuge on the Chesapeake, called Eastern Neck, that we had not been to before. It's on an island that is visible from the Bay Bridge, but requires at least 45 minutes of driving beyond the bridge to get there. There was a very nice visitor center in an old hunting lodge, and we hiked a series of short trails. Bright sun was out much of the day, but there was a cold wind. We had some pink "bearpaw" mittens for Calista. We thought she might not like having them on, but she seemed to get a kick out of them.
Calista turned 9 months this past Tuesday. She has been doing lots of new things and is generally very happy these days. She is crawling around like crazy and exploring distant corners of the room. She has learned to clap, and gets very excited when she sees the cat. She's also eating quite a bit of "solid" food, and can manage to get cherios and other small items into her mouth. She can also pull herself up to standing using the couch, side of the crib, or the sliding glass door.
We spent the weekend in western Maryland, staying in a small rental house with a few friends. The colors were at their peak, and weather was perfect - blue skies and warm temps. I had a cross country meet on Saturday, so I headed out in the afternoon when the meet was finished, joining the others who had arrived on Friday. We hiked Sunday at Coopers Rock State Forest in West Virginia. Monday on the way home I did an 18 mile run along the route of the Tuscarora Trail near Hancock, MD. This particular section is mostly flat and along narrow country backroads and the C&O Canal towpath.
turn around. She started crawling last week, and is now zooming all around the downstairs . . we still need to do some serious "babyproofing" of the house, including getting gates. Today we finally got around to putting our china in the cabinets. We packaged it up last fall during the addition process, and were waiting to unpack it because we were considering getting a china cabinet or sideboard for near the table. It looks like that's not going to work well in terms of available space . . . anyway, while unpacking we put Calista in one of the empty boxes and she loved it.
ad crawled up to the glass door which leads to the porch, and the cat was on the other side (Keisha spends much of her time out there now). They were looking at each other through the glass. We put a few more pictures in the "7 months" album on Picasa.
Wow, it's been over a month since I put up a new post. Things have been busy for the past 2 weeks. I started back to work on August 15th, and we promptly went camping for the weekend with my parents, staying at a National Forest campground in West Virginia near the iconic Seneca Rocks. Calista started with day care a little over 2 weeks ago, and we are very happy with how things are going. She enjoys playing with the 2 other children and her provider is really good.
It would be fun to actually go to Alaska again! I have been working on "trip reports" from the big western trips that I took in the early part of the decade. These are in the spirit of my AT journal, but without the embedded images - too much work to put in all the pics and get the layout to work correctly. I added lots of links to pictures of the places I visited, mostly other people's pics, since I did not have a digital camera at the time. The pic shown here is mine though - the sign is at the southern end of the Cassiar Highway in British Columbia.
Calista's 6-month birthday was yesterday, July 28th. She is getting very active, and it seems she will be ready to crawl soon. We went camping last weekend at Elizabeth Furnace, in the George Washington National Forest just west of Shenandoah. This was Calista's first 2-night camping trip. We camped with friends Christel and Nathaniel, and did some hiking and swimming. Calista enjoyed her first ride in the baby backpack, and even fell asleep in it.
Calista had her first taste of "solid" food in her high chair yesterday. It was rice cereal mixed with milk, so it's not really all that solid. She was very funny about it -- seemed interested in the food and the taste, but insisted on grabbing the spoon and would not let go. We had been warned by a friend at church that if 10% of the food stayed in her mouth we would be doing well . . . and against that standard I think we fared quite well.
delayed for a while to wait for the storm to pass. I thought of the many
times I have been in a shelter along the trail while a heavy rain soaked the woods . . and the times that I did not make it to shelter before the rains came pounding in, and I have ended up with soaking socks and shoes. I ran through Greenbelt Park after the rain slacked off, and on the way back a rainbow appeared in the northeastern sky.
It's been almost a year since I finished the Appalachian Trail by hiking to Roan Mountain (I am pictured at right on the exact spot where I finished). I have yet to bring Calista out on her first AT hike, and in fact I have not been on the AT at all since last June. It's been a busy year! But I have been working on a journal of my travels. The journal consists of a description of each day of hiking, along with photos, elevation profiles, mileage totals, and maps. I might be adding to it over the summer (I just read about some new ideas for creating computer-based trip journals in Backpacker magazine), but I view it as essentially complete. So . . check it out if you are interested.
We have settled in to the summer phase of Calista's first year. I am taking care of her during the day while Tatiana is back at work. Things are going fairly well. I have been out running with her in the stroller a few times, and have made a couple of trips out to the store, but mostly we hang out at home. I am taking an online course with American Museum of Natural History, so I work on that while she is sleeping or otherwise occupied.
Calista is 4 months old today! We had beautiful weather, and we took lots of cute pictures, which are posted in a new folder. Not much other news to report - see yesterday's post for the updates!
Things are going well here in Greenbelt. We continue to enjoy our time with Calista, and have many new experiences with her. The first week of May we went up to New York City to visit various members of Tatiana's extended family. Calista met several of her great-aunts and uncles, plus her great-grandmother. This past weekend (Memorial Day) we were in Chincoteague again. Calista had her first experience of toes in the sand and even (briefly) in the water at the beach. 
We have continued to take pictures each week, but it's been hard to update the blog recently. Calista is healthy and seems to be enjoying life most of the time. She was nearly 11 pounds at her last doctors visit, a couple of weeks ago now. She enjoys sitting in her rocker and kicking at toys that are hanging on it. She is starting to laugh a little, although she can't quite get the sound.
We had a great time touring around southwestern Virginia and southeastern Kentucky on spring break. The primary destinations of the trip were Cumberland Gap, a historic site where settlers found passage across the mountains, and Big South Fork, a rugged and wild river along the border between Kentucky and Tennessee. We stayed most of the time at state park lodges, but we managed to venture out on our first camping trip at Big South Fork. We spent three nights at Pine Mountain State Park, where we had a great view of a forested ridge and valley from our room. We also spent a night at a Kentucky park called Buckhorn Lake. Pictures are posted here.
Calista is 6 weeks old today! She is starting to show a lot of expressions, including some smiles! We figure she is probably about 10 pounds, after a 9 pound weigh-in at the last doctor's appointment. Some new pics online in a new folder: http://picasaweb.google.com/jausema/CalistaAtSixWeeks
We made our second weekend excursion with Calista this past weekend, traveling to Blackwater Falls State Park in West Virginia.
OK, so it's technically 4 weeks, but Tatiana says that's considered a month. Seems to me that if you say that 4 weeks =1 month you end up with 13 months in a year . . .
Not a very creative post title, but it's late. We made our first weekend excursion to Chincoteague with Calista, this weekend, and arrived back home recently. Had a good trip. These picture is taken on grandma and grandpa's couch in Chincoteague. Thanks to friend Natalie for the really cute bear outfit! More new pics on the Picasa site.
I expect we will be dealing with lots of other stains in the coming months, but this one is positive -- I stained the deck a few weeks ago when we had some good weather. Still needs some touch-up, and I did not have time to do the inside (porch).
All of the work on the house was really a precursor to this! Calista Laurel was introduced to the world on January 28th. We came home from the hospital today, and are enjoying settling into our new world. Baby Ausema has been showered with attention from Grandma and Grandpa Bareis, Uncle Tyson and Aunt Sarah, and Uncle Mike and Aunt Susanna. We have posted a bunch of pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/jausema/Calista. There will be more pictures later this evening - I am waiting for the camera battery to recharge.
A couple more photos to show how things are looking inside the house. This is very much a "work in progress" - we have nothing on the walls yet, and we need to sort through lots of office supplies . . and we are still using the old "K-mart special" table that I purchased when I first moved into my own apartment.
Some people have been giving me a hard time about not updating recently. It seems harder to find obvious changes to document these days . . we have been doing more work on the nursery but we are waiting until we have the curtains up to post another picture. I also stained the deck on Saturday, but I have not taken a picture yet . . maybe tomorrow, if I am home before dark.
We have been doing lots of work this week, but it's harder to capture progress in pictures now. The nursery is almost ready. We have all the furniture together and arranged, but we still need to do some organizing.
