Habari Gani? (What's the news?)

Hung out with somebody who is MUCH further along in her dissertation writing. Chapter 8 of 10 to be exact!

Okay, so I had to go to work yesterday, so it doesn't really count as a writing day. But if it were, I still would've hung out with Jean instead of working on my dissertation.

I picked O up from day care and took her to lunch at Fitz's. She had a nasty rash that day and it was really muggy. So we took her to the City Garden that night, which she LOVED. She played in the fountains and swam in the waterfalls. But, I left my camera in the car.

At her 1 year check up Monday, they told me she's now 60th percentile for height and 30th percentile for weight. Long and lean like her daddy and grandma. The doc said she probably got those genes and they'll stick with her. Lucky babe! She weighs 19 lbs 13 ounces, and is 29 3/4 inches in length. She doesn't crawl, but she scoots around on her bottom, and covers a lot of ground fast that way. You gotta keep an eye on her!

I've got great photos from her BBQ on Saturday, but they're big and I need to re-size them, and now I'm going to bed. Look for adorable cake-in-face photos and video soon...

Every Monday, my mother comes over and watches Ophelia so I can work on my dissertation. More precisely, my area statement, but that's just a bunch of mumbo jumbo, so saying dissertation is fine. Yet every Monday seems to come and go without too much accomplished. Well, at least without too much writing accomplished. So I decided to start a weekly blog post to tell you all what I do on Mondays instead of working on my dissertation. Plus, at least then I will have written something, right? And thus it begins...

#1: wandered aimlessly around Target and purchased a new pair of black One Stars, a first-aid kit, and a notebook. To get the creative juices flowing, you know?

I finally got around to posting some video of Ophelia on You Tube. I haven't posted video so far because I had all these ones that I wanted to edit first but, meh, here's some relatively recent stuff that's pretty funny and cute sans editing. At least for those of you who haven't gotten to be around O much, you can see a bit of her personality and charm...

Baby Girl's first birthday approaches. I can't believe it's here already. This year has been a whirlwind of drool, poop, squeals, smiles and tears. But most importantly, it's been the year I felt my heart burst on a regular basis with every magical thing my beautiful, amazing, intelligent, loving girl did and does. She gives the best headbutt hugs in the world, and she can't contain her absolute delight at anything she loves -- doggies, teddy bears, daddy, other little kids -- or hates, like almost falling or having dog food taken away from her. She's amazing beyond words, and has exceeded any possible expectations I could have had for a happy, healthy baby. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Just before the tri, we were in Reno. I had to attend and present at a conference (which went very well), so we thought we'd make it a mini-vacation. Bad idea.

It rained every single day we were there, except the day we drove to the airport. We planned on doing some hiking in Tahoe, renting bikes, running the streets of Reno...No. We spent a week inside a casino, where the blinking and buzzing and dinging numb your brain and you can never tell whether it's night or day.

We tried going out to the pool one day, but it rained. We went to Harrah's automobile museum, where they had tons of awesome cars and a pretty cool Ed Roth/Rat Fink exhibit. I got a sweet t-shirt. Ophelia talked to EVERY car we looked at. She's truly an Eddens and a Meyer. I fell in love the grills. Somethin' about those round light eyes and shiny metal mouths.

Mostly, when I wasn't at the conference, we spent our time at Circus Circus playing video games, which was actually totally fun. You can only gamble so much when you don't want to spend money and can't take a baby on the gaming floor, so House of Dead 4, Fast and the Furious and good ol' SkeeBall satisfied our need for a thrill. We also got to see Sam's sister Erin, who was in the process of moving from Tempe, AZ to Portland, OR. Pretty awesome. We don't get to visit with her much, and she and her friend Bethany stayed a day with us, with Bethany's dog PJ stuffed in a doggie dufflebag and toted along.

I'm thinking we'll never go back to Reno, except perhaps to pass through to Lake Tahoe. Reno is pretty much an armpit. I did at least get some cute pics though...