San Diego - Off to the beach

Beach fun in San Diego.

Mady enjoyed the beach but the water was still pretty chilly

That salty water tastes interesting.

Life's a Zoo

Its been at least 20 years since either Andy or I have been to San Diego. I remember visiting the zoo back then but not any details. It is a very hilly zoo and we did a ton of walking and probably only saw 1/2 of the zoo today. Mady enjoyed the gondola ride and despite only napping for 45 minutes on the way there was relatively happy the whole day. She crashed in the car on the way home though...tired little girl! Enjoy the pictures!

Leaving On a Jet Plane

We are spending a week in Oceanside (just north of San Diego) on vacation. It is our first flying vacation since Mady was born. We really just wanted to go somewhere warm with beaches and some fun attractions that are kid friendly nearby. So our plans are really to just relax and enjoy some sun. The only places we are planning to visit for sure are the San Diego Zoo and Sea World.

Mady's first airplane ride was fairly uneventful and painless (which is exactly what we were hoping for). She got to go visit the cockpit when we boarded early and got to sit in the co-pilot seat and see all the controls.

We were lucky that the flight wasn't full so we got to have a row of three seats to ourselves. I'm sure this will spoil us and that our flight on the way home will be completely full which will make it much more difficult. As it was, Mady took a nap on me for about an hour of the 2-1/2 hour flight and only really got antsy for the last 20-30 minutes.

Mady did a full survey of the condo's kitchen since it is not kid proofed, much to her pleasure.

We spent our first full day here just wandering around the Oceanside Marina which is next to our condo. We went to the condo pool in the afternoon and then out for a pizza dinner and wandered down to the beach to see the waves.

Magnuson Park - Playgrounds for both Mady & McKinley

Andy took Mady and McKinley to Magnuson park for a change of pace today.
Both she and McKinley enjoyed it but apparently the water area of the dog
park was closed so McKinley missed out on his favorite dog park activity -
endless tennis ball fetching from Lake Washington.

Play Ball!

Its officially baseball season again; GO MARINER'S. We went to the home opener and Mady wasn't a big fan of the loud and smokey fireworks during the pregame festivities but she had a great time other than that. Unfortunately the M's lost the game to the A's so it was a bit of a let down in that department.

Turning over a new leaf

For a while now I have been trying to convince myself that I should start posting to my blog again because just taking pictures of our life is not as much as I would like to be recording. So I've updated the blog and as of today am BACK. We shall see how well I do this time around. Here's Mady at Magnuson park on a sun-shiny day in Seattle:

Welcome Mady!

Madelyn "Mady" Ruth Finseth arrived about 4 days ahead of our due date (much to our surprise and joy) on February 16, 2009 at 12:12AM. She weighed in at 6lbs 10.2oz and was 19" long. I was so lucky to have a fairly quick and relatively easy labor. My first contractions were at around 4:30 in the afternoon on a Sunday. We were at a friend's house visiting and I announced to Andy and our friends that my contractions were 20 minutes apart (if anyone cared). Andy and I headed home soon after that thinking that this COULD be it but just the night before we had a false alarm so we didn't really think so. By the time we got home we were pretty well convinced it was probably the real deal because my contractions were ramping up and getting closer already. We wanted to get some food in me before heading to the hospital because they say you should. But my contractions were getting very intense by 6 or 6:30 and we were on the phone with our doctor who said we should be on our way to the hospital by around 8PM based on my contractions. We got to the hospital around 8:30 and although I had planned to hold out longer I was so ready for my epidural as soon as they said I could have one. So by around 9:30 or 10 (after two tries at getting the epidural placed correctly) I was feeling much much more comfortable and could now visit with our friends and family who had made their way to the hospital. At around 11:30 the nurse came to check my progress and was surprised when she found I was 10cm and she announced she could see Mady's hair. So the nurses scrambled and got our doctor there (thankfully she lives close by the hospital) and got my room ready for delivery. I started pushing at around 11:50 and by 12:12 AM Mady made her entrance into the world. It was all a very sureal experience and it went so fast.

My mom made us promise to take a on the way to the hospital picture...I was not a very happy camper by this time so the smile is very forced.

Things went so fast that the first time we got the camera out at the hospital was just after she arrived.

Proud papa with his little peanut on a beautiful sunny Seattle morning.

Getting dressed to leave the hospital...