Cheerios is good food.

Well the boy has moved up from baby food to more substantial fare such as Cheerios, squash pieces, sweet potatoes, etc. Feeding him his baby food has gotten very difficult. He spits it in your face then if you aren't quick enough, he'll grab the container, shoves his fist in and smears it all over. He'd really rather just do it himself, thank you very much!

Sometimes it doesn't always make it all the way in:


Why are you laughing at me Dad?



Another thing I find odd and amazing. Jamie sits and "reads". He'll grab a book, sets it in his lap and then turn the pages and look at the pictures. I find it so bizarre that a seven month old would and actually can do this.

Wintergreen trip

We went up to Wintergreen this weekend to visit Christine's aunt and uncle Susie and Terry. A great time was had by all. First up was a short hike off the Blue Ridge Parkway to Humpback Rocks. Here we are a the top. With Jamie in the backpack, I wasn't allowed to go near the edge. It's quite a ways down. It was at this spot almost exactly a year ago that the first stranger commented to Christine that she looked pregnant. The stranger was completely dumbfounded that Christine had just climbed up there. (it's pretty steep)



After our hike, we ate grass by the parkway.



On Saturday, Terry and Susie took Jamie and we went on a cross country MTB ride. It was Christine's first real ride on dirt in many a month. She did great. We ended up riding about 9 miles.



During the I ran over a snake, a first for me, and nearly pooped myself. It was a big hog-nosed snake whose markings look remarkably like a timber rattler, especially when you only see it as it's passing under your wheels. Further adding to the trauma was the fact that just the day before, we had seen a large, dead timber rattler on the parkway. The hog snake seemed unharmed by my bike, but quite perturbed and slithered off into the bushes beside the trail to contemplate the encounter.


Eastern Hog-Nose:


Timber rattler:


After returning from our ride we took Jamie to the pool. At first he was a little concerned but then he loosened up and started splashing and kicking and trying his best to swim. We were afraid to actually let go but he didn't seem to mind.





Wildlife sighting: Terry spotted a "moth" on the porch rail so we went out an snapped a few photos. Turns out he (or rather she) was a rather weathered female tiger swallowtail butterfly. (Notice she is missing her tails.)



I rode downhill Sunday (no pictures). I think I did around 12 runs in three hours covering around 9600 ft of vertical (that's a lot of riding). Whee! Today I'm at work nursing sore quadriceps.

Who? Me?

I think he has his Momma's "Grinch" grin?

A few pictures from Grandma and Grandpa's recent visit

During the visit we went out to Thomas Point and caught a glimpse of the Thomas Point Light House.



For some reason Grandpa, started calling Jamie "Captain Marshmallow". From there were worked up a whole s'mores theme. Here's the Captain with Graham.



And here's Captain Marshmallow and his whole S'mores gang, Graham and Hershey Bar.

Turns out...

Bela Lugosi isn't dead afterall! He's been reincarnated as a 6 month old boy!





ANOTHER YUCKY FOOD PIC for your viewing pleasure
Is it halloween? No, it's july. Are we into goth? No, jamie is just into prunes.

1st Barley Biscuit

Jamie is very interested in food. He wants everything we eat and drink. We try to have family meals together, so now that he realizes what we are doing, we sit him at the table with us and give him some of his food. He still has a very small menu, which includes only 4 starter foods, but we wanted to have a leisurely weekend breakfast recently, so we thought we'd him his first barley biscuit, a teething biscuit made of barley. He loved it so much he got a trance-like expression, but we ended up gagging on our pancakes! You can see why. No more barley biscuits while we are trying to eat, too!


Hmmmm, what's this?



Hey, this is pretty good!



Oh yeah, that's good biscuit!



When can I have another one?

Camping + Racing

We finally got around to camping Father's Day weekend (and I'm finally getting around to posting the pictures two weeks later). We drove across Maryland to Deep Creek Lake and set up camp at Swallow Falls State Park. Swallow Falls is a small park with a few water falls nearby. We've been there once before in the dead of winter. It looks quite different without a foot of snow covering everything.

We got there Friday evening and set up camp. Then we headed to the Wisp Ski resort to practice for the mountain bike race I was going to race in the next day. The Racer's Edge had set up a real nice dual slalom course. I got in a few practice runs while Christine pushed Jamie up the mountain in his stroller then we headed back to camp, made dinner, and attempted to go to bed.

It seemed traffic on interstate 70 and Jamie had other plans. We heard rumors that traffic had jammed up on I-70. This meant that people who had planned on coming to the mountains were delayed greatly. (We left really early and missed all the traffic). People were coming in to the camp site all night long and unfortunately tents do not provide much shelter from noise or car headlights. It was also significantly colder than we had anticipated (upper 40's). Jamie did not approve and had fits of screaming at various intervals all through out the night. It was pretty miserable, for him, for us, and for the entire campground!

As is usually the case he was in perfectly good spirits again by morning. Here he is cuddling up to Dad the day before Father's Day:



Saturday it was back to the race course. I didn't do so well in my race but I still had a blast. It's funny. I felt like I had a great qualifying run as was really pumped but then when they posted the times, I was 12th out of 14, just behind the fat kid and the guy who wrecked. I was pretty bummed. I guess I should just be happy at least I felt like I had a good run. During my race run, I beat the guy out of the gate and through the first 2 turns and then he passed me. I was doing pretty good keeping up but then I came into the 4 pack too hot and with my wrong foot forward and that was the end of that. I think he came across the line 4 or 5 lengths ahead of me. Then it was time for beers.

I didn't get to ride to much else. I concentrated on practicing for the dual. I did ride the Saturday DH course once. It seemed really easy to ride, but maybe not really easy to ride fast. The high speed grassy section at the bottom was just plain fun. I thought the jump line at the top was really slow. I heard that the Sunday course was much more technical. I probably should have gotten over to check it out but I just ran out of time and energy. It took a lot of work to push the bike up the dual course over and over.

Here's a random shot of me coming over the finish line hip during my race run:



Sunday was Father's day. Jamie's present to me was to only wake up once in the night with little or no screaming! Yea! Rest, what more could a Dad ask for? We had a nice leisurely morning in camp, got everything packed up and then went out for pizza. After lunch, we went back to the park and took a hike. We tried out the backpack again after having put it away for a month or two. In an earlier post, I reported that Jamie was too small for the pack and didn't like it. Now he loves it. He laughs and giggles when I put him in and pick him up! He likes being up high and playing with the back of my head and pulling at my ears.



Well that's all from the big camping trip. Can't wait to do it again!

One more shot from our little attention monger:



More Race Pictures