Sebastian’s Quiver

Sunday was Juliann’s first Mother’s Day!  Such a rare event deserved very special consideration, so I mulled over many different ideas of what I could do to make the day even more special.  I decided on taking Juliann (and, of course, Sebastian) to her very favorite place in the whole world:  the Oregon Coast.  Of course, I also treated her to breakfast in bed, a box of special gourmet chocolates from Cork, and a gift certificate for a 90 minute massage at one of the nicer spas in Portland.

(An aside:  This past Friday (May 9) was the five year anniversary of the day we first met.  We had a special dinner with a great local bottle of wine and an excellent bottle of dessert wine from Badia a Coltibuno in honor of where we got engaged exactly four years previous.)

Back to Mother’s Day.  Juliann picked up some yummy foods from New Seasons, we packed up the car with changes of clothes and food and extra shoes and socks and rain gear and camera equipment.  Sebastian slept for the entire 90 minute drive to the coast and we ended up at Ecola State Park.  To give you an idea of where we were, here are two photos taken seconds apart (I know the sky is very different in the two photos, but that’s Oregon weather for you).  For a sense of scale, in the first photo, you can see some people down in the lower left corner of the photo.

Sebastian was great, as usual, on our trek outdoors.  He was awake for the beach hike and he was mostly asleep for the forest hike.  Here he is all bundled up on the beach (click to enlarge, like all the other photos):

Juliann is pretty much Sebastian’s full time chauffer.  I find it pretty amazing that she does all the hiking that I do, but with a 16+ pound wait hanging off her frontside.  She is often way out ahead of me, and not just because I stop to take photos.

Here are a couple more photos from the beach.  As always, please go to the photoblog for more photos and captions.

After we finished on the beach, we went back to the car and had lunch.  From there, we went on the forest hike.  The hike was a loop and the first half of the hike was 100% uphill - no small, level stretches, no slight downhills - it was very steep and all uphill, about 1.25 miles and a gain of 800+ ft in elevation.  The forest was beautiful, though.  Huge trees and lush greenery surrounded us.  The second half of the loop took us closer to the coast and we had some wonderful views of the water and beach and lighthouse.  Here are several photos from the hike:

The lighthouse.  For a closeup, go to the photoblog:

So many trees:

One final look back at the beach:

And there you have it!  Our very first Mother’s Day.

Another week, another hike.  This time, we took to the hills, or, more accurately, the Columbia River Gorge.  There are a ton of hikes and beautiful places in the Gorge to go hiking, but we chose to hike to Elowah Falls and the Upper McCord Creek Falls, both located in John B. Yeon State Park, about a half an hour drive east of our house along I-84 (no relation to I-85, for you curious Atlantans out there).

The hike was wonderful, if a bit close to the highway.  The highway noise disappeared as we hiked in a bit closer to the waterfalls.  Unlike last week’s hike to Sauvie Island, Sebastian was awake for the entire hike (he slept most of the Sauvie Island hike).  He really enjoyed looking around at all the wonderful scenery, and especially the waterfalls.

One thing that I noticed him doing today: his manual dexterity seems to have taken a leap.  He can now sort of maneuver things around with more accuracy.  As I type this, he has managed to get his bunny’s ears into his mouth a couple of times.  He loves Bunny-foo-foo’s ears almost as much as he loves Abima’s head nipples.

Below are some photos of Sebastian a day before the hike, and some I took during the hike.  As usual, please visit the photoblog for even more photos

Sleepy baby:

Classic Sebastian look:

And now for some more Oregon beauty.  Read it and weep, east coast chumps!

Idyllic setting in the woods:

Ooo, a babbling brook:

Elowah Falls:

Great view across the Columbia into Washington:

Upper McCord Falls:

A slightly blurry photo of us (notice how nicely dressed they are in Nau gear):

Sebastian turned 3 months a several days ago and he’s doing more and more every day.  He’s ALMOST rolling over now.  When you put him on the floor on his back he likes to do crunches with his legs.  Sometimes he’ll throw his legs over to one side along with his arm and he is SO close to rolling over.  We cheer him on every time he does it, but his underneath arm always seems to stop him.  He’s not strong enough to move it into a position where he can get the rest of his body over it.  It shouldn’t be long now.  My uneducated guess is within the next week.

He’s also babbling a lot more.  He does a lot of variations of “ahhhhhhh” sounds and sometimes he’ll do it for 10 to 15 seconds.

Sebastian is also sleeping more.  His normal bedtime is around 9pm or so and last night he slept 4am, which is his longest stretch of uninterrupted sleep ever.  He’s also starting to go to sleep on his own.  Juli drove down to visit her grandmother in Eugene last week and he slept for the entire two hour car ride.

He has also gotten really grabby.  He loves grasping clothes and fingers and books and papers and toys.  He still loves his Abima and his bunny and now he’s starting to talk to them.  He loves it when his mother plays paddycake with him - whenever the song starts he gets super smiley and his eyes get really big.  Speaking of smiling, Sebastian laughed out loud while he was awake for the first time!  It was more of a giggle, but he did it a couple of times within a span of a minute or two.

Sebastian has been getting out more and has been much more social recently.  Juli takes him to mommy/baby yoga and storytime at the library and he loves watching all the other kids and he loves it when the older kids pet him on the head.

Juli and I took Sebastian on his very first hike on Sunday.  We drove out to Sauvie Island (a whopping 20 minutes away) and we went for a hike near the big lake on the island.  It was BEAUTIFUL. (See below to see some photos of the wildlife that we saw.)  Yet another reason why Portland is a fantastic place to live.  The very same day we went on a wonderful two hour hike in 65 degree weather with the sun shining, a guy I work with (Mark) went skiing about an hour outside Portland.  Oh, and on Saturday we went to the farmer’s market and picked up some freshly laid eggs, just-picked butter lettuce (amazing!), picked some Swiss chard from our backyard, and got a fantastic espresso from Ristretto Roasters.  All in all, a wonderful weekend.

As always, more photos can be seen on the photoblog, complete with descriptions.

Click on the last photo above to see a larger version so you can see what the bird is carrying in his talons.