More August adventures!

After the family reunion, my parents and I took a trip with Grams up to Boulder Junction, Northern Wisconsin, to visit her cousin Dick and Dick's wife Lynne. Incidentally this was my first time ever in Wisconsin! I think that DOJ never went to Wisconsin until he was 28, so my parents are definitely giving me some fantastic experiences.


It was so gorgeous...

Lynne and Dick are so sweet. They have 2 children and a few grandchildren.

After our little vacation, I had some fun swimming activity with Aunt Nancy, who was a champion swimmer in high school. Mommy was a synchronized swimmer. So both Mommy and her sister are very experienced swimmers.

Aunt Nancy is a great swimming instructor. There's the old adage of "Those who can do, and those who can't teach..." except she can both *do* and *teach* - that's my Aunt Nancy!

Since the swimming lesson, I've had a lot more water activity thanks to going to swimming pools and the beach with Mommy and our playgroup. Last week, my parents and I went to New England, where I got a lot of great water action in a lake in Massachusetts and the Atlantic Ocean at different beaches in Rhode Island!
Love,
Julien the Baby

And even more pictures from the reunion!

Hi again everyone!
Here are more pictures from the family reunion!
On Saturday August 7, there was a gathering at the club where Grandaddy X, his sisters, and his parents used to play. My grandparents are still members, but both my great aunts moved away to other states. Anyway their cousins Paul and Ken, and their parents, were also members of the club. Interestingly, Grandaddy X's cousin Paul and Grams were classmates and friends in school. Then again, Grams and Grandaddy X's sister were childhood friends before Grams and Grandaddy X got married. Lots of fun history there!

Here I am with Amelia and Carter.

Here's a fun picture - Thatcher, PJ, Amelia, Carter, and Noah - all striking a pose!

Here's a great shot of *everyone* - Grandaddy X and his sisters, plus their cousins Paul and Ken... and then many of their descendants. Not everyone in the family was able to attend.

Here I am with Aunt Nancy and my grandparents' long-time friends Ann & Ray. Ray is also known for having been a broadcaster with the Cardinals, as well as having been mayor in the town where my grandparents live! Some of my mommy's boy cousins (specifically Terry and Rob) were so excited to see Ray. That was really fun.

Here I am with Grandaddy X's cousin Paul, who went to school with Grams! We were very comfortable kicking back together.

Love,
Julien the Baby

More pictures from the family reunion!

Hi everyone!
I'm sorry it's been so long since I've been blogging. I'm so far behind.
I still want to share pictures from the August family reunion!

Here is a picture of a poster that Mommy made - she made posters for each of the siblings (Grandaddy X and his 2 sisters). Maya helped with the picture cuttings, and DOJ (Daddy) helped attach glue between the pictures and the posters. But it was really Mommy and Maya who did the best work.

Here's Aunt Nancy and Grandaddy X! Grandaddy X really loved the posters - he was spending a lot of time looking at them before the reunion dinner at his house.

As you can see, there were lots of family members - naturally they started to gather in the front entryway, looking at the posters and each other... Grandaddy X and his sister Ann had fun seats, watching everyone. Grams was having a fun conversation with Mommy's cousin Ellen (from Ireland) - you may remember that Ellen is the mommy to PJ, Jamie, and Amelia.

Family merged to other rooms in the house. In this picture, you can see Mommy with her cousin Dave, his wife Claudia, and their daughter Lindsey (their son Nicholas was in another room). Dave's mommy Jane (Grandaddy X's sister) is also here... and yes, I'm here with Amelia and Carter!

Here are some of my second cousins in the den - Lindsey, Adam, Noah, and Amelia.

I've really missed blogging! More reunion pictures to come... as well as my other adventures of the past month. Shouts out to Ruby!!!

love,
Julien the Baby

family reunion!

Hi everybody!
We enjoyed our family reunion on my grandfather X side! Grandaddy X is one of 3 children - his older sister Ann has 4 children, and his younger sister Jane has 3 children. Then there are grandchildren like me...

Here we are having a pre-reunion dinner.

Here I am with Amelia (6 years) and Noah (3 years). They are Ann's grandchildren, and direct cousins. They are my second cousins. Or rather, my mommy is their parents' cousin.

This fireplace shot is a bit complex in terms of cousin connections and such. Left to right: Noah, Jamie, Amelia, me, Nick, and PJ. PJ, Amelia, and Jamie are siblings - they live in Ireland! So they traveled even farther than my parents and me!

The grandparents: Ann, Jane, and Grandaddy X! It's so fun to have great-aunts! Ann lives in Princeton, New Jersey and Jane lives in St Louis, MO.

Here I am playing piano with Amelia and Carter. Carter's dad Rick is Jane's youngest son.
More later!
Love,
Julien the Baby

My friend Sam

Hi everyone!
Here are some pictures of Sam and me with our parents, out having dinner - once in late August and once in early September. I was very young at the time - just on both sides of 3 months. Sam was born in February so he's 4 months my senior. You can see how much more sophisticated he is in the pictures.

In this set of 3 pictures, you can see my parents holding Sam and me in late August 2009. We were at the Japanese restaurant Tanuki, on Cornwall and 6th (by California).


In the below pictures, we are being held by Sam's parents Jean and Trey in early September. We are at the Indian restaurant on Clement by 26th.

I think that Sam was a bit unhappy because I was focusing my attention on his mother and not him.

In this picture, you can also see our good friend Sue!
So I didn't mention that Sam's parents and my mommy (and Sue!) all went to college together. So our parents (well, not so much DOJ) have known each other for such a long time. Before Sam and I were born, our parents even went to Tahoe once for a weekend together.
Sam recently moved, but we all had dinner together a couple weeks ago... but that's another blog post!
Love,
Julien the Baby

Some recent pix with Lily

Hi everyone!
Here are some recent pictures with Lily. She (and her parents) came to my birthday party on June 6!


Although we're not always looking at each other in the pictures, we had some good fun!
And below here are 3 pictures from Lily's birthday party on June 27!



It's fun playing together!
I'm so lucky to have such great friends!!!
Love,
Julien the Baby

Lily - another baby friend!

Hi everyone!
I know that I talk about Ruby and other babies a lot, but sometimes I forget to mention other baby friends! For example I still haven't talked about Sam, who is one of my dearest friends - I've known him since I was 5 or 6 days old!!! And I've still not blogged about Sam! He inspired me to enjoy being upside-down. One day...
Anyway this post is about my friend Lily - you may remember seeing a January 2010 post when I was with her and Lyra. I first met Lily in September at Progressive Grounds, in the back "baby" room, at a Bernal Heights Parents Group meet-up. Dare I say that I just may have met her before Ruby...

Here we are in late December 2009 - I think our parents were about to take us to Chloe's for lunch! Her mom and my dad sure love the salads at Chloe's!

Here we are playing later that day. December 28, if you must know the exact details. Note that we're both wearing bibs, because we were drooling a lot back then. Now we just wear bibs when we're eating!

And here we are with Lyra in January 2010, at Lyra's house. It was a cold wintery January day, so we were dressed warmly... although Lyra's house was nice and cozy.
I'll have to post more pictures from more recent days, but I wanted to share these pictures now before I forgot!
Love,
Julien the Baby

June 24 - baby pilates!

Hi everyone!
Very belated, especially since we just went to Baby Pilates last week :)
Here I am on June 24 - Clem (Nikki's daughter) and Lucas (Ilaria's son) were also there.





Lucas and I both had a lot of fun on this elevated surface. There was only one small problem - once we were on, neither of us knew how to exit! We needed our parents to help...
Love,
Julien the Baby

Chicagoland

Hi everybody!
Sorry for the long silence of the blog. No excuse except that I've been rather busy this month being a baby - I'm 13 months old and there's just so much to do.
I spent the first week of July in Chicagoland with my parents, as we were visiting my maternal grandparents, as well as other friends and family, such as Aunt Nancy and Uncle Glenn.
Here's a picture of me on the plane!

Hopefully I'll find time to do a blogpost about the actual trip. I had a lot of fun, which included spending time with my new cousin Zoe and my friend Maya.
I would have blogged earlier today but instead I hung out in the playground with Ruby! Just in case you were worried that I hadn't seen Ruby lately...
I should be sleeping now!
Love,
Julien the Baby

My Chicagoland friend Maya

Hi Everyone,
Here are some pictures of Maya and me. Maya is friends with my parents; her sister and parents are also friends with my parents. Maya, her sister, and her parents are also friends with my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Glenn. Anyway, although I'm also friends with her sister and parents, I wanted to share pictures of just Maya and me. Incidentally we're also good friends with her aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins. We multi-generational people all just get along. And this is just one family... I can say the same about a lot of other people... those are other future blog posts.

Here I am with Maya back in October 2009; I was 4 months old at the time.

Here's another picture from October 2009; also 4 months old. Well, that's my age, not Maya's age.

Here we are in Sunset Grocery, getting supplies for Thanksgiving. I was almost 6 months old in this picture. It looks like I am being frisky with her, but I just was hoping to taste her nose. That was a fun shopping trip - some people thought that she was my mommy, so she had to explain that DOJ is my daddy and she is our friend!

Here I am a few days ago - Wednesday June 30!

Here we are, taking a rest at the July 4 parade. It's me, Mommy, Maya, and Asher! OK no Brimful of Asha jokes, please. I'm sure he's heard them enough times!!!
I want to post about other family & friends and hope to do so in the future.
I hope that you are all well and happy.
Love,
Julien the Baby