Correction

It has come to my attention that, in my previous post, I said that Dane weighed in at 13 lbs. This was a lie. He weighed 18 lbs. 3 oz., and I am still trying to figure out how I mistyped a 3 for an 8. Rest assured that my baby is well-nourished and chubby. He has also learned to climb onto our piano.
I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

California Adventure Part II: Cities by the Bay

Before I get to the vacation recap, I’d like to present Dane’s nine month stats:

Head circumference: 43.9 cm (11^th percentile)

Weight: 18 lbs. 3 oz. (14^th percentile)

Length: 27.5 in (19^th percentile)

So he is a little guy. They actually measured his length twice because it appears he hadn’t grown significantly. I’m not particularly worried, though. He is a quarter Japanese, and he is quite proportional. My parents say none of us were ever even on the charts, and look how we turned out! (Short, but healthy.) I’m fine with that.

He crawls like a champ and is projected to walk well before age one. He regularly stands on his own for ten seconds at a time, and doesn’t cry that often when he falls on his bum. He has five teeth and loves to suck his breath in with a little squeal. He also likes to raise one hand and open and close it. Here he is, flashing his pearly whites:

So, back to California.

We arrived in Concord to visit my Grand Pa Tuesday afternoon. We hung out for a bit to get him acquainted with Dane and then headed off to Barney’s. Barney’s Hickory Pit is a hole-in-the-wall barbecue place that has become family legend. When my dad was growing up, they would always go to Barney’s on pay day. It has a special sauce that is unlike any other barbecue you have ever had. Joel had heard Barney’s name spoken in reverent tones many times but had never experienced it, so we were excited. Grand Pa had already eaten dinner but is always willing to have Barney’s. That is how good it is. Here we are, finally there in the flesh:

Grand Pa isn’t too keen on pictures.

Unfortunately, Joel’s allergies were acting up, so he couldn’t taste a thing! But there were plenty of leftovers, and we got him drugged up enough that he could temporarily use his sense of taste and really experience Barney’s. After that, we watched the Lakers game and called it a night (Grand Pa goes to bed pretty early.)

The next morning, we had a nice breakfast with some of Grand Pa’s home canned plum jam made with plums from his own tree. We then went on a tour of his various fruit-bearing trees:

Apples

Grapefruits

And we wanted to make sure we had some good pictures of Grand Pa with his only great-grandchild:

Grand Pa and Dane in matching plaid.

I kind of look like a man. Hopefully my posterity will not be too confused.

Whenever we interact with Grand Pa, we always wonder if he will be Talking Grand Pa or Silent Grand Pa. If he was being Silent Grand Pa, it would have been kind of strained, but he was Talking Grand Pa the whole time we were there, so it was a good time.

On our way into San Francisco that afternoon, we stopped at the Oakland temple to have a picnic on the grounds. Oakland has always been my favorite temple. It is just so beautiful there. You can go up onto the terrace and, on a clear day, you can see all the way across the bay. I have still never been inside. We would have liked to, but we had no one to watch Dane for us that long. Maybe next time.

Here is the view directly above us as we picnicked:

We got yummy sandwiches and what not at a store called Farmer Joe’s (not to be confused with Trader Joe’s). Here is Joel’s new couscous shoveling method:

‘sigh.’ It was really beautiful. We were happy to be there.

Then we got to San Francisco and checked into the Hotel Kabuki. It is a Japanese-themed hotel in the middle of Japantown. It even had a Japanese-style bath (that means extra deep). Here is Dane to give you an idea of its depth:

If you sit in it, the water goes right up to your neck. Ahhh….it was very relaxing. The minibar even had Japanese treats like Pocky, wasabi peas, and green tea.

They had the paper walls and Japanese paintings. It was cool.

We met up with Joel’s cousin Jennie, who has been living in SF the past couple of years going to the San Francisco Conservatory. She showed us around the local scene, including the opera house, city hall, and cool little restaurants that only locals know about.

We ate dinner at a little place called Frjtz. It had sweet and savory crepes, French fries, and a million different kinds of unique fry dipping sauces. We had strawberry mustard, pesto mayo, balsamic mayo, ginger orange mayo, truffle artichoke ketchup, spicy Thai peanut yogurt. The crepes were also super good (think: pear with nutella and cream). We were really glad to be able to hang out with her.

The next morning, we checked out but stayed parked at the hotel so we could have a nice, touristy day in San Francisco. We had a late start so we began by wandering around Japantown to try to decide on the best place to eat a Japanese lunch. It’s funny. Japanese restaurants are everywhere, but when they have real Japanese people running it with access to real Japanese ingredients, it is pretty different. We at at Iroha, ordering yakisoba, zaru soba, tempura, and a nigiri plate. It was yummy.

Then we headed over to the cable car station to go down to the piers. Random: on the way, we stumbled upon this sign:

That is apparently the house where Wilford Woodruff died. Crazy, eh?

We jumped on the cable car, and Joel was fascinated with the machinery.

Dane was with us, I promise. It was also the hottest day all year in San Francisco.

We got to Pier 1 (the pier, not the store) and walked around Embarcadero Center. There was this really cool fountain monument thing that you could just walk right into:

Then we checked out the shops on Pier 1. They were all fancy schmancy stores (like a fungus store with gourmet mushrooms, and two, yes two shops that exclusively sold olive oil). We bought a yummy chocolate pastry. We bought a little jar of sour cherry and rhubarb jam at a little supermarket, and Joel wanted to try a red banana:

Just so you know, red bananas are gross.

We thought about going to Fisherman’s Wharf, but we ran out of time. Is a trip to San Francisco pointless without going to Fisherman’s Wharf? I don’t think so. We had a great time.

Here we are on the cable car ride back:

I was feeling disappointed that we didn’t have a nice souvenir, but when we got back to Japantown to get our car, we found a little shop selling dishes. So I got new rice bowls and a nice soy sauce dispenser and an ear cleaner. I thought those were nice souvenirs. And here we are in Japantown:

We dropped by Grand Pa’s house again so he could get some more quality time with Dane. Here’s a link to a video if you’d like to see it. We picked a bunch of grapefruit from his tree and said goodbye. We are glad that we were able to see him and that he is in good health. Hopefully we will see him again soon.

We then drove out to Yuba City, near Sacramento, to visit my aunt and uncle, Steve and Jolene. They were really nice to put us up for the night and feed us dinner. It was nice to chat with them and to give Dane a chance to play before the drive back. I realized I haven’t really talked to them in a non wedding setting, so it was nice to just lounge. We had a great time. Here is Jolene enjoying Dane:

And then the two of them with Katie before we hit the road:

Haha, they look so good. Katie is so tall.

We ate at In-N-Out Burger in Reno, and then we drove across the wide expanse of nothing that is Nevada. We both got really tired, so we pulled over and slept a bit. We made it home early Saturday morning. And I was sick. Probably because Dane was sick and was up all the time so I had gotten little sleep. But I was happy. We had a great trip, and I don’t think I’d change anything about it (except Dane being sick). It made Joel realize he doesn’t have to hate California, and it made me even more grateful for my family.

Final thought:

Joel didn’t shave during the whole trip. When we got back, he decided to play with his facial hair. He usually does a moustache, but he decided to change it up this time:

What do you think? John Taylor? Mose? I’m sure Joel would love your thoughts.

California Adventure Part I: SoCal

No, I am not really cool enough to use that abbreviation.

We have returned from our first official family vacation that we planned ourselves around the Litster family reunion/Rachel's wedding. It was a really great trip, despite a few mishaps. Prepare yourself for a series of posts detailing our fun. I’ll try to make it unboring.

We set off on Thursday morning, June 5, a little bit later than planned, as we are wont to do. I was stressed to the max worrying about if I’d packed everything and how things would go with Dane. He woke up the day before with a 101° fever and a runny nose, which was attributed to teething. But he seemed to be in pretty good spirits, so we set off as planned. We took a pit stop to nurse him, and we were surprised to find a good two inches of snow on the ground. Joel took full advantage of the situation and was quite proud of his results:

Next we drove on to St. George, where we stopped for lunch. Joel called his good friend from Texas, Jason, and he was able to meet us for lunch at the swanky Wienerschnitzel. He and Joel reminisced and got caught up on life. We laughed a lot, and it was fun to finally meet him.

I love how happy Joel looks in the picture. They had a lot of fun together.

Then we were in for the long haul to Los Angeles. Considering we had to stop more often for a sick baby, and that we were in St. George for a couple of hours, I think we made pretty good time. As we were nearing the buzzing metropolis, we found out that the hotel that had been arranged for a significant chunk of the people coming in for the family reunion was…unsuitable. Various Litsters toiled to get us some reasonable, clean accommodations, and we arrived at about 11:00, just about when things had finally been worked out. We were definitely ready to sleep. Except for Dane. He decided to wake up about a million times. Now, he is not the world’s greatest sleeper by any stretch of the imagination, but this was really bad. I was suspecting that something was wrong besides teething, but what could we do? ‘sigh’ Lose sleep, that’s what.

Anyway, the next morning, we had a lovely family breakfast where we finally met up with everyone. It was really good to see various family members that we haven’t seen in a while. And then…beach time!

Notice that Dane is crying/about to cry/experiencing a very brief respite before crying again in every picture. This was his worst day; it’s too bad he couldn’t enjoy the beach more. The water was quite cold, but I wanted to be able to tell him he’d been in the Pacific Ocean, so I let the tide wash up over his ankles. And he screamed. Poor guy. He wasn’t feeling well. It was a nice little beach, though, and we had fun hanging out. It was pretty close to LAX, so every few minutes, a huge jet would be taking off for Japan or Korea…jets are loud. But the beach is always nice, even with a fussy baby.

Then we went back to the hotel to quickly get cleaned up before dinner at the park, and to realize that we both really sunburned the backs of our legs. Mine wasn’t nearly as bad as Joel’s. His legs are still red. Anyway, we hurried over to the park, only to discover that, notwithstanding the fact that we were almost an hour late, no one else was there. Apparently, everyone without a baby (i.e., everyone else) decided to keep hanging out at the beach. Until 8:00 pm. And that message was never communicated to us. So we hung out by ourselves at the park for a couple of hours. We actually had a good time. I climbed a tree and retrieved a Frisbee that someone had lost (swish), and we enjoyed relaxing in the grass until everyone found their way home from the beach. Then we set up tables, etc., for the wedding luncheon the next day and managed to grab some dinner right when this little Thai/Chinese place was closing.

Dane decided not to sleep again that night, so I made an executive decision to stay at the hotel with Dane during the sealing so he could have at least half a day without being bustled around. But Joel went, and I’m sure it was beautiful. Here are a few pictures Joel captured:

These are a couple little cousins admiring Joel’s tie, The Hulk. Joel had a good friend make this for him a few years ago out of old curtain material from Allen and Monique’s old house. Since then (2003), he has kept the rest of the material with dreams of the Von Trapp Family persuasion. Well, I finally made it happen in time for the wedding, but I of course failed to take a picture. So if any of you cousins out there have one (and I know some of you do) please pass them along to me.

Hooray for wedded bliss!

Then, the luncheon, through which Dane slept a happy amount. Then, we got lost getting back to the hotel. But this (and the fact that various other people got lost, too) led to us deciding to grab dinner in Burbank with LJ, mom, and Jen, which was super fun. There were a million shops and restaurants and opportunities to talk and hang out. Even Dane enjoyed it:

But our reveling in Burbank resulted in us getting to the reception really late…after Rachel and Chris had already left (don’t tell her; I don’t think she noticed). But it looked like a great reception. I’ve rarely seen a church cultural hall look so unlike a church cultural hall.

That night, Dane slept a little better, thankfully. But still not great, leaving me tired for the family breakfast and church. (I say “me” because Joel doesn’t seem to hear Dane as often as I do, which makes sense when we’re at home and he has to work in the morning, but I didn’t think it would hold when Dane’s crying five feet from us. I’m not complaining. Well, maybe a little.)

Then we said our goodbyes and headed off to Bakersfield to visit my aunt and uncle. We definitely had a great time, though I took far too few pictures. I’m hoping to get some that Becky took. But it turned out to be extra good that we spent a couple days there because Dane needed a slower pace. And then when his cough became rattling, he needed a doctor. Surprise! Ear infection! I must say, he was surprisingly good natured considering his ear was aflame. I never would have figured it out myself because he had no fever, he grabbed his ear no more than normal, and there was no screaming, only increased crying. But I will not complain. I’m glad we got it figured out.

On Monday night, after a day of wrestling with many doctor’s offices, trying to convince them that they are on my insurance’s out-of-state network, we got Dane taken care of, and Becky and Stuart took us out to P.F. Chang’s. Oh man, that made me so happy. They were so accommodating and generous to us. Hunter (my nine-year-old cousin) was really antsy to get home to present his FHE lesson, but we made him wait so we could eat and relax. Joel earned it after spending the better part of the day (and night before) playing the Wii and Gamecube with Hunter and Colton. They also played war with the neighborhood kids. Here is Joel all suited up:

When we did get home for FHE, Hunter was all ready. He started us off with an opening prayer, praying that “Dane’s ear attack will end.” And if that wasn’t enough to make you smile, after he finished praying, he said, “I couldn’t remember what it was called. Ear invasion?” Then he gave a good little lesson.

The next morning, we prepared to head out to visit my Grand Pa in Concord, near Oakland. It was hard to tear Joel away from the video games, and the boys were really sad to see him go. We always have a good time with them and love hearing all of Stuarts funny jokes. And I had a really great time talking with Becky and admiring her scrapbooks. It is too bad we don’t live closer to each other. I wish we could hang out more. But we had a great time and were grateful that it was fun without being stressful. As we drove out of Bakersfield, we saw regular gas for sale at $4.99 a gallon, and stopped at Jack in the Box to adorn our car with a Jack ball and eat a Monster Taco. We thought it was a fitting tribute.

(I will have to fill some of you in on the significance of the Monster Taco later).

Wheels and Wheeler Farm

Dane and his daddy like to go for bike rides when the weather is nice. They are a happy pair.


I went to Wheeler Farm with our ward's mother's group. Wheeler Farm is like a big park with a whole bunch of animals. And it's free! We had a great time. Here is Dane in front of the pond. (I have no idea why this is typing in underlines, but I can't figure out how to fix it.)

Joel says Dane has never looked more Asian than he does in this picture:
Showing the cow our matching outfits (which I didn't do on purpose, but there you go.)

Baby Dane with baby ducks.

Happy day at Wheeler Farm!