Hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable 4th of July! We have been outdoors as much as possible, but its been pretty rainy and humid lately. Actually, on our anniversary (5 years, thank you!) there was a storm with 90 MPH winds that knocked down half the trees and power lines in Omaha! We escaped with very little damage, thank goodness, but our neighborhood lost a LOT of trees, which is sad, and some of our neighbors had some significant damage to their roofs, fences, decks, and cars... Its still a mess with branches, uprooted trees, and busted-up sidewalks everywhere. We did have a glorious day on the 4th though...a whole day out at the park, and great fireworks at night - thankfully one more year of no one blowing themselves up! We also hung out at the lake last week and enjoyed the water together!
Greg, Bonnie (Dan's mom), and I also made a trip to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, for the YMCA National gymnastics meet, to hang out with my mom and Aunt Karen, and see Claire and Audrey compete. Bonnie was a fabulous traveling companion, keeping Greg (and me) entertained on the 9 hour drive! The girls did great too - Claire made All-American for the 3rd year in a row, and Audrey took first in beam and tied with her teammate for 12th overall out of about 180 girls in her category! Their gym also took 4th place in the team competition, which is awesome because their team is tiny compared to most of the others!
The first time Claire has ever landed this full-twisting Tsukahara vault in competition - there was only 1 other girl at the meet who did it too (and Claire scored better...):
Audrey's first-place beam routine:
Since my family flew through O'Hare and their flight home ended up getting postponed a day, we decided to stay an extra day with them in Chicago, and visited Gregory's godparents, Patrick and Keri too. We only wish Dan could have been with us! We had a great time checking out downtown, and the Lincoln Park Zoo. We even saw another babywearer there! I guess it shouldn't have surprised me considering the International Babywearing Conference was there over the weekend too - if I had ever wanted to be in 2 places at once, it was then...but I definitely made the right choice as it was...
In other developments, Greg had his 1 year checkup at the doctor. He is doing great on all his milestones of course, but is definitely on the small side for his age, 16lbs 9oz and 27 1/2 inches. His height and weight match, though, and frankly, he matches my family...we can't be that surprised. And the boy eats like a grown man, so we are not worried. He has been practicing his walking and is getting steadier every day. This week's project is to get video of it. He has also started to try to imitate some sounds - the beginning of talking... For example, on the 4th, Dan was trying to get him to say "Boom" which came out more like "Bouuu" but you can tell he was definitely trying. He also attempted "ball" which sounded remarkably like his "boom"! :) Ok, ok, we'll work on video of that too! Stay tuned...
