Father's Day

It's Father's Day, and because I'm now a card-carrying member of "the club," I lived it up today: Dana made pancakes for breakfast, I took a post-breakfast nap, and the family went on a short hike. Annikka has been sick for the past four days, but she was healthy today, so we were all happy.

(EDIT: Dana wants me to note that my post-breakfast nap was "long" -- it wasn't a "normal" nap.)

After the hike, Annikka tackled a banana ALL. BY. HERSELF!



Please disregard the weird photo montage at the beginning. I have no idea what that's about, although it probably has something to do with my inability to master iMovie. Poor editing aside, pretty cute, huh? Annikka's sickness brought with it some, ahem, poop problems. So we thought we'd give her a banana to, you know, fix the problem.

My Aunt Liz and my cousins, Ashley and Megan, from Cary, Illinois (the other Howes), sent Annikka a great gift package, including some awesome shades:





According to the other Howes, Annikka is "the cutest baby in Oregon." We agree. Thanks, Howes! We'll see you in August!

Last Sunday we took a hike to Alsea Falls and Green Peak Falls. (Annikka's first waterfalls!)







Alsea Falls is kind of in the middle of nowhere in the Coast Range, southwest of Corvallis, and I'm not going to lie, the isolation can be a tad un-nerving ... in a Deliverance sort of way. It's about a mile hike to the second set of falls. On the way back, we heard all sorts of gunfire. Probably just a bunch of dudes firing into a log or something, but still, a little freaky. Well, get a load of what happened in exactly that spot the night before. Yikes.

Annikka is a standing fool. She LOVES to stand. Turns out, this is great for us. If you've been to our house, you know that we have this totally un-usable space off our family room. The people who lived in the house before us marketed it as a "conversation nook." It's this 8' x 8' area that is sunk two feet into the floor (and, strangely, fully carpeted). Anyhow, we have absolutely no use for this space. Or, I should say we "had" no use for this area until Annikka fell in love with standing:











(Note Annikka's cute tummy in the last picture.)

Look at that! The little seating area is exactly the right height.

Unfortunately, Annikka loves to stand, but she can't get there without a little help. Hopefully she'll figure that out soon.

I'll conclude this post with a picture of Annikka folding laundry: