One of the gifts that Logan has recently received is this inflatable penguin. It’s weighted on the bottom giving it the stability of a Weeble Wobble, and has some balls that roll around inside behind a clear window. The part that really interests Logan, and terrifies Puddles, is the motion sensor. Every time the penguin is moved or pushed, it laughs manically and makes some music. Naturally Logan feels compelled to drag it around the house.
Naturally, Puddles runs in terror and hides when all of this is going down.
With the brutal Vegas winter weather dipping back into the 60s, we decided to take advantage of the moment. Red Rock Canyon is a marvel of Vegas. Just minutes outside town, you can hike, climb rock faces, ride a bike along the scenic loop and visit never know you were within miles of a major entertainment city. And yet, I haven’t been in probably ten years. So we went hiking.
I want Logan to grow up doing active, interesting, things. This means that I have to do active interesting things, which is good, because I need motivation to get off my ass and do stuff sometimes.
We hiked out to Lost Creek, a short little jaunt of less than a mile that ends in a seasonal waterfall. The BOB stroller did not turn out to be as adept at hiking as I thought it would. I should amend that. It was great at hiking. It was terrible at bouldering.
We left it behind and I carried him the rest of the way.
He seemed to enjoy himself, but it’s hard to tell with Logan sometimes.
As usual he was most interested in the mundane, and delighted in walking in the gravel around the visitor’s center, and climbing on the benches.
The holidays were a busy time. It seems like they’re always a busy time for us. Between Cameron’s semester finals, and my acute case of Bahhumbug, it seems like we never have the time to do the things that need doing around the end of the year. This year was a little different though. Cameron was graduating with a Phd in Engineering, and we had a 1 year old demanding our constant attention. So, we had like, double negative time. Is that a thing? I hope so, cause that’s what we had. It’s the middle of January, and I just now feel like we’re returning to normal.
In rapid succession Cameron defended her thesis, we flew to Texas for Thanksgiving, Cameron attended her graduation ceremony, Grandpa Glenn showed up for an early Christmas, shortly followed by real Christmas celebrated at four different households, Christmas break, New Year’s Eve, Grandma Deb’s Boot Camp, New Year’s day and finally first day in the toddler classroom.
So you can see it was busy.
November was Logan’s first airplane trip.
December was Logan’s first tricycle,
and first set of blocks featuring the Periodic Table of Elements.
January was Mommy and Daddy’s first night out alone in nearly a year.
We started stacking blocks.
We wore funny hats.
We got our picture taken with Santa.
And we played with many, many, empty cardboard boxes.