July 4th

Colby's first fourth of July was spent at Lake Wateree, SC (near Camden), where his grandparents own a nice lakehouse, complete with a private beach, dock, pontoon boat, sailboat, plus a large screened in porch that is perfect for all the family dogs. The Lake Wateree community association organizes a pretty impressive firework display from an island in the middle of the lake, and we viewed it from the pontoon boat (Colby stayed home with his grandma, since the fireworks started about 1.5 hours after his bedtime).

Our garden

We have traditionally planted vegetable gardens each spring (before the first family made it in vogue), and this years garden is our largest ever. We think we have an organic garden, the only thing we did not check was the origin of the top soil. We have only used organic natural fertilizer (a fish by product), and Hershey really loves it. She actually eats the dirt after we fertilize. Fun. We planted 4 types of tomatoes (we have 16 tomato plants, some over 5 feet tall), zucchini, eggplant, bell pepper, sweet pepper, carrots, pole beans, and watermelon. Jennifer also planted some flowers for cutting. We mulched most of the garden, and it is doing very well as you can see from the pictures. We had a fairly cool and wet spring, so the roots got well established before the summer heat arrived. We are currently enjoying the zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant and bell peppers, and the pole beans are just sprouting flowers along with the watermelon. We plan to plant pumpkin seeds soon for fall harvesting. Maybe Colby can carve a home grown pumpkin in October.

Puffs

Colby loves his puffs, and he loves sitting in his high chair that was his Uncle Chris's. Such concentration!

Colby and Shelby

Colby would really like to be friends with Shelby, but Shelby continues to play hard to get.

Thanks Aunt Laura!

Aunt Laura made Colby a cozy blanket - just right for stroller rides around the neighborhood. We'll bring it back out when the temp gets back below 90!

Colby Camps

We decided to test Colby's outdoor skills early and see if he shared the same passion for adventure that his mom and dad possess, so we took a 9 month old camping! It was Memorial Day weekend, and Colby's first expedition would be 4 hours from home in the mountains of South West Virginia in a beautiful park called Grayson Highlands (near Mount Rogers), an area that both Jen and I have frequented often (usually backpacking in the backcountry). The trip was organized by Gaines and included a total of 13 adults and 7 dogs (at a group camp site). After a rough first few hours in our new giant "family" tent, Colby settled in nicely (he just had to adjust to the tent, which was aided by sleeping with mom and dad the first night- see picture). We went on some nice hikes, one was a jaunt on the Appalachian Trail where Colby got to meet the wild pony's of Grayson Highlands and he also "got in" his nap as we made our way back down the mountain trail, see picture above. The weather was almost perfect (only a few showers), and the weekend was a success, as evidenced by our 3 night stay (we are already talking about Colby's next camping trip to the NC mountains this fall).

Teeth!

Colby has been chewing on his hands and drooling buckets full for months now. Since December everyone asks us - is he teething? Well, I still don't know how you figure that out until the tooth comes through. So I guess Colby has been teething since December with the result finally appearing Easter morning - a little white sliver. We had mixed feelings about the arrival of the first tooth. Yea - a milestone met, but also sad that we are quickly leaving the little baby stage behind, and there will be no more toothless grins.

He is really doing well. He passes things from one hand to another, is starting to use the pincher grasp, and can get small things in his mouth (this is good and bad). He loves to sing, and will sing along with songs he knows (the ABC song and the Itsy Bitsy Spider are two of his favorites). He loves to sleep in his crib, or in the car, but not many other places. Sometimes he sings himself to sleep, and that is just about the cutest thing ever - his voice gets softer and softer until he just conks out. He loves to babble, and roll around on the floor. He is reaching for the dogs too, and they are tolerating him pretty well so far. He's not sitting for long periods of time, but will sit and play with a toy for several minutes. We think he might crawl before he has sitting mastered!