June Activities

Hi everyone! It's me, Natalie. Daddy is at work and mommy is taking a nap, so I thought I'd write to tell everyone how much fun I had during June.

All of my pictures are saved on my website - http://www.nataliehang.shutterfly.com/ My June pictures are in the folder 2009-06.

Adventures
June was a busy month. Mommy and daddy finally decided I was old enough to have some fun outside. I mean, tummy time in the apartment can only entertain me for so long! We went on a hike in Marin on my one month birthday. It was pretty nice - daddy carried me in the baby bjorn the whole time. That was the life. Then on Father's Day, we went on another hike and then I took mommy and daddy to the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay so they could have a glass of wine and enjoy the beautiful scenery. Besides the weekend hikes, mommy and I go for long walks every day - she says she needs to "get out of the apartment." I hope she's not tired of me already!



We watched the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon a couple weekends ago. Daddy did the race last year, but I had other plans for him this year. One day I'll be watching daddy race again.

Grandma and Grandad Brown came to visit me this past weekend and we had a lot of fun. On Friday, mommy and I took them to Tiburon and they ate at Sam's Cafe. I was cozy in the shade, but the rest of them got sunburned! On Saturday, we walked down to the Farmers Market on Fillmore Street while daddy ran a trail race. That night, I hung out with grandma and grandad while mommy and daddy enjoyed their first dinner without me. Though I don't think they enjoyed being without me because they were back home in no time. On Sunday, we all went up to Sonoma. We tasted at St. Francis, Chateau St Jean and Blackstone. Then, we surprised Grandad by taking him to the Charles Schulz museum. I was so tired I slept all the way home.

Restaurants
I like to eat...a lot! I'm always hungry and I have mommy wrapped around my little fingers... Maybe that's why I weighed 12lbs 7oz at my 6 week doctor's appointment. It turns out, though, that mommy and daddy like to eat too. So, I've decided that I should behave at restaurants so they can go out to eat and daddy isn't always subjected to mommy's cooking. In my 6 short weeks, I've been to at least 8 restaurants - 4 times to eat sushi. Mommy said she was "making up for being pregnant" by eating sushi. She's acting like pregnancy wasn't that much fun!





Visitors
Lots of people came to visit me in June. I already wrote about Grandma and Grandad coming to visit. They just left this morning and I miss them already. I also met my mommy's brother Charlie and his wife Marie. They seemed like a lot of fun - I just wish they could have stayed longer. Some of mommy and daddy's friends visited too - Heather, Mick, Nelson, Gina and Erin all stopped by to play with me. I love all my adult friends, but I wonder when I'll have friends my own age.


June was so much fun that I really can't wait to see what July brings! I overheard that I'm going to be flying on an airplane!!


Love,
Natalie

Enough is enough

Seriously. Who starts a blog and then gives up on it? Well, actually, my guess is that a lot of people do. But we're not going to be those people. That's right. Even though we went radio-silent (errr... I mean blog-silent?) for a full 6 weeks after Natalie's birth. We're keeping this blog, just like we're keeping Natalie.

Why keep up the blog? To be honest, it's our reader base. The throngs of readers from around the globe who subscribe to our blog demand more of us. The emails, phone calls, letters, IMs, Tweets, and smoke signals we've received during the blogs' recent 6-week hiatus have made it clear that this blog has clearly taken on a life of its own. Who are we to kill it? Our job is to simply nurture it like you'd nurture a newborn baby.

Which brings me back to our newborn baby. Natalie is awesome. Sure, she poops and spits up on us, and she screams a lot, but she is also (no bias here) the most adorable littler girl ever. She runs our lives now. We bounce her, feed her, hug her, kiss her, talk in goofy voices to her, make silly faces at her, swaddle her, and do pretty much anytihng we can to make her happy. Until the past couple of weeks, the best outcome we could expect from our efforts was a calm, adorable baby. Now, though, we get smiles. And this makes it all worthwhile.

Perhaps the only thing better than Natalie smiling is seeing what we're all willing to do to make her smile. For example, this weekend, Grandma and Grandad were here, so Natalie had not two but four adults clowning around in hopes of making her grin. Grandma and Grandad coordinated a dance routine that left Natalie's parents dying with laughter. I can only hope that 1) Grandma and Grandad remember the routine and 2) we get a video of it the next time we see them. In the meantime, hopefully mommy and I can figure out other ways to make Natalie smile.