We went to a Diamondbacks game last night. The Phillies were in town, and we had nothing else really going on. We called and got awesome tickets. A season ticket holder had called in his tickets as available so we got section 140 in left field, and 2 rows from the fence. The phone agent who got us the tickets said we may even see a home run in our section...turns out he was wrong...we saw two...:)
The first HR was from Justin Upton in the bottom of the first inning. I can't post the video but here is a link to the highlight: HR #1. However, I did snag a screen shot of us from the video, but you can see us pretty clear in the replay. Rohan looks like he wants to go after that ball:
We did get something out of it though. The ball went back onto the field and a groundskeeper gave it to a kid in our row. Turns out the Diamondbacks have a promotion that when a fan catches a HR, everyone in that row gets a free hot dog! Pretty sweet deal!
Later in the game Chris Snyder hit another HR into our section. We didn't make the video since it was about 6 rows behind us, but it was still really exciting. Here is that video highlight: HR #2. Later in the ballgame they panned through the crowd and we all made it on their giant HD centerfield display, so that was pretty cool also...:)
Next time I'll bring my glove and maybe dive over a couple of rows to catch the next HR...:)
Here is another pic of Rohan at the game, this time from our perspective:
Well it was going to hit 114°F again so we decided to head back up to the The Apache and Sitgreaves National Forest where the highs were in the 80's and the lows hit mid-50's. We found some really cool campsites that had some amazing views of the Mogollon Rim and Coconino National Forest. There were storms in the area, but we didn't get but a few drops. The storms were awesome to watch over the valleys. We found some cool trails along the 50-mile Highline Trail System, and ended up hiking about 10 miles all together. Rohan, as usual, was super excited to hike, but also as usual, was asleep about 2 miles in. He loved the backpack we got from Cari! All in all, it was great to beat the heat!
Mara & Rohan At Play:
Rohan has been so much fun lately! He's been getting up on his hands & knees and rocking a little. With that also comes the bumps & bruises. He leaned too far forward and fell into our butcher block...the butcher block won. He cried for a few seconds, then stopped when I went to pick him up. He's a tough little guy...:) He's doing the little mountain climber motion too, and has actually translated that into lurching forward to get a book. He seemed pretty surprised to have moved. Here's a little video of him giving Linus a back massage, while getting a leg workout as well:
To cap off a fun weekend, we headed over to Greg & Nico's to sit around the pool and grill out. We decided to try and get a picture of us all jumping in the pool at the same time. Turns out NONE of us could time it right. It literally took 20 jumps to get ONE good picture. But we did get some great pictures of us goofing off, or just plain mistiming the jump all together. I also came to the realization that I look exactly like my Dad at times...it's scary. Here are some pics of our efforts:
We also noticed we surpassed 20,000 blog views! We are really happy so many people can keep up with us, and especially Rohan's, lives. I'm sure some, like Michelle, are only interested in what Linus has been up to...:)
First...CONGRATS to Jordan & Kailea Schmit! They were married last Saturday. It was crazy hot that last weekend (highs in the 116°F range), but their outdoor wedding was greeted with a slight breeze and some sprinkles from a passing cloud. It was a little warm for Rohan (all pimped out in his tux) so Mara and I hung back inside. We snuck out a couple of times to catch Mara's Aunt Lorrie played violin, and Jordan's friend sung a song he wrote on acoustic guitar. It was an awesomely unique wedding, and we were really glad to be there for it. Jordan & Kailea are an awesome couple and we wish them the best! Rohan was missing his Grandma Holly so she flew down to see him, coincidentally there was a wedding this last weekend. :) Rohan really enjoyed the time with Grandma, but I think Grandma had even more fun. On Friday, Rohan and I picked her up from the airport and it was hard to separate them the rest of the weekend. She did share nicely at Heather's since he was passed from person to person, with no objections from him. He cheesed and charmed everyone he saw. Mara had to work at the clinic and Rohan got to spend ample time with Grandma and family. After Mara got off we took care of the dogs and headed to Heather's for a rehearsal dinner (which was AMAZING!) and followed that up with some much needed pool time to beat the heat. We had a little side show with Holly and Heather having a Hula-Hoop contest, in which Heather demonstrated her Hula skills. Heather won the World Hula Hoop Championship in 1985...:) I golfed with family & wedding party friends on Saturday at the San Marcos resort. I played like crap, but my group consisted of John's brother & sister and the Best Man Frank. We had a lot of fun, and i got to meet some great people. Mara had to pull clinic duties on Saturday so after golf I took the dogs out, picked up Holly & Rohan and then Mara before heading to the wedding. The mill the wedding was at was perfect. The temp was so hot, that they moved the bar inside. While we were moving the 12 packs of soda they had gotten so hot the glue on the boxes began to melt and the boxes fell apart. Ever see a hot soda fountain? They lost probably 2 cases of soda to explosions! Never even thought that would happen, but the heat is intense! The reception was a ton of fun. Rohan was all pimped out in his tux and he had constant entertainment from everyone. He continued to cheese and charm until he passed out. He was a trooper all night. Sunday Mara and I went back to Heather & John's to visit. I went and played John's home course, Vistal. The course was in amazing shape for the heat. It's right at the base of South Mountain in Phoenix, with awesome vistas of the mountain and downtown Phoenix. We went to supper at the Armadillo Grill and Rohan got some more snuggle time with Grandma before she headed back to WI.
It was a great weekend, with the promised 1000's of pictures, well maybe not that many, but a lot.
Sunday night we had a nice thunderstorm. Rohan had flashbacks to the 4th of July:
Rohan was a little late for his 6 month check up mainly because we were a little late in finding a pediatrician near our apartment and then had to wait for an appointment. Mike took Rohan in for his appointment yesterday afternoon and got his stats, he is a whopping 16lbs 4oz and 26in! According to the CDC height and weight percentile charts, that puts him in the 17.7% for weight and the 22.3% for height. Definitely growing like a weed.
By infantchart.com If you plug in Jan 4th and 7.35kg it will display Rohan's information, I couldn't get the link to save his info.
By infantchart.com Once again, I couldn't save his info, if you plug in Jan 4th and 66cm it will show his info. Rohan has been such a blast lately! Aside from the teething that is:)
He has been trying real hard to crawl, he can get his knees up under him and his chest/belly off the ground but has no idea what to do next! He can get around pretty good by rolling in all directions and pivoting on his stomach to turn around 360 degrees. The dogs are a great motivator for movement he will do just about anything to get closer to them, he loves the feel of their fur on his hands. Thankfully the dogs have been extremely tolerant of him and will let him pull on their hair/tails/ears and even chew on their legs, definitely wish we had a picture of that one
He babbles constantly whether anyone is there to listen or not. It sounds like he is singing to himself, he'll do it in the car or in his crib when he wakes up in the morning, it is adorable! No words or even the start of distinct sounds just noise. He has done a shrill screech a few times and we're really hoping that one doesn't stick around, way too annoying!
He has tried a TON of different food and hasn't rejected anything yet. His all time favorite so far is cappuccino sorbet (yes, we let him try it, just didn't think he'd like it so much) although he pretty much wants anything you are eating. We were a little dissappointed that we haven't found any foods that make him make funny faces, but don't worry we'll keep trying. Our pediatrician encouraged us to feed him more food along with his normal amount of milk, he wants us to fatten him up, which makes me laugh because seriously this kid has some rolls!
He is getting much better at his sippy cup but he still ends up wearing a lot, it is just water so no mess there and it cools him off.
We have been reading to Rohan nightly before bed since he was born. He really loves being read to, in the last few weeks he has become more interested in the books and wants to get his hands and mouth on them. He'll be reading in no time:)
Nothing else really too new, we thought we felt a tooth or two for a few days but it seems to have disappeared. We think one morning we're going to come in and find him with a mouth-ful of teeth.
We will do a post about this last weekend, just need to get the pictures off the camera. It was really nice to have Grandma Bacon here for a few days. Rohan got to spend quite a bit of time with her, he laid on the charm while she was here:) Rohan already misses getting spoiled rotten!
With Grandma Bacon coming this weekend we figure we'd close out Rohan's week in pictures since we'll have thousands after this weekend...:)
We hit up BW3's for a Brewer's game earlier this week and then for the Home Run Derby & All-Star Game. Rohan got A LOT of baseball time this week, as did Mara and I. But you won't hear us complain. We did get to see Prince Fielder win the HR Derby, which was really cool for us Brewer fans.
Rohan is really close to cutting his first tooth, and he's got the crankiness to prove it. But all in all, still a happy boy. He's also finding his feet to be quite entertaining. He reminds us of Cameron since he will wake up in the morning and then keep himself occupied by playing with his feet for 20 minutes or so. Any extra sleep-in time is great for us!
FYI, you may notice Rohan's nose is a little orange. From what we can figure it's from him face painting with the squash & sweet potato baby food he's been getting. Hopefully that goes away or grade school is going to be a nightmare for this kid...:)
Everyone said June was so mild this year, with it being in the 90's most of the time. July has not disappointed. Every day, but one, it has been over 100°F, with that one day reaching 99°F. But it isn't as bad as it sounds. 100°F+ with 10%-20% humidity is actually pretty comfortable when you are not in it for too long. Everywhere here has the A/C jacked up to low 70's, so it feels really good to come out of a store and into the heat (something John & Heather told us about too). We've found a couple of ways to manage such excessive heat. First, take at least 2 trips to the pool...:) Rohan has enjoyed it so much that we've tried to take him at least every other day. When he goes to bed we take the monitor out with us and can keep an ear on him. It's the only time we ever use our monitor, but we love that we can use it for that! Last night (Saturday) we took a dip around 1:00am since we were both wide awake and sort of bored. It was still 101°F at 1:00am, but with that dry desert air it really cools you off when you get out. Mara hit the hot tub to warm up...:) The pool temp has been around 85°F, but at Heather & John's it got up to 94°F! It felt great, but that is the warmest pool I've ever been in.
Our second heat avoiding trick is to spend it indoors. Most of Saturday morning was spent at the dealership finagling our new car price, but in the afternoon we spent a couple of hours at REI looking at camping and hiking equipment. We are looking at a Grand Canyon backpacking trip sometime next spring and just wanted to get an idea of what we might need.
The last way we beat the heat is to work out indoors. Lately we've been working out individually while Rohan sleeps. We usually get an hour each around 10:00 & 11:00pm, which makes for late nights, but that's pretty normal for us.
Today Rohan got to meet his Great-Grandma & Great-Grandpa Hansen, who are in town to visit before Jordan & Kailea's wedding. Heather had a awesome meal, topped off with strawberries, ice cream & angel food cake (one of our favs). We had some time to visit, watch golf, and hit the pool before we had to head back. Rohan was a little tired in the pool so he wasn't out too long, but he did have some fun naked time on the porch, and eventually fell asleep in the buff. Rohan did have an interesting encounter with Great-Grandma. She was holding him in the pool and he latched on to her neck and gave her a hickie! Hi-Larious! It's faint in the picture, but it really pops out in person. Hopefully it doesn't look too bad the next day.
With the new car, we also got Rohan's other car seat (a transitional one) in the new car so we can transport him in either car. It's a little tricky to get in (nice job Mara!), but he seems to like sitting up a little more than the other seat.
All in all, another warm, but great weekend in the valley of the sun!
For once it's not an animal or baby...it's a car! We had been looking since we've been here at vehicles, and finally found the deal we were looking for. We ended up with a 2005 Honda Accord. It's not tinted, so we'll need to do that at some point, but it's exactly what we needed right now (economical and should last through school). Michelle was so happy with her Honda, and she's got 18% of a million miles on it...:)
We finally got some time to hit up a Diamondbacks game. Mara's preceptor (Dr. Schneider) was nice enough to give Mara Wednesday off and gave us his season tickets! What an awesome Dr.! :) He had tickets behind home plate in the upper deck, and it was a really nice place to watch the game.
Rohan was mesmerized by the crowds, the sounds, and especially the giant HD scoreboard at straight-a-way center field. He's used to watching baseball at home on the TV, so it was something he was used to...:)
The game was really good (at least after the 5th inning). The Diamondbacks won, which we could care less for, but whenever the home team wins, the crowd is more excited, so it was nice to have the loud crowd. Of course we had 1000 pictures and videos so we posted a couple. Rohan wasn't real sure how to handle the home run AZ hit since it woke him from a half sleeping state, so of course we had to document that...:) When he did finally fall asleep he kept raising his hand an s-l-o-w-l-y putting it back down. It was pretty comical.
Rohan has also been REALLY interested in Schroeder lately so we've been encouraging some playtime between them. Schroeder has been awesome with Rohan. Even when Rohan shoved his hand in Schroeder's mouth he would back up to avoid biting him, so that was good to see. You know, rather than having Rohan come back with a stump hand...:)
Rohan looks so freakin' chubby now too! He is taking up the whole sink now, so we may have to move him to the tub now...mooo!
Other than that, not much going on. Just enjoying the crazy heat (116 predicted this Saturday), but it's not back if you just stay out of the sun and drink plenty of H2O...:)
Yep, the little guy is 6 months old already! It's amazing how he's changed in such a short time. He's much more aware of the world around him, which is good, unless you are trying to feed an easily distracted baby.
This last week Mara finished up her orientation classes, and this coming week she FINALLY starts in the clinic. She's super excited to start seeing patients and learning to apply all her knowledge she has stored on her hard drive. Rohan is looking forward to some quality "Dad Time". So far it been fun watching him and the dogs interact, as well as him demonstrate why he's the "Smartest Baby Ever" (see videos).
We had an awesome weekend this week. Friday we went over to Greg & Nico's to grill out, hang out at the pool, and relax with a couple of friends of Greg & Nico's. They were really fun, and brought their 7 month old and 4 year old. The 4 year old had so much energy, I can only imagine what that will be like with Rohan! We played cornhole under the lights and towards the end of the night it rained pretty hard for about 30 minutes! It was a really cold rain, but it felt good after the 108°F we had that day.
Saturday was a long, but fun day. I started out by meeting Greg & Brian at the golf course. We played the course that Arizona State uses as their home course, called Karsten Golf Course. It was a really good design (by architect Pete Dye). I started out 3 over through the first 6 holes with 4 pars and a birdie. That's some of the best golf I've played. I couldn't maintain that pace, but it still felt really good to play, even with the soaring temperatures! It took us about 3.5 hours to play and it was over 100°F the whole time. Afterwards we went to Sasha's and grilled out, hung out at her pool, and made plans for fireworks.
We went to Tempe's fireworks, which were down by the ASU campus, along the AZ canal. There was a HUGE crowd, but somehow we hooked up with Sasha and Jake. It was pretty warm, but we're getting used to it. It was probably around 100°F at 9:30 when the show started. We were not sure how Rohan would do with the loud noises. It turns out he LOVED IT! He was absolutely enthralled with the display, and barely flinched at the noise, although a few of the reports startled him. He even started to nod off during the finale (see video). The show lasted about 45 minutes, and had 5-6 rounds of fireworks that we all thought were the finale. The real finale was awesome! There were even fireworks that I hadn't seen before, which made it cool for us as well.
The ride home was interesting...to say the least. We had parked at a mall where shuttles were running to the fireworks park. After the show we walked back to the bus stop we were dropped of at and hopped on a bus. Turns out it's not the shuttle we originally got on. Sasha realized we were going the opposite direction of the mall. We thought about getting out and figuring out the way back, but we were in a pretty bad neighborhood. Luckily Jake has seen the bus route number on the outside (nice attention to detail!) and I looked up the route on my phone. By some blind frickin' luck the bus happened to go right by Sasha's apartment! WOW! We stopped there and she gave us a ride back to our cars. Overall about an hour detour, but a fun story to share...:)
Today was a nice day of watching Tiger Woods duel Anthony Kim in golf and watching the Brewers at Buffalo Wild Wings. Even though the Brewers lost, it was still fun. Rohan did pretty well considering we were there for almost 4 hours. I was pretty lazy and just watched sports, while Mara was working on writing up a case study they had for homework. Rohan, being more aware of his surroundings, decided to attack the sunshade on his car seat. It was pretty comical watching him attack it...:)
Tonight Mara and I took Rohan to the pool to cool off a little. He took a little nap, then at 8:00 we decided to try running outside. Since it's gotten so warm recently, we've been running inside (not our favorite). Since we hadn't run in this kind of heat (still 100+°F at 8:00) we made sure to bring lots of fitness water and took several breaks to assess how we were feeling. We made it 3.5 miles and still felt good, but stopped so we didn't overdo our first run in this heat. Rohan slept through most of it. Mara made the comment that Rohan has been running his whole life, including inside and outside the womb. I thought that we pretty cool...:) Enjoy the pics & vids...There are a lot of them!:
Taylor Nicole -- February 5th, 1997 Kaylee Christine -- June 4th, 2001 Jackson Edward -- May 5th, 2007 Samuel Reuben -- July 5th, 2007 Thomas Costa -- December 28th, 2007 Rohan Alexander -- January 4th, 2009 Ryan James-- October 29th, 2009
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