This is Tobin's new trick! He doesn't crawl yet but this move shows us that he might be doing a little more than sleeping in that crib at night.

They say yoga's good for your Chi Tobin!

Yep, you guessed it, we have been out and about again. Dave, Tobin and I all went to Turnbull NWR for a little hike on Sunday. Our little hike turned into 4.75 miles! We only live about 5 miles away but this is the first time either one of us (I guess this is Tobin's first time too!) have ever been hiking in this area. I kept saying as we were driving there "why have we never been to Turnbull before?". It is so beautiful there - and we saw it on an overcast day.

We we were not lucky enough to see a moose or deer but we did see some interesting birds, a couple of chipmunks and--not to be confused with the previous examples--about 12 nasty, disgusting, horrific, grotesque, ticks. I guess it is the season for ticks and we were without our bug spray. Yuck.

Again, I have taken way too many photos but luckily we have this great blog to share a few of them with you.




One of the coolest things to see (at least for a geek like me) are of formations in the photo below. It is a photo of a mima mound. If you haven't already checked the link, a quick description from Wikipedia:

Mima mounds (pronounced /ˈmaɪmə/ "MEE-mah"), also known as Hogwallows, are uniformly distributed mounds of soil some 1-3 meters tall that occur in various places in the world. Their age or origin is still unknown. Various theories have been proposed: that they are Amerindian or pre-historic peoples' burial mounds, remnants of glacial activity, interactions of the soil with earthquake vibrations, or the cumulative action of gophers or other burrowing animals over a long period of time.^[1]

Here's a link to a creepy aerial photo of mima mounds.



The rocks below are an example of what accumulates around the base of the mima mounds. The soil and rocks are sorted into piles - by what, they don't really know.














I know it looks small but below is a panoramic of about 32 photos stitched together by Photoshop. If you click on it you will be able to see more detail. This view was very lovely.

Our first big hike (3 miles around Medical Lake) with Lisa and Oliver - Bloomsday and Mt. St. Helen's here we come!

Thanks Lisa for the great photo.

Before

During - Trying to catch a moving target with Dad's help.

After - his hair is almost straight and only a little chunky!!

Handsome little boy!!

Tobin is fascinated with his cousin.

Egads! Tobin is GROWING!!! He can now wave, change the pages of his books, push himself backwards, pet the cat, look where we are pointing, give me 5 (more like many 5's), pull himself onto his knees, push himself in a circle, and so much more that I couldn't even explain. His level of understanding is amazing. As you can see from these photos, he is making so many funny faces. The face above is what he makes when it is bright or the wind is blowing in his face.

His eyes are still dark blue on the outside and light brown near the pupil. They seem to be keeping this color. He is a brown, blue, and green eyed little boy. You'll have to see them to see what I mean. You can really tell in this photo. He has 6 teeth, he is 20 lbs and 28 1/2 inches tall. This month he ate tofu (we add it to everything, doesn't really have a flavor, excellent protein), red potatoes (likes), egg yokes (loves), cheese (he's not sure), yogurt (bleck), cottage cheese (bleck).

Life is good.