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As is the tradition, we headed up to Auburn, CA to celebrate Thanksgiving with the whole Kashuba family. It was Maddox’s first visit and I think he did really well.  8-)

It was fun to be able to spend some time in nature and enjoy the simplicity of it all. From the couch you can see deer wandering by the large picture window. Many of them had a fawn in tow. 

Tonight we went out to our first social event with the baby in tow. Up until tonight we had been to 3 doctor’s appointments (2 for me, 1 for Maddox), and one trip to Natural Resources, which is only blocks from our house. The big difference right off the bat is that the hospital (and actually NR) is set up for us. They don’t mind if I whip out a boob out to feed, they have a nice bed or changing table for diaper changes, they have running water and a sink, a trash can with lid, and even anti-bacterial hand junk. For our first outings it was super nice to have these amenities, it gave us the chance to ease into it all. 

I wasn’t sure if we were going to be in over our heads taking on this dinner tonight. It was a super special sneak peek dinner at Nettie’s Crab Shack that we had been looking forward to for a while. We put Maddox in his car seat in the stroller and there he slept for almost the entire meal. It went off without a hitch! He woke up around the time we were ready to leave, so I whisked him to the restroom, changed him on the sink/countertop (like a pro, I might add), and even gave him about a 10 min feeding standing up before returning to the table. This was enough to get him home without incident. At this point its all a crap shoot as far as timing goes. Every day is different, so we don’t really know when he’ll be asleep, awake, or nursing.

I was such a proud parent tonight walking down Union Street pushing the stroller. It was like our coming out to the public. This was me and my husband out with our baby in the real world. A little family. Pretty amazing stuff.

No hands to type…
Here is a photo from our second night at the hospital. That night it was just me and Maddox.

The restaurant printed up a couple menus just for us…

The meal was delicious, and I somehow found room for 3 courses and glass of Navarro Vineyards Gewürztraminer grape juice. 

Its our second anniversary today! We will be celebrating by going to Quince for dinner this evening. It seemed like we should go out to a fancy restaurant while we still could, though I’m a tad concerned about how much tasty food I’ll be able to fit into my belly! 

Dallas’ new do!  (its grass)

Today Dallas turns another year older.  Happy Birthday Honey!

Last night Dallas and I went out for a leisurely Sunday night dinner to Universal Cafe. It is pretty close to our house, but it was cold so we decided to take the bikes and make the journey faster and more fun. On the way there I realized I had two flat tires. 8-( I guess I hadn’t ridden the bike since I worked at Range. Oh well, at that point we were already half way there so I just pushed through trying not to cause too much damage to my poor bike.

Dinner was tasty and we left feeling satisfied and ready for a nice ride home. We started over to where we had locked up our bikes and noticed only one remained! I couldn’t believe it. My bike was gone. The cable was clipped and my bike was gone. It was an awful sinking feeling. We knew better than to lock up the bike with only a cable lock, but we were only going to Universal, and only for an hour or so. Crazy.

So Dallas unhooked his bike and we began our walk home. We had only made it a few steps when a group of people rounded the corner on their way to Universal. As usual, I was listening in on their conversation… “I remember once I had my bike stolen…”. I turned around and had to bust in with my story. “Really!?, My bike was JUST stolen from in front of the restaurant.”. They told us that they had JUST seen a guy riding a bike holding an extra bike next to him!

Holy Cow!

And Dallas was off!
He disappeared down the street and several minutes later came back around the block with my bike in tow! My husband rocks.

Recently I attended my Uncle Tom’s graduation from Stanford Medical School. He received his PH.D. in Molecular and Cellular Physiology. Yay Uncle Tom! His thesis was titled “A New Approach to Treating the Failing Heart”. I love that name. Its medical, yet romantic.

Other thesis titles weren’t quite as easy to understand – “Cell Context and Subtypespecific Trafficking of the Alpha 2-adrenergic Receptors”, “At the Surface of Host-pathogen Interactions in Toxoplasma Gondii Infections”, “Calcineurin/NFAT Signaling Controls Pancreatic Beta-cell Growth and Function”, and “TEC-1 is a Novel Marker for Human CD4+Recent Thymic Emigrants”.

Just being around all those smart people made feel very simple and kinda dumb. Its amazing to me just how smart people are sometimes. And my friends are smart people too! Turns out Elise was also graduating that same day from Stanford Medical School. Of course! I just hadn’t put 1+1 together and come up with 2 (Math has never been a strong point of mine). So Elise is now a Doctor of Medicine! Officially Dr. Lawson. How cool is that??

Check out the photo gallery link to the right to see the photos!