We spent a wonderful week in New Hampshire at the beginning of August to celebrate Natalie and Dan Fitzpatrick's wedding (in Sugar Hill), and to hang out with our friends the Blacks at a wonderful cottage in Mountain Lakes (near Woodsville, NH). We did lots of hiking, spelunking in caves, playing at the lake, cable-car riding up and down mountains, and relaxing. The boys were both troopers and Leo did awesome on his first plane rides ever! I've posted some pics mainly just of our boys since there are a truly overwhelming number of photos, but if you want more of a given party just let me know and I'm sure I have some that fit the bill. Click here to check out our shots from the wedding and click here to check out our pics from Mountain Lakes. I haven't gotten all of them yet so stay tuned for some shots of Drew's first bungee jumping experience shortly...

We also took the boys on their first tent camping excursion with some of our/Drew's friends this past weekend. The kids had a fabulous time rolling in dirt the whole weekend and chasing each other in circles. Traveling with other kids the same age as yours is DEFINITELY the way to go. Camping was a great activity with them but we'll definitely choose somewhere a little less "urban" than Lake Casitas next time- a bit too much generator and not enough photosynthesis for our taste. Nonetheless, a good time was had by all and Drew even told me that I am "the best MomMom in the whole world" for taking him camping! Here are some shots of the kids (and their grownups).

Leo just had his four month checkup and is growing like a weed- or like a succulent, to be more precise. He's ballooned out to an impressive 17 lbs 3 oz which puts him in the 90th percentile for weight, and is 25 inches long (50th percentile). He's doing well- figuring out the sitting up thing, very chatty and smiley, and definitely eyeing any solid foods in sight, so that is apparently going to be our next venture.

Andy finishes up his summer term this week and then starts his penultimate quarter for his MBA in early September. I also start back up at school on September 7th for my fall semester- can't believe my classes are half over! Lastly, Drew himself will begin school in a few weeks at Sierra Madre Community Nursery School, a wonderful co-operative preschool nearby. He's very excited about big boy school and tells me that I don't have to go with him now because he's grown up. So it would appear he's ready. I am also starting another "job" this week- it's a volunteer gig as a Loan Review Team Leader for Kiva, an organization that provides microfunding for small business owners in developing nations around the world. I'm very excited about the opportunity to get involved with their programs and to get back into the swing of volunteering some of my time while simultaneously building up my leadership skills.

So off we go into many more adventures...

Leo is changing minute to minute these days and I can't believe he's already passed the three month mark. He's holding his head up really well and loves to be sitting upright so he can look around and be involved in the conversation. He's started using his jumper and thinks that's pretty fun. He is a very happy little guy and very smiley. He is also a big talker and loves to babble on and on to anyone who will listen. Like his brother he seems ambitious and eager to get on with his development and finds it insulting to be treated like a baby, so my hopes for having a more prolonged infancy stage this time around are slowly disappearing. That's okay though because we're all having tons of fun with him and enjoying his constant efforts to get his voice heard over the din.

I had a great trip to Buenos Aires for school at the beginning of the month and the boys both did really well with Andy, Mom, Dad & Nana Linda. (Notice how it took four of them to do my job...) Now I'm on break until after labor day and really enjoying the opportunity to focus on hanging out with the family and working through two-foot tall stacks of papers that have been accumulating since the spring. It's a testament to my free capacity that I'm getting the time to actually sort through all our recent photos to get some up as well! Andy is a few weeks away from closing out his summer term and can't wait- after this he's only got two more quarters until he gets his MBA!

We've been enjoying our less structured time this summer to take frequent excursions to water parks, the beach, the zoo, and the arboretum. We've been making lots of weekend trips to relax with family, troubleshoot minor flooding disasters, etc. This weekend we're off to New Hampshire for Natalie Lenski's wedding and then to spend a week of fun at the lake with the Blacks. Can't wait to have a real family vacation all four of us- and Leo's first plane journey to boot!

I can already tell August is going to fly by with everything that's going on and then Drew is actually starting preschool (!!) in September. It's happening so fast! We're excited for it and it will be fun to get back into a new normal but we're planning on enjoying every minute of the time we have left before he officially becomes a school-going big kid.

There were a number of new activities for both boys. We had a great blueberry picking expedition and Drew loved wandering around the fields with Cousin Jake saying "kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk" (a reference to "Blueberries for Sal", one of our beloved children's books). Drew also did his first hike where he was walking instead of being carried- only about a mile round trip up to a little waterfall, but still impressive for such little legs, particularly given that he was under the weather. Leo took his inaugural dip in the hot tub and enjoyed his first weekend in wine country (other than his cough). Most exciting, however, is that Leo has begun smiling at us a lot and even chuckling and laughing at me! Couldn't resist the opportunity to share.

Click here to check out the new album.

He's still got congestion and goes through bouts of labored breathing. The doctors are at least talking about possibly letting him go tomorrow if he stays like this- we were really hoping for tonight because of how well he's doing but that's looking like it's off the table given the time, and their desire to be conservative over the weekend when no doctors are in the office should he have difficulties. So we'll see what tomorrow brings.

Sounds like Drew hasn't thrown up today, although he's mainly avoiding foods and only consuming popsicles, juice, etc. but at least that's a small step in the right direction. Hopefully his tummy will be fully mended soon and he'll start to feel like himself when the antibiotics kick in and begin to work.

My mom came up today and spent a few hours with Drew so that Andy and I could actually see each other (until now when he's come to visit he's had Drew which means we don't get to interact at all, because Drew drags me off to the play room for Mommy time). It's been tough all being apart for so long, and especially the two of us getting no opportunities at all to talk or hang out. He even convinced me to leave Leo napping and go have lunch with him outside the hospital for about an hour today- the first time I've actually left this ward since Monday (scary, but true). Hopefully we'll be home soon and we can all be together again!

Drew has been throwing up since the wee hours of the morning and hasn't been able to keep food down. He took a trip to the doctor's office today and it looks like his bout with RSV has led to some secondary complications, namely fluid buildup in his lungs and an ear infection. He's been given albuterol to help with the breathing for the former, and antibiotics to help with the latter. Bad news is he can't keep food down and is still suffering from the RSV symptoms on top of that. Good news is that he should start showing signs of improvement once the antibiotics actually kick in, which at least gives him a timeline for recovery (unlike the rest of us).

He was very cute, apparently Andy asked him if it was scary or if he hurt when he threw up for the first time at 5am and he said "No, you're okay. That's disgusting." Then on the phone later with me he told me "Your food come out of your mouth. Daddy clean it up." He seems in amazing spirits about it all, which as wonderful, but a mommy can't help feeling guilty that she can't be there for both of her boys when they're sick and feeling crummy. Andy says his cough is clearing up but I've got some nasty deep lung congestion that I can't imagine I'll conquer any time soon what with sleeping for one hour stints in a plastic covered hospital recliner. We'll deal with that at some later point in time, though once the boys are looking up.

Basically, his pattern is that he wakes up to eat, then spends about an hour coughing and wheezing to try to clear the goop in the back of his throat so he can breathe well and rest. Then someone comes in and uses a deep suctioning tool to get enough of the gunk out that his coughing fit passes, then he falls asleep from exhaustion for about an hour. Then he's hungry and wants to eat again, and the cycle starts anew. The unfortunate part about it is that he's getting a lot less rest because the coughing takes up about half of his usual interval between feedings, so at this point he's spending about half of the day worked up and coughing rather than being able to sleep and recuperate.

The respiratory therapist said that this sort of plateauing at a given stage of the recovery process is quite common with RSV- that it will look like things are getting better and then they will stagnate or actually get a bit worse, as in Leo's case, and then the baby will just sort of hang out in a stage and not seem to be showing signs of improvement. He did say, however, that it's not likely that Leo's condition will regress to something substantially more serious- a secondary infection or a need for supplemental fluids or oxygen, for example, so that is somewhat reassuring. In the meantime, they've made it relatively clear that they don't want to send him home while he's still having so much trouble breathing, so it looks like we're sort of in a holding pattern until something shows sustained signs of changing for the better.