Another BWCA trip!? Sawbill Lake to Karl Lake

Pictures from our trip to the BWCAW on June 22-26. We put into Sawbill and went north through Cherokee Lake all the way up to Karl Lake. On the way back down we went to Cherokee and then east and south through some horribly long and rugged portages down to Baker Lake where we exited. Then Karl, Luke and Matt hitchhiked back over to Sawbill to collect the cars, and get the girls, and enjoy some creature comforts. Warm showers and a beer have never before been so refreshing!


Sunrise the first morning over Cherokee Lake


Kristi is a superstar carrying her pack and the boat

Moose sighting! We actually say two, one on Gordon Lake and the second on North Temperance River. This one is from the Temperance and he was feeding on veggies from the river, plunging his huge head in and out of the water.


Luke and Shannon, our Chicago friends

Karl and Mikkin, our Denver friends (soon to be our China friends)

Who are these clowns?

Just a little update

We'll post some more pictures soon, but I wanted to jot down a couple of new things Charlotte is doing these days before I forget.

While we were in the Boundary Waters for a week, Charlotte was hanging out with Grandpa Mark and Grandma Cindy (Kristi's parents). She had a great time, and I think the grandparents did too. In Grandpa Mark's words, "We're not giving her back." :) During this short time away, Charlotte grew up and is now ready for college. Her big accomplishment? Standing up without needing to hold on to anything! Apparently she started doing this right away at the beginning of the week at their house, and can stand up like a champ now. She also learned the answer to one of life's biggest questions, "How big is Charlotte?" Charlotte's resounding answer, "SO BIG!!!" Grandma Cindy said she only worked on that a couple of times, and Charlotte wouldn't really do it for her. She must have been waiting to show it off to mom and dad.

She seems to really be understanding so much more these days. One of the funniest is if we ask her "Charlotte, do you want some milk?" She will look directly at the milk source (aka mom) and pull on mom's shirt to get better visualization. Obviously we do not encourage this in public. Another sign of understanding is that in the morning or after naps when we pick her up from her crib we tell her to drop her nippy (her pacifier) into her crib. She used to just look at us blankly while we pulled it out of her mouth and put it in the crib, but now she will pull it out and drip it in herself! I know it's not exactly rocket science, but she's really making progress in her mental abilities!

Charlotte is turning one year old on Saturday (can you believe it?!), so we will certainly be posting some pictures of her family birthday party after that. I'll try to post some other pictures before that if I have time.

Buffalo Days and U of M Arboretum Pictures

Over the weekend we celebrated "Buffalo Days" by going to a petting zoo, dog & disc contest, and other festivities in the park, and in the evening watched a parade! Char loved watching the dogs and had a great time, but was scared out of her gourd by the sirens on the fire engine :(





This one is for you Grandpa Randy! Note the empty coffee mug next to her as she reads through the paper on an early morning. She isn't looking quite woken up yet in her bathrobe.


Now on to arboretum pictures! http://www.arboretum.umn.edu/ By the way, for our fellow students you get in for free with your University ID.



Fun with the camera settings...


Charlotte is amazed at the beauty. Clearly irises are her favorite flower, just like her Grandma!

Toothless Wonder no more

Charlotte's first time eating spaghetti by herself. She's got more noodles on her bib than in her tummy!

I was in a hurry to post those pictures last night before bed and I forgot to say a few things that are new around here.

The first is that Charlotte got her very first tooth!!! She'd been working on it for a little while, and it broke through her gums while we were out in New Jersey/Pennsylvania for Charlie and Olivia's wedding. She has been such a good girl all along and was never crabby about it. Although now she seems like maybe she's more irritable than her normal sunny personality, so maybe she's going to get a whole mouthful of teeth at once. It's about time at 11 months! She won't let us look at it much, so it will probably be a while before we get a picture posted with it showing.

We caught Charlotte playing in the toilet water yesterday. She was crawling around in the hall while we ate dinner and the bathroom door was open. I ran after her but she likes to crawl faster when she knows she's being chased. So right as I got to her she pulled herself up on the toilet and stuck her hands in the bowl. Nice one, Char. She got a good hand scrubbing after that!

Charlotte is really into animals. She adores dogs; if we are out on a walk and she sees a dog she will "bark" at it and flap her arms and kick her legs. It's hard to hold on to her because she squirms to get down and run over to it. Her love of animals is not limited to dogs. I (Kristi) taught her "What does a lamb say?" And she'll answer "Ba ba ba" in normal baby babble-style (sounds sort of like the beginning of the Beach Boys song, Barbara Ann). She has lots of books with animals in them, and sometimes when she opens to the lamb page she will say ba ba ba. We've noticed recently that she likes to point out all the animals in books. I don't know if it is the faces she recognizes or what. Grandma Cindy gave her a book about an African family and a goat, and she LOVES to look at it and point out the goats on every page. What a goofy girl!

We are in the process of looking for daycare for Charlotte in Minneapolis. We are moving there in mid-August for our last year of medical school (speaking of which, by the way, we are now officially 4th years!!!! Yay!!!!). This has turned out to be a bigger process than we thought, and we are frustrated with the long waitlists at most places. Apparently you should know where you want your kid to go for daycare before you even get pregnant, as many places have waitlists between 10 months and 2 years!!!! We have a couple of promising options though, one at the home of some friends of friends from Duluth, and the other at a center. However, if anyone has ANY ideas, please let us know!

Just a little reminder of what Charlotte and I were doing 1 year ago (June 8, 2007)

Baby goes to Philly

We went to Philadelphia and New Jersey at the end of May for Matt's brother Charlie's wedding to the newest member of the Florek family, Olivia. It was a wonderful weekend and a beautiful wedding. Welcome to the family Olivia!

The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia on our day of sightseeing

Charlotte with Grandpa Randy taking a tour of historic Philly

Charlotte with her "cousins" Megan and Chelsie (they are actually Matt's cousins)

Charlie and Olivia

Matt had the very important job of holding the book during one part of the ceremony. He said it was heavy and his arm got tired.

Aww...

Matt and his mom. Don't they look nice?!

The wedding party all rode in a limo between the ceremony and reception

Miss Charlotte had a wonderful time eating off of the table. She had all kinds of good things including some steak, chicken, and buttery green beans.

Matt and his mom cutting a rug.
Yum!

Charlotte cuddling with Grandpa Randy...she's getting a little tired of all this partying!

She fell asleep in my arms on the dance floor with the live band playing. Poor little lamb, she must have been exhausted!

Charlotte shares her thoughts with Littlefoot

Thanks to Liz P. from our medical school class, Charlotte has her very first best friend. She shares all of her secrets with Littlefoot, one of the dinosaurs from the old movie "The Land Before Time." She talks to him, and cuddles with him, and pulls little bits of fur out of him. She laughs when she sees him and will toddle as fast as she can across the room to get to him. Here she is talking to him:

Kawishiwi Lake to Polly and Malberg Lake (BWCA)

I've had a few requests for pics from my recent trip to the BWCA, so to please the crowd, here ya go. Sorry, no pics of Charlotte, princess of the blog, on this post!

Highlights include no 515 rod portages like last time (thanks a lot Joshua), catching and eating a couple dozen beautiful smallmouth bass and some northern pike too, meeting a friendly black bear on the portage, and lots of deep blue sky and cold, open water. Enjoy!