Sometimes its sunny in Seattle

On Saturday the sun came out and the shades went on. Should I be embarrassed that this is my husband and son? Nah! They're pretty flippin cute. All Owain needs is a little Cuban cigar to complete his look.

Not sure if I have mentioned it in previous posts but I belong to a first time moms group called PEPS (Program for Early Parent Support). We have been meeting for 12 weeks. Yesterday was our last official meeting but we all love it so much that we've decided to continue meeting indefinitely. These ladies have come to mean a lot to me over the past three months. I honestly don't know how I would have muddled through moving to a new city with a new baby without our weekly talks. I tried to take a lot of pics during the meeting but I am a LAME photographer. Luckily our leader, Monique, took some group shots with my camera.
I know what your thinking, "What a bunch of hot moms!" And cute babies of course:) Two of the resident hotties aren't featured in this photo but I'm sure they'll get their moment of blog fame in the future.

6 Months Old Today

Its hard to believe that half a year has gone by already. To celebrate his half birthday Owain got to take a trip to the pediatrician's office and get immunizations Yay! Obviously, that sucked but the good news is that he won't have any more jabs until he's a year old. He was measured and weighed again. 27" long and 19.4 lbs. He is steadily growing and gaining weight but it has slowed a bit during the last two months. The doctor attributed this to him getting easily distracted while eating. This is so true! He turns his head at the slightest noise or movement. I may have to start feeding him in a darkened room. He has recently hit two major milestones. Sitting up unaided and rolling over. Below is a video documenting the incredible task of Owain rolling from his belly to his back. No more "tummy time" for this baby.

Eaty Photos Finally

He's had two meals now.





Yesterday, we left the house planning to check out our nearest Denny's over five miles away. (No, I don't know how we survive.) We got a little carried away and ended up taking a ferry ride to a place called Kingston. It's very picturesque with lots of coastline and moldy trees.

I don't normally bring my camera to Denny's so you'll just have to make do with this map of the ferry route:

View Larger Map

I only just convinced Heather that Kingston isn't on an island. The ferry crossing is 6½ miles but the drive would be 109 miles and over 170 without even crossing bridges. Google should never have given us Google Maps. Then I'd be sleeping right now.

Awww Mom, Not That Picture!!!!

I'd like to say we've been too busy to blog but that would be a big fat lie. Here is a synopsis of life in the McFarlane household for the past 2 weeks or so. On Easter Sunday Owain got his first taste of rice cereal (that's what the movie is of in the previous post). It was all very exciting and messy, maybe that's why we haven't done it since. I had a birthday, 33, woo..., John found a new recipe to make for dinner, chicken curry, we've had it 6 times, and Owain and I were in a little fender bender during a freak snowstorm. I slid into a big 4x4. Thankfully it didn't even wake Owain up and there was no damage to the other vehicle, my car on the other hand has quite a bit of expensive damage to the air conditioning and radiator. Its in the shop now and I hope by the time all the repairs are made we haven't had to sell our first born to cover the costs.

Dang, that's a lot of candles, almost set the smoke detector off!

And finally, the most recent picture of Owain. He's a "maniac", looking for "fame" in his awesome baby legwarmers

Sloppy Chops!

5 Months Old

That's right. Rocky is five today! For his birthday present, we thought we'd get him a handbag:


Actually, that's Heather's. It replaces the one she lost last week containing her driver's license and passport. Now with her identity lost, she lives on the outskirts of society, keeping to the shadows and paying mostly in cash. It's her birthday on Friday and as a special treat, I'm getting her a fake ID from some guy who hangs out at the local community college.

In case you've been living under rock, Wales won the Grand Slam! It appears that I can still listen to matches live on the radio without jinxing the team. However, I am never to watch another match on the telly in case that is what makes them lose.

Beddy-Byes

Last week, we trained Owain to go to sleep using the Cry It Out method. This requires a steely resolve and a bucket of fish. The most he cried was 25 minutes and on a couple of occasions, we've put him in his cot at 7.30 and he's barely whimpered. What a good baby!

Here are some more pictures. (I've added a bunch of links to my pictures page to make it easier to find all the baby pics. The rest of this posting is about sports and computers now so goodbye matriarchal hoards.)

On Saturday morning, I happened to be awake at 4.30; they haven't invented the And Stay Cried Out method yet. I put Radio Wales on to catch the last half hour of Rhod Gilbert and realised they were covering the Wales v Ireland Rugby match instead. So we got up, had breakfast and listened to the match. Wales are now proud winners of the Triple Crown and favourites to win the tournament and are tantalisingly close to winning the Grand Slam - about the best season I can remember. Just my luck it's all but impossible to watch the games here.

Later in the afternoon, I wandered to the supermarket with Owain and decided to venture in to the local computer shop. Everybody knows about their local warehouse-sized outlet like PC World or Fry's Electronics. People rarely spare a thought for the shabby premises just a few streets away from where they live. Drive past it and you'll probably miss it. There are no flashy signs, no shops fronts and certainly no customers going in or out.

ComProSof is a text-book example of the local computer shop. Check out the web site but remember where your back button is because this site was designed before hyper-links were invented. The owner sells consignments (which means you bring your old stuff in and they try and sell it for you). As a result, it's like an museum of obsolete computer parts. There's a shelf with about a dozen randomly assorted four and five-way parallel printer switchers. The hard-drives start at 4 gigabytes (which I think will set you back $5+tax) and I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of the software pre-dates Windows.

I feel that I'm going to have to build a new PC now just for the excuse to hang out there. I bought a hard-drive just for starters and spent a few hours yesterday and today converting the old Dell into a file and web server.