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This Sunday we skipped church (which we’ve been doing way too much this summer) and headed up to Mt. Hood for a quick bike race and lunch at Timberline Lodge. The weather was nice and the mountain was looking beautiful. Its still clinging to the winter’s snow this late in August, but it was mostly up above the lodge.

The race was a hill climb event from Government Camp all uphill to the lodge… about six miles and 2000 vertical feet up the hill. I got beat pretty bad by all the climbing specialists, but I still had a ton of fun in some sick oxygen-starved sort of way.

The pictures and captions will tell the story of the day better than I can, so read on:

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The Bosaz Clan came over on Friday night. We grilled out. Actually, Daisy did the grilling and we ate it. I didn’t get many pictures, but I managed to snap these two. This is how grillin’ should be! No hickory chips, no propane or charcol… I’m talkin’ scrap wood in a pile of rocks with a grate to keep the meat from completely falling into the fire. yum.

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Yup. Noel is definitely a girl. We’ve been watching Ice Age on Hulu (before they pulled it) and she cries EVERY time Scrat gets hurt. I think she may be a PETA activist when she grows up. We finally had to stop watching it so we wouldn’t scar her emotionally. Oddly, I find myself crying when Scrat gets hurt too. Maybe its genetic.

Definitely a girl. from Stephen Fitzgerald on Vimeo.

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Our great friend Jess Barnhard is a photographer in LA, and she snapped some family pics when she was up here visiting with her beau (and now fiancee!) Ade. She sent us a few teaser images, one of which is already the new blog header, but I thought I’d post ‘em here anyway ‘cuz we love ‘em.

Jess shoots with one of those fancy-pants film cameras. Bonus points to anyone who knows what film is.

Thanks Jess!

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Every parent thinks their kid is special, and probably a genius. Sarah and I aren’t diluted, but we do think Noel is pretty smart and she does do some adorable things out of the blue. The video below shoes her latest trick. We’re proud parents!

(you can watch it fullscreen by clicking on the icon to the left of the Vimeo word. you can also turn on HD)

Noel helps out. from Stephen Fitzgerald on Vimeo.

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Our good buddy Greg Bosaz has been remodeling his bathroom in fine form, and it may even make an appearance on our blog if we can get our camera over to his house one of these days.

In the mean time, he snipped his fingers with the tin snips and sustained a small owie. It was a small owie anyway, but the doctor managed to blow it WAAAAAY out of proportion with a little decoration.

Lets all have a moment of silence for Greg as we imagine what his work day will be like today as he tries to explain this beauty of a war wound!

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Okay, maybe not every event in the following list has kept us from posting, but they are BIG events that have happened in the last month hiatus. And they won’t really be in order of significance either. So I guess the reason for the list is that its an easy way to update on lots of things.

THE LIST:

10. After my trip to LA at the end of june I returned home and IMMEDIATELY had 6 fun visitors! Heewon & her hubby Peter, Jeannie & Freddy, AND Jillito and Justin. They all stayed with us some at the same time, some at different and we had fun fire pit action and also celebrated the 4th of july and some awesome fireworks.

9. The day after the last friends left, we packed up and headed to OHIO for a family reunion of sorts. It was also a trip where we celebrated my dad and 35 years of service at his restaurant “the redwood”, which he decided to leave and pursue new adventures. We threw a party for close friends and family to support him! Noel of course had her FIRST ice cream cone that was all her own. Ben and Liz were in from DC and they brought a good friend Allison. We had a full house of family and of course all shopped at Gabe’s!

8. We left OHIO and drove to KY for another celebration: Emily & Ryan’s Wedding! It was at a beautiful historic plantation where Abe Lincoln stayed.

7. Soon after our arrival home to WA nonni and poppi arrived and we’ve been in full swing working and playing. Lots of projects for stephen and I. (Its easier to work when we have built in sitters!) But we’ve taken a break and gone to the beach and other things like the farmer’s markets.

6. Noel went to the Oregon Zoo for the first time with her cousins Mckenzie and Hudson and me and my parents. Hudson is almost 2 and he and Noey both seemed to love the big fish the most.

5. Our dear friends Jess and Adrian got ENGAGED! at one of my fave LA spots Griffith Observatory! (I get to do the invitations too!)

4. My Sister Jennifer turned 21! AND she also passed her boards to be a PT assistant which is HUGE! CONGRATS!

3. Ian and Jolynn (my brother and sister in law) SOLD there house. Which we all know is a blessing in this market! So they are off to new adventures in Columbus as Ian starts his new job. Oh and also he has got to travel a bunch and went to Boston one of my favorite cities ever. So jealous. Oh and he met the US Olympic basketball team when he was at some swank hotel in Vegas.

2. Of course we’ve been up to our usual tricks and home improvements. Mostly landscaping and yardwork, but the biggest achievment outside so far is the rock wall along the driveway! This created a whole new project, redoing the driveway. whoohooo.

1. AND the number ONE reason I haven’t been blogging is I have been sick. As in morning sickness, only it lingers all day. That’s right folks…. WE ARE PREGNANT! I am 11 weeks along. Noel is gonna have a buddy!

ENJOY THE PICS!

love, the fitz’s

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Hi all,

Sorry for the one month lag in the new posts. We don’t have a super good excuse except for the fact that its summer and we’re not super keen on downloading pictures and sitting in front of the computer these days.

Tons is/are going on though, so we’ve got a backlog of things to put up. Hopefully we’ll get around to it.

Here’s the first of said posts, then: We went to the beach! Woo hoo! Grandma and Grandpa Hines are in town for the month (at least!) and we jettet off to Canon Beach this weekend to show then the scenery. We actually went on Thurs/Fri and beat the summer crowds. It was great!

I’d write more but I’m a bit rushed. Here are the pics and be sure to check the captions for full details.

cheers! back soon!

ssn

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Noel isn’t loving our redeye flight to ohio.

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Howdy all,

Yeah its a bit late for a “Happy 4th” post, but here it is anyway. Sarah and Noel and myself went down to Fort Vancouver where we walked around for a bit, then we went to a BBQ with some friends, then we went to another BBQ with some new friends, then some OTHER friends came over and we drove up a big hill and watched the entire Vancouver/Portland valley light up with fireworks. Imagine watching 50 square miles of fireworks going off and that’ll give you an idea of what it looked like. It was amazing!

Even more amazingly, we didn’t take any pictures! ahhh! A friend did snap a great photo of Noel at the peak of no-nap-induced delierium.

update: Fairlight also sent a picture along. huzzah!

cheers!

ssn

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Playing ball at the park!.

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My dear friend Jeannie sent me these two shots and I thought i’d post them up. While in LA I realized Noel doesn’t even know her roots. She is basically part Chinese/Vietnamese/Korean because of all the food i ate during my pregnancy. ha! Jeannie said she was going to start putting soy sauce in Noel’s milk. The day we ate with Jeannie it was 113 degrees and we went to a HOT POT place. For you whities out there, thats basically boiling hot soup that you cook things in. SO we picked a great day to grub there.

Noel REALLY enjoyed jeannie. Not sure if it was because she was asian or just because she is so awesome anyway.

Noel had fun playing with her noodles!

We just found an asian supermarket here so Noel is gonna start having a steady diet of taro and lychee.

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okay this didn’t really happen in our neighborhood, but it seems like something that would. Worth a good laugh!

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First cell phone post!

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okay, brace yourselves for a spanking.

we haven’t been that motivated to keep up with the blog (not that it isn’t fun to take pics, upload them, size them and document the daily details of casa fitz) BUT for one other simple reason: LACK OF COMMENTS!

our whole reason for creating the blog wasn’t to have a flashy news site about what was goin on in our life. (well not entirely) it was also for INTERACTING and staying involved with each of you (readers!) so you stopping in and catching up on us is great, but when we don’t get comments its a one way street. we thrive on hearing back from you! even if its a simple one-liner it at least feels like communication.

i was going to take this opportunity to publicly call out each of you just so you get the point… but i won’t do that. all we are saying is, if you read this blog, please leave a comment. NOT everytime even… just now and then. it really makes it worth it for us! and we aren’t saying you have to leave a comment like “i love the house color!” you can leave a little note about YOU and how YOU are. make sense?

are we clear?!

let’s see if we can get the blog love rollin’ again?!

s, s & n

*disclaimer- there are a few of you out there that maintain your own blogs and we have a “secret reading blog exchange” you know who you are. this post isn’t for you because i know your busy with your own blog and i can catch up with you by reading yours.

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I accidentally deleted the Father’s Day post, so I’m reposting at least the pictures for posterity’s sake.

cheerio!

-sf

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what happened to the fathers day post? some of you have asked. well, stephen accidentally deleted it. so its gone forever.

BUT moving on, lots of other things have been going on. we have been enjoying the warm weather and getting out to playgrounds and parks. its so fun to watch noel get excited about the other kids, puppy dogs, balls, birds, whatever catches her eye.

also, noel and i went on a roadtrip to LA. thats right, a road trip of 14 hours with a 14month old. she did GREAT. it was really a last min. whirlwind trip (we drove down with dana and fairlight) for another girls gone wild getaway.

LA was action packed as noel had many fans to entertain. she went from coffee dates to lunch dates to dinner dates. and even some play dates at the park!

while we were in 113 degree heat in so-cal, stephen was on “mancation” in bend oregon with his buddy drew. they did lots of mtn biking and camping. stephen actually WON a mtn bike race. he is such a stud. he normally road races so this was a change for him but he rocked it! he also bought and consumed a whole apple pie (minus one piece he saved for me!)

sorry for few updates, but summer kinda crept up on us and are in full swing with visitors, work, and preparing for trips/weddings/etc!

here are some mobile snaps from my phone. ENJOY!

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so last weekend we took a mini vaca to birch bay, located in the northern most part of washington… only 30 min from vancouver BC! we stayed a couple of nights with our good friends the Bosaz’s who were up there on there family summer vacation. our plan was to stay some with them, then peel off and either go to BC or the north cascades. neither of which we did. what we did end up doing is coming home with a burned baby. its sad, but true. poor noel had her first major boo boo. she burned her left hand on the fireplace where we were staying on saturday night. she cried for 4 straight hours. HARD. it was so awful. i felt completely helpless and wanted to make it go away but could not. what can you do for a burn?! as it turns out it was pretty bad. whole palm and all the finger tips… 2nd degree burns. she was up most of saturday night with crying spells… i just kept holding her and rocking her and giving her tylenol. we wrapped it up with anti-bacterial goop and a nonstick gauze and taped her up so she wouldn’t bang it on things. how do you keep a super active one year old from using her hand?!

noel has adapted to her new situation rather well. instead of crawling she “crab walks” on her knees. everywhere. and she holds her little wounded hand up in the air as she does so. this injury at first put a hault to her REAL walking… but yesterday she started that up again… and when she falls she tries to catch herself with her healthy hand. so cute!

here are some pics of the bébé.

PARENTAL ADVISORY: stephen said not post pics of the actual burn, but i took this one with my cell so its not great quality and doesn’t really show it like his good camera. but for the faint of heart, maybe skip the last shot!

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Yup. she’s taking steps here and there and losing her attachment to terra firma. We’ve also got video. If you watch it on Vimeo its HD… ’cause thats how we roll.

Noel is walkin! from Stephen Fitzgerald on Vimeo.

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