Hiking and Sliding

Last month, we went on a wonderful family hike in the Rocky Mountain National Park and ended the day on a big slide in Estes Park, Colorado.

Here are Sandi, Alexandra, and I all ready for our hike!

Group shot in front of Dream Lake. Grandpa, GG, Uncle Mike, Alexandra, me, Uncle Andy, Aunt Sandi, Uncle Mike, and Christopher. Alexandra doesn't understand the timer on the camera yet.

Little family photo in front of Dream Lake.


Alexandra got pretty heavy for her oxygen-deprived parents who are used to breathing sea-level air. Good thing we had an athletic 16-year old uncle on hand!

Since Alexandra didn't get to go horseback riding, we thought it would be fun for her to ride an Alexandra-sized horse. This was her first time on a coin-operated horse, and she thought it was a lot of fun! Note the pink baby Converse high tops. Alexandra's grandpa gave her these for Christmas.

We ended the day by going down the big slide in Estes Park. To give you an appreciation of the size of the slide, you have to climb like 3 or 4 flights of stairs to get to the top, and you ride down on a piece of carpet.

Here's the group (minus GG) coming down the slide. Apparently Mike won. See the little black speck in the top left of the photo? That's Alexandra and I. I was determined to have Alexandra go down the slide, since she loves slides at the playground and I have found memories of going down this slide as a kid myself. As she was obviously too little to go down the slide by herself, that meant that she got to ride with me. When we started our first run, all that I could think was "holy crap, what was I thinking! I'm taking my BABY down this thing? What kind of responsible parent am I!?!" After a couple of harrowing seconds, I realized that I could effectively hold onto my kid (who was squeeling with delight, oblivious to her mother's distress), and that it was actually kind of fun.

The Yurasko Difference after our second ride down. A much calmer Sarah. Baby in one piece and giggling.

Our last trip down. "I wasn't worried at all, silly Mommy!"

Horses, Fish, and Tigers, oh my!

While we were in Colorado last month, my parents watched Alexandra so that Christopher and I could go horseback riding with Andy, Sandi, Emily, Joey and Mike. We have added this activity to riding segway scooters and snowmobiling as "things we like to do in a line." It was a lot of fun!

Christopher got to ride the second largest horse I've ever seen! That would be only second to the horse that Andy got to ride. Check out Ajax, Christopher's enormous horse!

We went to the Denver Aquarium, which was a lot of fun! Alexandra really likes looking at fish and other animals swimming around.

That's Alexandra! She's hanging out in a statute that they have at the entrance to the exhibits. Silly girl :)

And that's a tiger. That's right, they have tigers at the Denver aquarium! Because, when I think creatures of the sea, TIGERS are most definitely the first mammal that comes to mind!! On an "it's a small world," note, Christopher and I actually saw these tigers back when they were kittens, as they were born at the National Zoo. Julie, Katy, and Jess also saw them when Katy and Jess visited DC back in May of 2006. They're all grown up now. . . .and living at the aquarium in Denver.

15 months old!

Alexandra is 15 months old! I can't believe it was a year ago that I was blogging about how she was 3 months old. . . .

We had a great visit with Dr. Lundgren yesterday. Here are her stats:

height - 31 1/2" (90th percentile)
head - 18 1/2" (90th percentile)
weight - 22 lbs. 8 oz (50th percentile)

My pride was restored with this visit, as she's back in the 90th percentile for height once more. We knew that she'd hit a growth spurt recently, as all of her clothes suddenly looked small. Alexandra also now has 12 teeth, with 4 more on the way - the canines. After FIVE shots, we were on our way back home with a pronouncedly healthy (albeit grumpy) baby girl. We will go back for her H1N1 shot in another month or so, and aim to keep her away from her Uncle Mike (who currently has flu of the swine persuasion) until then.

My mom sent some more of our Colorado pool photos.

Here's Alexandra in the float that her grandparents bought her for Colorado. . . .



And here's Shelly with Luke and me with Alexandra! I'm looking forward to floaties for next summer.

Good Friends

After the Shore, we headed over to Colorado to visit the Grimmer side of the family. Our first day there, Alexandra got to meet Kody and Blizzard, the huskies! She was a little hesitant at first, but decided that she really likes the dogs! And, they really liked her. They had a game where Alexandra would go over to the sliding glass door near their kennel area, and bang on the glass. The dogs would get super excited and jump up onto the glass in response!

The dogs ended up being very well behaved with Alexandra (for huskies, that is).

Alexandra also got to meet Shelly, my best friend from law school, and her son, Luke! Shelly and her husband moved to the Denver area after law school, so we have been able to catch up whenever I've come out to Colorado to visit.

Luke is almost exactly a year older than Alexandra. It was so fun to see a "preview" of the sort of things she'll be doing next summer.

Luke and Alexandra had fun playing in the pool together. I'll see if I can find some of those photos for my next blog entry. . . . .

Houdini Ninja

Apparently Alexandra is a little Houdini. . . .Christopher went to get her out of her crib this morning to find out - she was already out of her crib! She was happily playing with toys on the ground in her room! She must have climbed out of her crib onto the floor while wearing her sleep sack. We are very impressed with her ninja skills. We also need to do further baby-proofing in her room if she is going to be playing in there unsupervised.

The Jersey Shore

Last month, we went with Bill, Barbara, William, Erica and Will to the Jersey Shore. We got to stop and see my Uncle Art and Aunt Felice on the way.

Alexandra had a wonderful time at the beach! If we would have let her, she would have crawled into the ocean and drowned. She had absolutely no fear. Christopher enjoyed introducing Alexandra to a place that he has enjoyed visiting since he was a little boy.

We bought a tent that we put up on the beach each day so that Alexandra and Will (and I) would not get sun burned.


We bought a bicycle seat that we put on one of our bikes, and tried it out for the first time at the shore. Alexandra loved bike riding! I got a kick out of watching her wave at people from her bike seat and watching her looking down at the road go by.

I tried to find a unisex helmet, but, oh darn, they don't seem to make unisex helmets for toddlers. So, Alexandra was lucky enough to get a Disney princesses helmet instead. It's for safety, you know.

It was a great trip, and we look forward to returning to the Shore next year!