Christmas Eve in Puerto Vallarta

6 months -and EATING!

Sean is 6 months old now - we can hardly believe it! The craziest thing for us is that he appears to love food. As soon as he starts to anticipate it (when you get near a high chair) he starts to get frantic until you start feeding him - and if you wait too long between bites he lets you know. This may be perfectly normal for most, but it is a little bizarre for us. Don't get us wrong - this is not a complaint, we are thrilled! Keira has already started watching this - she sometimes seems to think he is nuts, and sometimes she becomes more interested herself. We are also going to have to start baby proofing the house again as he is going to crawl any day now and is sitting up fairly well on his own. He is still the happiest little guy I have ever met!

Keira is also doing well. Her walking and balancing is getting better and better each day. She is determined to walk everywhere, unless she is exhausted and then she will let you carry her. A new quirk - when we get her out of the car and let her walk into the house on her own she insists on using the front door - we find this odd as we ALWAYS go in through the garage. So, we let her go, and someone has to go through and let her in. She is always giggling when you open the door - seems to find this quite amusing. We have also been working on potty training - not seriously, but we put her on whenever possible. She always does a little something and diapers have less and less in them. I find this happening so soon with so little communication very encouraging!

Can't wait to see what happens next month!!

Aren't all men cr8ted equal?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The proposed amendment for prop 8 states:

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

How on earth does this match with "all men are created equal" or that they have the unalienable right to "the pursuit of happiness"?

Please vote No on this nonsense. If you are choosing not to vote, can I at least convince you to cast your vote for me since I'm not yet allowed to have one?

PS The Yes on Prop 8 commercials make me nauseous. This has nothing to do with out children's education, however it has everything to do with equality, freedom and the removal of bigotry. What you want to do with your church is your churches choice. Please don't force your religious viewpoints on me by attempting to embody them in the state constitution. According to wikipedia we're spending $40 million+ on this insanity....

PPS And this blatant attempt at extortion by the 'Yes for Prop 8' crowd is just sleazy. By all means, please print the list of organizations supporting NO on 8, and I will gladly go out of my way to give them my business.

San Francisco Oyster Race 2008

So as many of you know due to my last minute pledge drive, I signed up to do the San Francisco Oyster Urban Adventure Race. This race bills itself as the ultimate urban adventure race. Up until now all of my adventure races have been in the great outdoors where there's bears and stuff, so I figured this should be a piece of cake. What's that about the ego and the fall? Read on...

Calvin and Jobs

For all the Apple Geeks out there:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35923610@N00/2723090810/sizes/o/

and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35923610@N00/2722267025/sizes/o/

3 Months...

Here are a couple of newer photos of the kids that we took around Sean's 3 month mark.

2 months

Here are a couple photos of Sean and Keira. Todat Sean is 2 months old - and about the size of the 7 month old child in Keira's swim class. I guess Keira is starting to accept him - he was fussing this morning lying on the couch and she came over and put her hand on his tummy...I think she was concerned. It was very cute!

and they're off...

As of 1000 MST this morning, Primal Quest 08 is a go. You can actually track the teams in real time here. I've got friends and acquaintances on a couple of the teams - DART-nuun, Racing With Giants (West) and GCAR. Go Mari, Kerry and John!

The course as always looks epic. Apparently they started by sprinting up a ski hill...

I now return to my day job. Sigh...

No marshmallows?

So we had a long evening around here last night. It started off with us trying to get the family in the car to go have dinner out with some friends. Lennie, the owner of the stable where Jen keeps her horse Justice, was celebrating a birthday so several of the folks who board horses with her were taking her out for dinner. Just as we were packing up to go, Sean decided he was hungry right now so Jen did her thing and started to get him settled. We were running late of course, so while Jen was busy with Sean, I was busy loading the rest of the car and getting Keira ready to go. Since it was a birthday dinner we were all dressed a little more upscale than usual.

Warning graphic scene follows

Does life get any better than this?

...I don't think so:-)

San Jose International

Hey folks,

I know this is last minute, but thought I'd advertise.

I'm doing a triathlon Sunday (6/8/08) morning in and around Almaden lake (South SJ). If you happened to be in the neighborhood and want to come cheer me on, I'd love it. I hit the water at 0708, and I'm expecting to cross the finish line sometime around 0930-1000. The pros will be crossing the finish line around 0900.


Directions/Parking info here.

Should be a good race to watch if you were ever interested in seeing a tri.

I'll be wearing bib number #504, on a Black Cervelo wearing a blue and yellow tri suit.

Uncustomary customs?

According to this article we could be in for changes when crossing the borders. I realize that for many of you "wikileaks" may not be the news gospel, but realize that it's just reposting a canwest news article that also appears in the Financial Post and the Vancouver Sun.

Key points in the article:

• Security officials would be charged with checking laptops, iPods and even cellular phones for content that "infringes" on copyright laws, such as ripped CDs and movies.


• Guards would be responsible for determining what is infringing content and what is not, as well as the authority to order "ex parte searches" (without a lawyer present)


• Officials should be given the "authority to take action against infringers".


• Infringers with content in their possession would be open to a fine and they may also have their device confiscated or destroyed.


• Federal trade agreements do not require parliamentary approval.


• Would include Canada, US and EU.

So let us think about this for a few seconds:

Sean's first month

Sean was 1 month old last weekend. We took some photos of him with the bear (which I will try and do monthly again like we did with Keira), and we attempted the first sibling photo...

Sibling Rivalry

Not to be outdone by his older sister, Sean decided to give his parents a little postnatal stress. About an hour after he was born, we noticed that he was having a little bit of trouble breathing. We ended up having to take him to the NICU and after a couple of Xrays it was decided that he had a minor pneumothorax. Turns out that this is relatively common (they see one or two cases a month) and it didn't require any treatment other than a couple of days of oxygen, but it certainly increased his parent's stress levels significantly.

So if you are wondering why we've been incommunicado recently, it isn't because we've been ignoring you. We've been a little busy and there's a no cell-phone rule in the NICU. Good news is that mother and baby are now home and everything is going smoothly.

BTW Sean's email address, if for some reason you want to send him mail, is exactly what you would expect it to be. Just trying to avoid spam by not spelling it out for you, and every 'bot on the net… :-)

Hello World

Just a quick welcome to Sean Eamon MacLachlan who was born April 24th. Hopefully Sean and his mom will be back home on Monday.

Rafiki's first 12 weeks

Who is this Person?

She's turning into a QuesaDiva!

Gran's 92nd Birthday!

Not looking a day older than 62.... :)

Mexican birthday celebration

and we begin another decade...