Vacation 2010 Part IX: End of a Vacation

Well, it was fun, but all vacations have to come to an end at some point, and this Alaskan Adventure was no different.

Ed was scheduled to fly out to Shanghai on the last day of our trip, so his last day with us was spent on the famous Kenai Fjord's National Park. On the way, we took a scenic route with hopes to see some wildlife like this bunny!

Unfortunately, that bunny was actually the only wildlife we saw on the scenic route. It was a bit of a disappointment, to say the least.

Kenai is actually most famous for its boat tours to see the glaciers up close. However, having come to Alaska on a cruise, Dad decided that we would not do that and instead we first visited the Aquatic Wildlife center, which houses this huge Sea Lion:


Following our brief visit to the Aquatic Wildlife center, we headed to one of the more famous sites in Kenai Fjords - the Exit Glacier.


The trip to the Exit Glacier was neat because all along the path, there are markers showing where the glacier's face stood at various points in history. The trail was probably a little over a mile long, showing how far the glacier had receded in just about 50 years!



The next day, we sent Ed off to the airport, while the rest of us headed to Anchorage Zoo. The zoo was a bit smaller than expected, but it had a good story. It was founded when a radio show in Alaska offered its winner a sum of cash, or a baby elephant, as a joke. The winner opted for the baby elephant, and, after scrambling to find and ship the elephant over to Alaska, the zoo was born.

Today, there are no more elephants at the Anchorage Zoo, but it is used more to showcase Alaskan wildlife now, such as this polar bear:



And, with that, our trip to the great northern state had come to an end!

Vacation 2010 Part VIII: We Got Wheels!

Denali National Park was incredible, but there was a huge downside to our stay at the park. As you may recall, we arrived at Denali by train, and didn't bother to rent a vehicle for our 3 nights there. For the most part, this was dandy - the park has a pretty reliable bus system that ferries you between the three major stations in the park, where you can take other buses to deeper areas, like we did on the way to Eielsen.

The problem was that the park buses stopped operating at 7PM! That meant that we had to be back from whatever we were doing by about 6:30PM, lest we miss the bus to the lodge. This sucked, because during the summer, the sun is out in Alaska until around midnight! So, we couldn't take advantage of all this daylight! Fortunately, this sort of worked out, because Cherry would be pretty tired by about 6 anyway, so we would just head to the lodge and relax in the hot tubs that overlook this fantastic view.


Alas, our stay in Denali was not to last forever. Soon, we were on a long bus ride back to Anchorage. On the way back, the driver stopped at another beautiful lodge to pick up some more passengers, whilst we took a short hike through one of the wooded trails in the back. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but one thing about Alaska that really caught me offguard is how green it is! It reminded me a bit of the bamboo scene from House of Flying Daggers!


After another several hours on the bus, we arrived back where we were a few days earlier, in Anchorage. This time, however, we were here to stay for a few more hours than last time (in fact we would stay overnight), so we took advantage of our complimentary Anchorage Museum tickets!

I don't have many photos from the Anchorage Museum because most of the exhibits were too dark to get good shots, but it is a pretty good institution, focusing primarily on the Native American heritage of the state. While interesting, we actually liked the science museum part more - there were a lot of cool exhibits, such as a slow-motion jump video recorder that records your jump with a high speed camera so that you can measure your hang time and just see how funny you look in the air.


After hanging out at the museum for a few hours, we finally got picked up by the rental car company guy, who took us to pick up our first taste of freedom in Alaska - a 2010 Toyota Sienna!

Our first trip was to the fishing town of Homer, but on the way, we saw this great field to romp in.


Plus, we got our first (of many) close glimpses of wild Bald Eagles!


As I mentioned earlier, Homer is largely a fishing town, with Halibut being the primary yield. Private fishermen are allotted a certain number of fish per day, and they certainly made good use of their limits! We saw a number of 100+ pound fish!




We got to eat some of that fish, too!



Up next, the finale of our Alaskan Adventure!

Sofia's One Month Birthday!

This past Sunday was Sofia's one month birthday! We celebrated by mostly staying in the house during the day, but in the evening, Uncle Adam, Aunt Sarah, and their baby daughter Izzy invited us over for dinner!

Adam and Sarah went to some school out west...


Izzy is a big girl now! She can pacify herself and do that obnoxious hammer chop thing that they do!


After dinner, we had Sofia's cake, and ate it too!


Grandma wanted to take Izzy home with us... I'm not sure Adam and Sarah didn't want us to take her off of their hands for a little while too!


Thanks for dinner Uncle Adam and Aunt Sarah! I'm sure Sofia will love to play with Izzy when she gets older, even if Izzy does pull on her ear from time to time!

Big Crane

Caught a glimpse of this big crane... Looks like he came straight out of Africa and into our office pond!

Surprised Kitty Viral Video

I finally went ahead and refreshed the design of Grant's Pad to make it a bit more unique yet. The new design also allows me to put bigger artifacts, such as videos and photos, in the main body of the blog without getting them cut off like they used to do.

I had wanted to commemorate the new design with some nice vacation pics, but then Ed showed me this hilarious video:

Gives me some good (read: mean but funny) Sofia video ideas for the near future!

Tummy Time!

A fun video for the fans!

Hush Little Baby

This past weekend was very rough on Cherry (which, in turn, made it rough on me as exhaustion started kicking in). Sofia's senses started heightening, and as a result, she became very easily startled. Sometimes, if she was just lying in her bassinet with her hands near her face or body, just the act of having her hand fall to the bed would startle her, causing her to wake up and "realize" that she was uncomfortable.

That was the real trick for us - whatever was she uncomfortable about? It got so bad that we couldn't put her down because it would just start the vicious cycle all over again. She would sleep fine so long as she was in our arms, but how long could we last doing that? Something was going to give, and soon!

Finally, we gave Dr. Mas, Sofia's pediatrician, a call late at night. Her responses and suggestions seemed somewhat holistic and, for lack of a better word, corny to me. Things like, "Just talk to her, reassure her". I'm thinking, "She's three weeks old, what can I even say?!?" After a pretty long discussion, we broke our solution down into the following points:

• We had made the mistake of letting her fall into a deep sleep in our arms, and she had now come to expect that level of care.


• Instead, try to put her down just before falling asleep, and comfort her in alternative ways to prevent her from crying, such as talking to her, moving in close - some babies respond very well to this kind of "loving".


• If and when she gets up and starts whining or writhing around, try to identify if she has any immediate needs. Touch on her mouth to see if she "roots", or looks for milk. Check her diaper. Try to burp her.


• To burn off some extra energy, give the baby some "tummy time", or lay her on her stomach. She will fight to keep her head up, but it is interesting for her and she won't be as mad.

As I said, very holistic, natural care that admittedly, I was a little skeptical of, especially since we had tried several of those things sort of in isolation. However, to my surprise, Sofia took very well to our first consolidated effort, and was able to sleep all by herself until she was hungry again three hours later! At which point, we fed her, rinsed and repeated, and she went back to sleep again!

The past several days have been a good learning experience for us. We learned that Sofia was probably hungry more often than we realized because she doesn't feed particularly well from the breast - feeding her pumped breastmilk from a bottle proved to be much more satisfying for her and effectively spaced out her feedings by almost 100%. On the breast, she would stop feeding after just a few minutes and start to fall asleep, only to be hungry again an hour or two later.

So, we've learned some tricks of the trade, but we have a long way to go. Sofia now is quite fussy during the day, and it's hard for us to tell if she's really uncomfortable or not. One step at a time!

New Lows for Florida Football

Sigh. Just one week after Florida clawed back into the rankings, with the allure of a guaranteed berth in the SEC championship game by beating South Carolina, the Gators put up another atrocious performance, getting handily beaten to the tune of 36-14, despite the Gamecocks spotting Florida a quick 7 on the opening kickoff. The game was South Carolina's first ever victory in the Swamp, first SEC East Championship, and also Steve Spurrier's only victorious Swamp visit on the opponent's sideline.


Now, I don't claim to be one of those Gator fans that have been following the team since the early 1900s or anything like that, but I have been watching them pretty closely since I started going to school there in the late 90s. In fact, a large part of my college career was spent during the "Dark Ages", where one Ron Zook was at the helm. But even the Zook teams didn't look as horrendous as this Tebow-less, Harvin-less, Hernandez-less, Gator team.


A lot of the blame can be placed on the losses of some pretty fine NFL talent over the last few years, but the Gators have recruited as well as anyone in the country since Urban Meyer's tenure.

A lot of the blame also admittedly lands on John Brantley as well, the square peg that we have tried to forcefully plug into a round hole all season long. Once upon a time, the coaching staff was able to adjust the Florida offense to better fit the skills of their supremely talented passer in Chris Leak. John Brantley, to this point, has not been afforded that luxury - rather, he is trying to be a pocket passer on a team that is simply better suited for a running quarterback. Brantley supporters insist that Brantley would be an excellent quarterback at a more pass-oriented team, such as Texas or Oklahoma, and as such, many fans such as myself gave him a pass, especially during the beginning of the season, when pass protection was porous. However, watching the game last night, pass protection looked pretty good. Sure, a blitzer got through every so often, but much to my chagrin, each time this happened, a negative play resulted. This is because Brantley simply can't read defenses and can't get away from a blitz, or identify the soft spot vacated by the blitzer. Brantley's accuracy has also been far from advertised. Sure, when he has ideal pass protection, he does a good job of hitting the wide open guys that are about 10-12 yards down the field, but swing passes, screens, and deep balls are like rolling dice.


Yes, Brantley is clearly not a good fit. Especially when we saw what a Tebow-esque quarter back like Jordan Reed was potentially capable of doing last weekend. But I hate to hate on a player. The bottom line is that the coaching staff hasn't done a good job of making the offense work, be it for Brantley or otherwise. Even when we got our running QBs in the game, it wasn't effective because they didn't present a threat to throw, which is what made Tebow so dang effective. The offense doesn't look well coached, and a senior-laden offensive line hasn't played up to snuff all year long - clearly an effect of having the offensive line coach play a dual role as the offensive coordinator, which Addazio isn't particularly skilled at either.


It's been a while since I've ranted (positively or negatively) about the Gators, but this team really has been just about the worst squad I personally have seen, even with the Zook years in recent memory!

Postpartum and Early Baby Care Differences

The last several weeks have been an up and down experience for this set of new parents. Taking care of babies can be pretty hard work, but it is even more work when you are working close to 12-hour days and you also have to make sure your foreign, non-English speaking relative that is living with you is holding up okay!

That's what it has been like for the last several weeks. I am moving on to a new role at work soon, and before my transition, I put in some extra hours to make sure that I can get as much of my previous job done before leaving it behind. In the meantime, Sofia gave us a few nervous moments by having several instances of green poo (breastfed baby poo is usually sort of a mustard-yellow) and then, earlier this week, throwing up all over herself. Afterwards, she didn't seem to be feeding very well, only feeding for a few minutes at a time.


Grandma (Cherry's mom) has been over for a little over a month to try to help out, and she certainly did help out quite a bit right after Cherry's delivery, but the regimented lifestyle that Cherry and I lead is very tough for her, and she also has had a hard time accepting Western methodologies of baby care. Several theory conflicts have included:

1. Having the mother not bathe or shower for a month after birth
   
2. Having the mother eat only rice congee for the first week
3. Not allowing the mother to walk around for the first two weeks
   
4. Having the mother eat very high fat and cholesterol foods such as pork kidney to boost nutrition
5. Not feeding the baby pumped breastmilk (and alternatively, feeding the baby ground up veggies and eggs)
6. Not bathing the baby
7. Not burping the baby
8. Bundling the baby in her one-piece, a sweater, and two blankets in about 77 degrees ambient temperature
   
9. Putting socks under the pillow and getting an egg to stand up to calm the baby's scared spirit back to her
   

Needless to say, we pretty much didn't comply to any of those old wives' tale methods, and for the most part, Grandma has been pretty cool with that. And of course, there are some things that actually do make sense, like realizing that babies do, in fact, commonly spit up. Still, it's a bit stressful having someone keep on harping on how we're not doing it right, especially while we're doing it. Still, since Grandma doesn't understand hardly anything in this country, it's tough keeping her happy, baby care notwithstanding. A few weeks ago, Ed and I took Cherry's mom to the Cocoa Air Show (which was awesome, due to the cool weather), which was a fantastic experience for her, but most days, I'm sure she gets super bored and possibly discouraged with the differences in lifestyle.


I think things are going to be okay - we'll monitor Sofia's feeding pattern over the weekend but so far she's been pretty good, feeding about every two hours or so for about 1 or 2 ounces - it might be a little tough to get to the recommended 24, but she's also pooing and peeing regularly so I'm not overly concerned. Besides, how can you get upset over a face like this?

Shark Steam Mop

Been a little while since I've done a review of any kind, much less a product review! Product reviews actually don't come by Grant's Pad all that often, because, frankly, I don't usually buy that much stuff LOL.

That said, I did get a couple of products that I really like these past several months, so I thought I'd do a lil' free advertising to promote them because they were/are so good for me to use!

The first product I'll be raving about is the Shark Steam Mop. You might have seen this on TV -basically it looks sort of like a purple vacuum cleaner, but you put water into it and plug it in and then you push it around on your floor, cleaning it with hot steam along the way.


To be honest, I was a bit skeptical at first. The first reason was the price - we got it at a bit of a discount but the model we got usually retails at over 100 bucks! Compare that against your usual bucket mop, which might cost around $8, and you have to wonder if it is worth the investment. Well, I'm here to tell you that it is. Ours came with the main unit, a regular sized head, a jumbo head, a triangular shaped head to wedge into those tight spots, a "carpet glider" (more on that later), and five different covers (the cloth part that actually does the cleaning) to go along with each head.

So what makes it so good? Well, first of all, the water consumption is really low. I used to have to go through three to four buckets of water to mop my house (which, incidentally, is tiled throughout, save for the bedroom carpet). So figure about 1000 square feet of tile. Well, with the Shark Steam Mop, I can do the whole house in little over four cups of water. As in 32 ounces. That is a two-fold benefit for me - (1) I get to save a lot of water, and (2), it doesn't slosh water around everywhere so we can walk on the cleaned surface within minutes after mopping!

So, it uses less water and dries quickly. What else? Well, in my experience, the thing cleans fantastically. Case in point: My sofa recliner chair left a ton of these black streaks on the tile that I could not for the life of my scrub off using a wash cloth and soap. Well, I steamed over the stains three or four times with the Shark Steam Mop, and voila, just like new! It's really quite impressive, but the Shark Steam mop is really good about taking out stains.

I had mentioned the "carpet glider" earlier. What this is is a plastic thingy that lets you glide the steam mop over carpet, basically lightly steam cleaning the carpet. It's no replacement for an actual carpet cleaning machine, but it does do a great job of freshening it up a bit, and it actually smells kind of nice afterwards!

After you're done cleaning, you just take the cover off, clean it up a bit, and throw it in the washing machine! The only downside is that it's pretty hard to get all of the dirty crap you picked up off, and the covers could stand to be a bit more durable - the main one I use (the jumbo one) is already tearing a little bit.

So, at the time of writing, I steam mop about once every one or two months, but as any visitor to the house will attest to, you would think that we mop at least once a week! Definitely a great product in this blogger's opinion!

Go Gata!

Start 'em young!

It's the Circle of Life!

Some fun at home: