Reno Adventure (Tahoe '09- Day 3)

The amount of snow that fell overnight was amazing! I remember the Marriott roof tops starting to peek through Tuesday afternoon but by Wednesday morning, they were hidden under so much snow we never saw them again. Fortunately, the weather did not effect our plan to head up to Reno for the day and visit with the Clark family. My mom's youngest sister, Aunt Christine, her husband, Uncle Mike and their two boys, Liam and Aidan. moved from San Jose to Reno back in 2007 and I had not seen my little cousins since Christmas '06 and the boys had never met Luke. A visit was definitely in order.

Before our visit with the Clarks, Matt had gift certificates to Cabela's burning holes in his pockets and Reno is home to the massive store (I have no clue if there are any in California and if there are- no where near us.) Cabela's is a outdoor sporting goods store (hunting, fishing-type stuff) and it's like Disneyland for men that enjoy those types of activities. Complete with "stuffed" animal exhibits one of which includes an elephant. Slightly disturbing but pretty impressive.

Cabela's also has a grill that serves all different types of meat. We had lunch there and Matt and I ordered buffalo burgers that were quite tasty. Luke assaulted us with "bite?" requests and seemed to enjoy it as much as we did.

No picky eaters live in our house.


Buffalo Burger Delight

After Matt got his fancy new tackle box (it's a backpack with a detachable cooler- awesome) we headed over to the Clark home. We spent a few hours there and Aunt Christine made us a delicious dinner. It was so great seeing them and it makes me sad that they live so far away. Hopefully we'll get to see them again relatively soon.

Luke and Aidan


Luke and (Great) Aunt Christine


"Clap- Yeeeaaahhh!"- Luke


Doing some serious listening.

Matt, Aidan and Uncle Mike. Aidan is quite the accomplished Mario Cart racer.

Luke (almost 2), Aidan (4) and Liam (9). My baby and my baby cousins. Such sweet boys.

Swimming in the Snow (Tahoe '09- Day 2)

We woke up Tuesday morning to a dark gray sky and lots of white. The forecast called for snow all day so we decided to just hang around the condo and lay low. Marriott has a giant outdoor pool (heated to 85 degrees) as well as two hot tubs so that was our big plan.

The condo has a full kitchen but he had no groceries yet so we headed out for breakfast. This ended up being our one and only trip into the casinos. We walked down the street, ducking into first Harrahs (they didn't have a cafe) and then ending up at Montbleu. They had a great breakfast place so we ordered and Matt played the slots between that and when our food arrived. Low and behold- he won $50! We are not gamblers so being up $30 was huge. Totally paid for our breakfast. Unfortunately, I quickly blew through $10 on the way out but still, our combined 10 minutes of slots left us $20 ahead.

The big question- what did Luke think of the snow? He was unimpressed and annoyed. We bundled him up in his stroller and let the snow fall where it may. It was cold and slightly windy so there was a lot of cold air and snow in the face. He didn't cry just kind of had an odd expression and was uncharacteristically quiet. Much happier once we got indoors.

Luke's first foray into snowy terrain. Dad's expression tells the whole story.

Much happier taking the snow gear off. Just thought this picture was cute. Matt became a master of getting Luke efficiently in and out of his layers.

This is the view from our 5th story room. Thanks Mom/Grandma!

Luke went swimming in this pool (and the bottom hot tub) moment later.

The swimming event was different. Hard to have all of your gear (clothes, towels, shoes, etc) out and near you when it's snowing outside. We had to make a covered nest with the hotel towels and then move quickly once out of our clothes. Luke was absolutely terrified at first. Poor kid hasn't been swimming in 6 months (1/4 of his life so far!) so I'm pretty sure he had no memory- and it was 30 degrees out! I took him into the pool first and he cried and cried until I dunked myself underwater. Mommy torture always cracks him up. We hung out there for a while and then moved as fast and safely as possible into the hot tub. Again- terrified- but the site of my head popping in and out of the water turned him around. It ended up being very relaxing and a lot of fun. Plus, not often you get to go swimming and have snow nestling in your hair at the same time.

You can't tell but it's snowing really hard in this picture. We had to ditch the glasses because they kept fogging up.

Pictures were hard to come by because of the snow situation- didn't want to ruin the camera. We ended up swimming again later in the week but of course, the moment we stepped outside it started snowing again. Oh well.

We had gone grocery shopping earlier in the day so I made a big spaghetti dinner and then we had bath time for Luke. No pictures of that because the condo has a giant tub and I had to take one with him (in my bathing suit of course) so I could reach him. As cute as Luke is naked, mom isn't so that's that. The day went by so quickly but all and all it was very relaxing.

Hooters & Highways (Tahoe '09- Day 1)

Matt, Luke and I headed up to South Lake Tahoe last Monday, March 2nd, for a little sleep, snow and sledding. What we ended up with was little sleep (darn dry high altitude air!) CONSTANT snow (many, many feet) and one blissful, exhausting hour of sledding. More posts with pictures of all these activities (except sleep- that would be weird) will be up (hopefully) throughout the week.

We didn't leave San Jose until late morning on Monday so we planned on stopping in Sacramento for lunch. We ended up having our greatest adventure of the day trying to find a restaurant in the nasty weather and then ultimately where we decided to dine- Hooters.

I had never been there and was curious and we figured Luke would enjoy the attention he would get from their extreme friendly female waitstaff. We were right on the mark.

Luke started off with some crayons and was happy. But that was nothing compared to the arrival of...

AMANDA!

I could not get him to even acknowledge me/the camera. All eyes on his new friend.

This was 100% not staged. He took it upon himself to kiss her. What you can't see is his mouth full of (very dry) chicken tenders. What a very special moment for Amanda.

So if you're ever in the Rancho Cordova area, stop into the Hooters off highway 50 and say hi to our future daughter-in-law, Amanda. The food completely sucks (I felt bad for Luke and Matt and my chicken sandwiches were no better- so so dry) but now I know- nobody really goes there for the food. Go figure.

We got to Tahoe around 5pm and it was quite the journey up there. It basically rained the whole way alternating between pouring and then sprinkling but on already snowy roads. Matt did an amazing job of driving and we didn't even have to use chains (thank God for 4 wheel drive!) Luke was a happy camper- he travels well during daylight hours but turns into a gremlin at night- but we were so happy to finally be there without incident.

My mom has a timeshare condo at the Marriott next to Heavenly so we got settled there and had dinner downstairs. By the time we got done eating, it was snowing. I was so excited (I'm a snow novice) but little did I know that falling snow would be all we would see for the next 24+ hours.

Every Super Hero Needs A Costume.

Luke's just happens to be blue and held on with lots of velcro tabs! This is the Theratog outfit the I mentioned some time back. We got Luke one of his own so we are able to put it on him and manipulate his body with the rubbery material. His legs tend to splay out at the hips (like frog legs!) so by putting on these bottoms, for instance, we can help pull those leg muscles inwards. It's a very interesting concept and fortunately, Luke has been distracted enough to not start pulling off the velcro tabs.

Linda (Luke's physical therapist) has Luke standing a lot and is teaching him to side-step and move out of his comfort zone of arms length once he is upright. Even though we're a long ways off from Luke pulling himself to standing (transitioning positions are very hard for this kid- took until this past September for him to sit up on his own) it is important to build endurance in his legs so we stand him up quite often. His balance isn't great but he enjoys being big and tall. He's even learned to take steps so we're working on moving forward with the help of a walker. I'm going to predict that walking is definitely in this little guy's future.

The red barrel is the perfect height and tons of fun to throw things into. He also enjoys putting pegs into the pegboard on the mirror.

"Tesssssss!" (Linda's Cal Poly volunteer who Luke completely adores.)

Pegboard does travel. Here he is working on leaning forward.


Luke becomes way more motivated when it's Tess tempting him.


Barrel not always necessary. He's getting really good!

Luke now also has feet/ankle braces to help him with stability. Because of all the muscle tone issues people with cerebral palsy have, it's important to build strength correctly and Luke has a tendency to stand funny on his feet. The braces help correct that and offer support.

Marley & Me

Luke is still attending parent participation class on Fridays and greatly enjoys hanging out with his buddies. Unfortunately, this winter quarter has been crazy so our attendance has been less then stellar but we hope to turn it around with a less busy spring quarter.

This past Friday, we arrived to find new kids in our class and they are a set of triplets! Marley, Audrey and Cordell are a few months younger then Luke and are just as sweet as can be. Turns out the live right around the corner from us as well.

Anyway, I sat Luke down next to Marley at snack time and that's when Cupid struck...

First they were all about their graham crackers...

And then their eyes met.

Luke wanted nothing more then to share his cracker with Marley...


But she demurred. Instead, they continued to chew and share their looks of love.

It was too cute and Luke was so uncharacteristically QUIET. He just kept offering Marely bites and never took his eyes off of her. Even Marley's mom, Kelly, commented on our little love match. She warned me that Marley is quite high maintenance but I informed her that was perfect for Luke because he's super easygoing.

"Love, true love."

A Year Already?

It recently occurred to me that it has been a year this month since I began chronicling "The Life of Luke." To commemorate the occasion, I did a little photo shoot on our front steps like the pictures in the first posting last February. I've even included one from last year to compare. I CANNOT believe that the baby from last year is our little boy today. Time truly does fly.

If you look back at the posting from February '08, you'll see there is a picture of Rocco "kissing" Luke's toes. Well, Rocco doesn't kiss Luke's toes anymore. Not when there is an adorably tasty face now eye level.

Rocco is NOT known for his minty fresh breath... sorry kid.


And then he strikes.

Luke has become very aware of the camera and will smile on command and say "pick-tours" when I'm in his face snapping away. But being the social, good-natured child that he is, he is perfectly willing to ham it up if it makes mommy happy.

His signature pose. I guess it we could call it "Catching Flies"?

We often count with/to Luke and recite the alphabet. I'm pretty sure he has no clue what we're talking about but he's very good at mimicking our words so he jabbers away. He just recently started trying to copy our hand movements when we count to five on our fingers.

Looks like "1" but he just likes alternating wiggling his fingers up and down.

Possibly "2"?

I had to include this picture because this kid is just too darn photogenic. While he was in the NICU as a newborn, the nurses would always gush about how beautiful his mouth and lips are. I had more then one nurse compare him to Angelina Jolie. This picture just reminds me of that. We did good Matt!

"Lukie Jolie" -Neighbor Amy

On Monday, Luke, Matt and I are headed up to South Lake Tahoe for our first real family vacation. Luke has never been to the snow so it should be quite interesting and make for either some fabulous pictures or pictures of him screaming. I've already predicted that he will proclaim the snow to be "hot" upon touching it since that's the only change in temperature that he's grasped so far. We're looking forward to a relaxing, hot chocolate/coffee-filled time!

Love for Peggy, Marcia and... Remotes.

Right before we left San Jose on the 15th, my godmother, Peggy, and her cousin/our wonderful family friend, Marcia, came by to visit with and meet Luke. They live in southern California, so seeing them is always a treat. Marcia had never met Luke so he was extra excited to make a new friend.

He's a very huggable guy.

Luke and "Aunt" Peggy.

Luke and his "mote" that stays at Grandma & Grandpa John's house.


Marcia, Luke and "mote."


Fast friends.


He's a sucker for the ladies.

Friends since childhood.

Marcia, Carole & Peggy

aka T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Luke has always had a fascination with cell phones and remote controls (what kid hasn't?) but my mom finally gave him an old one so now it's been taken to new heights. Grandma Stephanie & Grandpa gave Luke one as well so that one came home to SLO with us while the one in these pictures was left in San Jose. Yet I use "came home" loosely. In addition to being requested at odd times (i.e. right as I lay Luke down for a nap- "mote?") it came with us to a birthday party on Saturday night. Unfortunately, "mote" had to take a nap in mommy's purse when it started to be used to swing at and knock down wine glasses at the dinner table. Sorry- no pictures of that.