We Are Still Here

So, having a toddler and an infant apparently make it harder to blog consistently. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway. And then I remembered that a post doesn't have to be long or involved or eloquent or interesting, though that last one helps, I suppose.

It doesn't have to be timely, either, which is why I'm posting some pics from mid October, from our annual trip to the Avila Valley Barn pumpkin patch with the Rookses. We've been getting pumpkins there every year since there were just four of us. Now there are eight, and it's so fun to see the girls rummaging through the leaves, searching for pumpkins to take home. (You can see more colorful results at Hattie's blog.)

Is more blogging more frequently on the horizon? Yeah, sure. Believe what you want.

August and Everything Before

As you may recall, this summer started with a baby. Matilda Jane joined the Miller family in May, wriggling and crying and kicking off a season of activity.

We celebrated Hattie's second birthday on June 14 with a sushi party in the park. There was real sushi to eat as a main course, and candy sushi to eat for dessert. The centerpiece was a California roll-shaped cake that Sarah designed, with shredded coconut for rice, fruit jellies for the various fillings, and orange jellybeans for roe on top. If only this were a color-friendly blog ... .

All four of us went camping with my parents and four other families in mid-June. Technically, only Hattie and I went camping, but Sarah and Tilly did come up to the mountains for a day so a lot of our friends and their families could meet the newest girl in the group. Hattie and I stayed two nights in my parents' trailer while Sarah and Tilly traveled back to Sacramento to visit with Sarah's family. We ate s'mores, rested in hammocks, played games. You know, camping stuff.

Hattie has been talking about the trip ever since, mostly because she saw a black bear within seconds of our arrival. We pulled up in our van and looked through the windshield: Bear. Right there. The last night we were there, it raided the camp for hot chocolate. It devoured all the Nestle but left the Swiss Miss. Take from that what you will. Hattie spent several days over the last week telling us that's she's going to go camping with Grandma and see a bear again.

Besides the close-ish encounter with wildlife, Hattie's favorite part of the trip was visiting the lake, splashing around, and climbing on rocks. She's like a mermaid, freakishly born with legs instead of a tail. Also, she breathes air.

In July, we went to the Central Coast Renaissance Faire, as is the Miller custom. We opted not to go in our traditional costumes, since wearing shorts and a T-shirt is so much more comfortable and allows plenty of freedom of movement for eating shepherd's pie and drinking pomegranate mead. We also ate Hawaiian shave ice, funnel cake, and an enormous breakfast burrito with salsa, none of which--correct me if I'm wrong, history majors--is exactly historically accurate. (I later learned that pina colada-flavored syrup wasn't invented until the 1700s.)

Hattie's favorite part of the day was the jousting, which also--I believe--was a bit of an anachronism. The knights autographed pieces of broken lance after the event. For a fee. That went toward care of the horses, which they had "rescued from a life of boredom."

This summer has also included a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a 1-year-old's back-hills redneck party with roast pig, a brave trip to the drive-in to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Hattie couldn't believe we ate nachos and hotdogs in the car and got to watch a Goofy cartoon before the movie started), live music and dancing at a bar, plenty of dress-up, and the birth of a couple new friends! Some of those activities may find their way here in the coming days and weeks, though two girls underfoot makes for sporadic blogging.

This is not an Ostrich

We've taken several trips to Avila Valley Barn with Hattie recently. She loves looking at all of the animals, as do about a thousand other people, most of whom prove that we've come an irreparably long way from our agrarian past here in America.

I can understand, maybe, how people watching the emus call them ostriches. Maybe. But I have to shake my head at the people who call chickens ducks. Maybe these people just can't see or hear very well?

On our most recent trip to the barnyard, I witnessed two boys--maybe 8 or 9 years old--visiting the goat pen.
Boy 1: Look! Baby horses!
Boy 2: No, they're baby donkeys ... (this delivered in a voice thick with an undercurrent of "duh!")
(My wife added that another boy I didn't hear came up and identified the goats as little camels.)

While visiting the emus, I also overheard a mom explaining to her 3-year-old how dinosaurs turned into large, flightless birds and another telling her kid to keep his hands away from the chicken wire: "They'll peck your fingers off." These aren't necessarily comments made in ignorance; they just made me laugh.

I'm generally torn when I visit a place like Avila Valley Barn. I am aware that I am a parent of a young child and a member of the visiting crowd, yet I still find myself frustrated with the parents and the crowds, wishing they weren't out and about like I am--or at least that they would act civilized. Bill Buford writes in Among the Thugs, "The crowd is not us. It never is." I shake my head at the pushing and shoving and inane, shouted comments, but later wonder whether people were shaking their heads at me when I, for example, technically cut in line to buy ice cream with the Rookses. And I hate it when people cut in lines.

Maybe I'm a hypocrite. Maybe I'm an elitist, even though I despise entitlement. Whatever I am, here's a picture of Hattie with a baby horse:

The Wheels on the Car ...

Our four-door Honda Civic hit 100,000 miles on the way back from to SLO from Fresno. Neither Sarah nor myself could recall ever having visited the lovely city before. This particular Fresnic journey was to see Sarah's brother Deven perform in a Steppenwolf play (he had a role that Gary Sinise originated) at Fresno State's Summer Arts program, and we also visited our friends the Ischs. Isches? Ischi? Jeremy and Leslie.

It's no San Luis Obispo, but Fresno wasn't as bad as everyone always makes it out to be. It was about 100 degrees outside, but it felt more like upper 90s. We'd go back.

Hattie's 6-Month Birthday

To celebrate Hattie's 6-month birthday we had our friends the Rookses and the Lundeens over to enjoy some food, wine, and my favorite Christmas movie, White Christmas. Natalie, Soren, and Hattie enjoyed crawling around and playing together (or at least near each other). In honor of the movie, I created an all-white menu. Sorry, no pictures this time. We enjoyed gorgonzola and carmelized onion tartlets, Italian white bean and sausage soup, bread, salad (technically that was green), white wine, and hard apple cider. For dessert: rum balls (which I rolled in powdered sugar), hot cider, and mulled wine. The food was not as striking as our all-black Halloween menu, but it was just as tasty!


Andrea made Hattie an adorable hat for her birthday. I had mentioned the other day that Ryan wanted Hattie to have a hat with ear flaps. My talented friend went home and invented a pattern for one, complete with ties that have become Hattie's new favorite chew toy. Thank you Andrea!

Avila Valley Barn

We went to Avila Valley barn this weekend with friends visiting from out of town. It was nice to be there without all of the crowds before Halloween. The kids loved the animals, even Hattie was smiling and kicking when she looked at the goats, emus, and ponies. Here are some photos of our adventures. Just chillin on some gourds.

It's a bird, it's a plane....

Hattie thinks her friend Nate is SO funny!

Delicious corn.

Ella the wild child!

Innocents abroad

Hattie joined us for the longest road trip of her life when we drove to Santa Barbara to attend the wedding of our friends Peter Michealsen and Xanthy Chu. Unsure as to how our five-week-old would handle the drive, we steeled ourselves for as many pit stops as necessary and began our journey a couple of hours earlier than necessary.

Much to our surprise (and delight), Hattie took the whole trip in stride. In fact, she seems to enjoy outings. She stays calm (usually) when buckled into her car seat, stares with wide-eyed wonder at new places, and curls comfortably into strangers' arms. Strangers to her, that is. They're our friends.

To be honest, Sarah and I were a tad apprehensive about the event. I knew Peter and Xanthy through Intervarsity at Cal Poly, and alumni weddings tend to double as reunions that stretch far into the night. While I reconnected with plenty of friends I hadn't seen in a while at the Michealsen-Chu affair, the ceremony and reception together clocked in at a neat five-and-a-half hours. It was the perfect length for a baby-toting couple.

We had tentatively planned to stay the night with some friends of Peter's family, but the success of the trip down inspired us to brave a drive back. Despite one minor crying episode, the return was as uneventful as the departure.

The wedding itself was a mix of East and West. While the ceremony stuck to fairly standard U.S fare (white dress, men in suits, etc.), the reception reflected Xanthy's Hong Kong roots, with the new bride in red and the groom in a custom-made black outfit to match. He's a Swede and fairly tall, so I think the style was adapted a bit for his frame. Still, the effect was impressive, especially when they danced to Paul Simon's "Something So Right."