Little Helper

Who knew how fast a 9 month old could be? One minute he is playing with his toys on the other side of the room, the next he is by your side "helping" hook up the wires to the computer. I was carefully hooking up the speaker wires to the computer underneath the desk and all of the sudden I see little hands reach by me to grab the keyboard wires. Luckily I pulled them away fast enough before anything came tumbling down. But talk about a startle treatment. whoo. Walking I feel is only a few weeks away.

Quick Note

Hey just a quick note to let you guys know we are doing Great. Graysyn is doing great and getting very big. He is half the height of mommy which does not take much. Hopefully we will start our traveling soon. But as the economy is continuing to slow good travel positions dwindle too. No worries though we continue to enjoy life and visit places. Gray is becoming a little traveler.

Rice Cereal = World Domination

Rice Cereal is really really messy.

Since Graysyn has become 4 months old, EW and I have been introducing foods to him slowly. First we have started with the rice cereal...but don't let this apparently harmless thickening ingredient fool you....in the hands of a 5 month old boy bent on world domination it becomes a diabolical weapon in his plot. Never have I seen a child so interested in getting the rice cereal on his cheek, on the high chair, in his hair, or on his bib then rather than in his mouth. AND if you are one of the lucky few who do get it in his mouth, 9 times out of 10 he will spit it out. I have had to come up with some pretty crafty tricks in order for him to eat a few bites of it. But it only works the first couple times before he figures out what I am trying to do, then I have to think up new tactics. *sigh* the joys of parenthood.

In other news the FF (Fines Family) visited Zion National Park the other day. It is actually a very gorgeous park. We did about 6 miles worth of hiking in the area, and still did not have enough time to see it all. Below is a short clip from our expedition.

Death Valley, It's A Dry Heat.

Who knew Death Valley would be quite comfortable in February? A loooong time ago, EW and I decided that before we would move away from this area, we would visit all of the sites that we had never got around to seeing. One of them was Death Valley.

EW always wanted to visit Bad Waters located in Death Valley because that is the lowest elevation in the U.S. We also went on a two mile round trip hike through Golden Canyon. The hike itself was great. I need to get rid of that extra baby weight. EW really had a work out because he was carrying Gray in the Bjorn. Gray who had the easiest ride out of all of us fell asleep during the hike. I put a video of it below.

Passport....Smashport...and also hiking.

One of our goals is to drive through Canada to visit Alaska. Now with the new travel laws you need a passport before you even think about visiting Canada.

Last week EW and I went to update our passports. Ours were well over ten years old and mine still had my maiden name Mahoney on it. Good thing we had Gray's birth certificate and SSN with us as well, who knew a 4 month old needed a passport? The clerk was really nice and even took Gray's passport picture....which sounds much easier then it actually was. Its hard to get a 4 month old to stay still and look forward for at least 5 seconds.

So now that we can scratch passports off our list we have been looking at other things to accomplish before June. One of them was to visit Red Rock Canyon, which is kind of sad it took us six years of living in Las Vegas to finally accomplish. It was actually a really nice hike, and there was still snow on the ground. We took the puppy-girls along and they loved it. There was a slight altercation with a White German Shepherd and a Chihuahua who had a Napoleon complex, but everyone made it out alive. The scenic drive thru Red Rock was gorgeous, and it made me a little sad that we never went to visit sooner :(

First Fines Family Blog

So this is my very first blog. Not so bad so far. I don't know how successful I will be at this, but I am giving it a shot. The idea for starting a blog came from my friend Root, whose blog I read all the time. She is really good at it. I doubt I will be, but I am trying it out anyways.
In three months My husband EW and I plan to start moving across the country while I hopefully begin travel nursing. We figure this will be a good way to keep our family and friends updated on our experiences along the way.
We have recently added a new addition to our family..a 22 inch LCD monitor that has fabulous pixel resolution, its kind of nice ;)
Also our other new addition is our son Graysyn he has been the greatest joy in my life so far. EW and I waited longer then most couples to have kids, and he was worth the wait. His personality is a cross between me and EW....so you know we are going to get some phone calls from his teachers in a few years.
Tentatively, I am going to try to make this blog a weekly thing. We will see how well it works out.