… to visit my folks in Virginia for the 4th of July holiday. Leo will get to meet his grandparents on my side. We'll be on an airplane by 7am tomorrow headed for the east coast.

Today, Memorial Day,  our friends Ed and Debbie stopped by for a visit to meet our new addition. They brought food and Ed cooked us some outrageously good hamburgers on the backyard grill. We also had fresh-squeezed juice from oranges Leila and I pilfered from a state park visit yesterday.

Later on, Leila, Leo and I went to Target to buy a few needed household supplies. It was the first time Leo was fussy in public; he whined a bit in his car seat atop our shopping cart. Usually he goes straight to sleep when in motion- in the car, being carried in his car seat, the stroller, etc. He probably had a little bit of an upset stomach. By the time we got back home, he was fine.

Baby Leo was given a clean bill of health, and so was Leila, so they were both released from the hospital today by their doctors. We got home around 3pm. It couldn't have been a nicer first Mother's Day for Leila.

It's amazing to finally have our little one home with us.

Leo Jeffrey was born at 10:30pm on May 4th, 2011. He weighed 8lbs, and was 20 1/4 inches.

Our son is a healthy, beautiful baby boy!

During labor -which had been going perfectly- Leila developed a fever and infection and we and our doctor made the call to have an emergency c-section. As it turned out, that decision saved our son from much trauma so it was 100% the right call. On delivery he needed some immediate medical attention, but he was quickly doing well on his own and we were holding him minutes after his birth. Leila was awake and aware during the whole thing, and I was in a state of 'amazement overload'.

His first day seemed to me like a week!

Leo is in the NICU unit here at the hospital- his doctors say he has been showing excellent signs, and he's alert, even feisty, and happy and seems very content. Normally, we would both be worried about him being in the NICU, but he is so obviously happy and peaceful in his incubator, and he's with such good caregivers, so we're very reassured. Our doctor's plan for him is to monitor him for a few days- the type of infection that could possibly strike often 'hides out' for a few days before it shows up. If there's any chance of that, he is in the best spot possible to combat it, with a team of pros looking out for him.

The NICU is so state of the art it's amazing. There's a 3 minute scrub down in a secure clean room before you can even enter it. Leo has his own little environment-controlled room, and a little dry-erase board on the wall reads "Plan for Leo" and his charge nurse.

We've been in every few hours to see him, and Leila has been feeding him at his regular intervals. Meanwhile, she is resting and recovering from the c-section. She is healing fast- in typical Leila fashion, she's already questioning her need for a wheelchair when we go down out from our room to the NICU, but she is also taking her recovery time seriously and trying to get her rest. We both got a good night's sleep last night, though Leila still went to give Leo his regular feedings at each 3-hour interval.

We're overjoyed! I feel like this is the start of the 'montage' stage of our lives! So many inspiring scenes all rolled into each other are on the way.

Our thanks and gratitude go out to our family and friends that have added so much to the joy of this time. Thank you all so much!

We hosted Easter lunch with our friends Seidi and David. Coincidentally, Seidi is Estonian, they live just a few blocks from us and they are expecting their daughter at the same time we're expecting our son… yet we never met them before until very recently. Another of those things that makes you go, "small world!"

David and I wrapping Easter eggs in onion skins and tinfoil. Everything but the tinfoil is the traditional Estonian way of coloring Easter eggs. 

Putting the eggs on the stove to boil.

Leila sets the table for Easter lunch. The food was traditional Estonian fare.

For dessert, Leila made Pasha. It was delicious!

The easter eggs came out pretty interesting! The uncolored patterns were created by adding bits of pasta under the onion skin. 

EDIT: Just a few hours after leaving our home, our friend Seidi went into labor. We understand they are now proud parents! Our best wishes and congrats go out to them. Maybe it was the Estonian food that did the trick!

On Sunday, January 23rd, it was great to have several close friends over for breakfast/brunch to celebrate Leila's Birthday. It's been an annual tradition of ours for several years. Above, me with our friends Mall, Marcus, Kristi (Marcus's wife), Kristi (Kalmer's wife), Kalmer, Reet and Sam. 

Kristi and Kalmer, Helena and Mall.

Ed and Debbie, Reet and Leila

Leila with Kristi and Marcus

Mall and Kadri

Babies naturally gravitate to Leila, here with our friend Kaja's son.

Happy New Year Everyone!

We had a great time seeing the New Year arrive at the home of our friends Kristi and Marcus, along with several other guests of theirs. 

We had a beautiful Christmas vacation at a cabin rented by friends in Cold Springs, CA. (Just a stone's throw up Highway 108 from Long Barn, CA where I originally thought we were headed). 

We set out on Christmas Day morning and drove up the Grapevine on Interstate 5, and then through the Central Valley on Highway 99. We were headed into the above canyon near Castaic, CA, while calling to wish my Mom a Merry Christmas back home in Virginia.

California scenery never fails to amaze- this near Fort Tejon. 

Below Bakersfield, a small dust storm rolled in. Leila grabbed the camera just in time to capture its arrival. Within seconds the cars ahead of me nearly vanished. Luckily, visibility didn't get much worse and we were soon through it. (Some dust storms in this region completely blind motorists, and have in the past lead to deadly multi-car pile ups. 

The first three hours of the drive were uneventful. The last three we drove much of through pouring rain, then as we reached the mountains north of Yosemite in the Stanislaus National Forrest, we encountered heavy fog -at times I almost couldn't see the white line beside the road and had to take it down to a snail's pace- and finally snowfall. As we reached Cold Springs, where the cabin was, the road was covered with snow and ice, and visibility was very low. At one point my brand new CRV was skidding down an ice covered road, me with very little control, but I managed to guide us in for a safe landing at the cabin. (Our friends Irene,Tofique and their three kids and au pair were already there). I was literally minutes from mandatory tire chains. Our friends Kristi and Kalmer arrived about two hours after us, and couldn't have made it without chains.

We awoke the next day to the above scene at the cabin- winter wonderland!

Everyone warm and toasty around the cabin's dining room table. 

Tofique and Irene's twin sons made me into their favorite track to race their toy cars. 

Leila, Irene and Kristi. 

We spent a great couple of days hanging out in the mountains. Everyone went snow-sledding on the first day at a local slope. (No, I didn't go sledding, and Leila really can't do that sort of activity these days. ) On the remaining days,the others took their kids skiing, while Leila and I did our own thing. 

Yikes! My brand new car covered in snow!

The perfect arrangement: Hubby shovels, wife helps out by taking pictures of Hubby shoveling! Cleaning the ice from the windows without a scraper was even more fun!

 Leila and I went for a walk around the village. 

At the sledding slope. Behind me, the landscape demonstrates the origins of the Estonian flag: blue sky, black forrest, white snow.

Following our host's car (in Kalmer's SUV) through snow-covered roads on the first day. It was still icy enough for chains at this time, but very quickly after this the roads were nice and cleared.

Leila enjoying a winter hike. 

The kids built a small snowman on the cabin's back porch. 

Who says you can't have a White Christmas in California? We managed it very nicely!

The drive home on Tueday morning, December 28th was exactly how we prefer drives to be: scenic and uneventful. We did stop at the outlet stores in Tulare, CA though!

We're hitting the road for Long Barn, California where we'll spend the Christmas Holidays in a mountain cabin with some friends. (I'm hoping I don't have to break out the tire chains to get up the mountain!) We've got a 6 hour drive ahead of us, but we're both in high spirits and looking forward to getting away. Merry Christmas!

To all our family and friends: Wishing each of you a very Merry Christmas!