Sully's First Shoulder Ride With Dad

And also proof that Sully really does smile every now and again. :)

Tiptoe-ing Through the Tulips

On Friday, Sully and I went with Kelly and Alistair up to the Skagit Valley to check out the Tulip Festival. However, we made it there and were told at the Tulip Festival information booth that all of the fields had been plowed under. Nice. However, there was one farm (the biggest tourist trap of them all, I'm sure) that still had some blooms, so we were able to get to see some tulips, at least! I don't think that Sully or Alistair really cared one way or another about the g.d. tulips, but it was a nice reason to get out and about for the day.

We also had lunch in the super cute little town of La Conner, Washington before we went to the tulip fields. I would definitely like to go back again! It was a really neat little town with restaurants, shops and a gallery here and there, and it is on the Puget Sound where the Skagit River runs into the Sound. If the commute wouldn't be so hellish, I might even consider living there! But, that's a big leap to make after one lunch outing. ;)

Better Damien Rice Concert Photo

Gabe took a photo with his cell phone that turned out much better than mine. You can see the stage a bit better. Just in case you were interested, and especially since the photo I took was really bad.

Out & About: Damien Rice Concert

Last night Gabe and I went to the 103.7 The Mountain Earth Day Concert at Benaroya Hall, featuring Damien Rice and opener Brett Dennen. This was a birthday gift from Gabe, and the show was awesome! There was a bit of a mix-up with our seats, though -- somehow Ticketmaster allowed seats to be sold twice (go figure -- Ticketmaster is the devil), and one of our seats also belonged to someone else. This worked out in our favor, though; Gabe and I had good seats to start with, but we ended up with GREAT seats because the house comped us with seats about 11 rows back and just a smidge to the left of the stage! The photo is of Damien Rice via my cell phone from our seats -- the picture sucks and you can't really see how great our seats are, but believe you me, they were great. :)




If you've never listened to Damien Rice or Brett Dennen, I highly recommend both of them. They are mellow, acoustic-y dudes, and as Damien Rice admitted last night, he tends to write "sad" songs. He kept introducing his songs, "Here's another sad song..." and he introduced another as, "Here is a happy song! Oh, but there is that twist at the end..." He was really great to watch and it was fun to listen to him sing and also tell his random stories. And Benaroya Hall is a great venue -- it isn't too big or super small, and we were told a couple of times by the emcees of last night's show that it is "acoustically perfect." Damien put this to the test by stepping away from the mike, unplugging his acoustic guitar from the amp and singing his song "Cannonball" solo in front of the stage for the last song of the main show. It was way cool and sounded beautiful!

Sullivan's "Approximately Four Months Old" Centerfold

The littlest Sandholm Hawkeye fan. We can't wait to get him to some Hawkeye football games!

Sullivan on Easter Sunday at Dave and Maryann Martinson's house on Fox Island. He's too sexy for his cow hat (hat and sweater courtesy of Seth Hennessey :) ).

The Bumbo Boy, looking all smushed into the Bumbo seat and sporting gigantic socks. He's obviously thrilled with the situation.

Sullivan Update: Four Months Old

Sullivan is now four months and a couple weeks old, can now roll over from his tummy to his back (only when he feels like it, of course), and talks and interacts a ton more. He has also gotten his first trip to the emergency room under his belt; we had to go there on Easter Sunday. We are starting to transition him to formula from breastmilk, and -- to make a long story short -- Sullivan is apparently allergic to milk-based formula, because when he drank it he got a red rash all over his body and little blisters in all of his "hot zones," like his neck and wrist fat rolls. This was a scary thing for Gabe and me to see, resulting in the emergency room visit. The good news is that the rash went away by itself -- and pretty quickly at that! -- but we are now working on getting Sullivan to like the soy-based formula and drinking 100% of the time from the bottle. We should have him over to the formula 100% by the time I go back to work the middle of May.

Yikes. I have to go back to work in the middle of May! Although this has been the longest I've ever had off from something like school or working my whole life, it's still weird to think I'll be back to work in less than a month. Sully and I are going to have to get out and have some fun in our last remaining days together.