it was busy busy busy at the Wagner household this past month. on memorial day weekend we flew to visit my dad and younger siblings in Oregon. where we were also able to squeeze in visits to other remarkable people and places, like friends in Seattle, Beaverton, Portland and even Charlie's Aunt Lesley who lives on a farm in Scappoose. The farm is home to a bunch of wonderful animals like 8 dogs, 3 cats, lots of chickens & roosters, some cows & bulls, 4 horses and even a miniature donkey named Elvis. Jax was on cloud nine. his favorite was chasing the chickens and roosters. we all had an amazing time together that we wished we could have stayed longer. and as for me - i had to head straight into work when we landed back in Oakland - :(.

Jax is now 9 months old. he is pretty mobile these days and gets into everything! he isnt a seasoned crawler just yet (and thank goodness!) he goes back and forth from his typical frantic army crawl to the more common on the knees crawl. and still no teeth, even though we thought we saw one coming in. it wasnt a tooth but is a calcium deposit that will simply go away on its own. we've become lazy and simply feed him food from our plate which luckily he hasnt had any allergic reactions to. we still put him on the potty but since he's been eating more solid foods he's been having a bit of a #2 problem.  when we went on our trip we made sure to bring his potty with us (and he went on it) but we forgot to bring it to the farm. i decided to try and let him pee while holding him over the toilet, and to my surprise - he went a little, looked back at me and when i said good job, he continued to pee. no, really! i was shocked too. i was so amazed i wanted to high five someone.

and recently on a whim last Sunday, we ventured to the San Lorenzo river in Felton (near Santa Cruz). we had to sort of scale down a hill to get to the river (something the website didnt mention. they also failed to mention that the railroad tracks are still in use) but it was totally worth it.  we found ourselves a secluded spot along the river. we swam, played in the water and had lunch. good times, great weather. yay, summer!