“Our flight from DCA-LAX leaves in just over 12 hours. Am I all packed? No. Am I mostly organized? Sort of. What am I doing right now, other than blogging? Oh, messy crafts with Annalie, contemplating baking cookies—the usual, in other words.”

I wrote those lines last night when I should have been busily packing and preparing for our trip which starts today. I’m actually writing this at the airport, sitting at our gate, while Annalie plays with play-dough. I did make cookies around 11pm, because when I said something about how I’d wanted to make cookies, Troy said, “You still can!” So I did.

I was planning to finish this blog post last night, too, but instead I crocheted while Troy and I watched the last two episodes of Season 1 of Veronica Mars on Netflix Instant. (Have I mentioned how much I love Netflix Instant?) So I’ll write my catch-up post this morning instead.

Troy was on leave for a week, just because he had the chance to take some time off before things get busy again this fall. The week started out auspiciously, when the goldfinches came back. We saw a goldfinch in our neighbor’s yard a week or so before, and that day we saw a dozen goldfinches! A whole charm of goldfinches. I’ve seen them several times since then, too.

Out hostas, about the only flower we have in front of our house, have been blooming like crazy. I always forget that hosta blossoms actually smell good until they’re blooming again. And they’ve been hosting a million bees and butterflies, which has been fun to observe.

Since Troy was on leave, we took that road trip to North Carolina and Virginia Beach last weekend, but other than that we just hung out at home, enjoying having Troy around for a few days. We ran errands, we went to the park, we goofed off, Troy let me sleep in whenever he could. It was really nice.

One day last week, when it was rainy and considerably cooler than it had been, we had a fire in the fireplace. Annalie has been begging all summer to for a fire, so she was thrilled.

Then we toasted marshmallows, because why not? Might as well, if you’re sitting in front of a fire anyway.

The day it rained, I also took advantage of the cooler weather to enjoy some of the tea that Lauren Hewings bought me from England. I drank my PG Tips (England’s No 1 Tea) from the mug I painted with Lauren Carter when she visited me in San Diego last January. The internet has blessed me richly with so many good friends!

We hit the Museum of Natural History one day. Annalie could go there everyday and not get bored, I think. So could I.

On Troy’s last day of leave we went back to the splash park. We had originally been planning to go miniature golfing at that same park and then cool off in the water, but the day we had planned to do that was the day it rained. The next day was sunny and warmer, but because of appointments in the morning we didn’t have time to do both.

Annalie had been really excited about what was going to be her first time miniature golfing, and she was disappointed that we couldn’t do both. But she handled it really well. She decided that since the splash park closes at the beginning of September and we wouldn’t have another chance to go there this summer, we should go do that, and we could mini-golf another time.

And we did have a lot of fun at the splash park! Annalie had a fantastic time playing in the water with her dad. Troy was properly impressed with the coolness of this particular splash park.

Annalie especially had fun ordering Troy to stand underneath the buckets, where he pretended over and over again that he didn’t know he was going to get dumped on, much to her amusement. Ditto for the mushroom shower thingy. Troy was a very good sport.

Even though none of us wanted Troy’s leave period to end, this was a good way to end it.

Now, I think I’m all caught up! Except for the pottery photos I need to share. But I’ll do that another day. Because now we’re on the plane (thank you, gogo in-flight wifi, for making my first blog post from 30,000 feet possible—the future is now!) and on our way to California.

My friend Kassie wrote a blog post the other day about how much fun it’s been for her and Joe to hang out with some of their preteen and teenage relatives recently, which has reaffirmed their decision to have kids. She asked any parents reading her post to share the good stuff about having kids. I left a mile-long comment sharing my thoughts, and Kassie told me I should make it into its own blog post. Voila.

Before I share my parental dirt, let me say this: Of course whether or not to have kids is an intensely personal decision, and I firmly believe that anyone who doesn’t want kids should NOT have them. That said, and knowing and loving you and Joe as I do, I think you will be some of the best parents any kid could ask for, and that your kids will probably be some of the coolest, smartest, kindest, most fun people to ever walk the planet.

(Note that this is probably the corniest you will ever hear me get. I’m done now.)

(Italicized portion was originally a comment on the post Breeders at Bravely Obey.)

Okay, Dana. I’ll bite. Because it’s a good idea for a blog post!

Now that we know this baby is a girl, Troy and I are just starting to talk names. We aren’t anywhere near choosing one, we just have a big list of all the names we sorta maybe like the sound of. At this point it still feels like we’ll never narrow it down to two names because none of them sound quite right when paired with Annalie, or our last name, or they mean something weird.

I commented on Facebook last night that coming up with a name for an innocent, brand-new human is HARD. Apparently this is a common sentiment. The comment thread quickly grew and got hilariously out of control, what with Sonja suggesting Brunhilde and Princess Consuela Bananahammock, and Katie saying she thought & or * (pronounced, of course, ‘Ampersand’ and ‘Asterisk’) would make lovely names.

Then my sister-in-law Dana commented that I should write a blog post about what names we’re considering, and ask you all to discuss and give your opinions of our names. Now, I’m not gonna do that, because I know myself well enough to know that I am Little Miss Contrary. If I told you all my absolute favorite name, a name I loved, and you all agreed that it was fabulous and the name we should use, I would probably say, “Eh, never mind. If everyone likes it so much we’d better pick another name.” I’m not saying it makes sense; I’m just saying I know that’s the way it would go.

But here is what I will do, because apparently there there are others out there, like me, who love discussing names. I can’t promise I’ll join the discussion in any serious way, and it’s very unlikely that anyone will know our kid’s name before she’s actually born. But hey, that doesn’t have to stop the fun! One caveat: don’t feel like you have to tell me THE name you’re saving for your kid, because the last thing I want to do is accidentally steal your name. That said…

What girl names do you like? Why?