We're still doing good up here. Lindy ripped one of her contacts, that wasn't good. I didn't know that it was possible to rip them. Sydney got a new car seat because she's getting so big so quick. Now we can’t just let her sleep in the car, because it isn’t the type that you can easily pull out. She seems to have new tricks every week. She’ll try to do patty cake now. She likes attempting to sing. And of course she still loves talking all the time.

I can't believe it’s almost Sydney’s first birthday. She's attempting to crawl forward, but she's not quite there yet. She'll lean forward and grab things, but like I said before, she's much better at scooting backwards. She can however kind of get what she wants because she'll scoot backwards and then turn around. She's funny though. If she can't get something she gives up and starts trying to get something else, or she'll cry.

My research class ends this week. Summer can officially start now (or at least when I’m finished with my proposal). It was actually a fun class. I know, is it possible to have the words fun and research in the same sentence? It was mostly because of the teacher, Dr. Blair, and he was a riot. He has a PhD in Audiology and he use to be the head of department. He's very sarcastic and dry witted. I still don't want to do research as a career, but I came somewhat close to the idea. Now I’m not against doing research in my practice. Okay, I’m boring everybody here who isn’t going into speech-language pathology (and probably many who are!).

For Memorial Day weekend, dad cooked us steaks (second time in one month) and we went to see Mission Impossible 3. It was actually better than I thought. I was expecting a repeat of Mission Impossible 2 (which was completely over the top). I guess low expectations is the key to enjoying the summer line-up of movies.

I’ve haven’t heard good things about X-Men 3 so far. Kelsey didn’t like it at all. I still have to see it because it’s the X-Men, but should I wait to see till the dollar theaters, wait till it comes out on DVD, or go ahead and see it now?

Well, we're keeping busy. I have a research class (I need to be working on my paper for the class right now), I only have a week and a half left of that. We get to write a research proposal and its all due by next Friday. We’re all really excited about spending our summer with such fun events.

Lindy is enjoying the fact that she is done with school forever. She got a lot of money between graduation and her birthday and her first mother’s day. She bought a Nintendo game cube and the games Donkey Konga 2 and Mario Kart, Double Dash. That's been fun. Lindy is becoming an expert at the Donkey Konga game.

Sydney is starting to move around a lot more. Right now she's really good at scooting backwards, but not forwards yet. We're working on that one still. She has decided that everything furry is a doggie. She calls Jack a dog, and teddy bears, and pictures of other furry things. She loves the music on Gillmore Girls; she does a little dance to the music on the closing credits. Overall, she's a very happy little girl. She’s starting to get her sixth tooth in. She keeps getting bigger. We’re not sure how to stop this rapid growth. We just want her to be cute and small forever, but we know we can’t do anything about that.

We have a lot to look forward to during the summer. I have two different externships in speech-language pathology to keep me busy. Sydney’s first birthday is coming up in July. We have our big family reunion in August. Oh, and my birthday is coming up next month!!! Well, it looks like we’ll be keeping plenty busy.

What ever happened to virtual reality? I remember it being the biggest craze. All the videogames were going that way. There were places you could go to play virtual reality, instead of bowling (which kind of is a virtual reality in of itself). It was in, but at some point in time it went out. Or so I thought.

I recently read an interesting book called City of Golden Shadow (Otherland, Volume 1) by Tad Williams. I only suggest you read this if you are big into science fiction. If you are not go read some nice romance novel or something. Anyway, in this book the internet was completely virtual reality. They even had an online game similar to World of Warcraft, but it was completely virtual reality. I thought it was interesting; so, I decided to check out if anyone still is doing the whole virtual reality thing or if it completely went south.

People are actually still making this stuff, but it’s ridiculously expensive. Apparently Iowa State University recently announced an upgrade for their C6 virtual reality room (10x10x10 feet room). It’s costing them about $4 million dollars just to do the upgrade, but people are paying for it to do research and such.

There are whole online virtual communities like Second Life where people can have a virtual life when their bored of their own life I suppose. There is actually an ever going exchange rate for products in this virtual world. You use this money to buy houses or toys or services or whatever. One US dollar exchanges for about 250 Linden Dollars (the currency used in this world). Rates are based on supply and demand and fluctuate just like they do in our real market. Weird.

Virtual reality products are expensive, but their getting better and better. I found this website that was selling all sorts of this stuff. It seems virtual reality never left it just got quiet for a while.

The geeks are still out there making this stuff apparently, but I'm guess us poor geeks can't afford to play with it.

Sydney is now a whopping 10 months old. Here she is showing off her music talent. What she's really doing is attempting to grab the hymn book. She loves books, but not for reading. She likes to eat them. She’s really in to grabbing things. She also loves to play with anything electronic (ie., remote controls, computer keyboards, cell phones, etc. See previous post). She sits up completely on her own and is starting to attempt to crawl. Usually this is an attempt to grab some kind of book or electronic item that’s just out or reach. She also loves her toys. She loves to drop them when she’s in her high chair so that mom and/or dad have to keep picking them back up for her. We’re not quite sure if this is a game for her yet, but it’s quickly getting there.

Occasionally it sounds like Sydney intentionally uses words. For example: the other day Lindy took Sydney upstairs. Sydney was incredibly excited and kept saying “da, da, da, da.” When they got up stairs Sydney looked all around, apparently searching for something or someone. She must have not found what she was looking for because she got upset and started to cry. My wife thinks that she was looking for me and when she said, “da, da, da” she was referring to dad. Unfortunately, I was not upstairs because I was at school. I especially like this story for obvious reasons. Was she actually trying to say dad or was that just a coincidence. We like to think otherwise, but we’re not quite sure at this point.

Sydney also likes to clap. She will almost always start clapping in imitation to someone else clapping. She likes to play patty cake, but she just leaves her hands out so that you can clap them.

She just a bundle of fun at the stage she’s in right now.

Finals are finally over!!!! And now summer can begin. Of course that means I'll be starting summer school next Monday. Oh well.

Here are some Easter pics Sydney. She's our little cutie.