Erik’s Blog

Recently at the playground and around town Nora has been “finding” toys that their owners have temporarily abandoned and has enjoyed playing with them a lot. Once she heisted a toy baby stroller and managed to walk a good ten paces with only the stroller as her support…before crashing it into a fence. On our walk on Sunday she borrowed, with the owner’s “I really should let you use my motorcycle that is way too small for me now, but I really don’t want you to” reluctant permission. She did quite well on it, despite the fact that she had to lean dangerously to one side to touch the ground.

I suspect that no matter how many toys you have, the ones that don’t belong to you – and therefore you cannot become habituated to – will always sing their special siren song.
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Recently I’ve been having a surprising amount of fun playing with some bubble solution that Nora was given by a local shopkeeper. Besides the obvious, the bubbles are my favorite of Nora’s toys. It took her a while to break out of her awe at looking at them enough to intentionally pop them, and she still hasn’t understood the process of blowing through the hoop to create them. But that’s fine; I’m content blowing them for her.

I have more ideas about photography of bubbles than I have time to implement them, but last night I finally got around to my first attempt. For some reason my off-camera flash wireless connection wasn’t working, so I decided to turn off the room lights, set a long exposure, and manually fire the flash. Of about twenty shots, these are the best three.
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It’s been just over a year since my last experiments with taking off-camera flash shots of my daughter. All yesterday she was reminding me, both in looks and behavior, of the title character of that 1993 Dennis the Menace movie, so I decided to take some photos of her during her playtime before bed. Recently, when my flash is on my camera, I can’t get her to look at anything besides the flash, so in all of my photos of her, she’s looking just above the camera. This problem is what gave me the idea to try my off-camera flash transmitter to see if I could capture her looking more at the camera or at least not looking almost into the camera.
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The following is a document written by my father, Paul Rasmussen, about his recent trip to visit us in May 2010.

We just returned from our seventh vacation in Spain. Some of them, like Erik and Marga’s wedding, or Nora’s baptism, were centered on events. One of them – Extremadura in August – was centered on learning the Spanish vacation lifestyle. Sometimes Betsy and I spent a few days in Madrid or Barcelona along the way, working on our Spanish, and on our ability to enjoy Spain without a guide. This time, however, we traveled directly to Colindres to visit our son and his family on May 11 and 12, and directly home on May 21. More than any other trip, this was purely a vacation. Well, there was the occasion of my birthday on May 19, but I’ll get to that later. (more…)

My father has sent me some photos he took during his recent visit. They provide a pretty good snapshot of our daily routines, from the playground to the local grocery store, to evening bath time. It seems amazing to me that just ten days ago we had Nora in her winter coat and today she’s sweating in the lightest white linen suit. (more…)

After a few dozen “You should cut her hair!” comments from friends, we finally broke down and cut Nora’s hair on her 14-month birthday today. I didn’t get a chance to take a “before” picture, but, let’s face it, she was pretty scruffy-looking. Neither Marga nor I have never really understood the point of keeping the first locks cut off a baby, so we passed on that.

Shortly after her daycare pickup time, a huge (for us) storm rolled in and it started pouring rain. I called up Marga and she said she was in a peluquería getting Nora’s hair cut. A few minutes later, I got a call requesting that I go down to the local peluquería and bring an umbrella and the plastic bubble to put on the stroller. When I arrived, I found little Nora sporting a nice new do (and some doodoo, too).
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We live about an eight minute car ride from one of the nicest beaches on the northern coast of Spain. Last year, shackled to an infant, we never went once. But this year we’re looking forward to many more trips, maybe even a sand castle or two, and seeing just how much sand a baby can ingest. The weather on Sunday was gorgeous, so we had to go. First we walked several kilometers up and down the walkway that follows the curve of the beach, and then we put the stroller in the car and took Nora for her first time walking on the beach and having her feet in the surf. If we had realized just what a wonderful day it was going to be, we might have taken bathing suits and a better camera.
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This morning I got up at 4:45 to take my parents to the Bilbao airport. I was back home by 6:45, just in time for Marga to go off to work. I snuck in an hour of sleep until Nora woke up at 8:00 wanting breakfast. Her snot-encrusted philtrum was a pitiful sight. She’s been suffering from a sniffly mucusfest of a cold for the past two days, the poor thing.

About mid-morning, I put her in her crib for a few minutes (she immediately stood up) while I ran around the house doing some errands, and when I came back, she had taken her pants off. Today was hotter than it has been recently, so I understood her motivation. Still, it’s shocking when she accomplishes things like that. Oh, and she also turned over a chair in the dining room today while in her walker.

To help begin a relaxing weekend, I thought I’d share some flower photos I took a few weeks ago. Enjoy… (more…)

Yesterday was my father’s 61st birthday. Ever since we celebrated his sixtieth birthday last May by eating a mariscada at a local restaurant, he has been planning on/hoping for/not-so-subtly requesting a repeat celebration this year. A mariscada is a platter of marisco, which generally translates to “seafood” in English, but usually specifically refers only to shellfish. The region of Galicia is very famous for its marisco, but the mariscada we had in Vigo was a big let down after that of our local restaurant, El Guti, which is where we dined last night. The restaurant is owned by a friend of ours, José Luis. Now, on to the photos… (more…)

Last Friday, after a 12+ hour day at work, Marga decided to have a rare relaxing bath. When she was almost done, Nora’s bath time was approaching, so we decided to throw her in there too. It was way more soap bubbles than she’s ever seen. The following are a set of photos I took as she was exploring her soapy environment. She was in a child bath seat, but you’d never know that from the photos, as the surface of the water was opaque with bubbles.
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