Jennifer's 365 Project

There was a party at the park and the let Q have a balloon. He was super excited chasing it all over...until it popped.

If exhausted enough, this kid will sleep anywhere. Which means going nearly the whole day without a nap.

I walked through the skywalk at lunch today. They're busy cleaning the floors.

It's the season to start looking at grills. Well, it will be soon. They'll be on sale in the next few weeks due to the 4th of July holiday. We need a bigger one, but not urgently. They certainly add a lot of bells and whistles I really don't want to drive up the price.

JAFAX is back this year and this time it's at DeVos Place. We arrived very early, around 9:30. There were long lines on Friday and we knew that early in the morning meant a short line and plenty of time for Quinn to run around.

And boy did he have an amazing time running everywhere, yelling "hi" at everyone then scampering off all shy when they replied.
 At 11am the vendor hall opened, so we entered to see our friends Comfort and Adam.
We also stopped by Corrine's table and picked up a few small prints for Quinn's room (I really like dragons!).
We didn't end up staying too much past 11:30, since Quinn really need to take a break and a nap. But I did get a badge (for awhile they were passing out wrist bands) and Quinn had a fantastic time. Chris and I had a good time too, although a little limited in what we could do since a 16 month old won't sit still for an hour long panel.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the con grows over the next few years. Hopefully it does gangbusters like the Grand Rapids Comic Con has done.

We headed out this morning to Helder Park instead of JAFAX. At 9:30 in the morning the park was pretty empty.
Quinn had a lot of fun and he was able to push his stroller around. He took that very seriously and didn't want anyone interfering.
Its a decent size park and we walked the trail around the whole area. As he gets older we'll definitely have to come back.

On my lunch I walked over to DeVos to check out JAFAX. Like all anime cons seem to be, it was just a massive registration line. Sigh.

He loves to flip the chair over and climb it. This kid won't climb a play structure but stairs and furniture he won't stop trying to climb.

Since my time is limited in the evening until after Q goes to bed, I've been slowly chipping away at the Raspberry Pi Zero setup. This evening all I really did was set it with a static IP. Eventually I'll get it into a new case and have it working as a nature cam, but for now it's just hanging out.

He's pushing everything around in the house.

With new cables in hand I was able to hook up the camera module to the Raspberry Pi Zero. Now to configure everything!

 My parents and brother came out for the day to celebrate Father's Day.
It was warm out, but we spent most of the day out on the deck. Chris put up two barricades so Quinn couldn't go down the stairs and we were able to sit down and enjoy the weather.
Everyone had a really good time and it was a beautiful day to be outdoors.

Anyplace is perfect for a nap if you're tired enough. He just crawled up there and fell asleep on his own this afternoon.

My friend Lori started a new job earlier this year which is only a few blocks from my work. So we're able to have lunch downtown together again. The Pita House downtown closed years ago, but she's been going to Salad Works so I met up with her there. Not bad.

Chris's dad came out today to visit. I was able to spend a little time with them on my lunch break before heading back to work.

Spent a little more time this evening with the arduino-compatible gemma and tweaking some code.

This Walgreens marquee has been messed up for a few weeks now. Some messages display fine, others not so much. Makes the drive home interesting at least.

This evening with E3 going on I watched the Sony press conference and played a little with an adafruit gemma I've had for a few years. It's been awhile since I've played with an arduino but now that I'm getting more and more free time back in the evening, it's time to start on some projects.

We visited Douglas Walker Park this morning. It's not too far from us and we thought we'd try something different.

When your kid gets up at the crack of dawn, you arrive at places before everyone else, and this park was no exception .There were almost no people there and they didn't start to arrive until we were leaving.
We also had a quick bite to eat at a restaurant. Quinn is getting better at sitting at a table, although by the time we were done he was getting anxious to leave.

A co-worker reminded me that Frog Hollow Park was nearby so we took Quinn this morning. It's a nice set up for younger kinds, complete with a fence that circles the park (it's also nearby a road). There are several structures for younger and older children. Quinn had a blast wandering everywhere. He really enjoyed watching some of the older kids and even tried to follow them occasionally.

It's been over a year since I've really wandered around downtown. I've been spending most of my lunches at home. When I was nursing it was just easier to go home than pump more at work and now I just enjoy seeing my family.

Still, it was nice to wander around and see how things had changed over the past year. One of the tunnels under the road and along the river is painted now, which is interesting. Not sure if it was for Artprize last year or just for the sake of painting it. Every way, it's a fun change to see.

Blanket capes are the best kind of capes.

Apparently this shopping cart can go anywhere. He's been pushing it up on the counter, the couch, anywhere he can lift it to.

There was a work even this evening that I went to. It's been a long time since I've been out with work people at a bar, so it was a nice change of pace.

I've been passing this sign on my way to work for the past few weeks. I finally pulled over to take a photo of it. It's an amusing reference to George RR Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice series (and the Game of Thrones TV show)

While at my parents house, Chris and I stepped out to shop at Micro Center. I wanted a Raspberry Pi Zero and for $5 it's hard to come by so I was pretty excited they had it in stock.

I have a few project ideas but nothing firm yet. For now it's just fun to play with a computer the size of a stick of gum.

 Quinn had a fun time in their backyard. They have bird feeders so he enjoys watching the birds fly in.
We also ran through a sprinkler! He's getting used to the splash pad by us and we thought some smaller sprinkler time would be fun.
He eventually did go play in the water by himself.

 Quinn was more adventurous today at the splash pad!
And he had fun watching me play on my 3DS.

 Quinn's first visit to the splash pad was today. He was a little leery of water spraying in his face, but the fun the other kids was infectious. He would run up close to the splash pad, get excited, scream yeah, and then run away from the water so he wouldn't get too wet.
 In the evening we had our first game night since Quinn has been born. Adam, Comfort and Dan came over to play a boardgame (Tomb).
It was hard to get too into the game since Quinn was very excited to have people over. He stayed up an hour and a half past his bedtime and was bouncing off the walls with excitement.

Instead of Dan and Lolo visiting at our house, we drove over to their place this morning. Quinn had a fun time with all of the new toys.
In the afternoon we met our friend Corinne in Grand Haven and took Quinn to the beach. It was his visit trip to the beach and once he got going he enjoyed splashing in the water and playing with the sand.