Road trip 2007

We're home! Wow, what an awesome vacation! Crossing 7 different states, the Zeiners have returned after a whirlwind tour visiting family, friends, and amazing places.

Our trip began heading north to Oregon for a wedding. Our friends, the bride and groom, gave a heartfelt celebration, one that we will always remember. Dianna was reminded that once again the Northwest coast is beautiful, not knowing that so many shades of green even existed. The pictures of the waterfall, were from Multnomah Falls, on our way out of Portland, OR. Traveling east towards Idaho we were shocked to see that desert can exist this far north, and that when you stop at Hungry Redneck Cafe, that you should actually expect to meet some rednecks.

After arriving in Moab, UT and only having 4 hours of sleep, Dianna woke up at 6am to see the orange rust landscape she missed since the Zeiner wedding. The Arches were spectacular and even though we only had 1 day to visit them, we snapped numerous pictures. A moderate hike up to Delicate Arch was appreciated after being cramped in the car. The desert heat reached almost 100F that day, and although we were well hydrated and sunblocked, Zane did receive his first sunburn. Luckily SPF50 allowed only a surface burn to penetrate, he did not seem bothered and his skin was healed within the next 2 days. Since Moab is the mecca for mountain biking, Gus also got a morning ride in the next day before heading to Santa Fe, NM.

On the way to Santa Fe our route brought us directly towards Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. Since we are suckers for National Parks, we made a quick pit-stop to see the Indian ruins from 800+ years ago. 2 hours later we were off to Sante Fe, but poor Zane could not handle the car and the altitude changes any more and the next 300 miles were unbearable, the worst leg of the trip. Luckily when we arrived in Santa Fe, Zane's sweet personality returned as he met long time family friend and talented artist Kate Palmer. The next morning we went to her studio and saw her neat environmentally green house (it was an actual house, solar panels and all) at the outskirts of town. Not wanting to leave so quick, but definitely wanting to see Nanny Pam and Grandpa Van we headed to Ruidoso NM for a Vandertulip family reunion.

At the reunion Zane met Meemee, his great-grandmother, and many Vandertulip cousins, aunts and uncles. Even the adults were kids again as we all played in the world's largest sandbox at White Sands, NM. Gusti's first Father's Day was spent along side our cousin Joe-Daniel's first dad's day and Grandpa Van first Grandfather's Day. Gus woke up to his son and wife giving him presents that we lugged across country for his special day. Books on hiking in the Bay area, National and State parks will be used with his new hiking backpack to carry Zane. A plan to spend our first camping trip together was also announced for Labor Day weekend, which we will travel to Kings Canyon NP.

But wait our trip is still not over...

After the reunion, we headed back to California. On the way to Arizona, we stopped at a Ghost Town called Stein at the NM-AR border. This was something that Dianna, Nana and Papa used to do on their road trips when she was a child. Stein was a town of 1200 people, but the advent of the diesel engine caused this booming metropolis to fade away, not needing this water stop for the outdated steam engine trains. Outside of Tuscon, AR we made a quick drive thru Saguaro NP, home to thousands of 100 year old 25 feet tall cacti. We were pleasantly surprised how neat this park was, especially for a day trip. Afterwards a starving Zeiner family ended up in what looked to be a neat Mexican restaurant. Although the Luchador decor was favorable, the food was not. It was the first time in Dianna's life that she thought Mexican food tasted like dog food, yuck! Although it took us a while to find a hotel that night we somehow mustered enough strength to wake up the next morning.

Finally we made it to our last stop of our road trip, it was time for Zane to meet his 95 year old great grandmother Nuki. We spent a very nice evening with Nuki and Aunt Mady catching up and hearing old stories. The next day for memory sake, we briefly drove around LA stopping at our favorite breakfast joint, Kings Road Cafe and the Santa Monica beach. Zane touched the ocean for the first time and we all got in the Prius for our final leg home. To our friends in LA... we miss all of you and were honestly stuck with a crisis of choice. There are too many to visit on a one day trip. We really wanted Zane to meet Grandma Nuki and we decided to end it there. Forgive us for not contacting anyone else, but do not worry we will visit again soon. We love LA!

So we are back and happy to be at home. We traveled over 3000 miles, 100% by car. Our new Prius was awesome as we frequently got 48 mpg. we never had to stop and get gas more than once a day. We saw 3 National Parks, 1 National Monument, a ghost town, waterfall, desert, and ocean. We laughed with family and friends and have memories to share for a lifetime. A photo album is above on the right giving about 125 photos of our 250+ photo vacation. Even though this is the longest post so far, we hope you enjoyed hearing about and viewing our trip.

Love to you all! Dianna, Gusti and Zane

4 Year Anniversary - May 25, 2007

Dianna and I were married over memorial day weekend in Zion National Park in southwest Utah. We chose the venue and date because we have a bit of a national park fetish, and we wanted a three day weekend to visit more parks on our anniversaries (1st = Zion NP, 2nd = Crater Lake NP and Redwoods NP, 3rd = Olympic NP). This year, with the arrival of Zane, we needed to stay a little closer to home, and chose to visit Lassen Volcanic National Park, which is about 5 hours away, east of Redding, CA.

Dianna managed, somehow, to fenaegle a just-canceled-room at a bed and breakfast in the booming metropolis of Shingletown, CA, which turned out to be a hidden gem. On the first day we drove to the NW entrance of the park at Lake Manzanita, where we stopped by the bookstore to get the details on what hikes were open and what were closed. We learned that unfortunately all the cool thermal stuff (this is a volcanic park, after all) was still under a heavy blanket of snow (not the first time we have run into this problem), and none of those hikes were open. Instead we opted to strap Zane into the Baby Bjørn and hike up to Crags Lake, which we later learned was lacking in the part about the lake. We met a couple atop the hike who had been hiking there every memorial day for 20 years, and this was the first time they had ever seen the lake dry. We hiked back down, and drove through the western half of the park.

To this point we were having a pretty good time, but frankly thought that Lassen was a little on the lame side. Don't get me wrong, it was very pretty, but generally national parks blow you away with otherworldly beauty (2000 foot shear cliffs, impossibly balanced rocks, huge trees, et cetera), which Lassen so far appeared to lack. We figured that at least the bed and breakfast was cool.

The next morning we decided to drive to the other side of the park to the Cinder Cone hike, which required us to do 7 miles each direction of driving on fireroads with our Prius. I was laughing on the inside for the entire drive, as I remember reading in Harper's that 87% of Ford Explorers have never been off road. The hike started off alongside the Fantastic lava beds (I didn't make that up, that's actually what it's called. It was indeed fantastic), and slowly climbed up to Cinder Cone.

The hike is listed as 'strenuous' in the trail guide, because it gains 750 feet in a little more than half a mile... and it's like climbing uphill on a beach, as the ground is basically sand. Although we had not planned on trying to get to the top with an infant strapped to my chest, on the hike to the base of Cinder Cone I managed to convince Dianna that it probably wasn't so steep, and we should give it a shot, as we could turn around whenever we decided it was too tough. She first responded by asking me if I had been sniffing glue in the parking lot. Ultimately her sense of adventure kicked in and she said sure, let's go for it.

Then the trail went straight up, and we slowly but surely made progress towards the summit.



Zane had really been digging touching the tree bark and pine cones and was awake for the majority of the hike. Once we got to the top we hung out for a while, ate sandwiches and checked out the view while Zane breastfed. The last part is because the bottle of breastmilk that we had stuffed in my pack conveniently turned itself into cheese on the hike, and looked too horrifying to feed to him. There are a ton of pictures of the hike here.

While the two of them were busy, I stared at the map, and realized that we could loop the hike by going down the backside of Cinder Cone. We were somewhat shocked to learn that the back was steeper than the front. The pictures don't do it justice, but it was crazy steep. We took our time and got down safely, and made it back to the car without being reported to child protective services. If anyone is planning on going to Lassen, this hike was really cool, and redeemed the lameness of the previous day.

It was a great weekend. Pictures are more better, go check them out.

Zane's room - the nursery

Here are some pictures of the nursery, for those that are interested. Yes, I was able to work in Tiffany Blue in the room, without making it too girly. I am VERY proud of this!

Click on any picture to get a larger version

Baby Registry

Feb 13, 2007
Attention family and friends:

Someone was kind enough to purchase the Sound Sleeper from our registry at Day One. Unfortunately Day One lost the information of who bought this for us. Please send us a blog comment or call us at 310.497.0735 so we can properly thank you.

Many thanks,
Dianna

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We are registered at Day One in Palo Alto, which is a one-stop-shop place for babies and parents. Although Day One has a webpage, they don't have an option for online registry, but if you call, they will have our list on hand under 'Zeiner'. To order an item, you can call them at 650.322.3291. Since we are in the store frequently, we can pick up your orders, which saves on shipping. Alternatively, if you'd like to see Day One, you can go in and pick the item up yourself. There are two stores, one in SF near Laurel Heights, the other is near Stanford. Directions to both are on the webpage link above.

Stuff we're registered for at Day One:

1. Baby Bjorn Bib (received)
2. Tiny Love Gymini- baby floor playmat (received)

3. Diaper Dekor - like a diaper genie but apparently better (received)
4. Diaper Dekor refills (received)
5. soft covers for car seat straps (brown teddy bear)- (received)
6. Halo Sleep Sack (received)
7. Secure Sleeper (received)
8. Wipe Warmer (recieved)
9. Sound Sleeper (received)
10. Lamaze and/or Infantino foot and wrist rattle set
11. teething stuff - blanket, beads, toys (received)
12. Skip Hop Splash - bottle drying rack
13. Baby Buddy secure-straps
14. Medela breast pump (received)
15. Infantino spiral spintop toy
16. Gift Certificates for classes offered at Day One

NEW - We are also now registered at Target.com
(baby gift registry under Dianna Lester-Zeiner and Gus Zeiner)

Other stuff, not on a direct registry:

Stokke KinderZeat high chair - red
REI gift certificate for Kelty Hiking baby carrier and Chariot bike buddy

your expertise - whatever your favorite baby toys or books are

Stuff we already have:

Baby Bjørn
Baby Grooming Kit
Bathtime fun! (toys, tub, frog pod, rubber duckies)
Bottle Warmer
Crib and bedding
Stroller and carseat
High chair cover
rocking chair
changing table
vibrating baby chair
diaper bags =)

Baby Einstein DVD collection (set 1 and 2)
Dr Seuss collection
clothes up to 6 months