We've been enjoying the sunny, warm days of early June, especially the weekends when we get to spend time at home and exploring the area as a family. On each of the past two weekends, we've headed to a state park in the area for hiking, picknicking, and learning a bit about the history of the area. On the 3rd, we drove over to the Bale Grist Mill State Park, where we watched the miller grind rye into 
flour. The miller had lots of cool props to teach us about the milling process, and he made a point of involving Caden. He even let Caden turn the model millstones that showed how the flour was channeled as it was ground. Then, once we saw how the flour was ground, we all went outside to watch the miller pull the chain, open the flume, and make the giant 30-foot mill wheel turn. As you can see, Caden loved watching the water pour over the wheel.
This past weekend, we headed over to Glen Ellen to check out the Jack London State Park. It was neat to see where London wrote many of his famous novels and to wander around his old ranch. We hiked up to a small lake, and Caden had a great time checking out the world from his vantage point on Daddy's back. While we were hiking, he decided that stealing Mommy's hat was a really fun game--he would grab it by the bill, yank it off, and laugh mischevously--so we played "steal the hat" until our faces hurt from laughing so much.
Caden has been having lots of fun with his friends James and Owen on Tuesday pizza nights, and last Thursday, we invited friends over for dessert to welcome some new folks to our crew at the lab. Caden and Owen had a great time opening the kitchen cupboards and pulling things out of them. It 
seems like Caden is becoming more adamently mobile by the day; he demands to walk everywhere, even though he can't walk on his own, yet. What that means is that either Mommy or Daddy has to hold his hands and walk with him.
We finally managed to get a decent picture of Caden's first tooth (see right, and squint at the bottom gumline), just in time for his 2nd tooth to come in. One of the top front teeth finally pushed through on Monday, and it's much easier to spot than the bottom one.
A message from Caden
