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Before I get to the MS Walk earlier today, I wanted to post a pic of the onesie that my cousin Jacqueline designed for Lily. We couldn't stuff Lils' arms into it because the ribbons make it too tight, but we love the Girl Power theme!As you all know, Matt and I are not morning people! But we rose bright and early this AM to get to Santa Barbara in time for the MS Walk. I actually had to wake Lily up because she slept for the longest stretch that she's ever slept for: 9 1/2 hours!!!!!!!! All night, I was up checking on her because usually she doesn't go 2, 3 or 4 hours without eating in the night. I really hope that we've turned a corner but I'm not expecting that's the case.

We had such a fun time at the walk today but it's not over. You can still make donations online until June 1st http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TRC/Walk/CALWalkEvents?pg=peditor&fr_id=13787&px=5625036
We got to SB with plenty of time to goof around in the parking lot.
The official course was from Leadbetter Beach, on the lower left hand side of the map, through the Zoo, on the upper right hand side, and back to Leadbetter Beach. That's a 10K, so we did about 2 miles and called it a day. We've walked that route many times before and it was very cool to do so with a baby, our baby, in tow. We were so happy to show Lily Santa Barbara. It's such a special place for Matt and I. As I kept telling Lily, it all began here!
Home base was right on the beach. I was so impressed with the Southern California Branch's set-up. In the past few years, we've noticed that the Chicago Walk has had fewer and fewer vendor donations and fun stations for the kids. I know the SB walk has way fewer walkers to accommodate so I think that made it easier to get donations. There was a full spread out for breakfast, tents with activities like face-painting for kids, free massage stations and free lunch afterward. We didn't stick around for lunch because we had our eye on Woodstock's!
Daddy & Lily with our Walk MS T-shirts. I think they're so cool and retro looking.
I still brought some Chicago pride with my Blackhawks jacket.
The other day I weighed Lily using the very un-precise method of weighing myself alone and then holding her. According to this method, she weighs 18.5 pounds! Since Matt used her as a weight during our guided warm-ups, he got a little warmer than I did.

Thanks so much to everyone who donated and who will donate in the future! You guys rock!
We had our usual (1/2 pepperoni, 1/2 pineapple) at Woodstock's. I tried to show Lily the Where the Wild Things Are mural but she was more interested in the ceiling fans.
After lunch, we walked around campus and rolled around by the Lagoon. It happens that today was both Spring Insight and Floatopia.

The former is a day for prospective students to check out the campus as they make their final college decision. My Mom and I were at Spring Insight 11 years ago but I remember the excitement and anticipation like it was yesterday. All it took was one day at UCSB and I canceled my plans to visit Boston University and Marquette. I remember my Mom and I sitting outside all of the freshman dorms, trying to decide which had the hottest boys. In the end, it was Anacapa (Matt's... duh!). Because of Spring Insight, there were booths for all of the majors and all of the extracurricular activities. It was really cool to take it all in and imagine going through this with Lily in 18 years.

The latter is a day for prospective students, students, vagabonds, drunkards, stoners and crazies alike to storm the ocean and drift about in cheap swimming pool tubes and floats while drinking and smoking pot. This did not exist when we were students (thank God! I was way too impressionable a freshman and would have thought this was awesome) but is apparently the thing to do now. Because we are old, we didn't know this was the thing to do and couldn't figure out why there were so many cops and drunk people in swimsuits walking around IV today.
Finally, an update on the crawling front: Lily's main motivator is getting to Matt's computer. She's scooting like a little caterpillar and is soooooo determined!

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