Our first Family Trip!!!

During my family leave, we took our first road trip as a family. We decided to visit our friends, Mark and Esther and their beautiful 1 year old daughter, Amelia. Dominic, our son, was only 3 weeks old at the time. They live in Chico, California. Since we were already going that far into Ca. we decided to go to Yosemite and then to the bay area to visit my dad and Dominic's grandpa. We decided to take our time and come back when we wanted to. No time limits at all.

So we headed out on a Monday and began our open ended trip. We spent a few days in Chico visiting with Mark Esther and Amelia. We had a great time with them and they were very gracious hosts. This was the first time we saw their daughter. We had not seen Mark and Esther for 4 long years. We realized we were being bad friends. We will not wait that long again. Amelia was a lot of fun and very interested in Dominic. She was just learning to walk and was very entertaining. It was a very nice visit. We will not wait 4 years to see our friends again.

Now it was off to Yosemite. Neither of us had ever been to Yosemite before. We were very excited to see all the beauty it had to offer. We had our hikes all picked out before we got there. We love to hike. We stayed in one of the cabins in Yosemite valley. The cabin was located in Curry village. we were very close to everything we needed staying there. We decided to bring our breakfast and lunches with us and eat dinner there at one of the restaurants. That worked out well for packing the food. there was a lot less to worry about. Dominic was a great traveler. Sleeping most of the way, sometimes 4-5 hours at a time. We missed a turn or two on the way but we finally ended up at entrance to Yosemite. We were very eager to see the beauty of the park. We began driving down the road to the valley and were a little unimpressed. We made it through the first tunnel and were blown away with the first siting of El capitan and Half Dome. Words can not describe the beauty of this valley. We arrived in late May. A great time to go by the way. The weather was perfect and the many waterfalls were spectacular. We spent a few days hiking all around the park with little Dominic strapped to the front of us. He slept most of the time while we hiked. We hiked about ten miles while we were there. Keep in mind, Molly had given birht to Dominic only a few weeks before all of this hiking. People were blown away that she was doing so much so soon after giving birth. Everyone was very inpressed. We got a lot of attention because of how small Dominic was. We are training him to be an outdoor kid.

It was hard to leave such a beautiful place. We finally left and headed down to the bay area to visit my dad. We longed to be back in Yosemite when we saw the brown hills and smoggy sky of the Silicon Valley. We were there to visit family so we braved it for them. We arrived much earlier than we had planned so had to kill some time. We drove around for a while taking Molly on a tour of my boyhood homestead. It was interesting to see how it had all changed in the last 25 years. We had a great visit with my dad and his wife Ruth. They fed us well and made sure we were comfortable. The next day we went and visited my aunt Janan and uncle Harry who live in Campbell. They were very excited to meet Dominic. We had lots of fun with them too. We spent a few hours with them and then decided to go to Santa Cruz. We both love the beach. It was not very hot in Santa Cruz so we drove a long the coastline. We stopped at a popular surf spot where they had a surf contest going on. We watched the contest for a while. I missed hanging out in Santa Cruz. I spent a lot of time there as a kid and teenager. We headed back over to my dad's house for a nice dinner with my dad and Ruth and my step brother Daniel and step sister Canela. A good time was had by all.

All in all we had a great trip. We had a great time with our visiting and sight seeing. We highly recommend going to Yosemite sometime in your life. It is impossible to describe it's beauty. Everywhere you look is like looking at a postcard. We still talk about it and can't believe we had not been there before now. I lived in the bay area most of my life. I had no idea that such a beautiful place like Yosemite was just 4 hours away. We will be going back next year for sure.

Little baby Dominic Joel Bermea has arrived!!!!!

As of April 26th, 2008, I am a Daddy!! Our son was born on this monumental day. Molly did great before during and after the delivery. She is so strong. She started having contractions on saturday, the 26th, morning. I was out at the race track in the morning. By the time I got home it was time to start timing the contractions. I wanted to stay home for a few more hours so I could watch the hockey game that was on. We made it through two periods of hockey and decided we better get to the hospital. They have a nice plasma tv in the delivery room so I did not miss much of the game. We arrived at the hospital close to 2 pm. We made our phone calls to our mom's and Molly's good friend Jen. Jen is a delivery nurse at RVMC. She was a great help.

Molly was dialated to 6cm. by the time she was first checked. The nurses figured since this is her first baby it would take a long time to deliver. Molly was alert and still smiling all the way up to 7cm. At about 5pm the contractions got harder and she began to do her breathing and focus on her pain meter. Thanks to Jen Nidalmia for that great birthing tool. Jen Nidalmia is a midwife and the wife of my friend Randy. Molly went from 7-10 cm. very quickly. Her water still had not broken. When Molly was fully dialated, the nurses still thought it could be hours until the baby was delivered. Molly has always been an over achiever. At about 5:45pm Molly's water broke and she was ready to push. The only problem was our Dr. was out of town and the on call Dr. was in surgery. The nurses asked her not to push! Molly was ready to push so she did not wait long to do so. The second on call Dr. showed up just in time to see the baby moving down the birth canal. Molly pushed so well that in less than 15 minutes from her water breaking Little baby Dominic was here. He was born at 6pm sharp.

Everyone from the nurses to the Dr's were very impressed with how Molly was able to push. It was a very fast delivery. We were at the hospital about four hours and our baby was with us already. I still can't believe how fast Molly was able to deliver our first lovely child. She never ceases to amaze me. Thank you Molly for taking such care with our boy. You are an awesome Mother.

Dominic came out and had to be intibated to get him breathing strong. After a few minutes he was in mom's arms. He was very alert and curious. He was also very strong, like his mom. He could already lift his head off of Molly's chest. Most babies sleep a long time when they are first born. Dominic was up for at least 4 hours visiting with all of his family. We had about 15 people visit us the first night. It was a lot of fun. It was great that Molly delivered in the early evening and not in the middle of the night. We were able to leave the hospital the very next morning. Once again due to how strong Molly is and how quickly she is able to heal. We checked out at 11am and brought baby Dominic home for the first time.....