What we're doing

Meet our adorable new puppy "Haley"

2008-06-24T09:35:00.000-07:00

"Haley"

It all started the Sunday before last when Dennis took Ashlyn into the Pet Store to see the "fishies". I followed behind and took a peak at the puppies. There she was in her cold and lonely cage playing with her toy and looking at me with her sad Bassett eyes. In an instant she captured my heart. I can honestly say have never in my life fell so in love with a puppy before. Dennis fell in love too and while in the store we joked about buying her but we knew she was way...way...way... out of our budget. Not to mention the guilt in buying a dog from a pet store vs. being responsible and rescuing a dog from a kennel. The next day I still could not stop thinking about her, so I went back to the store and took a picture and emailed it to Dennis. He stood firm on the fact that we couldn't afford her and that I was not thinking about how hard it is to raise a puppy, especially with having a 2yr. old as well. I just about drove him crazy all day. So Monday night right in the middle of making dinner we dropped everything and drove back to the pet store to buy her. I was so excited! It was like bringing home a new baby:) Oh yeah by the way....that pet store doesn't even sell fish. I guess it was meant to be.

BTW... She is Bassett Hound/English Bull Dog Mix

12 1/2 weeks old and she will be sharing the March

Birthday month with Dennis and I.:)

Nicole Winn

Ashlyn's 3rd Trip to the ER

2008-06-11T01:22:00.001-07:00

It all began Monday night when we were hanging out as a family at home. Dennis was feeling really flu-ish all day and didn't have much of an appetite so his plan for the night was to warm up a can of soup (not chicken noodle of course!) and take some Theraflu and head back to bed. Let's just say he did not get too far because at about 8pm, Ashlyn decided she wanted to wash her hands in the bathroom sink like a"A Big Girl" and to make a long story short she slipped off the step stool and split her chin open on the sink as I watched but could not react fast enough to catch her. At first, I did not see the gash on he chin because I immediately picked her up and held her on my shoulder to calm her down, but once she calmed down and I turned her towards me I saw the deep laceration on her chin. Dennis and I immediately got in the car and headed to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, just about five minutes away from our place. Once we got to the ER we were, as always, taken care of right away. We sat in the waiting room no longer than 10 minutes and they called us to a room in the non-critical area of the ER. We saw the doctor and she was so sweet with Ashlyn. She knew the doctor was going to make her better. The doctor opted to use surgical glue on the wound because of the area it was located on her face. She wrapped her up in a sheet like a burrito so that she would not fight when she applied the glue, but to our surprise Ashlyn did not even flinch as the adhesive was applied. Since it was our 3rd trip to the ER this year, one of the nurses kind of knows us and so on our way out she said, Hope we don't see you soon!"-meaning...Keep the little monkey out of the ER.:) We got home at about 10pm and we were all pretty sick and tired so we skipped the bath and went to bed. Today, Ashlyn kept saying "I hurt my face!", "The doctor made it better". She was such a brave little girl through it all.

Nicole

Ashlyn at the park with Daddy

2008-04-09T12:57:00.001-07:00

IMG_0184
Originally uploaded by dwinn

Staying up late to work on your resume: 2 hours sleep

Getting up early for a head start on the day: 1 hour sleep

Getting off work early to take Ashlyn to the park: timeless

photo slideshow

Knotts Berry Farm X-Mas

2007-12-23T19:47:00.001-08:00

Knotts Berry Farm 12.23.07 031
Originally uploaded by dwinn

Today we went to Knott's Berry Farm with Moma, Katie, Scott, Jenna and Andrew. It was a really great day. The weather was sunny but cool and brisk and the park was really empty so we were able to jump on/off rides very quickly. Ashlyn had a ton of fun in Camp Snoopy and of course her favorite part of the whole day was the Snoopy's Fun House where she played in a room with huge bouncy balls. She loved it so much we struggled to get her out and move on to the next ride. Here we are in the picture having a Bouncy Blast. We also watched Snoopy on Ice and all of us fell asleep except Moma, then we ate yummy Funnel Cake. Thanks again to Moma for the complinentary Tix. It was definitely a day to remember.

Merry Christmas!

Nicole

Ashlyn's First Trip to the ER

2007-11-27T10:51:00.000-08:00

Thursday, November 22, 2007....As new parents Dennis and I are finding out that you can never predict where you will be spending your holidays when you have kids. On Wednesday night, the day before Thanksgiving I picked up Ashlyn from the babysitters as usual and drove home. I noticed Ashlyn was more whiny than usual but the babysitter mentioned that she did not have a good nap, so I just thought she was tired. When we got home we played, watched Elmo and had a little bite to eat before I took her a bath. My plan was to get he to bed early since we were planning on going to church in the morning with Grandma and Grandpa at St. Matthews in Corona, CA. She took her bath and everything seemed normal until I got her out and got her dressed, she whined when I tried to put her arm in her shirt, which I thought was odd. But it still didn't hit me that she had hurt her elbow. Then I went down stairs and Dennis had just got home and that's when we realized she was not using her left arm at all. We really did not know what to do, so we decided to observe it and take her into Urgent Care in the AM. We went to Urgent Care and waiting in the waiting room with a bunch of sick kids only to find out that the Dr. would refer us to the hospital for x-rays. All I could think of was the dreadful waiting time in the ER. So off we drove to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. We got admitted within 15 minutes and actually got placed in a private room where we waited for the Dr. to arrive. Once the Dr. got there he felt her arm, popped it back into place and within a couple minutes she was using her arm again. It was like magic, I was so happy and Daddy was so worried he actually had to leave the room), I think she may have even forgot she hurt it because she was so excited to use it again. On the way out, Ashlyn was so happy she gave the nurse a goodbye kiss. It was so adorable. And that was our Thanksgiving in the ER, a very scary adventure for us all. Luckily, my mom had planned to celebrate Thanksgiving on Saturday, so we were still able to have a very enjoyable Thanksgiving celebration with family after all and Thankfully Ashlyn was as good as new. Two Co-pays later she didn't even need an X-Ray. :)

Nursemaid's Elbow
Nursemaid's elbow is a common injury that is seen most often in children between the ages of 1-3 years . It is more common in girls than boys and more often on the left side. Child will not use the arm and holds the arm slightly flexed and pronated. Usually the child has had an incident in which the extended arm was pulled. Most commonly it occurs when a child is falling and the individual holding the hand doesn't let go. Another common mechanism is when the child is swinging while being held by the hands. Occasionally, the injury occurs after a fall and has a relatively high incidence of recurrence.

Lots to be thankful for!
Nicole

Ashlyn's First Trick-O-Treat Experience

2007-10-31T22:56:00.000-07:00

Just wait till she is old enough to realize we made her wear a Chicken Suit. Hee...Heee...!
The evening began with a wonderful phone call from Daddy Dennis letting me know he got off early and was headed home to wait for us. We had planned to take Ashlyn Trick-O-Treating but did not have solid plans for dinner or which houses we wanted to hit first. Once I got home I was cranky and exhausted from work while Daddy was on a sugar high ready to cruise the streets with his baby girl for Trick-O-Treating 101. We decided we would try a new place to eat, a place we've been curious about Shima Japanese Restaurant for an entertaining Teppan Grill experience. When it started to get dark outside at about 7pm we hopped in the car and headed toward the restaurant where we parked the car and then walked to a couple houses nearby to knock on their doors. Ashlyn acted like a pro, yelling "hey kids" to the others Trick-O Treating as she ran behind them towards the front door of each house. We hit about six houses and then went to Shima to have some yummy cookin'. When we arrived at the restaurant and sat down Ashlyn was solely interested in pulling out the candy from her pumpkin and opening up any one of the packages, but "Party Poopers" (mommy and daddy) decided she would be better off not having any candy for the night so we just let her play with the candy packages and then Daddy taught her how to use the candy boxes as building blocks which kept her busy until the chef started his dinner presentation. The food was yummy and best of all the usually crowded restaurant was empty since it was Halloween Night. After dinner we headed to Grandma Denise's House to show off the Chicken Suit and then headed home to conclude our night. It was a very fun night. Definitely memories to cherish!
-Nicole

da mad hatter

2007-10-12T16:39:00.001-07:00

Feb 2007
Ashlyn in her GOOOFY hat

This post is a little late, but we had so much fun dressing Ashnic up in different hats we had to share. We went to Downtown Disney for an afternoon to shop around and expose Ashlyn to how marketing is done right (Disney). We had a blast at the Lego store and can't wait 'til she's old enough to play with them

Check out the slide show here...

Some Catching up to do....

2007-10-07T13:05:00.001-07:00

OK..OK..OK...I've been harassed enough by (Daddy Dennis) long enough, I apologize to all for neglecting our family blog. I promise to work on my non-procrastination skills so that I can keep our loved ones up to date on our current events. We have done so much since the last time I blogged I don't know where to start.

Recent Movies we've seen:
Borat -Hilarious, Must See! (A+)
Knocked Up -Hilarious, Must See! (A+)
Ratatouille -Great for Kids and Culinary Students (B)
In the Valley of Elah -Very Real Story, Depressing Realities (A)

June Events:
*Red Bull Illume Exhibit- A very cool art exhibit on the sand. We enjoyed a night out on main street in HB with Mom, Jenna and Scott.

*My Love Dennis bought me Gwen Stefani concert tickets for my 30th Birthday. I went with my cousin Regina and it was an amazing show. We absolutely love that woman!

*We moved into a new townhouse in Costa Mesa, CA. Now Ashlyn has her own room, Daddy has a garage and mommy has her very own Washer & Dryer to do laundry. We are all very happy here! Please come visit us.

July Events:
*We took a Family Summer Vacation to the San Bernardino Mountains for the 4th of July weekend. We were very excited to get away from our daily stress and we were very fortunate to be able to stay at Aunt Darla's cozy cabin in Running Springs, CA (just above Lake Arrowhead). We spent lots of family time together mixed with lots of relaxation time. On one of our days there we drove up the road about fifteen minutes to Green River Lake where we enjoyed hanging out in the sun while Ashlyn played in the green lake water and Dennis caught some fish. At the end of our vacation we arrived back home and decided to spend a day of fun in the sun at the beach (HB/22nd street) with Scott, Jenna, Andrew, lil' Nicole, Carl, Regina, and Santino.

August Events:
*We took an End of the Summer Vacation Trip to Laughlin, NV with our cousins Carl and Regina and their family. We had a blast on Uncle Ruben's jet ski's and hung out in the ice cold refreshing river water as we enjoyed ice cold beer in the 114 degree heat. On the way there we stopped at the Barstow Outlets to do a little shopping at Quicksilver and The Coach Store. We also enjoyed lots of yummy buffets at the hotels. Ashlyn did surprisingly well in the hot hot heat and really loved the river water! It was a really great time. Oh yeah, and Carl scored some new Reef Flip Flops at the river!

September Events:
*Ashlyn and Mommy went to Knott's Soak City with the very fun loving Barajas family for Labor Day weekend. We had a great day floating along the lazy river and relaxing by the kiddie area watching Ashlyn and Santino play for hours. The weather was perfect, and the park was not too overcrowded and best of all Ashlyn got a shimmering tan. We ate juicy ten dollar hamburger meals from the snack stand that we waited an hour in line to buy, but boy were they worth the wait. They were yummy to our tummy's. I think we all had a very fun filled day.

*Cousin Caleb's 2nd B-day Party. Ashlyn beats on the pinata for the first time! Fun times for all the cousins.

*Mommy gets a new job, back to The Art Institute of California-Orange County , but this time in Student Accounting.

*Daddy Quits Smoking for good, thanks to a miracle prescription.

October Events:
*Mommy, Grandma Denise and Auntie Jenna took Ashlyn to see her favorite purple Dinosaur "BARNEY" live on stage today at the OC Fairgrounds KidsFaire Family Expo. She did not take a morning nap so she was pretty sleepy throughout the entire event, but luckily she made it through to see "the show" and lots of other cartoon characters she couldn't stop hugging. It was so adorable. It makes me so proud to see what a loving and compassionate little person she is. As we were leaving she finally crashed and fell asleep right in mommy's arms. Hopefully, we will get to go again next year.

Long time, no post...

2007-10-03T22:14:00.001-07:00

ashnic
Originally uploaded by dwinn

Yes, it's been forever since we have posted anything. My apologies, but we will have to rely on my beautiful wife Nicole to keep our family blog updated as I have been banned from uploading photos from our digital camera.

We have plenty of pictures to upload and many a things we have done since our last entry. Hopefully Nic will get a chance to catch us up on all. In her defense she is working two jobs and spends every spare moment she has taking care of our baby Ashnic and me. And whatever energy may be left is devoured by our friends and family. I will try and show her an easy way to catch up on one post and upload all our images to our flickr account.

In the meantime I have started my own blog at http://www.denniswinn.com to keep friends and family up to date with what I'm doing: mostly about my work and current projects, what's happening around the net, peppered with some pro sports predictions.

So how did I hijack a picture for this post? I took it using my Apple iPhone, emailed it myself and uploaded through flickr. Yes, Ashlyn has grown a ton since our last upload! But this shot is especially special for me since I got to play the role of costume designer and hairdresser for this shoot while mommy was busy at work.

Twirlin' N Movin'

2007-07-15T23:37:00.000-07:00

We're Twirlin' N Movin' again.

We Moved again -
Enjoy the movie of Ash twirlin' while we're packin' up to move a few minutes south.

Winn Family Photos 2007

2007-07-11T23:44:00.001-07:00

Ashlyn's 1st Birthday

2007-01-13T21:40:00.000-08:00

Ashlyn's First Christmas 2006

2006-12-25T23:54:00.000-08:00

Christmas 2006 092
Originally uploaded by dwinn.

We had a very joyous Christmas 2006 and would like to Thank all of our Friends and Family for all the laughs, love and wonderful gifts this year. It was especially exciting for us being Ashlyn's first time meeting Santa and for opening her very own presents (Boy, does she love to eat that wrapping paper!). She was very Lucky to receive a boatload of toys including a Baby Grand Piano from Grandpa & Grandma Winn as well as a Push around Buggy from Grandpa & Grandma Gautier. Now all we need is a toy box!

Cool Slideshows

Our Day at the Santa Ana Zoo

2006-12-15T23:15:00.000-08:00

We enjoyed a couple of hours of fun at the Santa Ana Zoo last Sunday, December 7th, 2006. The weather was pretty chilly but thankfully we missed the rain. We saw lots of very adorable monkeys and some birds, and a other furry friends. Ashlyn enjoyed her first trip to the Zoo but hopefully when we take her next time she will be able to name each animal.:)

2006-12-10T09:48:00.000-08:00

ashnic readin da dictionary

Angels Dugout

2006-11-19T11:27:00.000-08:00

Angels Dugout '07
Originally uploaded by dwinn.

2nd time to Angel Stadium and made it to the Halos dugout, NICE!

2006-11-10T10:26:00.000-08:00

Paddycake with momma

why the monkey costume fits...

2006-11-09T20:28:00.000-08:00

Our Little Monkey's 1st Halloween Celebration

2006-11-07T21:48:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 Ashlyn's 1st Halloween Celebration. We dressed Ashlyn in her monkey costume and Grandpa & Grandma Winn, Auntie Jenna and Uncle Scott joined us at our house for a night of yummy pizza, Ashlyn pictures and lots of Halloween candy. Maybe next year we can take her Trick-O-Treating. I think next year we'll try a "Chicken" costume just for Daddy!:)

ma hat

2006-10-10T20:23:00.000-07:00

Ashlyn 10.10.06 001
Originally uploaded by dwinn.

ma hat mod'lin careerrr... check it out

AshNic's first Angels game

2006-09-27T13:30:00.000-07:00

Originally uploaded by dwinn.

Ashlyn made her first appearance at Angel Stadium on Monday. We were gracious enough to be invited to see the game with our family. Thanks for the great seats Chris.

It was alot of fun for the 3 of us visiting with Chris, Candice, Austin and Travis as the Angels went on to win 8-3. That's right, do the math: 4 seats, 4 adults and 3 babies. Vlad hit 2 homers, but unfortunately the next evening my beloved Halos were officially eliminated from the playoffs. Next year Ashlyn, next year.

see more photos here

Our new beach cruisers and trailer

2006-07-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

bikes2
Originally uploaded by dwinn.

The newest toys for our family should be a lot of fun and good exercise for us too. We can't wait to ride down to the beach.

2006-07-04T16:27:00.000-07:00

AshNic Bumbo

sittin

4th of j = July weekend

2006-07-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

We've both been working hard at learning how to raise our first child and our jobs, so we decided a vacation for the 4th of j was well deserved.

Our planning at first became confusing since this holiday landed on a Tuesday. what the... We usually checkout [mentally] towards the end of Friday, expecting not to check-back-in until at least a Tuesday for the 4th. So we decided to splurge and use up a few vacation days to extend our Tuesday holiday into a 5 day mini vaca.

We had pipe dreams of going away for 5 days since this is a rare opportunity for us. But we quickly realized that our budget didn't allow for this, and decided to do some things locally we never find time for - along with a short trip up the coast.

day 1:
We started our time off by not going into the office, spending the morning with ashnic and visiting the Long Beach Aquarium [thanks to tickets from our friend Art at bluemarble].

day 2:
Saturday was our day to get our errands out of the way; laundry, bills, grocery shopping and packing for our getaway. Our reward at the end of the day; (staying with the local theme) was Grandma watching Ashnic while we snuck away to the movies to see Nacho Libre. Nicole loved the movie.

day: 3
Our getaway:

1. first stop Santa Barbara.
We have been to Santa Barbara a few times now, but never to the beach. So we drove to the shore for a walk along the boardwalk, ate some lunch, followed by some sun at the beach. Check out the hippie bus and the sand art for the 4th of j and a memorable bumper sticker.

2. then off to our highlight of this trip: our stay at the Madonna Inn in San Louis Obispo [SLO]. We have been by this "[insert your own adjective]" hotel many times on our trips up the coast. We were curious to see if it would be cheesey.

We enjoyed ourselves. The "Short and Tall" room was pink with antique furniture and a balcony with a sun-filled view of the mountains. There was a mis-leading on their part advertising HBO on the teli [I missed Entourage], but caught back up with the help of our DVR (not a single tuner TiVo). The Steak House was great and ashnic gnawed on her first carrot.

Ashnic's first carrot

The topic of the evening was the men's bathroom urinal. Okay, think of a step-down shower and you standing on the top step pissing down with a waterfall standing in a horizontal line with others.

day: 4
we got to drop-in on our buddy matt and his family for a brief period in Atascadero. We looked for a Lazy Boy store for awhile to find a new couch, but gave up after going up and down the highway with no luck. Is there a Main St. off the 101 in Paso Robles? and then back home again.

day: 5: 4th of j.
we had the pleasure of Nicoles parents spending the night at our house the night before so the family [excluding Daddy who slept in] could go see the 4th of j parade dowtown HB. Followed by a great day of both our family's filled with an excellent carne asada dinner [thanks to mom, nic and chris], good times and love. For those of us who survived the sundown hours, we trekked down to the beach to watch the fireworks from the pier.

Ashlyn Nicole Winn 033

w' grandpa

Happy 4th of j.

Ashlyn found her tongue ppppllll....

2006-07-02T17:59:00.000-07:00

Ashlyn Nicole Winn 048
Originally uploaded by dwinn.

how do you spell that sound coming out of you mouth, as you make that pre-fart noise to get your baby to react to you?

ppppppppphhhhhllllllllwwwwwwwwwww

Ashlyn Nicole Winn

2006-07-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

Ashlyn Nicole Winn 081
Originally uploaded by dwinn.

sitting in ma Bumbo

dad's favorite

2006-06-28T14:14:00.000-07:00

dad's favorite with the drooled on shirt
Originally uploaded by dwinn.

drooled-on shirt

Ashlyn video

2006-06-10T13:07:00.000-07:00

28 Week Dr. Visit

2005-12-06T14:24:00.000-08:00

Today I went to the Dr.'s office for our 28 week prenatal check-up. The Dr. says everything looks good including my weight, but they took some blood to check on my sugar level to make sure that I have not developed gestational diabetes as many pregnant moms do. We are all signed up for a series of baby classes:

Maternity Orientation and Hospital Tour

Baby Basics

Lamaze Childbirth Class

Boot Camp for New Fathers

Breastfeeding

We are almost set on the name, but still need to decide on a middle name~

Ashlyn Winn

We are so excited and can hardly wait for her arrival!

'Diego Bay

2005-12-06T13:51:00.000-08:00

We went to San Diego for the weekend. Stayed at a cool hotel right on the water on Shelter Island: Bay Club Hotel. Got out for a night of food and jazz at Croce's in the Gas Lamp District. Then went to the Baby Expo at the Del Mar Fairgrounds on Sunday.

Sorry no pics - our camera eats batteries like Ophra at a Bellagio buffet.

3D Ultrasound Images

2005-12-04T20:15:00.001-08:00

We have new images of our daughter from a 3D ultrasound. You can check them out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/winn/

and here's the first 3 minutes of the video:
http://denniswinn.com/baby.html

Baby Name

2005-11-16T23:18:00.000-08:00

What should we name our baby?

current girl name(s): Ashlyn Lauren

current boy name(s): Davin Trestle
(long shot!)

We Moved

2005-11-16T22:43:00.000-08:00

We moved back to HB over Thanksgiving weekend. Away went the RSM mountain views - oceanview sunsets are part of our next chapter.

Pictures

2005-11-16T21:16:00.000-08:00

check out our pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/winn/