The Evolution of Tom

Tom has hit some big time milestones the last 6 weeks. The following pictures try to capture those moments. (I took all these pictures last night after dinner, you may be able to see some of Tom's green beans on his shirt.)

This had been Tom's favorite position for the first 6 months. On his back.

Around 6 months or so, he started crawling.

at 7 months he started pulling himself up on stuff.

a few weeks ago he was in full "I can stand" mode.

With that mastered, he decided that going up stairs would be the next fun thing to do. So far, he has done pretty well with that too.

Happy Anniversary To.....Us

Emily and I are celebrating our 3rd anniversary today. It has been a great 3 years. I have had so much fun being with Emily. I feel like every week, we have something new or interesting to do on our calender. She has really made me into a more diverse person. I look forward to next 50 years! I may be speaking another language by then.

This morning we watched our "Wedding Video" so we could re-live the day again. It was really cool seeing all of our friends and family enjoying themselves. That night was such a blur for us, I'm glad we have the video so we can see everything that was going on around us. Thanks to Jeff for doing that for us.

We don't really have any crazy or special plans for this year's anniversary. We are in a couples golf league, so we are playing tonight and having dinner afterwards. This weekend, we are going out for dinner at Nada (the newest trendy restaurant in Cincy) with Mary Ann and Brian. So that will be fun. Other than those things, we are going low key this year.

Our First Family Trip

This past weekend, we took our first family car trip. By that I mean, we drove somewhere further than 2 hours away and spent the night away from home. Our friends, Dan and Emily Iddings, invited us up to Michigan for the weekend. They live in St. Joseph, which is just north of South Bend, Indiana and right on Lake Michigan. (Or as Emily I. said, "that is one of our biggest lakes.") Emily and Dan have two boys (Luke and Brady) and we have known them since Luke was a little baby. Emily and Emily have been friends since before that.

So we packed up the car on Friday afternoon and headed up to Michigan for a relaxing weekend at the lake. Well, our first issue occurred on the drive up. We tried to time the drive so that Tom would be sleeping for the first half, then in a food coma for the second half. It was working out great until we got to Indianapolis and Friday/construction traffic. Tom woke up as soon as we stopped moving, or about an hour earlier than I had planned. I can now tell you that next to finger nails on a chalkboard, there is nothing as hair raising/spine chilling/nail biting as a crying baby in stand still traffic. He wanted out of that car and he wanted out ASAP. We finally got away from that mess, only to hit another 50 - 100 miles of construction on the next highway. So, what was supposed to be a 5 hour drive, turned into a 7.5 hour drive, 3 hours of which Tom was crying/screaming. I was extremely happy to see Dan and Emily's house and an ice cold beer when we finally arrived.

The next issue was mother nature. We had planned to spend Saturday at the beach with the boys, just relaxing and enjoying the lake. Well, Saturday's forecast called for scattered showers throughout the day. When Saturday came, the scattered showers turned into a constant downpour from 9 am to 3 pm. So, the day at the beach was not going to happen. We all just kind of hung out, watched the boys play, and relaxed at the house. Luke destroyed me in Wii Boxing. I think he knocked me out 3 times. For a Kindergartner, the kid can box! We had some awesome burritos and we enjoyed an art show from Luke. I think we all made the best of a dreary day. I know I was having fun. That night we went to dinner at this delicious Italian restaurant. For the most part, the three kids were good. We had a couple breakdowns, but nothing too bad. I think everyone was just happy to be out of the house. Finally, we headed down to a festival the city puts on every year called the Venetian Festival. Lots of food, rides, a band, arts and crafts. We enjoyed some local ice cream (the St. Joseph version of Graeters) and walked around checking out the sights.

Sunday morning, now hardened from the trip up, we revised our travel plans to fit in both of Tom's naps. That worked a lot better. He slept for a lot of the trip and we got home in just a little over 5 hours. If you have a child that takes two naps, try to plan your road trip around both those naps. It makes sense now to do that, but when we planned the trip, it never even crossed our minds. We went a different route on the way back that had zero construction, so that helped too. We later found out that if we had gone home the same way we went up, we would have been driving in Severe Thunderstorms the whole way thru Indiana. So, we dodged one there too. Fighting traffic, a crying baby, and a severe thunderstorm would have pushed me over the edge, I think.

It wasn't "Wally World" epic, but we survived our first family road trip. A lot of credit goes to the Iddings family. They made everything very easy once we got to their house. Cold beer waiting for us, good food, no fretting over a crying baby, very adaptable to Tom's sleep schedule. They were, in short, the perfect hosts. Their house is beautiful, and Dan is adding on, so next time we go up, there will be even more room. It was a good first trip and, believe it or not, a very relaxing one too.

The Iddings (Luke, Emily, Brady, Dan)

My Saturday in Michigan. I think I got off the couch for maybe 10 minutes.

Thank You Brooks!

If you need a laugh and have 4 minutes please click here.

Thank you Marc Brooks for sending me to this. I know I can handle the "regalness of the up-do."

Happy Birthday...Mom

July 9th

Country Spa Treatment

Tom relaxes in his "Russellville Hot Tub".

Precious 1987 - 2008

1987 - 2008

Sad news to report on the blog, yesterday we had to say goodbye to our cat, Precious. Emily got her when she was heading into the 7th grade, that would be the Summer of 1987. I would say that Precious lived a very long and good life, for a cat. I don't know of another cat that has lived for 21 years.

It was a tough decision for us to make, but she had been struggling the last few months. She had a level 3 heart murmur, so any kind of startling noise could have given her a heart attack. She had some kind of kidney ailment, which resulted in a lot of "accidents" outside the litter box. She also weighed about 3 pounds and we couldn't get her any heavier.

Still, she was a good cat and a big part of Emily's life. She lived to see Emily go through grade school, high school, college, marriage and motherhood. By comparison, I think I've had 3 or 4 cats and 3 dogs in the same time period. We are all going to miss Precious, even Tom who just recently started to notice her walking around the kitchen waiting for the food to drop to the floor. He happily supplied all the mushed up veggies that Precious could possibly desire. She was very good with Tom, even when he crawled after her and pulled on her tail. I'm sure she is in cat heaven eating chicken and not coughing up too many hairballs.

Yucky...Veggies/Yummy...Beer

More proof that Tom is going to be just like his daddy:

He does not like his veggies and would rather spit them all over the place.

He does, however, enjoy a cold beer.

(No beer was consumed by Tom in the above picture. Dad enjoyed quite a few, though)