Open House Entertainment

Ever notice that being compelled to blog about your life means that you end up documenting otherwise mundane (and maybe still) events that you would have never even considered taking your camera along to before you had the blog? Yes, me too. Case in point - yesterday's open house. We had to be out of the house for 2.5 hours in the afternoon and just couldn't deal with the trail in 100+ degrees. So, we ventured to the air-conditioned, pet-friendly store we love so much: Petsmart. Andrew loved looking at the fish and - yikes - ripping the price labels off of the displays. Oh, and there was ice cream afterwards, too, at Shakes, where you get free kiddie cones and puppy cups. Yeah - there's your mundane cool documentation of yesterday.

Garage Sale Tale in Ten Words and MegaPixels

Breakfast

Entertainment

Shopping

Lunch

Rain

In

Out

Bored

Hot

Success!

Just Pics

We moved up from 5 to 10 megapixels yesterday and are still experimenting with the new camera. My first digital camera (2001) had 3.1 and I thought THOSE pics were good. Sheesh. Here are some shots from today, and yes, he's attempting to eat paper in the first one. I sweep his mouth at least 3 times a day lately. I suppose paper is better than dog food (another one of his favorites). Fiber.

Two and a Half Men

Here's a video from way back when we had cable... a couple of weeks ago. Jon adores this show and it was on a lot when Andrew first came home with us. From very early on, he would turn toward the TV when the a cappella theme song came on. He STILL loves it and now rushes the TV when he hears it. Jon kept rewinding to the short segue to get him to react in this video. We suppose this is the beginning of dancing.

Bubbles

As per Grandma's request:

Ball!

We love that his BAW-OOL sounds as if this kid already lives in South Carolina (no offense, Jack Lee, Kim, or Glen and family)! Among the other words in his short repertoire are pretty decipherable versions of mama, bath, bubble, and Elmo.

Just a few things I've learned in the last 24 hours:

• Apparently, someone needs to start a thread about being in love with The Office, and more specifically, the character Jim (I, too, have got it bad for Jim).
• Most people who read this blog have been ready to give up cable at some point and will probably need just a few more undesirable cable company experiences before they, too, become hippies like the Burbanks and cancel that garbage.
• A dip in a South Texas backyard baby pool is only refreshing for approximately ten minutes. After that, it's just nasty, grass- and bug-ridden 80 degree bathwater.
• Taking a toddler to the Texas Roadhouse (why is it called that in TEXAS, BTW?) seems fun at first since you don't have to worry about food thrown on the peanut-covered floor. THEN, they bring out the birthday saddle and the perpetual YEEEE-HAHS startle your little one into total oblivion. Relaxing dinner OVER.

Watched Last Night:

The entire first season of The Office. Yeah, Netflix!

Are we hippies?

After months of fighting poor service and reception with the monopoly that is Time Warner Cable, and since our days left here are few, we bit the bullet and cancelled cable. Yep. You read it right. We DID keep internet access (a no-brainer) and re-subscribed to a good (and cheap) Netflix plan, so we won't be completely media-challenged. The rest of the time, I suppose we'll just read books or play board games. The extra $100 or so will be pretty nice each month. And, like everyone says, there's really nothing ever on TV anyway. Please vote in my new poll, okay?

So Long, Auntie Christina

Misty eyes were all around tonight as we said goodbye to Auntie Christina. She flies to Washington state tomorrow morning to continue work on her theater grad degree, and she probably won't see any of us again for many, many months. Having her as such an important part of Andrew's first year has been amazing, especially since I am so close to my own aunts. She was a complete Godsend in so many ways, and will be missed!

We went out to Applebee's for the send-off, which was fun (and messy). Andrew did a little flirting with a server. Jon was proud.

Sorry, gotta brag

Jon and I had a GREAT 5th anniversary last night, complete with our first P.F. Chang's experience. Auntie Christina babysat and took some great pics.

Oh, and then there was this. Now, for that manicure!

History Lesson

On this day in...

...1863, West Virginia became a state.

...2003, Jon and I became a married couple.

...2007, Our new son became almost two weeks old.

...2008, I became an expert at removing green bean splatters from a wall.

My, how times have changed!

12 Years of Teaching Materials

Last week, Andrew "helped" me sort 8 giant bins of materials I collected over 12 years of teaching music. We had a little fun, well, mostly just me. We got the pile down from 8 bins to 4 and a couple of tiny boxes. Can't help but ask myself why I have kept and been dragging around every single piece of crappy choral music from reading sessions since 1996. Anyway, since this blog is all about gratuitous use of Andrew pics, here he is with some of the junk: a boa and some scarves.
Post Script for the music teacher friends: Did not mean to imply that scarves were junk. Many cool things can be accomplished with scarves. Now, a feather boa on the other hand...

Molars, Motion, and Markdowns

Andrew is getting both upper first molars at once - OW. He's still managed to remain in pretty good spirits for most of the day. The latest, as evidenced in the three videos: revising and perfecting his technique for descending the stairs, paying homage to the "big blue monster" (aka vacuum) whenever he sees it, and the very symbiotic relationship of playing ball with Dora.



Also, no house news yet. We even planted our St. Joseph in the yard a month or so ago and still nothing. We sign paperwork this afternoon to lower the price (again) to our very bottom line. We have thrown in a conveying refrigerator and alarm monitoring service through April of next year. An offer before Jon has to begin teaching in SC next month would be really, really great and a huge weight off our shoulders. However, we know that with each passing day, I inch closer to life alone with a toddler and two dogs in an obscenely hot part of the world that I am completely and utterly sick of. We are majorly stressed about the house situation now and have vowed not to talk or think about it until Monday so we can enjoy Friday (our 5th anniversary) and the rest of the weekend. All hail the temporary state of complacency!

Father's Day Dinner

Our Auntie Christina visits are numbered, so we went to a new restaurant in town tonight for a fun Father's Day dinner.

Bittersweet Memories and New Ones in the Making

Happy Father's Day to all the current and prospective dads out there. Finally, thanks to Andrew, this day can be a happy one again for Jon and me; my dad has been gone now for 12 years and Jon's for 4. Of course, we think about them each day. I was recently reminded of one of my dad's favorite Robert Frost poems, and it seems particularly appropriate these days since, as Charles Andrew Welch would occasionally say, the world seems to be going "to Hell in a hand basket." Here's Frost's Fire and Ice:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Houston, we have a walker.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Watch out, world!

As if ginormous beetles weren't enough excitement for an evening...

...Andrew fell into the corner of the stair baseboard tonight and has a lovely bump on his forehead. It will be a nasty bruise tomorrow morning. That, coupled with multiple bruises on his shins from various rambling mishaps are sure to send CPS straight to us tomorrow after the pediatrician sees him at 9 am for his one-year checkup.
On a positive note, we saw the shuttle/space station again tonight! It was very clear out and NASA told us precisely the time to watch (yeah, NASA and I are very close). I know I have said this before, but that precision always amazes me.

Things I'll Miss About South Texas, Part IV

The "Wildlife" in Our Yard
We had quite an adventure this evening soon after noticing two snake-sized holes a few feet apart in our backyard. We had no clue what type of living thing was under there, so as true idiots, we flooded the holes and poked around at them a bit. Sure enough, in a few seconds, this guy emerged. As near as I can tell after a little research, he is a member of the rhinoceros beetle family; more specifically, strategus antaeus. Scary-looking, but gentle, unless you are a plant. You can see the scale next to Andrew's foot - he was about 3 inches long! We hung out with him for a few minutes and then evicted him to the neighbors' yard (shhhh!).




And as long as we are talking about backyard critters, here's a St. Andrew's Cross spider Jon unwittingly came eye-to-eye with while weed eating back in November. Again, a fierce-looking guy but totally harmless to humans and beneficial because of the bad bugs he ate.