Stardate 63476.32 - NoVA Trip

First, I want to point out that this post is number 1,000. That is correct - we've posted one thousand times to this blog. I posted almost every day for some time, although with the time constraints we have these days with work and kids we're lucky if we post every 2 weeks.

Second, we went to Northern Virginia (NoVA) this past weekend to attend the 1-year birthday party of Caelan, the son of one of Cheryl's roommates in college. I won't dwell on the pain of the drive and Kate's two modes (sleeping or screaming), but we did get to visit with some friends and family while we were there. Since we lived in NoVA for many years before we moved to NYC, it is just impossible to visit with everyone over a three-day trip. Next time we'll stay with Cheryl's brother Andy and his wife Jen and make them throw a big party for us so we can invite everyone we know and no-one will be left out!

We drove down on Friday and went over to Brian and Allison's place to meet their son. They hosted a pizza party and Trent and Jenny came over with their boys. It was a lot of fun chaos.


On Saturday we went to visit Lucy and Mike in Warrenton and spend time in their pool. While it hasn't topped 80 in NYC in some time, it was 90 in Virginia when we were there.



The hat was borrowed, and there have already been sufficient comments on Facebook regarding my farmer's tan.



The birthday party was Saturday afternoon, and apparently we forgot to get the camera out because we have no pictures of it.

Sunday (Father's Day) we ate breakfast in the hotel and then went to meet Monique and Justin for lunch, since with the craziness of the party we didn't get a chance to speak with them too much.

But first, we stopped at a park near their home to wear Loren out before getting back into the car for the long ride home.



Kate enjoyed her first time in a swing and it seemed to work as Loren for the most part was very, very good for the drive home. Kate, on the other hand, was a different story and I don't think we will be traveling long distances with her again until she is a bit older.

This weekend my Dad is coming up for a visit so we'll try to get more pictures up a week from now.

NYC

Stardate 63476.32 - Kate Eats

We recently started Kate on solid food (you can compare her expressions with Loren's first bites of food here). Just baby cereal right now, but she seems to really enjoy it! Loren also enjoys helping.





NYC

Stardate 63436.35 - Beach House!

What a crazy few weeks! As we mentioned, our counter-offer on the studio next door was turned down so that was the end of our wild idea to combine apartments into a bigger space. Instead, we decided to rent a place on the Jersey Shore to spend weekends on the beach. We've got the place for a year, to decide if we like the area and the weekend commute and if so we may purchase a weekend place out there. Even in the winter we're likely to spend weekends there as it is better to be cooped up in a 3-bedroom, multi-floor, 2 bath house than in our apartment in the city!

Oh, yes, I also had a pretty big birthday at the end of May when I turned 40. We spent it carrying loads of stuff to Cheryl's parents' place to pre-stage it for the beach house. Loren helped Grandma make me a peanut butter pie - yummy!!



Then this past Friday we finally got the keys to the beach house. Here Loren poses in front of the place, which has great roses and landscaping.


It does have a small yard on the side and in the back that I had to mow on Sunday. Loren helped with her mower.


We spent most of Friday and Saturday moving things into the house and visiting garage sales close by in NJ to furnish the place. Sunday we finally got to take a break and spend some time on the beach, which is just a 2-minute walk from the house.


We got out early on Sunday so there were not many people there yet.




We ended up staying until Monday morning. I got up early and drove the car back home (and I still made it to work early), and Cheryl took the girls for a ride on the ferry back (so they wouldn't have to be up at 0500). Now just a few short days in the city before we head back out there. We're having a problem with the high-speed Internet DSL from Verizon so they are sending a tech over Friday to take a look, so I'm going back down Thursday night and the girls and Cheryl will come down on the ferry after work on Friday.

NYC