Stardate 62614.49 - Ohio Wedding, Day Two

On Saturday we had the morning to kill before the wedding, so we went to a nearby school and used their playground to entertain the kids. Loren actually played for 2 hours (Ellie and Ethan arrived part-way through). Here I demonstrate the proper form to Loren.


Loren really liked the "rocket ship," and she played on it for a very long time.


Uncle Andy and Aunt Jen arrived with Grandpop, Grandma, Uncle Steve, Aunt Rachel, and cousins Ethan and Ellie. There was some type of soccer camp going on in the field by the playground, and you can see some of it in the background.


Here Ellie takes a turn at the spaceship wheel.


And after the playground we went back to the hotel and got ready for the wedding. None of the photos we took in the church turned out, so here are the bride and groom immediately after the wedding. I know he looks short in this photo, but Brian is 6' 4". His bride, Bonnie, is 6' 5".


Here Loren just wakes up from her nap while Daddy supervises. She slept through the entire service!


Afterward we went to the reception. Here Loren poses for the camera at our table.


And here is cousin Ethan.


Uncle Andy and Aunt Jen posed for the camera.


Here cousin Jaclyn poses with cousin Ellie.


And here Cheryl and Loren sample the reception beverages.


After dinner there was a lot of chaotic dancing on the part of me and Loren (and the other kids). We headed back to the hotel by 8:30 PM or so, and were in bed before 10 PM. The next morning, Loren said, "We did the Hokey Pokey!"

Ohio Wedding Day Three.

NYC

Stardate 62611.65 - Ohio Wedding, Day One

We took off work on Friday (8/8) and flew to Ohio in the morning to attend the wedding of Cheryl's cousin Brian. Almost 1 year ago to the day, we flew out there for the wedding of Brian's younger brother, Mark. The wedding was on Saturday, so going out on Friday gave us a chance to visit with Cheryl's family. We drove from Columbus (cheaper airfares) to her Uncle Chris and Aunt Bev's place, where the famous Midwestern game of Cornhole was already set up in the driveway. Loren was more interested in the lawn equipment (a lawnmower is something new to our city kid!) than the game, and she and Ellie enjoyed playing on the "tractor".


They were very upset by the cracks in the seat (cracks older than the two of them put together, according to Uncle Chris), so Loren asked for some tape and proceeded to try and tape over the cracks.


That evening we went out to Sonic for Ellie's birthday party (after a brief detour to check into the hotel and some pool time for Loren), where Uncle Andy let the kids sign his cast.


Everyone jockyed for position to try and capture the signing on film.


Afterwards, Ellie opened her presents with a little help from Ethan and Loren.

Then it was off to Walmart for some juice boxes and milk, and then back to the hotel to hit the sack.

Day Two in Ohio.

NYC

Stardate - The Obama of Film

Jessica Mae Stover,the Barack Obama of Filmmaking!




NYC

Stardate 62589.75 - NJ Trip

After a rough week of multiple presentations for Cheryl (note to self, don't bring stuff home and try to work on it the day before the presentation when you've just installed the latest version of Microsoft Office which is nothing like the previous version and you are under a tremendous amount of pressure!), we decided to go to the beach for Saturday. We got out of the city early Saturday and due to the imminent threat of rain the traffic was light to the beach. We managed to get a good hour under our belts before the thunder and lightning appeared and we packed up and headed back in for lunch. We really knew it was time when the wind suddenly shifted and it was suddenly 10 degrees cooler than it had been.


Loren has come a long way from the times last summer when all she wanted to do was smash sand castles. Now she wants to decorate them (note the feather). After lunch I took a shower and when I came out it was dark and pouring rain with wind so strong the cars were shaking in the parking lot. After about 20 minutes, it cleared up and started to get hot and humid again. Here Loren poses in a new outfit Cheryl's Grandmother purchased for her. Loren loved it!


We then went over to Cheryl's parents' house for dinner and some time in the pool. Loren kept telling Cheryl, "I want to swim by myself! Mommy let go of me!" I guess it is time to get one of those flotation vests for her to use in the pool. She has the hang of what she is supposed to do with her legs and arms, and spent a good 30 minutes running Cheryl and Grandma ragged in the pool! The best quote of the evening, however, was in this exchange between Cheryl and Loren:

Cheryl - "We have to get out of the pool, it is almost time for dinner."
Loren - "I want pizza!"
Cheryl - "We're having chicken burgers, Grandma doesn't have pizza."
Loren - "Get it delivered!"

Yes, Loren is a child of the city.

We spent the night and Cheryl's parents watched Loren so we could go out to a movie. I'll try to post the review later this week (we saw The Dark Knight). After church on Sunday we came back into the city. A college associate of mine (Kim Walter) was in town with her husband and 2 children but they had split up so he and one child could watch the Yankees and she and the other child could explore New York City so we met them for lunch in between their tours of FAO Schwartz and the American Museum of Natural History. We told Loren if she was good we could get ice cream on the way home and of course she wanted the messiest cone possible.


On Friday we leave for Ohio for a wedding, so this week is a short one and we should have a bunch of photos and stories after that trip.

NYC

Pink glitter shoes

A recent email from my sister-in-law, letting me know that Target has black glitter shoes for fall, made me realize that Loren's summer shoe obsession has never made it into the blog. When she outgrew the black glitter flats, I picked up an inexpensive pair of pink princess glitter flats from Target. Loren immediately fell in love and has worn them for at least part of almost every day this summer. But we discourage them for outside play--which is what most of the recent blog pictures are of. So here for posterity are the pink princess shoes -- worn nearly to death by the time these pictures were taken at "Thanksgiving" last weekend (they're not very good pictures, which is why they didn't make the original cut for posting). You'll understand why I'm so grateful for R's offer to pick up replacement shoes at Target.

Stardate 62569.56 - Legally Blond, The Musical

Cheryl's sister-in-law, Jen, and her friend Ami came up to New York City for the weekend and stayed with us. On Saturday night we hired a sitter and went to see Legally Blond, The Musical on Broadway. The main star (Elle Woods) had very recently left, having been replaced by the winner of an MTV reality show (Bailey Hanks). She was so new, in fact, that in the program under "Starring" she was listed not by name but instead as "MTV REALITY SHOW WINNER" and her bio was inserted into it as a sheet of paper.

The show was entertaining and I was not, as I had feared, the only man in the audience. There were some very enthusiastic members of the auidence who we assumed had been following the MTV show and were fans of the winner. There were some minor issues with the sound--if the chorus was singing it was sometimes too loud to the point of not being able to understand them. Individually they were fine, spoken lines were fine, but it was difficult to understand the words in the larger numbers several times. Bailey also almost tripped going up a set piece with stairs very early in the show, but she didn't appear to be affected by the near fall.

Overall, two thumbs up. As Cheryl stated, "Don't go expecting great art, but hey, it's a broadway musical!" It did make us want to add the movie (which we've already seen) to our NetFlix list.

NYC

Stardate 62556.6 - AE at Comic-Con

Artemis Eternal has a presence at Comic-Con. If you are at Comic-Con this year, please stop by Jessica's table in Artists’ Alley. In addition, Friday through Sunday actor Todd Soley (ARTEMIS male lead) will be there as well--Location: KK-07. The night of Friday 7/25 she is scheduled to attend the Sideshow Collectibles' party.

NYC

Stardate 62551.44 - Thanksgiving in July, 2008

As I've blogged about previously (in 2007 and 2006), our family does Thanksgiving (observed) in summer to avoid the traffic and headache of Thanksgiving (actual). This year, my cousin Angelique and her husband Laurence hosted at their new place in upstate New York. We took Friday off and drove up there in about 3.5 hours, arriving shortly before 1 PM. The big festivities were planned for Saturday, so getting there a day early gave us a chance to visit with Angelique and her family as well as the people who arrived early. We also could let Loren settle into a bit of a pattern before it got really crowded on Saturday.

Loren had a lot of fun playing with the Nerf rocket-launcher in the front yard. Of course, with the bigger kids playing also two of the three rockets ended up on the roof but one had made it back down to the yard by the time we left.


Here her cousin Zach helps her to drive down the driveway in the "little red car".


Loren also tried out the roller skates, but didn't enjoy them too much.


On the first day she spent a lot of time in the pool, kicking around in a small inflatable boat for over an hour. On Saturday, however, she didn't want to get back into the water and preferred to play in the yard.


Here Nana, Kracker, Aunt Ginger, and Dave chat at the pool.


Loren spent a lot of time pulling toy after toy out of the garage to play with. I'm not even sure what that thing is by my feet, but the bouncy ball was great fun for about 15 minutes until something else caught her eye.


We had a great time, drank a lot of great beer and wine, and enjoyed visiting with the extended family--some of whom we hadn't seen in a year. We had an uneventful trip back on Sunday, stopping briefly at Target in Harriman to pick up some more Disney Pixar cars for Loren (yes, Denise, we thought about calling you since we were so close to your house but Loren kept insisting on getting home and didn't even want us stopping for lunch!).

NYC

Stardate 62535.26 - Sunday at the Museum

Curt here, logged into Cheryl's account. It is too late and I'm too tired to log her out and log me in. On Saturday Cheryl took Loren out to NJ to the beach and to visit with her parents, while I went to see a movie and enjoyed an evening sail in the Hudson. They spent the night, and then came back early Sunday. We decided to go to the American Museum of Natural History, which we've been to several times. We left around lunch, so we stopped at one of the vending carts to enjoy a quick snack, and Loren got ice cream. We just sat on the edge of the sidewalk and ate before entering the building. Loren loves her ice cream!


Afterward we went down to Macy's so I could buy a pair of cuff links (with a quick stop for pizza first). After telecommuting for 6 years and getting by on just a week's worth of dress shirts for the past 3-4, I finally purchased some additional dress shirts and I got two of them with french cuffs, just for fun. I also needed a few new undershirts so I got a 3-pack while we were there. By that time we were all hot and tired and we came on home to a nice, cool apartment.

NYC

Catching up

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. The last couple of months have been crazy busy here. Two weeks of travel for Curt, one week for me, two sets of parents visiting, and July 4 at the beach. And now that Curt works in an actual office with actual people--and, as far as I can tell, back to back meetings all day long--he can't break to do quick posts during the day like he sometimes used to.

So here are some pictures to catch you up on the past few weeks. As Curt mentioned earlier, he didn't take any pictures during his mom's visit, but here are some that Jane took with her camera. Loren had a great time going to the Central Park Zoo and just generally hanging out with Nana and Kracker.






Two weeks later, Curt's dad and Valerie came up for the weekend. Our big excursion was to The Cloisters, the Met's medieval collection up at the far northern end of Manhattan. We forgot to check the subway repair advisories before we went, so the trip turned into something of an odyssey involving multiple subway trains and shuttle buses. And Loren mid-subway ride saw my sunglasses on my head and decided that she NEEDED HER SUNGLASSES RIGHT NOW. And proceeded to scream herself nearly to vomiting for the remaining 20 minutes of the subway ride. Never mind that she won't wear the sunglasses for more than 30 seconds when we do remember to bring them. Luckily most of the people around us seemed to be sympathetic rather than irritated. And did I mention it was about 95 in the shade that day... Anyway, when we finally got there, Loren enjoyed exploring the "castle", especially the outdoor cloisters and fountains and cafe. She didn't care about the art, which meant Curt and I didn't get to see the collection, but we've been there once several years ago and Cal and Valerie did get to enjoy it while we chased Loren. When we left, Loren said "that was really fun"...so at least we didn't drag her all the there only to have her be miserable!

Loren and I check out a fountain:


Loren and Granddad climb on the rocks on the way back to the subway:


For 4th of July weekend, we went to my grandmother's condo at the beach. Unfortunately only Friday the 4th had nice sunny weather for the beach, but on the other days Loren got in some outdoor time in between the occasional rain.


At the beach with Bobby:


With Ken, Great-aunt Marie, Grandpop and Grandma:



And we did get to see the famous Sea Bright dolphins, which have become a world famous phenomenon, once or twice a day from the pier behind my grandmother's place as they swam up and down the river. The parking lots in town were full of curiosity seekers.

Stardate 62494.16 - I want a camera!

Today Loren said she wanted a camera. So we dug out an older, non-digital camera we still had and gave it to her to play with. It had no battery and no film, but she didn't seem to mind. I tried to talk her into going up on the roof to take pictures, but she wanted to "go to the lobby to take pictures," which really meant going outside. We started for the dog run, but only made it as far as the playground before she wanted to stop to use her camera.


I brought our camera and snapped these pictures, and managed to get a half-way decent one of the two of us.


Then, later in the afternoon I was changing the cat litter and part of that task involves using the vacuum to clean up and Loren said, "I want a vacuum!" Then she ran over to the laptop to shop for one on-line!

NYC

Stardate 62493.38 - Post Shortage

A lot has been going on recently, but we haven't put a lot of posts up. Losing the hard drive in the home laptop has been the primary reason, and we finally got a replacement from Dell and are now back up and running. Since the laptop usually sits on the bar counter, it is more convenient to do posts from the center of the action, rather than going back into the bedroom on the old desktop to do so.

First, Loren has been helping out more and more in the kitchen. While it is good that she is helping and interested in cooking, sometimes it slows down the process. We have to assign her tasks that are not dangerous and sometimes have to distract her with something (like the salad spinner) while Cheryl finishes things up.

Second, Cheryl went to Germany for a week on business and I was on Loren duty the very first week that I reported to work at the client site for my new job. Luckily I could drop her off in the morning and we could arrange for a couple of her teachers to bring her home as daycare closes before my work day is normally through. Also, Mom and Judy were coming up the weekend of the 14th - 15th, so they came up a day earlier (Thursday) to help out. It was great to have them be able to pick up Loren and entertain her, and it was great to be able to show them the new place. Apparently I was so busy with entertaining and Loren that I never took any pictures! Luckily my Mom was busy with her camera so hopefully she got some good ones.

Third, Squirt has been sneezing and wheezing a bit so we took them in for their regular annual appointments and while Magic is fine Squirt does have an infection so she is on medicine for at least a week.

Lastly, Dad and Valerie came up this weekend for a visit. I did remember to take pictures this time, and will post some soon.

NYC

Stardate 62465.21 - The Cat Who Came for Lunch

I was at work on Wednesday morning when I got a call from our co-op. The doorman asked me if we had a black and white cat, because one was out in the hallway on our floor. He put the super on, and Richie asked me if we had 1 cat or 2. I told him we had 2 cats. He then told me that there was a black and white cat with gold eyes in the hallway. That sounded a lot like Magic, so I told him he could put the cat in our apartment. Both cats have recently been trying to run out into the hallway (well, plod out into the hallway in Magic's case) whenever the door is open, so while it seemed odd that he could have gotten out when Cheryl left with Loren in the morning, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility.

But then Richie said something that bothered me. He said they'd put the kitten back into our apartment. I said out cat wasn't a kitten, and he told me that this wasn't really a kitten but rather a young cat. I wasn't so sure that Magic could be described in such a way, but no-one else on our floor had a cat so I thanked him and hung up.

The kitten comment kept nagging at me, so I called Cheryl and asked her to come home over lunch just to make sure we didn't have some strange cat in our apartment.

Well, it turns out we did.

Someone around the corner (our hallway is an "L" shape) had gotten a young cat and apparently it had gotten out. This poor, scared cat was wedged in the corner of our kitchen with Magic either standing watch or tormenting it (we're not sure which). Cheryl let the building staff know that the cat wasn't ours, and they managed to find the correct apartment and move the cat to where it belonged.

Crazy.

NYC

Stardate 62455.32 - Flight Delay

Once I noticed it was 20 minutes past the time Cheryl was supposed to land and I had not heard out of her, I decided to check her flight status. Imagine my surprise when I saw that her flight took off 7 hours late.

I think Loren is disappointed that Mommy will not be home until after she goes to bed.

NYC

Stardate 62442.28 - Que Calor

My Spanish is a little rusty, but I think "Que Calor" translates as "How Hot!" Indeed, I picked the perfect week to start a new job where I have to wear a suit and spend 45-60 minutes commuting. The heat index today was a sultry 107, and I am pretty much miserable on the commute. What is really annoying is that the commute would be about 30 minutes on the weekend, but the express trains run slower on the tracks on the weekdays for some insane reason. It took me nearly an hour to get home today, and with Cheryl in Germany and a babysitter bringing Loren home from daycare that extra time is costing me money!

Being back in an office environment has been nice, except for the commute. Yesterday someone on the train was holding her stomach like she was about to throw up. Not normally a problem, but she was directly in front of me and I had no where to run. I finally managed to squeeze a couple of people away from her so I'd have some cover if she started to hurl. And this morning I got to see a woman essentially give a man a lap dance for the entire commute down to Wall Street. I mean, I understand listening to your iPod and maybe grooving a little, but NOT when the train is packed so full of people that your "dancing" constantly results in rubbing up and down against a fellow passenger. And believe me if you are reading this, you are NOT a looker. I would have moved.

And in the interesting Loren story department, I was reading her the "ABC in NYC" book (which I have not read in months) and when we got to "G" being "George Washington Bridge" she said, "That is how we get to Denise's!" Well, she is exactly right. I'm not sure if she remembers that from the trip a few months ago, or if Cheryl had recently read her the book and made that connection for her, but I prefer to think that Loren is just brilliant.

And P.S., doing the single parent thing sucks. Especially when I don't get home until an hour before her bedtime. I ended up letting her stay up an extra 30 minutes just to be able to play and interact with her some more.

NYC

Stardate 62436.31 - Escape to the Beach

On Saturday we went to the beach in NJ to visit with Cheryl's Grandmother and also to have dinner with Cheryl's parents. I discovered on the way that I can no longer yell at other drivers with Loren in the car. During a traffic jam a car drove up from some distance away on the shoulder, then cut over in front of me when there was a bridge (and no more shoulder). The Battlestar Galactica version of what I said was "Fracker!" Unfortunately, Loren repeated it about 5 times. I then started yelling "Chickens!" (thanks, Steve and Rachel) and Loren started repeating "Chickens!" and never again said "Fracker!"


Another funny Loren story is that I was trying to take my contacts out Friday and Loren was playing in the Living Room and asked me a question so I said, "You need to hold on, Loren, I'm taking my contacts out." Loren came down the hall to the bathroom saying, "What do I need to hold on to?"

Training for the new job (really all the corporate in-processing) went well this past week, and I really start the new job tomorrow at the client site. I'm excited about the change and am really looking forward to it!

NYC

Stardate 62416.26 - 12 Years Ago...

It was a busy time, 12 years ago.  I had just switched jobs, leaving a position with the Federal Government for a job consulting to the Federal Government.  I also had my 27th birthday.  My Dad had his 57th birthday.  I was living in Virginia in an apartment (we'd buy a house the next year).  And most importantly, I got married.

Now, 12 years later, I'm again switching jobs (going from consulting to the Federal Government to one where I am going to be consulting to state/city government), I just turned 39, my Dad just turned 69, and today is our 12th anniversary.  We live in Manhattan now (purchased a place last year after renting for 5 years).  We also have a 2.5 year-old daughter.

So Happy Birthday to me (and Dad!) and Happy Anniversary to me and Cheryl.  The more things change, the more I know I can rely on her, as well as our relationship to continue to grow stronger.  And I can rely on Loren to continue to grow even more amazing, humorous, entertaining, and fun as time goes by (she is on her way with Cheryl right now to blow bubbles on the roof!).

Many things changed over the past 12 years, but some very important core things have stayed the same.  And for that I am eternally grateful.

NYC