The Littlest Penguin

Not quite into the city

Sunday, March 7th, 2010 | Liam, family | 1 Comment

This weekend my cousin Jake came to visit us. He’s down at Yorktown for some Coast Guard training through the end of the month. I honestly don’t think I’ve seen him since late 2003, though he’s not a whole lot different than I remember. Older and more mature is all. Liam just stares like Jake’s the most interesting thing he’s seen all day. I kind of wanted to take him all the way into DC and show him the monuments, but our “quick” tour of Arlington Cemetery took two hours, and we didn’t even to go Grandpa Pete’s tomb. I feel sorry for not taking Jake to the Washington Mall, but I am not sure how I feel about not going to Grandpa’s grave site. Part of me feels like I failed to honor someone I really loved and part of me feels like I didn’t want to go to the site just to cry in front of my husband, 6 month old, and cousin. (Though restraining myself from doing just that while sitting here at the kitchen table typing is getting difficult.) Grandma sent me the visitor’s parking pass and the map to the mausoleum, and when we clocked it today we discovered that it’s only 8 miles from the apartment to the cemetery, so I’ll maybe go for some private time another day. I still occasionally wish that Grandpa was around to know Liam and William. One of my grandfathers was too selfish to have really built any type of relationship between us, but Grandpa Pete was an amazing grandpa and a genuinely good guy. I think he was like a second father to my dad and I know dad wants to be as interested and involved in Liam, Alyce, and Gibson’s lives as Grandpa Pete was in ours. We’re doing our best to make that happen from a distance. Skype is awesome — Liam loves to watch Grandma and Papa’s images talk to him.

Also, there are a lot of places I keep saying I want to visit in DC. I lived in Tennessee for almost a decade and never did half of the trails, parks, ect. I wanted to, so I don’t want to be lazy and not sightsee DC while I live here. If we had been a little more ambitious we could have walked across the bridge and seen the Lincoln Memorial. But the problem with DC is that everything looks closer than it really is. I discovered during a trip I made in highschool that it is not advisable to walk from site to site unless you’re 100% sure about the distance. I want to go to the Air and Space Museum, the International Spy Museum, the Baltimore Aquarium, and the Library of Congress. Liam was really good for this outing, so I think he’d be up for a museum. It’s just amazing to see how full of personality he is now.

Baby’s first Christmas

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 | Christmas, Liam, Playgrounders, family | 4 Comments

First off, I don’t know why folks buy babies clothes for use on specific holidays. The fact that the kid will only ever wear the outfit once makes it all seem wasteful. That said, Liam in the reindeer hat his G-G gave him is easily the cutest thing ever. I saved it in his box of one-year-old clothes just in case we can get another use out of it next year.

Christmas was a bit of an adventure, toting Liam around airports and seeing how well he handled the airplane. He actually did very well, though the unavailability of wiggle space eventually annoyed him on the flight home. (This kid is all movement.) He also had a rough first night while he adjusted to new surroundings. Thankfully we were staying in the neighbor’s house while they were gone, so we didn’t keep anyone awake and Liam didn’t have too much overwhelming him at bedtime. The rest of the time he charmed everyone and got to meet his cousins and other extended family. Gibson had a great time ripping into his presents. (And would not let the Thomas the Train toy carrier we gave him out of his sight!) We had a relatively small crowd at Christmas dinner this year, mostly mom’s family. It was warm outside, but still nice enough to sit on the patio. The Sunday after Christmas Rue’s crew and some of dad’s family came over to meet Liam and William. It was cool enough to have a little fire and make s’mores.

Zeb, Alarra, and Ceika drove down to Johnson City for New Year’s at the New Hippie Hut. We wanted to join them, but we didn’t want William to be that exhausted when he went back to work on the following Monday. Also, we weren’t sure what kind of shape Liam would be in after the trip to Florida. We opted for a shorter trip to visit Kevin and Stephanie instead. We missed hanging out with everyone in Tennessee, but we were kind of right about Liam. He would not have dealt well with a longer trip than the 3 hour ride to Durham. Not after the Florida trip, at least. We’re aiming to go to Tennessee over William’s spring break if all goes well. We didn’t do much in Durham, but we had a nice visit. Kevin and Steph have learned to make candles and showed William and I. Kevin also showed William how to make “bath bombs,” scented and molded bath salts that fizz when you toss them in the tub. Very nice, very nice indeed.

It was all fun, but it’s good to be home. Today we’re back to our regularly scheduled week, though we do have piles and piles of laundry I should be folding instead of updating my blog. Tonight we’re playing Star Wars with Mike via Skype and tomorrow Nick might come over and hang out with us before he has to fly back to Saudi. And maybe I’ll be able to catch up on some sleep, too.

countdown

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 | baby, family | 2 Comments

Well, we’re just under the three week mark and I have to say things have started to get darned uncomfy. I mean, they’ve been uncomfortable for a while, but wow. I’m pretty sure I can make out where his head, shoulders, and rump are – and he’s heavy. Rolling over in bed is a little like feeling boccie balls move around in your innards, and William made the mistake of laughing at my attempt to get off the couch the other day.

That said, everything seems to be going smoothly. I still need to find and buy the little guy a dresser / changing table and his name is still up in the air, but other than that we’re mostly ready for him. I think. I have a prenatal visit with the pediatrician this coming week, and a tour of the hospital’s birthing center. Lisa and Paul gifted us (well, the baby really) with the ViaCord service and we should be getting everything we need from there soon.

In non-baby news I called Granma today. She recently bought a laptop so she can email, but being well into her 80s and having never touched a computer before, her learning curve is pretty steep. She’s just now figured out how to log in to Gmail. But today was also the 7th anniversary of Grandpa’s death and we all like to call and make sure she’s doing alright. Mom and Dad took her out to dinner tonight as well. Its our little way of commemorating him, I guess. Today would also have been his birthday. He’s interred at Arlington, so hopefully next year I can make the trip to his mausoleum and leave flowers. At the risk of getting mushy, he really was the best Grandpa I could have hoped for, and I’m sometimes sad that William and my son will never get the pleasure of knowing or being spoiled by him like I was. I think he would really have liked William.

Month of roadtrips

Thursday, August 27th, 2009 | Playgrounders, baby, family, travel | 2 Comments

You know, for someone who is no longer working a 40 hour job plus choir, committees, and gaming, I’ve been really lax on this goshdarned thing. Which is kind of sad, because late June and July were pretty interesting.

The last weekend of June was the Third Annual “Southeast Trogland” Giant in the Playground Meetup. The group was smaller than last year, but the number seemed to work better. Less chaos, less drama, more fun. Of course, I wasn’t technically a “local” anymore; I carpooled with Zeb and Alarra. (It was the last week of school at the JDC and William had to work.) All in all a great time, and I got to meet a few new GiTP forumites. Which is all the more interesting considering I haven’t really done more than peek at the forums in a year. But Playgrounders are almost always fun, no matter how you meet them. Zeb, Alarra, and Ceika are relatively close to me here in VA, but I haven’t gotten together with them yet. Zeb and Alarra are brand new parents, and I’ve only got 4 more weeks to go, so maybe once baby chaos settles down we can hang out. There’s even a mini-meetup in the works for October.

For July 4 we drove over to Smith Mountain Lake, VA, to spend about a week at William’s grandparents’ house. Apparently the area has become a popular place to build vacation houses since Nana and Granddad built their retirement home on the lake years ago, but they still manage to have a nice peaceful house under the trees. It was my first time meeting them, so I was nervous, but they’re really delightful. They met during the Second World War – he was in the US military and she the British. They wrote letters back and forth for a long while and eventually she came over and they married. And now they’re possibly the cutest little old couple I’ve ever met. Sadly we couldn’t see the fireworks from their house, but we did watch the Washington, DC, display on TV. (Not quite the same, I know, but it had to do.)

The following weekend we drove up to William’s mom’s for a baby shower. Nana and Granddad were there, and so were Lisa and her family. We spent one morning at Hershey’s Chocolate World. The whole place is really nothing more than a tourist trap designed to give you a sugar high and make you want to buy chocolate, but with the kids it was fun and I got to buy some t-shirts for my parents. Jan had tons of really wonderful food and we went to a nice, casual restaurant for the shower. The guys stayed through lunch and some of the silly shower games. Colin even won the game where you guess how round I am. After that I was on my own in a room full of barely-familiar women, but it was fun.

The weekend of July 18th we flew down to Florida for another baby shower hosted by Aunt Rue. It was good to see all the aunts and cousins down there again, even if it was kind of brief. Rue gave a great shower. Amy, Gibson and Alyce flew down, and we got to spend some time with William’s friend Mike and my old friends the Eastlicks.  William also got to meet my grandma for the first time, as well as my Uncle Rick and cousin Cookie. A few of my aunts were disappointed that he didn’t go to the shower, but we’re hoping to go down again at Christmas, so they’ll get to meet then. We don’t want to overwhelm the poor guy; my family is much larger than his.

And that’s pretty much all the travel I’m allowed until the little dude is here. The Florida trip kind of pushed my “no-fly” cutoff, but since my TN doctors never told me what that cutoff was and I had to make plans, oh well. (I had trouble with that office. Don’t get me started.) Four more weeks and hopefully I will no longer have indigestion that keeps me up and blogging until 1am.

Do you take this penguin. . . ?

Thursday, June 18th, 2009 | family, friends, fun stuff, penguins, pictures, travel | 3 Comments

Last weekend William and I embarked on our second ever road trip together – 4 hours south to Chapel Hill, NC for Kevin and Stephanie’s wedding. We got in late Thursday night (technically it was Friday, but just barely) and checked in to a nice suite. (He spoiled us and got the suite because it wasn’t that much more and we could have friends over that way.) On Friday our job was to go pick up the food for the rehearsal dinner from Chipolte, but we ran into some issues when about 10 burritos and other tasty dinner items seeped through the bag and fell to the ground when lifted. Add to that delay about 45 minutes of running around wondering where in Durham we were, and you have dinner on the table approximately. . . 2 hours late. Everyone was good natured about it, but we did feel bad. Kevin was super stressed trying to get us there and William and I both get a little jumpy when we’re lost. But we did get there, the food was still yummy, and Kevin and Steph said if that was the worst thing to happen they’d be happy.

And I think it was the worst thing that happened. At least that I’m aware of. Saturday’s ceremony was lovely. I had my typical trouble singing (since getting pregnant singing and standing has been a challenge to my ability to stay conscious), but I listened to William and Sheri sing next to me and that was a good substitute. I helped guide folks through the digital guest book interface, which was kind of fun and easy. Then there was a really nice spread of light lunch foods – salads and bree and crackers and some little sandwiches. The bride’s cake was beautiful and had fruit preserves in it, and the groom’s cake was . . . well, look for youself. It is a brownie penguin. Very Kevin.

After the wedding, Jared, Sheri, and Tony came over to the hotel to play some Carcassone and some Gloom before we went out in search for some supper. William’s only other experience with Carcassone involved “the City” version, which we played with Jared, Sheri, and Tony several years ago. It was terrible and I’ve never exponged the guilt of telling him he’d enjoy it. (I thought it was like normal Carcassone!) But this game redeemed Carcassone for William, and Tony taught us how to play Gloom. We’re taking it with us to visit his family for 4th of July weekend – his mom loves silly games like this.

Sunday morning we had breakfast with some of my family on our way home. Uncle Ben took pictures, so I’m sure I’ll have something to link here eventually. It was fun to see everyone. I actually hadn’t seen my cousin Aaron in years; I’d never met his kids! They’re darned cute, by the way. I think William charmed Hannah out of some shyness, too. Hopefully I can do a better job of keeping in touch with everyone, especially now that we’re all on Facebook.

This weekend’s a “break” from trips and visits, but next weekend. . . Southeast Meetup!

Tags: Kevin's wedding

new niece!

Saturday, April 4th, 2009 | family, niece, pictures | 2 Comments

Alyce, Amy and Jared

My niece arrived on March 27. Meet Alyce!

going away

Friday, January 23rd, 2009 | family | 2 Comments

Today my grandpa died. He slipped into a coma while my dad was out of the room. WIthin the hour he had slipped away all together.

I feel bad for not feeling bad. I am sad that he died, but there is no great feeling of loss. I was never close to my grandpa, and certainly his health and living situations have caused mom and dad a lot of stress (some of it undue) over the last several months. I’m upset about this more for dad’s sake than anything else; dad was blindsided by how fast it all happened. Grandpa has eaten very little over the last couple of months and was not breathing well. He’d lost a dramatic amount of weight. Still, we all did figure he had a little more time left in him. I’m glad he went quickly.

Hey look! A blog post!

Thursday, November 6th, 2008 | costumes, family, friends, fun stuff, pictures | 2 Comments

Oh, um, hello. What’s that? You say I should blog? Right then.

Wow, has it really been three weeks since I blogged? I’m boring. But also maybe unsure of what to blog about. On October 17 I was the dinner guest of the college’s Navy V-12 alumni reunion. I was one of the youngest people there if you count the college’s Heritage singing team and someone’s 12-year-old grandson. It reminded me a lot of when Grandpa used to take Amy and I to the Shriners’ dinners and show us off to his friends. But the V-12 men and their wives are very nice folks and were really glad to tell me about their time on campus in the 1940’s. Being as familiar with the campus during that period made me able to join in the conversations easily. They even made me get in their group photo. I received a copy in the mail the other day. Really nice people.

Mom’s birthday was the day after the dinner. I called her to say Happy Birthday and caught them setting up beach chairs and fetching cold beers so they could watch the sun set over the water outside their hotel at Myrtle Beach. The next day they went for an airboat in the Everglades. Sounds like they had a great time. But a few days later dad went into the hospital after a stress test. They found some significant blockage in his blood vessels. The doctors put in four stints and had to repair some damage they did to one of his vessels before he was allowed to go home. He’s in some pain still, but he’s doing better now.That was a weird week for me. On the one hand I had dad going in the hospital after a stress test they didn’t tell me he was having, and on the other I had a really unexpected, happy development that kept my mind occupied.

This past Saturday, McKenna had a costume party for her birthday. I went in a little bit of steampunk, which was fun. Jared pulled together a pretty rockin’ Vash the Stampede getup, and Tony went as Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer, from Girl Genius. William came to visit me for a long weekend, so he came, too. But he didn’t play Rock Band because I was too nice to tell the others he can sing. Next time, Gadget. You have been warned. More pics here and I’ll post some of my own photos soon.

I came down with a cold on Sunday and spent the rest of the weekend playing video games and watching movies with William. Which was nice, but would have been nicer if I had been able to breathe. Feeling better, but still recovering. Oh well. If that was my one cold for the season I’ll take it.

Edit 11/8/2008: My photos are posted here.

animal noises and other random bits

Monday, September 8th, 2008 | Just Coffee, church, fair trade, family, nephew, parents, sadness, stress | 3 Comments

Update from the world’s cutest nephew: Gibson is learning animal sounds. He demonstrated lions, cows, sheep, and elephants for me over the phone. Apparently cows occasionally roar, sheep go “aaaaaa,” and elephants make the same sound giving someone a raspberry does. He can also say “splash!” “cars,” “clean up,” and “poopy.” (That last one is in preparation for potty training I guess.) Cars is his new favorite movie, to the point that he tried to get out of the tub and watch it when Amy said the word. He’ll be 2 years old in two months. Oh, and also, he’ll be a big brother sometime around April. Woot!

Went to a short presentation tonight at First Presbyterian, Elizabethton. Mark Koenig from the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program gave a short talk about what the program does nationally and globally with the resources we as congregations put towards it. Seriously amazing work being done by these people. They do everything from create resources on congregational peacemaking and conflict resolution to organize an exchange ambassador program between U.S. congregations and church partners in war-torn countries. They’re sending a travel study group to Ethiopia in November. Wish I could afford to go. I knew a little about the Peacemaking Program through research I did for Just Coffee way back when. The Program partners with Equal Exchange to offer congregations a small price break on purchasing fair trade products. I knew that much, but had no idea just how wide-spread their work was. They even have a person taking the humanitarian concerns of their global church partners to the UN!

I’d have stayed for the second presentation (given by the local Unitarian Universalist congregation and titled “Thank God for Evolution”) but I had to go to an elders meeting for my own congregation. I walked in 10 minutes late and was immediately pounced upon to take the minutes. No one likes to take the minutes! But our typical person was out of town and his typical replacement couldn’t come either. Oh. Apparently Anna Jane called the first-in-8-months Worship Team meeting while I was in Atlanta. Figures. Though there is another one in two weeks.

After the meeting I called Amy, then mom and dad. Kind of lost it in front of the parents. I’ve been under a lot of stress with work and personal stuff lately and I guess I needed to vent or depressurize or something. I’ve really wanted to get back on the dating scene lately, but it just doesn’t seem to be going the way I had hoped. Some folks have suggested eHarmony or Match.com. The idea kind of weirds me out, but I’ll think about it. (Though eHarmony is expensive if you ask me.) And soon I hope to make some progress towards . . . someplace new. I’d like to be in the Research Triangle area sometime in the near future, I think. *crosses fingers about it all*

updates from the fam

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 | family, nephew | 1 Comment

I got a couple of calls from Chicagoland today. First one came while I was at work, which was kind of sad because it had fun news, but I’m not allowed to share too broadly for a little while. The second call was shortly after Amy and Gibson dropped mom off at the bus station. Apparently when Gibson realized Grandma wasn’t in the car anymore he started looking around forlornly and calling “Amma? … Amma?” Too cute.

Gibson and a little friend

Mom should get home around midnight tonight, wrapping up about two weeks of babysitting. Grandma (my grandma) will return from Alabama on Friday and move into mom and dad’s master bedroom area. None of us are too sure how this arrangement is going to work when it comes time for holidays and the like, but as long as we stay flexible it should all be ok. I think. Though it does seem to mean that I’ll be traveling to Florida for all holidays instead of hoping for folks to come to me. (Not that they ever have, but I was campaigning for it some.)