Month: April 19, 2024

Posted on by John

On Saturday, Christine, Jack and I headed out to the lakehouse to visit with Debbie, Raymond and Miss Shirley.

We got there around 11:00 am, at lunch, and then headed for the pool. Jack got out around 1:00 or 1:30 and took a nap. When he woke up, we headed home. Jack had gotten his good tanning session in for the day, and Christine needed to pack for her camping trip this weekend.

I grilled T-bones without any marinade, just some seasoning salt (need to use the marinage next time) and we had peas on the side around 8:00 p.m.

Christine stayed up late packing. I tried to go to bed early, but we didn’t end up turning out the lights until midnight or so.

On Sunday morning, I got up with Jack around 6:30 a.m. We played, and ate breakfast, and then walked around the block. I woke Christine up when I was leaving the house for our morning walk (about 7:45 a.m.) so she got up and finished packing and getting ready.

Christine was heading out to an all girls weekend camping trip/bachelorette party for Kim (of Kim and Brad fame). Elise and Michelle were supposed to pick her up at 9:30 a.m., and she still needed to wrap presents for Kim.

When Jack and I got back from our walk around the block, Christine put Jack down for his morning nap.

Elise and Michelle showed up around 9:45 a.m. and the girls headed out. Jack woke up around 10:15 or so. I loaded him up in the car after a quick bottle and dirty diaper change, and we headed back out to the lakehouse!

Jack had pretty bad diaper rash again, so I had to be pretty careful about changing him often and making sure he was doing okay.

Jack took a nap around 1:00 again, and then we all went swimming when he woke up. We ate dinner (hamburgers and bratwurst – man Jack loves bratwurst) and said our goodbyes and drove home. Jack fell asleep in the car.

When we got home, I woke Jack up getting him out of the car, so we changed his diaper, fed hima bottle, and then rocked to his music. He was out within 30 seconds of me putting him in bed.

Jack slept until 7:15 this morning (alright!) so we got up and drank a bottle, then walked around the block before eating a whole jar of peaches.

I just put him down (9:00 a.m. or so) and he’s finally asleep after about 20 minutes of playing in his crib and talking to his toys… too cute to hear that through the door.

Needless to say, we’re both pretty tired little boogers right now, and can’t wait for mommy to get home!

update: Jack never did really go to sleep, so around 9:45 I went in, got him out of his crib, changed his diaper, and gave him a bottle. He was asleep before he finished the bottle ;).

Average Rating: 4.7 out of 5 based on 294 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Christine’s cousin David Redmond is in Iraq. David is a Command Sergeant Major (the highest rank on the enlisted side you can reach) in the Army. He’s serving now as the CSM for an infantry unit over there, and he sent this update through Mary:

From: [email protected]
Date: August 31, 2005 10:48:00 AM CDT
To: Mary Kamp
Subject: Re: Hi

Aunt Mary and Uncle Frank,

Thanks for the nice e-mail. I just got my system working in Baghdad and have started going through the hundreds of messages in the queue.

I am doing very well. We are quite busy as you can imagine. I sent that letter out so that the family would know what was going on.

Living conditions are almost like in garrison. My boss, Lieutenant Colonel Pacher, and I share a trailor. As a Command Sergeant Major it is the first time in my career that I have rated a shower while on deployment. The work is long and tedious. The job requires 16-20 days, 7 days a week. During my last 7 month deployment I did take half a day off. We will see how this one goes.

I do leave the forward operating base to patrol out in town, but we are a well trained and well armed outfit. That is the positive and down side of being in an Infantry Brigade.

I will try and send updates out periodically, but wanted to let you know that I arrived safely (two weeks ago) at my final destination. The weather is cooling down into the 105-115 range and it feels great after 130+ degrees in Kuwait.

Love,

David

We’re all hoping David makes it home safe soon, and brings all the young men and women he’s leading home safe as well.

Average Rating: 5 out of 5 based on 225 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

After work today (we got off a little early thanks to Labor Day) Christine, Jack and I headed up to Patterson Park.

It looks like it might rain, but we figured if it did, we’d hide in one of the public buildings up there…

When we got there, we put Jack in a swing. Oh boy, did he have fun!

It was pretty windy, as you can tell from some of the photos and that just made it all that much more fun for Jack.

He loved swinging, and he really thought it was fun to watch the leaves get blown across the park… watch the video of him swinging:

Just a Swingin' Movie
Click Here to Watch the Movie

There are more photos from the trip to the park here.

Average Rating: 4.8 out of 5 based on 274 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

When Christine isn’t around, I make Jack do all sorts of fun things. One of those fun things is learning to stand up on his own.

Now that he’s getting better at it, and he doesn’t fall everytime I let go of him, I figured that Jack and I’d show off for Christine. So, we asked her to get the camera, to take a little video of Jack trying to stand up:

Almost Standing
Click to watch the movie.

You know how they say:

Mom’s play with thier babies.
Dad’s play with their kids.

It’s like that.

Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 161 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Jack has been pretty grumpy the past two weeks or so during the day… Christine told me that he was teething. His bottom gums have been swollen, and he just seemed to get fussy a lot easier than he used to.

Tonight before bed, Christine put her finger in his mouth to check his gums, and she exclaimed “He’s got a tooth!” with a wild-eyed look on her face of sheer excitement.

She turned to me and said “A tooth! I wondered why he hadn’t been that fussy all day.”

So, we were both excited. We patted little Jack on the back, and told him congratulations. I started to get him a cigar to help celebrate the moment, but thought better of it.

Teething… at 9 months. 89 more years buddy, and you’ll lose them all again…

We tried to take a photo of the new tooth, and this is about as good as we could get:

Yeah, it’s not a good photo, but we tried. Next time you see Jack, ask him to show you his tooth.

p.s. there’s a really cute photo of Jack wearing his new Chicago Cubs hat here (I bought him that hat last week when I was at a Cubs vs. Atlanta game at Wrigley Field) as well as some others of him and I playing “Jump on the bed” and having a good ol’ time.

Average Rating: 4.8 out of 5 based on 287 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Christine and I were going to uproot the family and move to southwest Austin. We were going to move out to suburbia.

We’re glad we didn’t.

If we had moved, we wouldn’t live next door to so many diverse people. Take for instance the couple that lives in the house next door. They got married last weekend at the anti-war demonstrations in Crawford, Texas last weekend:

WacoTrib: Dearly beloved: Austin couple gets married at Camp Casey II
MichaelMoore.com: Couple weds at anti-war campsite
MySA.com: Anti-war couple are wed at edge of Bush ranch

How many people do you know that would do that?

I know two 😉 and they’re my neighbors.

Congrats Peter and Genevieve.

Average Rating: 4.8 out of 5 based on 206 user reviews.

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