It was hotternhell™ this summer. What’s a boy and his dad to do when it’s 100 degrees outside (and has been for three weeks straight)?
Wash the car, or course:
I don’t know that we got the car clean that day, but we did get pretty wet, and had a good time doing it!
Jack’s teacher at pre-school, Mrs. Terry, sent Christine two videos via email. I’ve combined them into this movie for you:
Terry told Christine that Jack likes to play a lot at school, and that when he does, it’s usually doing his own thing. He’ll go find something that’s fun to him, and then he’ll try to talk a few of the other kids into doing it with him… yes, I realize he can’t talk yet, but that doesn’t stop him from talking them into doing it.
He’s enjoying school, and that’s what’s important.
Christine, Jack and I drove down to College Station on Saturday, to take Jack to his first Aggie game!
Long story short: The Ags won, and Jack had a GREAT time!!!
We got to town around 4:00, picked up Bussy at the mall, and drove to the reserved parking that Bussy has (he didn’t want Christine to have to walk too far, since she’s 8 months pregnant). After parking, we walked over to the quad, saw a few old BQ buddies, and waited for the band to step off.
He didn’t quite know what to do when the band marched by, but he loved every minute of it, even if the drums were a little loud for his taste. (He’ll get used to that).
Then we walked over to the Corps Center to watch the band march by again. Then on to the MSC to get Jack a good Aggie shirt (they’re hard to find in Austin folks). We ended up buying him a regulation 12th man jersey for $40. Why we spent $40 on a size 2T jersey when the shirt I was wearing probably cost $5, I can’t explain…
After cooling off a bit, we went to the car to change diapers and put away the stroller, then on to the game.
After huffing and puffing up two levels, we climbed about twenty steps to get to our seats in row 27 on the second deck on the parents side of Kyle Field. The seats are great! They’re on about the north 35 yard line, two rows down from the sky boxes, and look like they’re always in the shade.
We said “Hi” to Norma and Jake, and then Andy Kollman and one of the Luedke boys showed up to sit in front of us (they’re all from Bellville).
I could just tell Jack was impressed with everything that was going on. About 10 minutes before the game started, I went and bought us all hotdogs and water, and a pretzel. Jack ate a whole hotdog (sans bun) before the game really got started.
We sang “Spirit of Aggieland” with the band, and the National Anthem, and Texas Our Texas, and watched four F-16’s fly over before the game… then it was time for kickoff.
About half-way through the 2nd half, we said our good-byes, and headed towards the car, but we met Mike Elmquist (one of my buddies from the band) at the Reveille graves on the way out. Man it was good to see Mike!
Jack passed out once we got on the road, before we even got out of Bryan. The trip home was uneventful, but, we did get to hear the last few minutes of the Ohio State v. Texas game on the radio once we found the station. In lieu of the radio, Mike Kamp (Chrsitine’s brother) was giving us the play-by-play of the game via text messages on my cell phone (thanks Mike!).
There’s a video from the day if you want to see how much fun Jack had. It’s a big file (about 60MB, so it might take a while to download, but it’s worth it if you want to see his face when the drums marched by, heh!):
Gig ‘Em!
(oh, and by the way, since Texas lost to Ohio State, I’m thinking Thanksgiving will be a fun game this year)
You gotta love it when your kid has this much fun brushing his teeth:
More photos here: Brushing Teeth.
Christine and I were looking through old photos today. This is one of our favorites:
Last week, I flew to LA, drove down to Irvine, then up to Santa Babara, then over to Pasadena, flew back to Austin, spent the night consoling Josh, and then drove to Bellville after work on Friday. Long week.
But what a great weekend!
Christine had driven down to Bellville on Thursday, and spent two days with Mo-mo (my mom’s name from the grandkids is now “mo-mo”) while I was traveling. They had an absolute blast for two days, and then we kept it going through the weekend.
We didn’t do anything spectacular, other than just hang out with each other, visit and catch up with each other, and let the kids play… and play did they!
Jack and Ella had a lot of fun on Saturday playing outside, and I took a few photos:
After a long day, Jack took his bath, and then we all sat on Ella’s bed reading books while Jack drank his milk. Ella read to us, and found Jack’s “piggies” when she got to the “This little piggy…” nursery rhyme:
After reading nursery rhymes, we sang some songs:
Like I said, it was a fun weekend. Even mowing the lawn at Mo-mo’s house was fun with the new riding lawn mower.
This past Sunday, Christine and I met Amanda and Murphy up at the Hyde Park pool so that Ben and Jack could go swimming together.
It was really cute to see the boys playing with each other, and giving each other five:
On the evening of the 4th, we drove out to Lakeway. Josh, Elise and Maly met us out there. Debbie and Raymond cooked dinner (mmmm, porkchops). We went to watch the Lakeway fireworks at the Lakeway City Park, but stayed in the car, because it was raining. Jack said “Gow, Gow!” a lot. Oh, and Josh almost ate his daughter:
Christine and I spent the night out in Lakeway, and I got up around 7:00 to head to work. The commute was about 45 minutes… which is about 40 minutes longer than my standard morning commute.
Since it was a short week at work, I ended up trying to get to work pretty early each day, and stayed until 6:00 or 6:30 each evening.
I got home on Friday afternoon to Christine and Jack out in the front yard:
Jack sure loves those sunglasses 😉
After playing outside for a while, we ate dinner (Christine cooked for us) and then we played with Jack’s cars inside before bed.
Since July 4th was on a Tuesday, I decided to take Monday off. Which was cool, because on Mondays, Jack goes to swimming lessons in the morning.
Christine and I headed to the Emler Swimming School at 9:00, and while Christine and Jack got ready to go swimming, I introduced myself to the other Dad there, and got my camera out. He had his camera too.
Jack had so much fun learning to swim, and interacting with the other kids. He’s supposed to be learning to hold his breath underwater, so that by the time he’s done with lessons this year, he should be able to swim independantly for 4-5 seconds, and should be able to jump into the pool from the side feet first. Totally cool to think that a two year old will know how to swim (maybe).
Then, on Monday afternoon, we met the family (Greg, Cheri, Debbie, Raymond, Lisa, Gerry and kids) at Zilker Park, and caught a few photos of them on the train, before heading over to Guerro’s for dinner. Mmmmm, Guerro’s.
Jack started wearing his sunglasses this week without tearing them off his face as soon as we put them on. In fact, now, if the sun is too bright, he starts asking for them:
Last Friday, Christine and I got on a flight, with Jack, to Seattle. We were heading up there for the weekend to see friends (The Penfields) that we really hadn’t seen in 3 or 4 years, and to meet their daugher (who is 3 now) and let them meet Jack, and to see how big Joel has gotten since the last time we saw him.
Long story short, we had a great trip, but it was way to short, and getting there was “half the battle” so to speak… Needless to say, American Airlines cancelled our Dallas to Seattle flight, so we were facing the possibility of not even going to Seattle for the weekend, but one of their star ticket agents understood our plight, and booked us through Denver to Seattle on Friday. Instead of arriving at 2pm as we’d intended, we arrived at 11:00pm. Jack was pooped.
We were staying at a friend’s condo in downtown: Fourth and Pike. An amazing address, and a great little one bedroom condo: Perfect for “getting away” for the weekend, or a week or two…
On Saturday, we got up ‘early’ and met Kelly, Greg, Joel, and Aubrey at Pike Place Market, and watched the fish throwers throw a few fish… then we walked down to the park, and then headed to our Harbor Cruise reservation. On the cruise, we chatted and caught up, and enjoyed learning about Seattle from the water, and spending time with the kids.
After our cruise, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at Red Robin, and then walked back to the fish market. Aubrey was cute… helping me push Jack’s stroller (he was passed out tired. We said our goodbyes and took Jack home for a nap.
After napping, we headed to the Seattle Aquarium… talk about fun for Jack. He really enjoyed looking at all of the fish and seals and starfish. It was really cute to see him exploring the aquarium.
We ate dinner at the Fisherman Restaurant on the peer, and let Jack have fun running around while we ate… I got up with him and ran around with him… the waitresses thought it was cute.
On Sunday, Jack and I got up early and went for a walk, and took some photos. Then we brought breakfast and coffee up to Christine. And then Christine packed while Jack and I took a nap.
As we were leaving our condo, we realized that the Seattle Gay Pride parade was taking place right outside our condo. Heh… “too funny” is all I’ll say.
We got in our car, and drove to the airport for the flights home. Jack was great on the 4.5 hour flight to Dallas, and fell asleep in Dallas before we even took off, and didn’t wake up until the morning.
It was a great trip, long overdue, and way too short.
The photo galleries are here:
“The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world — but, as in whispering-galleries, they are clearly heard at the end and by posterity.” -Jean Paul Richter
We spent the day working in the yard and enjoying each other’s company all day. We did try to go buy me a good pair of shoes, but the store didn’t have what I wanted. I also made a trip to JCPenney’s to buy some new shirts…
We capped of the day with a few hours out in the front yard in the pool. Then we put the pool up:
I haven’t posted a lot of photos lately, mainly because the new job is taking a lot of energy, and Christine, Jack and I have been busy and sick lately.
So, here are some photos of Jack from this past week.
The first two are of Jack dribbling milk down his chin and chest. Then Christine took this photo of us reading before bed one night.
Then, I snapped these three photos of Jack smiling, laughing, and singing “if you’re happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it” and then him pulling his pull toys around his room.
This past weekend was a lot of fun. On Saturday, I hung out with Jack all day. Christine met up with her friend Tonya around 3:00 and they had a great afternoon and evening together. They went to the Alamo Drafthouse to watch a movie, and then went to dinner at Mirabelle. Christine got home around 9:00 and we went to bed early.
On Mother’s Day, I let Christine sleep in. Jack and I went into the bedroom around 8:45 and woke her up by singing “Happy Mother’s Day” to her (to the tune of the Happy Birthday song).
After some kolaches (that Jack and I had procured from the Lone Star Kolache place on 35th and Lamar) we all got dressed and headed to Zilker Park.
And boy, did we have fun.
Jack chased the pigeons and sat down with a few squirrels:
And then we rode the Zilker Train.
Lots of fun, and more photos here.
After going to Zilker Park, we stopped on the way home and ate lunch at Scholtsky’s and then Jack fell asleep on the way home.
We let Jack nap until 3:00, and then headed to a birthday party for Dylan Levy, the 2 year old down the street. That was fun too… We ate cake, and played, and had a ton of fun. The folks at MyGym here in Austin do a great job with little kids parties.
Jack also got a few presents from Grandma in the mail this past week… and he’s learning to play the harmonica. At the end of the day, we gave him his harmonica to play with while we changed his diaper. He thought that was a grand idea, and you should hear him now… he’s really getting good at it.
Hope you all had a great Mother’s Day too.
Last week, I spent the week at Ad:Tech in San Francisco. It was a great week in San Fran… the weather was perfect. The days were long (up at 9, in bed around 2) for four days straight, but work can be work, and it was fun.
Christine and Jack spent the week in Dallas with Grandmother and Granddad.
Frank sent this photo of Jack from their week up there:
Jack is getting to the point where he’s really got his own little personality, if you can’t tell from that photo. 😉