Happy 3rd Birthday Aidan

On the evening of Sunday, January 18th, our families gathered here at our home to celebrate Aidan's 3rd birthday.

The event was heavily Cars themed, starting with a wealth of Cars toys and apparel and culminating with a home-made Lightning McQueen cake. (I wish I had had a camera ready when he walked into the kitchen earlier and spied the cake on the counter. It was too cute.)

Of special interest was the present that Aidan surprised many of our family members in return with: A stomach bug. Yeah! This particular little pest took out Aidan later that evening, myself on Tuesday, and Uncle Jason, Cousins Nick and Brianna, Uncle Jeff, and Cousin Joey throughout the remainer of the week. Sorry y'all...

Happy Birthday, Boo Boo.

How to Abuse a Ford Ranger

In one very labor intensive step...

How We Spent Our Christmas Break

'Twas the night before Christmas, then the next thing I knew,
Christmas had passed, and New Years too.
The stockings still hung by the chimney with care,
with the presents now gone, their insides laid bare.

The children were nestled in their desks back at school,
All their new clothes making them just a bit more cool.
And Mamma on Facebook, and I back at my trade,
Were wishing, on vacation, we could have stayed.

When what to my wondering eyes did appear?

The fact that I haven’t blogged in almost a month!

Our break kicked off Friday the 19th by heading off to Longwood Gardens with some friends from church. Summer, Winter, Spring, or Fall, Longwood never fails to amaze. The lights. The fountains. The Venus Fly Traps(?). This time was no exception. One neat thing to note: Longwood had switched a great percentage of their lights to LED’s. Tell me they aren’t gonna be loving life when the electric bill comes in this year.

Christmas eve we had dinner at Nana and Pop-pop's. We spent a good portion of dinner discussing our family tree with Mom-mom T: Who immigrated from where and when. Very cool discussion. We really need to start jotting this stuff down for our future generations.

Christmas day we awoke and were able to have breakfast before unwrapping gifts. Soon after, the house was like Grand Central with family coming and going throughout the remainder of the morning and afternoon. That evening, we hosted Christmas dinner for Mommy’s side of the family. Mommy, as always, produced a stellar feast. And for having 13 people crammed in our kitchen, things went surprisingly well. Even Sadie was well behaved. If you can believe that.

The days following Christmas, Mommy and the girls built their first gingerbread house and Poppop and I spent a good deal of time working to finish the basement (more on that later).

New Years eve, with one of Alex's friends from school over to spend the night, we had planned on attending First Night in Wilmington. This despite the sub-freezing temps. Unfortunately, this unraveled as I was stricken with some mystery abdominal pain that had me doubled over for the better part of the evening.

Anyway, its back to school and work now. Now, if we could just get some snow to go along with this cold…brr...

Happy New Year...

Winter Band Concert 2008

On the evening of Tuesday, December 16th, Red Lion Christian Academy hosted the annual Winter Band Concert. Alex again played percussion, now for the Middle school. Abby made her debut performance on the clarinet for the 4th grade.

This first video is of a song called the The Crusader March, composed originally by John Philip Sousa. This was performed solely by the clarinet section.



The young man next to Abby was having problems with his instrument. So ultimately Abby was performing a solo here.

The next video is of Abby's actual solo. She was the only performer in the 4th grade to have one. Her music selection was Go Tell Bill, originally composed by Giocchino Rossini.



The final selection was Alex's first number for the evening. The music selection is called Carol of Joy. He's on the crash cymbal.

Wait for it... Wait for it...



Alex actually performed on 2 other songs; one on the snare drum, the other on the bass drum. I may post them later...

His Mysterious Ways...

This past weekend, Mommy and I packed our bags, tossed the house keys to Nana and Poppop, bid the children au revoir, and headed north to take part in the wedding celebration of a dear friend of ours (congratulations again, Gina and Trevor).

We left the house with the intention of checking in at our hotel, dressing for the wedding, perhaps relaxing for a few, then heading to the church and still having time to spare. But things began to go awry as soon as we left the highway to look for the hotel: It wasn't there. Not where our map said it was at least. We pressed on further down the road, through traffic, time slipping away.

We eventually found the hotel but only after finally stopping to check with a postman (thank you Mr. Postman), then calling the hotel itself. But now, time was not on our side. We checked in, dashed into our room, dressed hastily, and ran right back out the door...only to get lost again on our way to the church.

After the ceremony, the silver lining in all this began to present itself. In getting to the church, we had traveled in exactly the opposite direction we should. But as it turns out, it was the correct way to get to the reception: A fantastic venue call The Brickhouse. This provided some much needed relief.

Several hours later, after enjoying an unbelievable amount of excellent food (honestly, I wasn't hungry at all Sunday), and enjoying the company of some great people, it was time to head back to the hotel. Well, it turns out that our first turn at getting lost put us close to the reception facilities. This prepared us for the return trek: We got back to the hotel in a much easier and faster fashion than Google had planned for us.

All in all, we could see God's hand in the ordeals and had a great time catching up with an old friend.

Congratulations

October Update

Poor blogger that I am, it has once again been nearly a month since my last (major) post. Sorry.

Soccer season has come and gone. As in previous years, Alex, Abigail and Amanda all participated in the GRPC Fall Soccer League. Both Abigail and Amanda have really come of their own this year, showing significant growth.


Alex added something new to the mix this year by joining his first competitive school sport: The RLCA Middle School Soccer team. The season had already commenced by the time he made his decision but he did get to play in a few games before the season wrapped. And the coach has asked him to return next year.


Besides soccer, Halloween has also come and gone. With the exception of Aidan, who donned a lion costume, sports were the over-arching theme this year. Alex dressed as a rabid UD fan, Abigail sported Mommy's old field hockey jersey and stick, and Amanda looked suspiciously like a GRPC soccer player. We had incredibly nice weather this year for walking around and Grammy took the opportunity to heap loads of abuse on her knees just prior to having them both replaced. Eek...

One final item: Amanda had a field trip to the Delaware History Museum. However, neither Mommy nor myself went so there are no pictures and we don't know much about what she saw. Sorry.