May = Vacay

With our destiny finally decided for the next four years, we could finally focus on what really matters: VACATION! With a month of disposable time at our fingertips, a house sold, and a house found, we loaded in the car and trekked off to Utah to CAMP--errr--and to see family.

We broke up the trip with a way too short visit with Susie and these two darling little pixies.

Once in Utah, our first stop was to the Zoo with Jen and the boys. The carousel was a highlight.

There was no reason to leave Steve's playground-of-a-house. Eole discovered a new joy of "jumping" on the trampoline and earned her first skinned knees on the paved badminton court.

We were happy for a chance to see these good looking kids as well, and to go to Jackson's orchestra concert.

Then, we met up with Daniel's first love: San Rafel Swell, for camping with the grandparents.

Nana and Papa Pugmire rounded out the whole vacation by taking us on another breath-taking tour of S. Utah with trips to Capital Reef, Bryce, and Zion.

How did Eole fare with the Great Outdoors? She did very well, thank you.

April

It's been a crazy few months involving two cross country drives, selling our house, and finding a new place to live...in another state. Here is the recap for March/April:
Just when we thought we had the condo in top shape for a possible sell, we discovered these nasty boys living under our deck.

And so, instead of spending the eve of match day fretting about where the "magical match machine" was to send us for the next four years, we spent the night ripping up our deck and exterminating these squatters.

Match Day came, and brought with it the pleasant surprise that we would be heading to.....Duke in North Carolina!!It took two trips to Durham to convince Julia that this was not the murder/drug/gangsta den that she feared. It took only one trip to convince both Julia and Daniel that after four years of home-ownership, they simply couldn't go back to smokey, noisy (not to mention walking a half mile to dump your trash) apartment living. By what can only be described as divine intervention, we found a dream home to rent for an absolute steal in a lovely neighborhood. The charming brick rambler includes hardwood floors,two bedrooms, a library with built in bookshelves, a family room, living room, dining room, HUGE kitchen, and wait for it.......A GREEN HOUSE. What really sealed the deal was that our car broke down in the driveway. In order to save from further embaressment, we wrote the lease cheque while waiting for the tow truck.

Back in Ohio, Eole was a great help with the finishing touches of packing

Doing Hard Work

This Thursday is the "big day" that will let us know where we will be going for the next four years for residency. Yes, it is the long awaited, highly anticipated "Match Day." We each handle our stress for this in different ways. Daddy's way would be to bask on a beach in Maui. Mommy's way is to prepare for the possibility that we will be moving. Due to time restrictions and finances, Mommy's way has won. We have been repainting, repairing, re-fixing and re-packing boxes every day. It's not that we want to leave our little home, in fact, now that it is in top shape, we'd be thrilled to find out that we are staying. Little Baby Girl has been subjected to Mommy's endless shifting and re-shifting of items as you can view in the above video. We had to move the food storage upstairs to repair a wall downstairs. Then we moved the food storage back downstairs, and, well, Baby Girl had to help.

My First Words

My first word was “DOG.”  An interesting choice seeing as we didn’t have a dog when I was a baby.  However, I still own a stuffed animal seal christened “DOG.”  Booh-booh, at the tender age of one, is a much more social child than either her mom or dad ever were or will be.  It is only fitting that her first word—an actual word used correctly —would be “HI!”  This came around 9 months and quickly became a favorite.  She amused church goers and grocery shoppers alike by indiscriminately greeting all with a loud “HI!”  Some tried to get her to say “goodbye” but all in vain.   And now at 15 months, we have added a few more properly used words to our repertoire. “EAT!”  And then there is “TEETEE,” which is applied to any mammal remotely resembling a feline (foxes, horses).  While I was terrified of the large tiger we encountered at the Alabama Zoo, Eole, with great enthusiasm, met him with “Hi TEETEE!” But none of these words can match the explosive power of The Great Word: the Word to rule them all: “NO!” Or as Eole says, “NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!”

Monkey See, Monkey Do

You better watch out. You better not cry. Better not pout; I’m telling you why: Eole is watching your every move. Luckily, she is only picking up on the good habits such as brushing her teeth (even using a hair brush to brush her teeth because we certainly don’t use hair brushes for our non-existent hair),

blowing her nose into a tissue, washing with soap, shaving her face with Dad’s electric razor, and of course, talking on the cell phone or IPOD or calculator. 

These conversations will usually begin with her picking up any item that has buttons, pressing a few of the buttons, putting said object up to her ear, saying “Hi?? Glabababa? HAHAHAHAHA!”  I guess I laugh a lot when I’m on the phone.

Full Circle

Apparently, Dan’s father had to travel for work a lot when Dan was a young child. Dan -- or “Danny” as I’m sure he was called at the time-- got so fed up with his dad leaving, that he decided to pack himself in his father’s luggage. Fast forward 27 odd years and Dan now finds himself hopping on a plane weekly for residency interviews, and, well, shall we say that the circle is complete?

What We did over the Holidays

Baked cookies….

Baked more cookies....

Baked Brioche

Baked ALOTTA sourdough bread

Ate aforementioned goodies which lead to the following weight gains:

Eole: 1 pounds

Julia: 5 pounds

Daniel: 10 pounds

Read Christmas Stories

Watch Raymond Briggs “The Snowman” bi-daily, including Christmas morning when the opening of presents had to wait until the 29 minute movie had concluded with, yet again, the tragic loss of Snowman.

Opened presents!! Thanks for the gifts, Santa, et al.