Week in pictures

I just had to share this funny picture from last weekend (when we were in PA). Here is M in the sandbox for what seems like the first time. I took her shoes and socks off and put her down. She didn't seem to like it and was afraid to put her feet down. Soon after this she started crying.

Last weekend when we got to church, J1 gave us this:

Last Wednesday we went out to eat with our friends who have a cute baby. Here is a cute picture of him at dinner.

Saturday night we babysat for our upstairs neighbor while his parents went out with some friends. We had a great time, and I think he did too. We definitely tired him out and he went right to sleep!

This weekend we noticed several time when we went out the back door that birds were flying out from under the porch. I couldn't figure out why they were always under there. Then we noticed this lovely nest they were building. In many ways it is a smart place to build a nest, it is protected from the sun, wind, rain. However it is in the wreath that hangs on the door that we go in and out of all the time. So I am not sure how long it will last. Albert keeps trying to climb the curtains and attack them (this morning he jumped probably 5 feet in the air and clung to the curtains). Maybe it will cause them to abandon the nest. There are no eggs yet, so I don't feel too terrible about wanting to move it. I am just afraid that one day the eggs will fall when we close the door. It is getting bigger and bigger by the day.

hectic weekend in PA

We had an even more hectic weekend visit to PA than usual. We arrived at about 12:30 a.m. on Friday night/Saturday morning. Got up the next morning around 7 or 7:30 and went nonstop until about 9:30 p.m. Saturday night. We visited just about everyone we hoped to, including Matt's uncle, great aunt, grandfather, and all the siblings. On Sunday before leaving we stopped to see our friends who had a new baby 2 weeks ago. It was great to catch up with them and see how they are adjusting to parenthood. The baby is adorable and I took some pictures for them. I haven't sorted through all of the pictures I took, but here are a few snippets of the weekend. More pictures of the new baby can be found at the Grazus Blog.

P.S. I also have a great thing to share from one of our nephews, I just have to find the piece of paper.

Moving

It appears in a few months we will be moving. Matt is hoping to graduate some in the late summer or early fall and has begun looking for job. While this is all very exciting, it is also going to be quite expensive. I have been looking at potential cities (where there might be some job openings) and doing some cost of living comparisons. Basically we live the cheapest place in the country, ok maybe not THE cheapest, but definitely somewhere close. This CNN comparator tells me that it is cheaper to live in Durham than in Burlington, NC. I mean who the heck wants to live in Burlington, NC. All that is there is JRs and some crummy outlets. And it is in the middle of nothing. Why can't all the ultrasound companies move somewhere cheap? like NC? We leave in just a few weeks, 3 I think for our cruise. I am getting pretty darn excited. I have started a packing list of everything we need to bring with us. I made a separate travel blog on travelblog.org for hopefully easy posting (not like this hard or anything). I will post the address of it closer to our departure. We will have some internet access when we are on the boat. It costs 50 cents/minute, so we won't be using too much of it, but I feel like we write everything we want and then log on to post/send stuff and then log back off. This weekend we are heading to PA to see Matt's family. It appears to be a packed weekend already with at least 5 people we want to visit in addition to the immediate family (which is 4 different families). There should be lots of cute kid and baby pictures next week for your enjoyment. Have a nice weekend.

long weekend

We are back from our long, busy weekend in PA. We left Friday morning and arrived Friday afternoon, surprising Matt's family (we normally don't get there until late Friday night). We visited each of the families and went to bed at a decent hour. Saturday the mayheim began. We drove out to Lancaster for Matt's grandfather's 90th birthday party. The party was at a great restaurant called Shady Maple. I had been before, but only for breakfast, so it was great to get to have lunch there. We had a room rented for the family, which ended up being about 80 people. We were there for about 3 hours! Then we drove back home, babysat some children while their mother went to church, then had the 6 year-olds birthday party. I babysat for 4 kids after the party and put them all to bed. Went to bed too late especially since the time was changing. Sunday we slept in until 9 am. We were supposed to get up earlier to go visiting, but didn't make it. Went to church, and then made the final rounds to visit everyone again. Left around 2:30 pm for a trip that took way too long, about 8 and a half hours rather than the usual 7 hours. On the way back we passed an ostrich or emu running down the median of Rt. 1 and hit a ton of traffic south of DC. Made it home and in bed by 11:15 pm. Still very sleepy today.