Halloween Weekend

Above, another picture taken at PicturePeople in the Galleria. They did a great job and it was well worth the shekels.

Sean has not yet selected a "comfort object" as many crumb crunchers his age do (e.g. blanket, stuffed animal, etc.) He does, however, pick favorite objects for one or two day periods. This weekend it was both a plastic back massage thingy and the plastic measuring cup/cap that comes with our laundry soap. When he crawls around the house carrying the cap it sounds like a pegged-leg pirate is walking around. At least he had the good sense to pick plastic objects! 2007 is the 100th anniversary of plastic! Bakelite on Wikipedia, 1950's film on plastic, Ansco Panda Bakelite Camera - made by GAF (now ISP.)

Saturday we went to Joshua Nolen's baptism in the Woodlands. The service was held at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic church. Interestingly enough, there is a St. Anthony of Padua church on Woodlands Drive in ... Singapore. Google maps would not give me directions from Houston to the church, causing me to look closer and change my search criteria!

Sunday we went for a walk around the ponds in the back of the 'hood and then on another walk with the Johnson's to go to some open houses in Westwood on "the other side of the tracks." In a neighborhood where most house go for $150,000 tops there is one street with new houses being built on existing lots and being sold for $500,000 and up. We went to three houses, which all had cool features (including closets! We don't have many of those in this neighborhood.)

4117 Woodhaven
4125 Woodhaven
4130 Woodhaven

Hidden room with a "Texas Basement" - a climate controlled portion of the attic

Kitchen with cool brickwork around the stove

More cool kitchen brickwork

Halloween is Coming!

Sean 9-Month Dr. Appt. Update:

• Weight: 18 lbs. 12 ozs. - 25%
• Height: 29.4" - 90%
• Head Circumference: 17.5" - 25%

Still tall, skinny and with feet and ears too big for his head! :-) He remains a joy and a happy baby. He has 7 teeth now and more are coming. Sean is very mobile and sits, stands and kneels (A Catholic!) and is close to walking. He hates to go to sleep at night and end the fun, but has really established a routine anyway. By the time 8:30pm comes around he is really ready for bed.

Sean loves to feed himself everything and eats most of what mom and dad eat now. He will crawl into the kitchen and pick the Cheerios box or Goldfish bag off the shelf and try to get into them.

Late October...

OK, it has been an inexcusably long time since the last posting. The weekend before last we went to Denver for our annual rite of fall with the Wheatley's. For 11 striaght years now it has not been autumn without a visit to Eric and Anida (now with Daniel and Rachel!) We forgot our camera, see a cute picture of Rachel and Sean HERE. The toy they are playing with - the Leap Frog Musical Table - Sean liked so much we picked one up from Craig's List within 3 or 4 days for $15 - he loves it! We had a great time with Eric and Anida and the kids and going to the Great American Beer Festival. Texas did not do so well this year...

Brewery	Beer	State	Medals	Category
Fredericksburg Brewing Co.	Pioneer Porter	TX	Gold	Brown Porter
Fredericksburg Brewing Co.	Enchanted Rock Red Ale	TX	Bronze	Irish Style Red Ale
Saint Arnold Brewing Co.	Saint Arnold Fancy Lawnmower	TX	Gold	German Style Kölsch/Köln Style Kölsch

Dave and Sean did suffer from a short-lived virus that Grandma and Dziadziu also caught. Further investigation revealed that Dave caught it at work, leading to more celebration than planned of National Infection Prevention week at ISP - Texas City last week!

Elissa's 2nd Birthday gave everyone a chance to dress up for Halloween early. Above are the Cavemen (uh, CavePEOPLE - I just went to harassment training) Pasta's with little Pasta-Saurus.

The birthday girl shows off her much improved birthday cake eating skills (compared to last year!)

Nana with Sean, Elissa and Claire

Bring in the clowns!

Sunday we went hiking in Brazos Bend State Park. Afterwards Grandma and Dziadziu help Sean practice walking.

Dave and Sean on the trail

Uncle Joe and Sean planning future escapades...

Narcissistic Bachelor Dave Blog

Mom and Sean are in the Hill Country for a few days to visit Nana and Grandpa and for Barb to work. (Don't miss Sean's 9-month bday blog, below.)

Dave, confronted with two days alone, reverts to his bachelor ways. First, Sunday night dinner - Wolf Brand Chili with cheese or Kraft Macaroni and Cheese with tuna, peas and picante sauce? Due to my 2+ year boycott of Campbell Food products, Wolf Chili was out. (Dave to Campbell - I opened your soup and it was spoiled. Campbell to Dave - here are some coupons for Campbell products! Dave to Campbell - it happened again, spoiled soup! Campbell to Dave - here are some coupons for Campbell products! Dave to Campbell - your soup made me sick. I will eat no more Campbell products until I recieve from you a quality improvement plan. Campbell to Dave - here are some coupons for Campbell products!)





So on to menu item #2:
-One box Kraft Deluxe Macaroni & Cheese
-One can of dolphin free tuna
-One-half bag of frozen peas
-1/2 cup Pace yellow label picante sauce

It was great! Warning: Married men, even if you do not normally cook you should make it a practice to cook something at least once every six months. In case of an emergency you should be able to locate pots and pans and NOT spend 10+ minutes trying to figure out how the only can opener in the house works.


Yes, Pace is now owned by Campbell Foods - it is the one exception to my boycott. My only Karmic justification is that the person who developed Pace into what it is today before selling out to Campbell now runs NatureSweet Tomatoes - a cool company based out of S.A.

Sean is 9-Months Old!

Asleep after a busy Saturday (with the Ags atop the Big-XII South for the first time since 1998!)

Sunday morning with Dad in his Chair

C'mon Dad, I'm funnier than the comics!

Looking to see if someone is watching...

Rare shot of my upper teeth (Dad says naming rights will be available for my future braces installation.) Notice the new baby friendly furniture in the background - CDs have now joined the beer bottles in the garage.

Sean Bath Time Video

Grandma has babysat Sean for two days now while Barbara works. She and Sean play hard! Both days Sean went right to bed at 9pm, like someone flipped a switch. Dziadziu brought over lasagna for dinner tonight... Thanks guys!

Sean enjoys bath time, which is typically "sit in warm water and chew on different toys time" for him.



Daniel and Rachel in Denver now have a combined blog! Look for the link on the right hand side-bar.

Company Boy

We had a busy weekend, focused around a Sip-n-See for Morgan, our God Daughter. The theme was nursery rhymes and Mom, Keri, Michelle, and Tamme put a couple of weeks worth of creativity into planning the event.

Some pictures from last week. The most recently used SD-Card is suffering technical difficulties...

Google Test Video

9/15/07 College Game Day

Hello! Welcome to college football this week. First - this blog skips several things that should be blogged and may be posted as early as tonight - stay tuned.

Second - Several months ago Dave accidentally dropped the "diaper bag" camera onto cement. Friday we finally looked into what would be required to fix the now non-retracting lens on the Lumix LZ3 - cheapest price was $136! Price to replace the camera? $136 - exactly! Hmmm. Once we arrived in College Station for the A&M game and discovered that Dave's camera was still in Houston we ran into a Best Buy and bought a replacement Lumix LZ7 - for what turned out to be a $19 premium v. what is would cost online. PLUS a 30$ warranty that replaces the camera no matter what happens to it for 2 years.

OK, on with our story. Saturday morning we headed out for College Station - aiming to get there in time to watch the 2:30pm UT game on TV and then head to the stadium for the 6:00pm A&M game.

Barbara feeds Sean in his UT outfit while Dave tears hairs out over Longhorn game at Double Dave's in College Station

Things looked up for UT once Sean and Dave cheered them on together!

#6 Texas went on to beat the University of Central Florida (C-USA) Knights 35-32. Yes, look for UT to fall out of the top 10 this week. The only thing impressive they have done for the first three games of the season is win them.

Rhonda, Sean and Barbara cheer on the Aggies. Thanks to Rhonda and Joe for the near 50-yard line seats!

The Aggies went on to beat the University of Louisiana Monroe Warhawks 54-14. The Aggie 2nd and 3rd string played most of the 3rd and 4th quarter. Finally - a blowout for the Big XII besides by OU. The Aggie 2nd string quarterback ran the ball in for two touchdowns.

What is a Warhawk one might ask? It is the politically correct new mascot to replace the Indians of the school once know as the University of Northeast Louisiana. Warhawks only exist in college football, online video games and on the WWII era P-40 aircraft.

This odd mural was on the concourse near our seats. Interesting, but why must they insist on "sawing" Bevo's horns off? Where is PETA? Should UT come up with a song about de-clawing Reveille? Four times a game the Aggie fans sing a song that ends up with the crowd locking arms and swaying back and forth to saw "Varsity's" horns off. Dave leaves the stands and looks for inner peace during this time of the game.

Sean and Dave spent half-time playing on the grass just out side the seating area and underneath the 3rd largest high-def video screen in the Western Hemisphere. (UT 1st, Nebraska 2nd. - The Dallas Cowboys will win out in 2009 with a 9,000 sq. foot display)

An A&M tradition, taking pictures of your kids in front of the statue of Sul Ross, former president of A&M.

Sean at 4-months as a fetus

Sean Update (and flood pics)

Sean keeps growing up! His upper jaw is a plethora of growing teeth, which do wake him in the middle of the night. He is moving from solid pureed food to Cheerio's and is now 75% successful in hitting his mouth and not his lap. He claps his hands and laughs a lot.

It now seems like Sean stands more than sits or crawls. He crawls to any solid object, stands up, and promptly clears the surface of its contents. Above is his favorite climbing spot (and also where No. 2 seems to occur- or at least a lot of grunting.)

Sean and the Barley do OK. Sean is fascinated with her but keeps a pretty soft touch. Barley leaves before she gets too upset.

Hold on there cousin - a remote control is man's work!

Picture 1 of the backyard last week. Since we have lived here it has never rained enough to put 5-6 inches in the yard and float the mulch out of the flowerbeds. It has happened 4 times this year, 3 within a week.

If you are looking for my Infiniti back there, don't bother. The insurance company has totaled it. Luckily I owed slightly less on the car than they thought is was worth, so we get some money back. Now - off to new car shopping.

Lake Pasta

Busy Tuesday and Van Dyke Rant

Tuesday progressed uneventfully throughout most of the day. Then, on my commute home, I encountered a Houston gully washer. It only rained 1.5 inches, but did so in a short 20 minutes or so. An area around our house of about 4 square miles suddenly flooded. I tried several routes to get home, only to be blocked by obviously flooded streets and stalled and stopped cars. I decided to head back to I-610, and on a completely deserted on-ramp, encountered my own personal puddle. Seeing no stalled or stopped cars I assumed it was clear. As I headed down the ramp it started to look bad. Knowing the worst thing you can do is stop I started looking for a place to turn around. Then, I hit a dip and water came over the hood. I jerked the wheel to the left to get on a median and only made it half way up before the engine died.

I called Barb and started the 2 mile walk home. I got out of the car into water up to my mid-thigh. Water was already in the car on the passenger side. Every time an SUV or pickup passed the wake would pick up the passenger side of the car. Apparently a wake also killed my Blackberry. I made it 1/3 of the way home before neighbor Todd showed up in his Chevy Suburban to rescue me. We went back to try and push my car up onto the median with the help of an onlooker. His comment? "A flooded Infiniti - that's a damn shame!"

Todd took me home and then brought his family over for an already scheduled dinner. Before dinner I got down on one knee and asked the Johnson's to be Sean's Godparents. They said yes! We had of long list of contenders, however our church's requirement that Godparents both be practicing Catholics helped us focus on Todd and Tiffany. Then, they delighted us by asking us to be Morgan's Godparents! We are very excited!

Back to the car story: After dinner Todd and I went to check on the Infiniti. It, and the 40+ other flooded cars in the area, were gone. Towed by the city of Houston. I eventually tracked the car down to a yard in SW Houston. Ask me for stories on this place! The car would not start and the electrical system would not even start-up. Totally dead. I am waiting for USAA to inspect it and decide on the next step.

Luckily the Johnsons have a spare car at the moment, so I have something to drive to work in.

OK. Enough. I will rant on Van Dykes later....

Lots 'O Pictures Blog

OK, so we haven't posted new pictures since getting back from Scandinavia. Well, here they are.

Sean in his beach hut last weekend - a good place for a chew.

Daddy and Sean play in the water - it took me several tries to figure out I liked it.

I don't need a walker - I can crawl!

Elissa and Sean play with Dave

Elissa hugs Sean - he looks doubtful

My crumb crunching competitors

I show off my standing skills - Stage I

Stage II

Stage III

Stage IV - Yeah, that was me. No stunt babies needed!

Norway Updates

Click HERE for a few more photo updates.


Photos from Elissa's recent trip to Seaworld San Antonio unveiled the existence of Project Puffin. While this blog supports puffin proliferation, it only does so for culinary reasons. The Project Puffin website, however, is part of the vast left wing puffin conspiracy - IT MAKES NO MENTION OF PUFFINS AS A FOOD SOURCE! How can this be? Oh, give me succulent puffin any day of the week.

Scary Dean and Frightening Sean

Your author apologizes for the dearth in updating the vacation blogs with photos. Between a somewhat bad Scandinavian virus and preparations for Hurricane Dean at the plant I have not had a lot of awake time at the home computer. Thankfully, for us, it appears Dean will be heading into northern Mexico and not Houston.

Yesterday was mostly spent recovering from a late night at the plant Friday and tracking the storm during the night. Last night Grandma and Dziadziu came over to babysit Sean while we went out to celebrate Aunt Heather's 35th birthday at Cafe Adobe and Jillian's (soon to become a Dave and Busters.)

Today we went to the beach. Sean was scared of the waves the first two times we went down to the water. After a nap he sat in the surf and really enjoyed himself. After hanging out at the beach we went to Murdoch's bathhouse, apparently a new tradition, for ice cream and beer on the breezeway.

Murdoch's depicted on a 1938 postcard. The original Murdoch's was destroyed in a hurricane in 1909 and then rebuilt.

Frightening Sean?!? After the beach we went to Grandma and Dziadziu's house for dinner. During dinner Sean was crawling on the floor. He crawled to Dziadziu's chair and then, slowly, pulled himself up to a stretched out standing position and then walked his feet forward until he was completely upright. He then proceeded to do it all over the house, 7 or 8 times, just like when he learned how to roll over. Welcome to the next stage of child proofing!

Oslo revisited

Click HERE for an update

Back in Houston!

We arrived back in Houston at about 1pm this afternoon. It appears the return to Central Time is not going smoothly, likely due to our short night last night. It is now 7:45pm and I am up after a 1.5 hour nap - Barb and Sean not so much awake. Thanks to our support crew for taking care of the house and Barley! Keri Carter and Dan, Marge and Joanne (Dziadziu, Grandma and Aunt Joanne.)

After all the rain in June and July it did not rain the whole time we were gone. All the vegetation is wilted and dry, despite a watering by Dziadziu on Wednesday. The sprinkler had been on since 2pm and will keep going until I fall asleep.

The plan for pictures? I plan to post incrementally by updating the posts made during our wonderful vacation. The first picture post is here: 1211a-and-we-are-on-plane

Thoughts on vacation Part-I:

• It is amazing how much spoken English we encountered in all of Scandinavia. Every individual we had occasion to speak to had better English than the employees we encountered at Cafe Adobe on the way back from the Airport in Houston.
• The babies had freedom to breast feed everywhere and in every situation without stigma. This included crowded trains, cafes, restaurants, social occasions, etc.
• It was freakin' expensive! Between it being normally costly Scandinavia and the weak dollar I am afraid to look at my bank and credit card records online! Maybe tomorrow night after being fortified by a few shots of Brennivin! (Also known as Black Death - Finally! An alcoholic beverage encountered abroad that cannot be purchased at Spec's at all, let alone cheaper than in it's own country. We did not get a chance to sample in Iceland, but I did score a bottle at the Duty Free on the way home. Just tried it, not that bad but burns all the way down for several minutes.)
  
• It was surprisingly hard (even after being there in 2002) to use credit cards in Norway - typically because my card does not have my photo on it. Iceland was a different story - we could have spent our entire stay there without ever using cash!
• Special thanks to Eric's family: Jack, Karin, Sara, Michael, Jacob and Leo for hosting us in Norway and Sweden and allowing us to share part of their family time with the USA Wheatley's. Their generosity cannot be appreciated enough!
• I am sorry to report that I did not get to try puffin. A restaurant that served puffin was just 5 doors down from our apartment in Reykjavik but could not seat us on late notice.
  

Back in the USA

Howdy!  Just landed in Minneapolis.  We will stay the night here before going on to Houston.  It is nice to be home!

Leaving Iceland

Friday night we went out for a late dinner.  On the way back we encountered the start of "runtar" - the Friday and Saturday drinking festivities.  On Saturday morning we explored the downtown area, and took in most of the Lonely Planet guide architecture walking tour.

Now we are on-board Icelandair bound for Minnesota.  See y'all back in the states!

Icelandic Friday

We drove along crushed lava roads in isolated SW Iceland, between the sea and the mountains - very cool.  In the afternoon we went to the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa.  Everyone had a good time, including the babies.  It was Sean's first time to go swimming!

Real Sean update:  he is now a sitting champ! When placed in a sitting position he can maintain it well and reach and stretch for toys and objects.  Sometimes when he half tumbles over he can push himself back up to sitting position again.  His crawling skills are also much improved.  He will actually get up on his knees and hands and crawl - no longer using his head for help.  He and Rachel continue to have fun together, they like having someone their own size to play with.  This morning he stood on his own for 10 seconds.

Iceland

We finished up Stockholm on Wednesday by taking a 3 hour boat tour of the archapeligo (sp?).  We rounded out the day by spending more time in the old town and in the shopping district.

Early Thursday we left for Iceland.  We landed and rented sibling Toyota Yaris cars - consensus opinion, they suck!

We checked into our apartment and headed out to see the sights.  In a word - awesome!  The geysir area, including Geysir, the one all others are named after, was great.  The Gullfloss falls were spectacular.  Driving around the volcanic landscape was very cool.

We made it back late, got some great take-away pizza and drank wine.

Ignore decoy post about first steps

Lack of sleep, bottle of wine, let's torture aunt Joanne!

Sean's first steps...

The best beer in Scandanavia?

Nils Oscar India Ale is excellent!  It is similar to an American pale ale, and not limited to 3.7% alcohol.  Look for it at The Bishop's Arms on St. Eriksgatan.

Stockholm

Monday morning we arrived in Stockholm about 1:30pm by train.  It is a beautiful city, full of colorful old buildings crowding the waterfront where ever possible.  We checked into our hotel and then walked to the old city center.  The walk included a mile worth of the main shopping street.  Gamla Stan, the old town, is now art galleries and shops housed in 400+ year old buildings.

Tuesday we visited the Vasa, a Swedish war ship launched in 1628 that sank the same day and sat on the bottom of the harbor for several hundred years.  It is now housed in its own climate controlled building and museum.

Then we visited Skansa, the world's oldest outdoor museum.  It is mainly a collection of historic buildings relocated there from around Sweden, along with a small zoo and other attractions.  We then took along walk along the harbor to Sodermalm, the main hipster district.

The kids are doing well, considering how much we are hauling them around.  Yesterday we stopped for a feeding break (and beer) and Sean and Rachel played very well together - very cute!

Relaxing at the Sea House in Sweden

We spent the last several days relaxing at the Wheatley family sea house at Sandvik (sandy beach) Stromstad. Both of Daniel's grandparents were there along with aunt Sara and uncle Michael and their kids Jacob and Leo. It was very mellow. The house is just south of the Norway /Sweden border on a little inlet from the Atlantic. To get there requires driving 1 km down a dirt road and then hiking the last 0.5 km down a steep, rocky, hill.

We got there late afternoon Thursday. Friday was spent lounging around on the patio and the beach. About 6pm Grandpa Jack makes gin and tonics and dinner is shortly afterwards. Saturday we took our turn to make Pasta spaghetti. The biggest slowdown at the supermarket was finding sour cream - we gave up and used cream cheese. Dinner and company were great. on Saturday we took a walk to the top of a nearby ridge and looked down on the beach where the house sits.

Click here to see pictures from our trip to the cabin.

Done with the wet Western Fjords

On arrival in Trondheim it was not raining - which turned out to be an evil ploy. After the late flight and the time it took to get to town from the airport it was already after 6pm. Thanks to the very late sunset we were able to "skim" the sights of the city. By the time we went to Peppe's Pizza, for the 2nd night in a row, it was chilly and 10:30p. Summary - a beautiful small town with a very cool cathederal.

Tuesday morning we slept in to catch up a little and took a Pastalaniec death march to the Hurtigruten ship. It started to rain. The ship was a smaller version of the one I was on 5 yrs ago - the cabin was a bit cozy but comfortable.

However the rain and cold kept us inside for much of the trip. We made short visits to Kristiansund and Molde during stops - getting a taste a the beautiful scenery on the west coast.

Sean playing in the state room.

Barbara and Sean try to check out the fjords but are blown back.

This morning was spent waiting for arrival in Bergen. We got in a 2:30pm but did not clear thr terminal until nearly 3pm. By the time we made it to the bus station to stash our luggage it was almost 4pm, leaving us little time to explore rainy Bergen. Between a feeding session and a late lunch we only made it to the old warehouse district and the fish market.

Now we are back in Oslo. It is 2am and we are going to sleep before making our way to Sweden (hopefully in the late morning.)