Happy Halloween

The best thing about James' horse costume is that I got it for 1.50 at Gabe's! I guess procrastinating buying a halloween costume is a good thing after all!

Our Trip To New Mexico

Here you see co-pilot Luca on Southwest returning from New Mexico! They invited him in the cockpit before we took off and they later announced his name on the intercom! It was the coolest thing and it meant so much to him. I thought this kind of human interaction was lost forever on air travel but apparantly not.

This is the gravel road we drove on for 8 miles to go to an observation point at tent rocks national monument! We bottomed-out the rental car twice, but it was well worth it!

Here we are at Bandalier, an ancient cliff dwelling, where you can climb the ladders and crawl into the caves. It was awesome!

This is a picture of Jeremiah's desk. And this post is written by Jeremiah. Left to right:

1)business cards in a black box - and I keep about ten or twenty dollars in one dollar coins in there in case I need a little cash. (cleaning lady, please do not read joanie's blog and find my pirate treasure)

2)CD's wrapped in bubble wrap that I keep around in case I need to pop some of those bubblies (really gets the creative juices flowing)

3)various business cards for people I'm working with now. I prefer to splay my rolodex in seemingly random fashion out across my desk. This allows for quick visual access, as well as displaying as the plumage of a fine bird for all to see the breadth and quality of my professional contacts

4)Lots of notes that need to be turned into meeting minutes (my secretary is being such a slacker lately)

5)some sketches and various pencils and penz (sometimes I like to stack my writing utensils all on end - not today tho - too busy and I might knock them over with my vigourous typing. I type with two fingers and I really strike the keys with some force)

6)phone - my extension is #"I'm pretending not to be here"

7) new widescreen monitor - we all just got these. please do not touch mine with your fingers or write on it with a sharpie. Also, if you are going to place a container of butter on a frisbee and let fly, do it in a direction not toward my screen - thank you.

8)more stuff like sketches and things in a big pile - this is where the magic happens.

Methodology:

a)take a rats nest of paper and sketches

b)add random bits of lost notes, crumple, push aside,

d)work until the middle of the night on your 3rd anniversary

c)pull out hair (professionalism dictates that said hair be your own),

d)throw professionalism out the window - argue heatedly about something inconsequential

e)argue heatedly about something consequential

f)...

g)and two years later you get this: http://www.villanova.edu/nursing/building/

Thank you for taking a tour of my workspace.

When I leave this place - especially at this hour - Irun to the train beacuse this area of baltimore is quite sketchy. Joanie will atest to the fact that I have very impressive top-end speed.

Aztec Roses

When I tell Luca that it's time to go to bed, he'll try to distract me, or tell me that, "It's not good manners to say that." One way that he distracts me is to yell: "Oh no, a deer is eating your Dahlias." He's right, I am so entrenched in an epic battle with our deer over my flowers that when offered the use of a compound bow by a friend, I actually considered it for a moment. But since my ethics would then compel me to eat the deer, I defered. When Luca eats sausage he likes to pretend that he's a dinosaur and the sausages are dahlias (since we all know that dahlias are a dinosaur's favourite food). He also likes to whack my dahlia plants with a stick - but I'm not quite far enough removed from the incident to make an impartial description. He's also finding that girls (his mom) like it when he gives them a flower to put in a vase - our nieghbors would prefer that the flowers be ones picked from our garden. The starches in the tubers of these Aztec flowers were used before the invention of insulin to treat diabetes.

I love this pic of my sweet James-er.
Luca is lovin the slip n slide.

Our first attempt at Dahlia's was moderately successful. Although they are few, those that grew are spectacular.

Which is scarier? Luca in his scary mask?
Or chef Luca with crazed look in his eye?


Luca and I made this quilt together. Sewing with a 3 year old on your lap does not result in the most exact stitching. He loved it though.
Nice Hair.
Note James worried eyes. That is his expression whenever Luca comes on his radar.

Hershey Park Happy

Luca: "mommy, are you Aldi's happy?"
Joanie: "umm, sure I'm Aldi's happy, are you Aldi's happy?
Luca: "no...I'm Hershey Park Happy!"

Luca, James, and I went to Hershey Park Yesterday with my parents and Emily. Luca rode his first roller coaster...the trailblazer. That was my first roller coaster too (and nearly every other kid's from central PA). I was surprised by how much Luca loved the rides, especially because the playground toddler swings are a bit too much of a thrill for him. I think James would admit that he was partial to the milkmen show.

Enjoying the living daylights out of it

We just returned from a week at beach. Both of my boys are little brown bears (despite wearing SPF 50 and spending most of the time in the shade). Thankfully they inherited my ability to tan and will not be rivaling Jer for whitest man on the beach. We had a wonderful time. Luca got to spend some time with his great grandparents, also with his mom-mom and pap-pap, and his aunt Emmy and Uncle Tom.

5 years later

Here Jer and I (Sporting the horiz stripes) pose on our 5th anniversary. These 5 years have gone by so fast for me. I remember once sitting next to the canal in Seneca Falls with Jer. We knew no one in the whole town. It is a very cold, economically depressed, and socially isolated area. We moved there inorder to be able to complete our respective graduate schools, and we each had an hour commute through the snow belt. We were talking about how depressing it would be to move there without one another, but since we were together it was wonderful. I have beautiful memories of that year even though we were poor, and I was a terrible cook (even the sister missionaries didn't want to come over for dinner).
Wherever Jer is, that is where I want to be. It has been like that since I first met him. I know that I will be happy.



SUMMER VISITORS:
We have been very blessed to have lots of visitors this summer. Here are some of the pics
James, Maddie, Rachelle, and Anthony
Luca and Arianna played wonderfully together. They measured Dinosaur footprints and searched for fossils at the science center.






Aaron, Ashley, Clarissa, Luca, and James
Tommy with 3 friends came down to barbeque before an orioles game
I went to M-burg to "babysit". I had a wonderful time being with my little sis. Here we make a fire and roast marshmellows.

Here we are in Duck NC. Jer dares to enter the sunlight to dig a hole with Luca.

Happy anniversary Joanie

This is a revolutionary armband that I sometimes like to wear so that I don't forget that our anniversary is on July 26. Even now, five years later, I still have to look in the dictionary in order to correctly spell the word 'marriage'. (Do we still have the 5oo announcements I made to let people know about our impending 'marraige'?) As we got to know each other we found out that our unique strengths complement eachother to form a more perfect whole (for example, we found that I'm smarter and she's a faster swimmer: In a biathlon relay involving aquatics and verbose prognostication we would do quite well.) Luckily, I proposed before they changed the meatball recipe at Wegmans (Note to Wegmans: The post 2002 meatballs are a tad heavy on the garlic - actually more than a tad I'd say). We had a wonderful wedding and festivities (Joanie: next time you get married and have a wedding reception on a military base try to remember to have proper ID so as to be admitted to the party.)We moved to Seneca Falls, NY (The birthplace of both Womens' rights and the Mormon Church???) Where we lived for one year in the old Third Ward School building (no insulation in the walls or ceiling). Then we moved back to Ithaca for two years where Luca was born ('naturally', thanks to that area's general cultural proclivity toward eating too much granola). The fact that Luca had the same pediatrician that was present at my birth caused me to have a great epiphany that moving away from my birth city might be healthy (the full course of said epiphany taking 9 months to play itself out - I'm sorry joanie) . This landed us in Baltimore Maryland where James was born (Joanie, Where would you like to have our next baby be born?) I can say with confidence that these last five years have included the four best years of my life.

Going to the Photographer

There are many books available to prepare children for experiences that may be frightening. Example: Going to the doctor, Going to the Dentist, Starting School....well we need one to prepare children for Going to the photographer. Luca was terrified and wouldn't even sit on the table. He is normally so friendly and independent but as soon as we walked in that studio he clung to my leg and started crying "I don't want to!" Its not the sort of situation where you can take the hard line, "LUCA just get up on that table and SMILE." Probably won't get the best facial expression. Eventually he warmed up and we got at least one decent shot of the two of them.

LILIES

Here are a few more pictures of our flowers. This time it is Lily season. These remind me of that song that goes:
Behold the lilies of the field, how they grow...
and then there's more, but I never remember it. This morning James and I were waiting for the sun to rise, checking out our lilies, and wondering why I have to go to work too early and come home too late. And I was remembering snippets of this Longfellow poem I had read a long time ago:

Beautiful lily, dwelling by still rivers,
Or solitary mere,
Or where the sluggish meadow-brook delivers
Its waters to the weir!

Thou laughest at the mill, the whirr and worry
Of spindle and of loom,
And the great wheel that toils amid the hurry
And rushing of the flame.

And finally, part of Brahms' german requiem:

Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras
und alle Herrlichkeit des Menschen
wie des Grases Blumen.
Das Gras ist verdorret
und die Blume abgefallen

For all flesh is as grass,
and all the glory of man
as the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
and the flower thereof falleth away

I don't actually understand german, I just put it here because thats how I remember hearing it on my parents' scratchy LP when I was a teenager first coming to a realization of my own mortality. Anyway, here are the pictures:
*Jeremiah