Saturday, July 31, 2010

The Salty Ham

I got to go to Birmingham to "visit" my brother and sister-in-law this past week. I say "visit" because it was more like "work my tail off in helping them move into their new house." It is amazing how much one can get done without a little one running around. Many thanks to my wonderful husband, mom, and a few excellent babysitters for making this possible. I took a lot of pictures of their house, but I am going to refrain from posting any right now because I know Steph will want to post her own pics on her own forgotten blog once they get everything into the right spot.
I also got to see my childhood best friend who is just starting residency at UAB. It was great to see her, hug her and hear all about life as a general surgery resident (I'll be honest-it doesn't sound so great).



James made us some delicious dinner one night and we all went out to dinner at a very hip and cool restaurant another night to repay me for all of my hard work.


It was really great to be with them, can't wait till we can see them again!

Sunday, July 25, 2010

They were meant to be friends


Today we got the chance to catch up with Emily- a friend who lived here but has since moved to Chicago and then State College, PA. We had fun catching up and watching our kids play. If this picture is any indication, then I'm pretty sure they had a great time together too.

The $229 tube of toothpaste


No, it wasn't made of gold or laced with diamonds. It was merely flushed down the toilet. And not by a little boy, but by his mom, who tends to be rather clumsy. I'm not sure how it all went down(literally and figuratively), but somewhere between me going to the bathroom and then holding Tripp to help him brush his teeth, I knocked the tube of toothpaste down from the shelf into the toilet as it was flushing. It went down and everything seemed to be ok. Till today when the toilet would pretty much no longer flush. Since we live in a 1 bathroom house, we had to do something about it pretty much right away. Thank goodness for the 24 hour/7 days a week Roto Rooter man named Gabe. He was at our house in less than an hour after calling (which was a great thing because I drank a soda for lunch and had to go to the bathroom pretty badly by the time he got there). So he picked up the toilet, took it out to the front lawn (I really wanted to get a picture of that but I didn't want him to think I was really weird so I decided to pass on that), and proceeded to auger (not sure if that is verb or not) for a good 10 mins before wrangling out a tube of baby toothpaste. I guess that's what you get for trying to teach your kid about proper tooth hygiene. If I bring our bill into the dentist at Tripp's first visit, do you think they will reimburse us?

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

portraits from montreat









* I did not take any of these pics

cars and trucks and things that go



i'm sure this collection will only continue to grow

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Summer Update!

Nelson's mom sent us the charger for his computer, so I now have access to the pics from North Carolina. The only problem is that I do not usually use his computer to write my blog posts. So the extremely lazy side of me does not want to go upstairs to the computer and start uploading pics. We will see if I suddenly become motivated. It isn't looking good, let me tell you that. Anyway, we had a great time there, especially on our little 48-hour get-a-way. That's right- Nelson and I got to enjoy about 48 child-less hours. It was really wonderful. Really, really wonderful. I know anyone with kids reading this will understand completely. The day after we got back, my brother came to town. He was busy during part of the day attending a conference on levies and dirt (yes, that is really what it was about), but when he didn't have to be there, we had a great time hanging out, taking Tripp to the Magic House and Richard's Ribs (a delicious bbq spot here in the Lou), and eating frozen custard. And since I already posted all those pics on Facebook, I will not post them all again here. Now we are just settling back into regular life here. Tripp is busy everyday learning new words, practicing his walking, and pretty much getting cuter every second (I know, I am biased). And today Nelson's parents celebrate their 30th anniversary. That is pretty amazing if I do say so myself. Marriage is a constant reminder to me both of my sin and God's grace in our lives. Their marriage is nothing less than an encouragement to us on what it means to put Christ first in your life and your family. I am so thankful for them and for the example that they are to us!
And here is a funny story (and picture) to leave you with. The other morning I was cooking breakfast. Usually during this time, Tripp is just playing around in the house somewhere (don't worry, our house is not that big and I know what he is up to). Well, on this particular morning, Tripp was playing with his cozy coupe as he does often (as another aside- Nelson and I realized today that having a cozy coupe inside your house, and sometimes in your room, is kinda a weird thing.Tripp will probably be traumatized one day when we have a garage and it stays in there instead. So we probably will need to get another one just to keep in his room. But I digress). So Tripp was walking around with his cozy coupe and then after about 30 seconds I noticed things were pretty quiet. Of course, like any other mom, when it gets quiet, you know that trouble is brewing. Usually when Tripp is quiet and in our room, I can find him standing at Nelson's bedside table, looking at the clock, cell phone, jump drive, and computer just begging to be touched. He is standing there just shaking his head like he is reminding himself not to touch those things. Then usually he goes for Nelson's empty glasses case cause he knows he is allowed to play with that. So I was quite surprised when on this particular morning, I found the quiet kid not in our room, but in his own room, sitting in his cozy coupe reading a book. This went on for a few minutes while I just stood there and watched (and then snapped a few pics which blew my cover). It must have been a riveting book to cause him to stop for a while to read!

Monday, July 12, 2010

summer


We just got back from a week in North Carolina which was a wonderful time with Nelson's family. All our pictures are on his computer and we do not have the charger for that computer, so I won't be able to post any pictures of that yet. We are getting back into the swing of things here. It's not so easy to go back to work after over a week off! But Tripp was happy to be reunited with his St. Louis grandparents and had a great time reading some Richard Scarry with his grandfather when we got back on Sunday night.