Happy Birthday Ryan

Ryan turned three yesterday. His party was this past weekend. We don't have many pictures from the party. I guess we were all too busy having fun. We had good weather, and we rented a sports-themed bounce house for the day.



Most of the kids spent the majority of the party jumping around in the bounce house, which made for an unexpectedly laid back time for the grown ups. Everybody wins!


Last year for his second birthday Ryan got this little fish tank from Grandma and Papa.



He loves that fish tank, so this year for his birthday Grandma and Papa upgraded the digs and got some new friends for his pet goldfish.

(Abby and I are currently negotiating whether the small tank will end up in her bedroom or in my office.)

Ryan's also been begging for a bike ever since the weather's been getting nicer, so Memere and Grampy obliged. I can't believe how big he looks pedaling around on that thing!

"Mommy's At Work"

One of the reasons for the recent lack of posting is that Jess was out of town for a week. She chaperoned the middle school's yearly trip to Washington DC. I'll admit I was apprehensive about flying solo for a whole week, but we quickly fell into a good routine and we all survived. Something I found interesting was that Ryan and Abby were especially nice to each other all week. I got the feeling that Ryan was taking it upon himself to take extra special care of Abby while Mommy was gone. I think he knew that Daddy needed his help!

The Tampa Vacation

Our first big family vacation was awesome! The kids were great on the plane. On both the flight there and the flight back Abby snoozed and Ryan watched his favorite movie. They loved the hotel room. Bedtime was kind of a challenge every night, but we all got our sleep.



After we scheduled the trip, we took a look at the Tampa Bay Rays schedule and whaddaya know, the Red Sox were in town! It was RJ and Abby's first Red Sox game. We were able to distract Abby with a bucket of popcorn bigger than her head, so she sat in the stands for about 5 innings.


Ryan, on the other hand, was more interested in the kiddie play area under the bleachers. Even though I don't think he saw one pitch, he had fun anyway.




The reason for going to Tampa was to visit Great Grandma and Aunt Joanne. We spent countless hours at the playground right by Great Grandma's house, and she even took the kids for a ride on her golf cart. Ryan loved it so much he made her drive around the block a second time. Great Grandma and Aunt Joanne also went with us to Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo.




Ryan's favorite thing by far was the stingray pool, where you can reach in and touch the stingrays as they swim by.

Abby's favorite thing at the zoo was the snack bar, but since I don't have a picture of that, here's a shot of her playing on the jungle gym near the kiddie rides.

Both kids took turns riding with Great Grandma on her scooter, but Abby preferred to walk alongside, holding her hand.

Stuff that we don't have pictures of: The aquarium, the pool at the hotel, and Aunt Joanne's killer chicken wings. I ate them way too fast to get any photo evidence.

All in all a fantastic trip, and we can't wait to go on another one. Who knows? Maybe I'll even get talked into DisneyWorld one of these days!

Changing of the Guard

Hi everybody. Joe here. Jess is taking a leave of absence from posting, so I stole her password. Just testing it out right now. This is me playing golf at the world famous Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego. Check back for another update soon!