Ending the Year Where It All Started - Boston

This Christmas we broke from tradition and traveled east instead of west, visiting Sally and Matt in Boston, MA, via the Amtrack Lake Shore Limited train from Chicago.

Our trip actually began with a short drive to the Chicago suburbs where we could park our car and hop the Metra to downtown. Then a short wait at very busy Union Station for our 9:00 pm boarding. The kids were excited to go on the train, mom and dad a bit uncertain about how the 23 hour trip would go.

After a night's rest the kids sprawl out with various activities and settle in for the day.

The train ride went very well considering the distance and the lack of sleep, and we pulled into Boston right on time. Sally and Matt picked us up at the terminal, fed us and took the kids for a swim while Andrea and I collapsed in the hotel room. Kenrick and Anthony treat Matt like their own personal jungle gym. What a guy!

The next morning was go-time. The snow was melting so the first order of business was to find a sledding hill. Sally gives Kenrick a shove.

Hey, who shrunk my sled!?

Matt shows Paxton the finer points.

The snow was perfect for packing and the kids still weren't worn out, so an impromptu snowman popped up in the middle of Kingsley Park. This was followed by a spirited snowball fight. Even Paxton got in on the action.

Since the day also happened to be Christmas, the second order of business was dinner. Sally fixed a colorful, flavorful feast, quickly devoured by our famished little family.

The next day we took Kenrick and Anthony ice skating. Neither had done it before, although they both claimed to know how. Reality was a little more difficult than imagination, but they both did really well and were eager to try it again later in the week.

Anthony gets a little support.

Man down!

Later we found shelter from the cold and developing rain under some whale bones. Harvard's Museum of Natural History houses a huge collection of mounted insects, birds, and mammals. Kenrick and Anthony enjoyed identifying various critters that they'd only previously seen in books as well as the extensive display of meteorites, minerals and gemstones. Paxton got lots of practice making animal sounds.

What could be better after a long day of walking than a hot chocolate with auntie Sally?

On Sunday afternoon we drove up to Rockport, MA to check out the classic New England atmosphere and to smell the Atlantic. This is it boys, we've officially been coast to coast.

A cute couple in a cute little fishing town.

Monday found us walking about downtown Boston (after a much anticipated ride on the 'T', Boston's subway system). Poor Andrea - at seven months pregnant she waddles more than walks, but chugged steadily along and managed to cover the distance with the help of a few strategic breaks. I'm proud of her.

We wanted to see the USS Constitution, which is moored at Boston's Navy Yard, but the sailing ship had been winterized and was closed for the season. We did go through the museum there, which I would highly recommend if you happen to be in the area, and did see the ship at the dock, but it didn't have it's masts or sails up. Too bad. Also at Navy Yard is the USS Cassin Young, which was open, the tour through which reaffirmed my respect for seamen everywhere.

You can hardly turn around in Boston without running into another historic building or statue or street corner. I'll have to admit that I wasn't so interested in those things on this trip, but is was neat to see the famous meeting house Faneuil Hall in the heart of downtown Boston and to take in the historic architecture, realizing that some of these places have been standing here since the early 1700's.

They just don't build them like this any more...

Finally, our trip took us to the visit the fishes. At the New England Aquarium, that is. The centerpiece is a giant saltwater tank that rises three stories high and is home to many strange and wonderful critters including this 75 year old sea turtle who kept trying to steal all the grub at meal time.

One final project. Nice work, guys! Wow, what a day.

Kenrick and Anthony really wanted to go skating again, so we bundled up and headed to Frog Pond in Boston Common to brave the wind and bitter cold. Boston Common (New England-ish for Park) is bounded by famous Beacon Hill which has remained a very classic, historic part of the city.

We enjoyed a short walk through the narrow streets of Beacon Hill and I noticed that the street lamps were glowing kind of oddly. Turns out they're gas lamps, burning away like a Norman Rockwell painting. Neat.

Finally, it was time to go. Sally and Matt dropped us off at the train terminal at about noon and we pulled in to Chicago at 9 the next morning. Not bad.

I didn't get many pictures of the train ride, but did think to pull out my phone as we were getting off the train in Chicago. The fuzzy pic looks about like I felt after the long haul, but I recovered quickly and can say that all in all we had an excellent adventure.
Thanks again Sally and Matt for your super hospitality.

Ikea Weekend

Last Friday night we left the kids in Peoria and went up to Chicago with a couple of other couples for a relaxing triple-date at our favorite Brazilian steak house, a quiet, kidless night in Shaumburg, and then an epic shopping outing at Ikea. Andrea came prepared with a list as long as her arm to finish and furnish the girl's room and to get a new bed for a soon-to-be-booted-from-his-crib Paxton. Since Leann also had a long list and Karena has been known to make her charge card sing, we rented a small U-Haul trailer to pack all our loot back home. Here we are, piling the last of the famous Ikea flat-boxes into the trailer.

I was a bit disappointed that we weren't able to fill the trailer a little fuller-er, although after looking at the length of our receipts I think Doug was wishing that he'd bought Ikea stock.

All told, it was a fabulous weekend in the company of a fabulous bunch of characters. Now, where did I put my hex-wrench?

My Boys

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Welcome to Peoria

Don's parents and sister recently moved to the Peoria area and we're delighted to have them. The evening of the big move produced many helping hands, a good neighbor, and lots of exasperated comments from the daughter-in-law about boxes and boxes of various kitchen oddities.

Don is also delighted to have mom and pop close by.

We're going to have to start calling Don (the third) by his boyhood name to keep him separated from his dad, Don Jr. I know he doesn't mind being called Donny, but it still sounds a little funny to me.

I didn't get any actual pictures of the newest Peorians, but anyway, welcome to our town, Don, Barb, and Sheila!

Eagle Expert

Kenrick's BIG assignment before Thanksgiving was a research project on an animal of his choice, complete with written report and diorama showing the animal in it's native habitat. Kenrick chose to write about the Harpy Eagle of the South American rain forest. As you know, third grade projects also tend to be dad projects, so he and I spent a few evenings putting together our best impression of a Harpy home.

And a close-up. Notice the nest with two eggs (only one survives) and the sloth hanging from a vine (Harpy's eat them!).

Baby's First Portrait

So, even though it looks like she has a giant wart on her nose, you have to admit that this is a pretty cute picture. Amazing, huh, to be able to peek inside her snug little cocoon and get a glimpse of what's to come?


This was actually taken when Andrea had her sonogram and we found out that we were having a girl, so it's a bit overdue, sorry.

Paxtonspeak

Paxton is quickly expanding his communication skills from grunting and pointing to hollering relatively understandable words and gesturing wildly. As quickly as possible. Constantly. This morning he bounced into our bedroom while I was getting ready for work and spotted one of my beat up hats on the chair. "At? At!", holding it up in the air.
"No thanks, Paxton, I don't want to wear my hat right now."
"Oh."
"Ook?", holding up a book.
"Thank you, Paxton, put the book down please."
"Otty! Otty! Ahtee!" with sudden urgency, running to the bathroom.
"Do you need to go potty Paxton?" I heard Andrea ask.
"Ah Tee!"
"Oh, 'I teeth'. Okay, here's your toothbrush."

Some words he's got the pronunciation, but not the context. "Up?" is either "Pick me up" or "Put me down", depending on where he is currently. "Ot!" is usually "Hot!", but sometimes is "Cold!", like when he's eating ice cream.

Many words require only a little translation. "Daddy!" is "DaddyI'msogladyou'rehomepickmeuppleaserescuemefrommybigbrothersyay!" or sometimes
"DaddylookatmelookatmewhileIrunlikeamaniacaroundthehouse!" "Teedzaa" is what we had tonight for supper, as in "Mo teedzaa? Tank oo." "Guk!" applies to anything remotely yucky. "Goggy" is his best friend and special security blanket.

His brother's names are still a challenge. Today, Anthony is "eNtee", Kenrick is "Kenyaa", although usually his communication with them sounds something like "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Yesterday he launched into a whole story about something, pointing this way and that and then concluding with a big "Boom!" and throwing his hands in the air. I didn't understand a word.

Punkin' Heads

The boys carved their pumpkins a couple of weeks ago. First task, scoopin' goop. Paxton observes.

Then tries his hand at cleaning out his own little head. What he lacks in effectiveness he more than makes up for with enthusiasm.

Halloween. A scary ghost, a knight who can't see through his helmet, a pacifier-sucking half-rabbit, and an Alpaca-hatted dad. Sugerville, here we come!

Thinking Yellow

This morning Kenrick hollered down the stairs, "Mom, do blue or black pants go with a yellow shirt?" Then I heard him say to himself, "I guess black goes with yellow because that matches the Hawkeyes."

That's my boy.

Congrats Banana

Congratulations to sister-in-law Shanna for completing her first half-marathon this morning. Two hours, eight minutes, well done!

A Girl!!

Today we took the much-anticipated trip to the Wondrous Sonogram Machine and found out that little chaos maker number four is sugar and spice and everything nice. That's right, we're having a girl! We're all delighted. The boys are excited to think of having a little sister (except Paxton, he's clueless), Andrea can hardly believe it, and I get butterflies in my belly every time I think of a girl version of my three little monkeys adding to the Pandemonium.

I guess we'll find out how pink and pigtails mix with mud and blood.

Anthonyism #387

Anthony is at the Age Of Spelling Everything. Yesterday he asked, "How many f's are in 'cell phone'?"

"None Anthony, the 'f' sound is spelled with a 'ph'. How many did you think there were? Sound it out, how do you spell it?"

"S-e-l-f P-h-o-n-e?"

Exactly.

Snips and Spuds

Out little garden produced a surprising crop in spite of our best efforts to ignore it this year. We didn't get as many tomatoes as we have in the past because of our weird weather, but the root crops did well and yesterday we worked on pulling out everything we could, trying to get ahead of impending frost and other nastiness. When we got all finished our wheelbarrow was brimming with carrots, parsnips, onions, leeks, squash, a cucumber, a lone garlic bulb, and a pile of taters. I wanted Paxton to lift up one particular monster spud so that I could take a picture, but it was so heavy he could hardly hold it!

Strange October

We are well into October, but it doesn't seem like we should be. Although the weather has started to cool into fallishness and it's starting to "smell like Halloween", as Anthony said the other day, the farmers in our area haven't yet been able to harvest. As a result we have a strange mix of calendars where on one side the leaves on the trees are starting to turn to bright fall colors and on the other side the standing corn and slowly drying beans look more like the beginning of September. We've started to see some harvesters taking a few tentative passes through some of the drier corn this week, but the grain bins are empty and the farmers are nervous.

Life continues here in Pandemonium land, the clowns are healthy, the cow, I mean the fat lady, I mean the Queen of the Jungle is cracking the whip, and the ringleader is trying to keep up. Football season is under way and the Princes are doing well, the Hawkeyes are unbeaten, and the Broncos are ranked in the top ten. Go team(s)! Kenrick is still enjoying soccer and Anthony's learning how to swim. Paxton's finding the beat of his own little drum and generally driving his mother to exhaustion. I'm trying to stay in shape, but finding that without an event in the near future to look forward to, the motivation to get out of my warm bed in the morning is seriously lacking. Now that feels more like October!

Travel Tunes

Who needs a fancy stereo when you could have a live concert right in the car?

(I'm going to go bananas)

No you don't hon...

This morning while we were getting ready for meeting I heard Andrea exclaim from around the corner, "Oh stink! I look like a big fat cow!"

Four months down, only five more to go...

Saturday Morning Activities

It isn't Saturday morning if it doesn't begin with pancakes! Can you tell these two trouble-makers are related?

Kenrick has started fall soccer. This year he's on the short end of the 3rd to 5th grade age group, but quick feet and fearless abandon run circles around the big and slow any day.

Chasing after a loose ball.


Kenrick is starting to get the concept of teammates and positions on the field and is letting his defense defend when he's on offense and passing it forward when he's on defense, but it's still not unusual for him to chase the ball from one side of the field to the next, sometimes passing his own teammates along the way. Oh well, he's having a lot of fun and the games are still pretty relaxed so nobody cares if he seems to be everywhere at once. Go Kenrick!

Tri It Off Road

On Saturday my buddy Don and I completed our first off-road triathlon at Wildlife Prairie Park. The event was organized by couple of local adventure racers hoping to bring an XTERRA event to the park next year, so it was small and pretty relaxed compared to some of the other races we've been in, but it was well run and a lot of fun.

We heard about the race only a few weeks ago, so didn't really have much of a chance to train for it, although with our schedules lately it probably wouldn't have made much difference. Anyway, I hadn't been swimming since my last race in August and neither Don nor I had been on our mountain bikes all summer, so I wasn't quite sure if I'd be up for the challenge of stringing together a 500m swim, a 10k mountain bike ride, and a 5k trail run back to back to back, but we've been out on the road some this summer, and I have run a few times in the last couple of months... it can't be that difficult can it? I'll probably be all right. Let's do it!

Oh, did I mention that this was the inaugural race and so was likely going to be pretty small? We found out a couple of days before that the organizers expected about "25 to 30 competitors" to show up, some of whom were going to do the biathlon (bike and run) race and some as a team! Oh boy. Honestly, now my goal is just to not finish last.

I didn't finish last. Really, the race went pretty well, but was plenty difficult. The swim in the strip-mine fishing pond was okay - perfect water temperature and nice route (with Walmart kids pool toys for guide buoys!) - but it was a little frustrating to get out of the water nearly last. Swimming slow wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't expend so much energy doing it! Don was long gone by the time I finally wobbled by way out of the water and into the transition area. I eventually got my jersey and biking shoes on and started out after him, but quickly realized that I wouldn't be setting any biking records either. The route was mainly on hiking paths that wound up and down and around the forest and ponds and meadows on the hilly, undeveloped west side of the park that weren't very smooth and definitely weren't technical enough to slow down the road warriors. I think my insides were half scrambled by the time I got done, but my legs had recovered somewhat and so I shuffled off with half-hearted hopes of catching somebody, anybody. The trail run was a lot of fun, taking off from the established hiking paths and winding into the woods, down some steep slopes into the valley and across some low-lying meadows and a few streams (mud! yahoo!) and some fallen logs before heading back up hill to the finish. Tough. But I did pass a couple of people and ended up coming in 7th overall. Out of about 16. Not bad.

Don finished 3rd. The guy's a monster! Way to go Don! Wait, don't feel to high and mighty yet, the lady that finished first is about 52 years old. She's the current XTERRA Midwest Region points leader and was something like 10 minutes ahead of Don. She wasn't even breathing hard. Oh well.

Van Buren State Park, MI

Monday morning on our way home from Alma we stopped at Van Buren State Park, just south of the town of South Haven, to check out the sand dunes and get our toes wet in Lake Michigan.
The sand rises right off the beach into a line of heavily forested dunes. Kenrick and Anthony enjoyed climbing one of the tallest ones.

Wildlife, not native to the area...

The water was chilly, but good for wading and washing. The sand was warm, soft, and very hard to get out of the boys hair.

More Anthonyisms

This afternoon on our way home from Michigan we stopped for lunch at a Steak-n-Shake. Anthony looked at the big red sign next to the restaurant for a few moments and then said, "I don't want to go to Stink-n-Shake!"

Later this evening at the supper table Kenrick and Anthony were having a hard time keeping their feet to themselves and after Andrea had to tell them for the hundredth time to quit kicking each other she said to me, "I wish we had a round table so that nobody could reach anyone else." Anthony looked at the table and said, "But Mommy, we do have a brown table!"

USANA Convention

Andrea and I just returned from the 2009 USANA International Convention in Salt Lake City. We had a good trip, learned a lot, and came home with a new respect for the USANA products and for the USANA organization.

Andrea, standing 'round the Energy Solutions Arena (home of the Utah Jazz) where the main conference sessions were held.

The arena was packed for each of the five general sessions that were held during the three day conference, with entire sections devoted to Associates from Mexico, Canada, Japan, and other markets where USANA is sold. Impressive.

On Saturday morning I ran in the 5K fun run/walk that was held to support the Children's Hunger Fund, an organization that USANA and USANA's founder Dr. Myron Wentz has been heavily involved with for years. Here I am early in the morning, before the race.



They're off! Andrea's cell phone camera couldn't quite stop the action as I blazed past, smiling for now... No official time was kept, but by my watch I finished the 5k in about what I wanted - somewhere between a jog and a jaunt.

The general sessions were filled with a broad mix of information and entertainment, inspirational speeches and emotional testimonials, instruction, training, spoofs, and product introductions. I've never heard of another company who's top executives poke such fun at each other. Some of it was a little over the top, but I did enjoy hearing Olympian and former WNBA player Jennifer Azzi talk about her experience as a professional athlete and the effect the USANA products had on her performance and health. And it was neat to see and hear from the six other active professional athletes that she brought onto the stage with her, including a gentleman by the name of Werner Berger who scaled Mt. Everest at the age of 70 and is in training to do it again.


Probably the most interesting and unique thing that happened during the convention, though, was on Saturday morning when, to the surprise and delight of the crowd, Larry King himself walked onto the arena stage. He sat down at a desk in the middle of the stage to interview Tim Sales, one of the top ambassadors for the Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) industry, and we all watched as Larry did what he does best - digging into the topic of MLM with the hardest, most pointed questions he could find. As far as we could tell, the interview was unscripted and unrehearsed, and at the end of it Larry was able to conclude in his own words that with the right product and a well administered MLM business model there is enormous potential for growth. "Where do I sign up?" he asked. Then he did a twenty minute comedy routine...

Take a look at this write-up from the Salt Lake Tribune: http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_13230913

So anyway, we had a good time, learned a lot, and are going to be insufferable for the next few months until our enthusiasm wears down a bit. Sorry.

Shameless plug: Take a look at Andrea's new and improved USANA web site - http://www.healthymomhappyfamily.usana.com/