Monday, June 28, 2004

If it's the weekend, there must be grandparents nearby

Jack continued his tri-state tour this weekend with a trip to Minnesota. Grandpa and Uncle Sam had visited shortly after Jack was born, but this was his first chance to meet Grandma and Aunt Julia. We are incredibly grateful that Jack is good-natured about travelling, since we do a lot of driving, and a foul-tempered baby is not a good traveling companion. [Editor's note -- I was informed by a snarky know-it-all that I misspelled travelling in an earlier entry. Travelling can be spelled with one or two L's, and in order to enjoy the richness of the English language, I reserve the right to use both variations. In fact, I extended the previous sentence, simply to show how nicely that works.]

We went to a Jazz festival on Saturday, because Sam knew some guys who were playing. The band was quite good, and the weather was pretty nice, so it made for a nice couple of hours. We spent the rest of the day hanging around the house, and had some tasty steak off the grill for dinner. All told, it was a nice visit.

Sunday, June 20, 2004

Father's Day

It's our first Father's Day, and I'm living the good life. Stacy and Jack are going to make some cookies, I've already had some taco dip, and Stacy mowed the lawn. I've been watching the Brewer game. Every day should be Father's Day.

Jack made his first trip out-of-state this weekend, for the Henline family reunion in Illinois. As usual, he was the center of attention, and had a great time hanging out in the park all afternoon. I was worried that he would start to get fussy as time wore on, but he seems to be resigned to his fate as a travelling boy, and only began to complain when things were beginning to wind down.

We somehow managed to leave our camera in its case for the entire weekend. How dumb is that? I welcome any photos of the weekend that people want to send. I got some feedback on the choice of "Hambone" as a nickname. I think I'll characterize the reactions as....mixed.

Saturday, June 05, 2004

The Big Summer Kickoff

Memorial Day weekend was a strange one, in that it rained a lot, but not when we were golfing. That must be some kind of record.

Jack had a good time up at the cabin, but had a hard time getting some sleep with all the action. I finally had to lay him down next to my laptop, and play some Bob Marley. The combination of the light from the screen, and the soothing tunes seemed to do the job. Even without sleep, he was a very happy baby most of the time, and he had a good old time meeting all the nice people. I think that as he gets older and more used to the action, he's going to be a very popular boy up north.

Grandma Linda and Uncle Montana are visiting this weekend, and Jack even got to have a day off of daycare, since they arrived Thursday afternoon. He's handling all this excitement about as well as he handled it last weekend--that is to say, he's trying to stay awake the whole time to take in all the fun. Fortunately, we recognized it earlier this weekend, and he's in the middle of a good long nap right now.

Jack is at a stage where he can't crawl, can't really grab any toys, and pretty much just hangs out and kicks to pass the time. Stacy found a fancy bouncer with a popper built in to it, that he just loves. It doesn't require him to do anything more than kick his feet out to stand up, and stuff pops for him. I don't believe I am exaggerating when I say that this is the greatest accomplishment of western civilization.