(One Year Early) 5th Anniversary Trip

Since an 8-month-old baby might put a crimp in any big travel plans next summer, Gabriel and I treated ourselves to a one-year-early 5 year anniversary trip in July. Jonah and Manny were graciously hosted by Pop-Pop and Gangee in Michigan, which was a lot of fun for them and a nice break for two young parents. Even if we did miss the kids, I'm confident that driving 1600 miles in 7 days with them would've made our trip into nothing that remotely resembled a vacation. While the boys enjoyed pony and tractor rides, a trip to the zoo with Grandma Camille and Auntie Angie, a beach trip and a visit with their cousins, Gabriel and I embarked on a rather patriotic-themed journey to Gettysburg, Washington, D.C. and Monticello before our return to Chicago.

Gettysburg: A audio tape-guided driving tour with took us over four hours. While there was more to do in Gettysburg, we lacked both time and energy. The audio tour was more than enough, though, and gave us a great perspective on the battlesite.
If I remember correctly, there are something like 2,000 monuments around the battlefield, marking the armies' positions during the battle and sites where men were killed; others have been erected as memorials to people, states and army divisions (or battalions, or regiments, or whatever else have you). A Gettysburg fanatic could spend years walking thru the battlefield this way.

Our next stop was Washington, D.C., where we attended a friend's wedding. We stayed for a couple nights and days and so were able to do some site-seeing of our own, of which I actually have no real pictures. Here I am, though, standing in front of some trees in front of the White House. Just picture a panoramic shot with the White House far off to my left. Great, huh? This is supposed to be a picture of my pregnant belly, but the black dress is doing me a favor and minimizing it. I think that I'm past the point of "minimization" now.

One of the great things about D.C. is that all of the Smithsonian museums are free. Free! I went to the American Craft museum, where I saw this amazing sculpture. It's a clock covered in a sheet, but the sheet is carved of the same piece of mahogany(?) as the clock base. It was amazing. I couldn't believe that it wasn't a real sheet, even from six inches away. I was very tempted to ignore all the "Please do not touch" signage, but I managed to control my hands.

Gabe and I decided to have an adventure and save a little money by camping. It was a mild disaster, but I did manage to set the tent up almost all by myself, with a little help from Gabe. It stayed up all night. Moral of the story, though, is "Don't camp when 5 months pregnant, unless maybe you have an air mattress." Lesson learned!

If I had to pick a highlight of the trip, maybe I'd pick Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's plantation. The gardens and grounds are amazing, as is the house and all custom-made Jeffersonian peculiarities. Whatever his shortcomingss may have been, Jefferson clearly had an amazing mind to design and build Monticello, not to mention write the Declaration of Independence.

I didn't know that this is how artichokes grow!

Outside the house, after our tour.

The happy couple. After not-so-happily taking the wrong path and having to turn around and re-hike it to the right one, but who remembers that now? At least we're still smiling.

Many thanks to those who cared for our kids for us, so that we could have this Americana vacation!

Macro

One of my favorite settings on the camera Gabriel gave me for Christmas is the macro (or super-facro!) close-up setting. Who doesn't love pictures of flowers?

Jonah checks out the blooms at the Lincoln Park Conservatory, where we saw the following fauna. I love the colors in this hibiscus. Or, as Jonah calls it, a "biscuit." I wish I knew if he just can't get his mind and tongue around the unfamiliar word, or if he really thinks that I'm saying, "Hi, Biscuit" to the flower. I can only hope that it's the latter.

A couple varieties of orchid.

I actually saw this flower at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's Virginian plantation. All the other flowers had labels, but not this one. Anyone know what it is? Whatever it is...wow.

In memory

Quite sadly and unexpectedly, Gabriel's beloved grandfather Robert Hay passed away in May. (The obituary can be found here.) Even more sadly, this happened while our family was in Pennsylvania and we were unable to travel back to Grand Rapids during his decline in the few days before he died. We are thankful in retrospect that we had decided somewhat spontaneously to travel to Grand Rapids in early April, and while we were there, Grandpa was able to see Gabriel, Jonah and Manny for what would be the last time. Thank God for such mercies. One of my sweetest (by which I mean "bitter-sweetest," of course) memories of the visitation and the funeral is the image of our boys' photos placed beside Grandpa's body in the casket. Though by the time the boys were born Grandpa didn't have the physical capacity to be rough-and-tumble with them, it was clear that he loved them very much, and it was touching to see the photos beside him as evidence of this love.

A couple days after the funeral, after Gabe had returned to Chicago for work, Jonah and Manny and I visited the cemetery to place some flowers on Grandpa's grave. During the weekend of the funeral, we explained to Jonah that Grandpa Hay's body would go into the ground to wait for Christ's return and the bodily resurrection, at which time Grandpa's salvation would be complete. Jonah was as interested in this as an almost-three-year old boy can be, I think, and he was very enthusiastic and sweet when leaving the flowers in memory. How much he understands, of course, we really don't know, but his child's understanding is as pure and sweet as anyone's.

We love you, Grandpa Hay, and you are missed and your memory is cherished.

Vacay in PA

In May, our family traveled to Pennsylvania to visit our dear friends and our children's godparents ("Padrino and Madrina"), Brandon and Corene, and their children, Jude, Abigail and Ezra. As I was still suffering from pregnancy sickness and since "it's the dad's job" anyway, Gabe drove all the way to (and from!) Pennsylvania. The boys were able to eat, sleep and read en route; Gabe to do none of those things; and me, to eat, pretend to sleep and read no more than a dozen pages. Road trips: Ya gotta love 'em. (Many thanks to Cousin Stephie for loaning us her family's portable DVD player; it killed a few miles!)

Pig with apple.

We all spent a couple days and a night at Brandon's parents house, which is "out in the country." They live in a beautiful wooded development, which was nice and quiet, and we all enjoyed being spoiled by them. I don't think that Corene or I did any cooking, and we were treated to a delicious steak, grilled tuna, grilled garlic bread and artichoke dinner our first night there. (I'm sure that there was more food on the table, but my memory is having trouble stretching back two whole months.) The food was very, very exciting, and the quiet setting was so relaxing. Thanks, Ann and David!

Manny and Ezra enjoyed playing with -- what else? -- rocks in the front yard.

Jonah, Ezra, Abigail and Jude, all feast on Kid Cuisine at Grandma's house. Hey, a vacation's not a vacation without a little KC.

Grandma (Miss Ann, as our kids called her) also has a sandbox-in-a-tub. This idea is so fantastic that I now have two of these boxes o' sand at our place in Chicago. Miss Ann, however, has blue sand. I can't compete with that.

One of our excursions was going to the Army Corps resevoir and feeding the carp. Yes, that's right, carp-feeding. They eat pieces of dog food, turning into a writhing mass of slimy green scales and gaping O-shaped mouths. The carp also like to splash their slime-tainted water all over when they get really excited about their meal. It's truly disgusging, but the kids love it. Below, Brandon and Corene try to make sure that the little ones don't fall in. (They succeeded, thank heavens.)

Here's some fun video, so you can get a taste of the experience. Just make sure to keep your mouth closed -- flying water!
I'm pretty sure that the Swishers don't consider a visit to their place to be official without a visit to the Berkey Creamery, the ice cream shop on the Penn State campus. It's okay with us if a stop at the Creamery is mandatory.

Brandon single-handedly entertains five children. Nice job, Padrino.

Manny ran away. Thanks to Jude for chasing him down. Watching Jude carry my younger son was a little nerve-racking, but really quite sweet.

Many thanks to our dear friends for opening their home to us! We all have very fond memories of our visit with them and can't wait for the next time that we get to go back, whenever that may be. We miss you, Swishers!

The little garden

I was thrilled that our peonies were kind enough to hold off on blooming until we returned from Pennsylvania and Michigan. Also, I'm thrilled with the new camera that lets me take closeup photos. And thrilled that my son seems to love flowers. All in all, it's pretty thrilling around here.

Game time

The Swishers, our children's godparents, introduced us to the Chicago White Sox Kids Club about a year ago. Said Kids Club allows us to attend a baseball game for free (along with sending a poster, baseball cards, and temporary tattoos), which further cements my loyalty to the Sox and my disdain for the Cubs. On June 10, we were able to attend the Sox - Tigers game, which was the dream matchup for my husband. Of course, watching the game with two young kids is a much different experience than enjoying the game without the munchkins, but we're both thrilled to be instilling within our children a great love for the American pasttime.

Manny, who spent almost half of his in utero life in Michigan, couldn't decide which team was worthy of his adoration. He finally decided to cheer both, suiting up with the Tigers cap and White Sox shirt. (Recognize the cap, Gaspards? You were so sweet to send it to Jonah last year.) Jonah's our south Chicago boy and had no qualms cheering for only the Sox, regardless of his father's ancient loyalty.

Somebody hit a homerun, which the Sox always celebrate with fireworks. Manny, lover of danger and loud noises, gave us his sign language sign for "more." "More fireworks," he demands.

This picture fairly effectively captures the personality differences between our two boys. Not that Jonah doesn't know how to or enjoy having fun, but Manny really knows how to have fun.

Hey, not a bad picture! One of us looks directly at the camera, the other two have their faces turned in the camera's general direction. I'll take it!

This is a much more typical example, though, of what we get with our boys in the frame.

Baby pool

Have I mentioned yet how much I love having our new backyard? A yard in which we can actually play? Hmmm, I probably have. And now that it's warmer out, we're able to get out the water hose and fill up the pool a bit. Mind you, the boys don't actually play in the pool; no, no, they're far too busy caring for the plants and playing with the hose water. Well, whatever keeps them happy.

Jonah also likes to line buckets up. These days he insists that anything that is in line form is a train. Things like the heat radiators in our apartment and buckets full of water. This child lives on trains.

Practicing baseball. Here's his pitching form.

While Jonah loves to run thru the hose spray, Manny much prefers to stick his hand in the stream and spray himself in the face.

Hey, he asked for it. Quite literally, he did.