Our little lion on Halloween night

Today was Sawyer's first Halloween, and lucky for us, we happened to be in the USA! So we had a fun and eventful day. There was never a debate in our mind about what Sawyer would be for his first Halloween: a lion. Born in East Africa, Sawyer is strong on courage and he does a great little growl/roar at totally random times (best recorded in Kara's midnight video... he woke up, crawled around the crib, and roared right into the camera).

To start the festivities, we took Sawyer to the first birthday party he's had the pleasure to attend, that of his friend Sophia Grace. He had a blast hanging out with all the other kids and playing with the many toys. Always a ham, he was happy to be in the middle of a circle with everyone looking in and cameras all around.

Back home, we took Sawyer down the street for his first shot at Trick-or-Treating! He did quite well and garnered many oohs and aahs, plus some candy for his family.




One neighbor even saw him coming and dropped a baby food jar in his basket. Then when we got home and checked out our haul, he managed to chew into a Kit-Kat bar wrapper and had chocolate all over his face before we knew what he'd done. it would appear our boy likes chocolate.

Why we love Autumn

What we love about fall:

-College Football
-NFL
-Crisp Air
-Apple Cider
-Chili
-Pumpkins and other decorations
-Smell of cinnamon
-Cornucopias
-Getting out sweaters and jackets
-Building fires
-Beautiful colors, changing leaves
-Thanksgiving
-Christmas is on the way!

We Love Autumn!

Fall is easily our favorite time of the year, and sadly one of the things we missed the most while in East Africa. But currently in America, we decided to make the most of our opportunity and enjoy all that autumn has to offer! Kentucky fall can be kind of crazy... like playing golf on Saturday in 40 degree (f) temperatures with gale force winds and then hanging out in an orchard on Sunday with sun shining and temps in the mid-60s. Here's some of our fall fun at Evan's Orchard:

Does it get any cuter?

Sawyer driving the bus, all passengers rightly frightened!

We were hopelessly lost in the corn maze...

So Uncle Ryan and Sawyer put together a plan to get us out.

Pointing the way, Sawyer checks behind to make sure we're all in tow.

Enjoying our day.

Winter Gold

The new Winter Olympics medals:


Interesting? Artsy? Post-modern? Or just plain silly?

I'm going to eread my ibook

I'm a few years removed from the elementary school scene, so I don't know what's current and I'm just wondering... are "e-" and "i-" now taught in school as standard prefixes? Along with re-, un-, intra-, and other normal prefixes, it seems that e- and i- are no longer simple vowels that fit into a word. Instead, they have become single letter single syllable prefixes that can be applied to just about any word in the English language. Take for instance emarketing, iphone, and ipet.

Do you think "i-" will be added to the dictionary as an accepted prefix before every noun imaginable is copyrighted by product-pushing companies? Or will every single verb have both an ancient meaning and an e-meaning by the time my son reaches school age? Are there any nouns that can't be i-erized or impossible e-verbs?

I think I will go ecook some ibrownies and hope they don't make me efat.

4 Generations

This is 4 generations of the men in our family:

My Grandpa, my Dad, me, and my son.

This is 4 generations, 2 generations prior:My Dad (the baby), my Grandpa, my Great-Grandpa (who always called me Skeeter), and my Great-Great-Grandpa.

accomplishment in atlanta

While in Atlanta, we went to the finish line of a half-marathon that our friends Paul, Tracy, and David ran in, to encourage and support them in their quest. Really we just congratulated them. Not too much to encourage at the finish line, unless they are brought in on a golf cart. but all finished, and so we celebrated together. Our first observation of the finishing area was the smell. When we went to Africa, everyone told us we'd notice the smell when we got off the plane... not so much. But let me tell you, if you ever go to a big time long-distance race with thousands of participants, you will notice the stink when they all congregate. Wow, it was bad.

We were however, very impressed with the energy and accomplishment of the whole thing. What a great event! It really did motivate us, and so we decided to start training with Paul and Tracy... so when they take off on their runs through the neighborhood, we're going to train by hitting a visible spot to cheer and yell (maybe even make a sign with nice words on it like 'Yay' or 'Wow' or 'Run!'). Then we'll use our intellect to map out the best shortcut through backyards to another spot that we can beat them to and cheer and yell again, then cut through to catch them on another turn, and then finally catch a shortcut to the finish line, where we use whatever breath is left to yell more, like "you're almost there, if you give up now you will regret it for the rest of your life!"

Tracy is nearing the finish line, and happy to see us! Or to be almost done. We kinda sorta showed up too late to see either of the boys finish.

Like any runner, Paul is pensively exhausted after his race.

Way to go guys! We really are proud of you!

Agua

This weekend we found ourselves in Atlanta and had a fantastic time with some friends and family. Just after escaping from the airport, we turned ourselves into kids again and went to the Georgia Aquarium to enjoy the wonders of the sea!

Mommy and Daddy both thought the old sea turtle was pretty cool, Sawyer simply enjoyed the youthful enthusiasm of the swimming fish and did his best to chase and grab them, always confounded by some invisible force-field!

In the petting areas, the force-fields were much weaker... but grabbing was still discouraged.

The Beluga Whale is quite a majestic creature of the Arctic. The majesty is slightly dampened by the white noise of people though. Thankfully to the whales, people don't thrive well in ice-cold waters of the Arctic Ocean.

These two sharks were "on a date," as you can hear the narrator of the sea say.

The jellyfish were pretty cool, and obviously photogenic, but the highlight for us was getting to be with friends!

waiting for tickets to the madness

Has everybody seen this? Basketball fever is beyond officially back in the Bluegrass. I remember every year as a student at UK seeing the tents pop up a couple of days before tickets come out for Midnight Madness and sometimes joining in the fray early Saturday morning, but this... wow. We're out of town right now and can't see it in person, this video gives a decent perspective of the magnitude, still 2 days before any tickets are available.

GO CATS!!