Jake and Colin’s sleepover:

Jake and Colin taking a bath:

Hannah eating Zack, or at least trying really hard to…:

My favorite picture of the whole trip so far:

Anyway, we were in North Carolina this past week and Colin decided that he wanted to sleep on the bottom bunk of one of the rooms instead of in his pack’n'play (which was fine with his mother and I because he is a bit large for that these days anyway, he has to fold himself up to sleep). We got really excited the first night since he seemed like he wasn’t going to wander away from bed and went to sleep very quickly. Cool! Big boy bed!

All was well until Thursday night. Indeed, Colin never had trouble going to sleep or getting up and wandering out of his bedroom or anything. Thursday night he had an issue with—and this never occurred to us—staying in the bed once he was asleep. Yeah. He fell out. Ouchies.

And tomorrow he’s going in for an x-ray. We thought maybe it was just “muscle pain” but the poor thing has been walking around like a wounded bird with his arm tucked in to his side. He’ll use his left (”ouchies”) arm, but heavily favors his right. And he wants to sleep all the time. Deb had a doctor’s appointment for Hannah Monday, so we figured since he wasn’t crying all the time (which we thought was a pre-req for a break) we’d just get him checked out then… Actually we thought he’d wake up the next day and it would be fine. Whatever. We’re bad parents.

All of that to say… Colin loves going to bed now! As soon as we got home we re-jiggered the crib into the toddler bed. He’s so proud of his big boy bed. And has been so excited to go in and go to bed. Such a little boy!

Random aside—as if this whole post isn’t a random aside—we watched Pooh’s Heffalump Movie and it talks about making friends and blah blah feel good movie. Anyway, we asked Colin who his best friend was, even suggested Ceci and some of the kids from daycare and he said “No, Hannah is my best friend…” Cutie.

The Canal Museum also had a big train section downstairs (the Coal part). I love this photo. You’d think from the look on Colin’s face that he had just smacked Hannah on the head and that’s why his smile is as big as Hannah’s frown is pitiful.

I’m not certain it’s the Beatles, but it does serve as a quick teaser to the photos we’ll be posting soon about our trip to Iowa.

We had a great time driving down to get Colin some sand-throwing-time. And, as Deb can attest to from the evening bath, he certainly threw some sand (into his hair)! Colin really enjoyed the sand, but no so much the water. The waves were pretty big and made a pretty dramatic crashing sound as they broke and I think that kind of scared Colin. Even as we were burying him in the sand, he would nervously look towards the water if a wave was particularly noisy. As you can see—when we were near the water (or in the water), Colin was very clingy. He did like sitting in the sand as the waves came up to us, but we’re thinking next time we’ll find a more protected beach to dampen the waves…

SUNDAY: New York Aquarium, Coney Island

I don’t think you can really see it in these pictures, but Colin was ready to go for his day at the Aquarium. He had his Bruce (from Finding Nemo) hat and a generic shark on his shirt. Colin really enjoyed the Aquarium when we took him the first time and as he gets older it just gets better. The diver feeding the fish even swam up to him and waved.

The Shark Tank is his favorite by far. He liked all of the fish—particularly ones he “recognized” from Nemo—but the Sharks are his favorite. We spent a long time (twice!) with him standing on the ledge while he pointed excitedly and yelled “Sharky! Sharky! Rrrraarrr.”

I love this picture of Colin quite plainly wondering, “why are you interrupting me from eating just to take a silly picture?!?!” Since we were at Coney Island, we figured we should eat at the original Nathan’s Famous, famous for their July Fourth Hotdog Eating Competition… Anyway, Colin overdosed on the yum-yum and promptly fell into a food coma while reading his Big Trucks book.

Day 1 - Copenhagen
Our trip started out with sightseeing in Copenhagen after a few hour nap once we landed. One of our first sights was probably Matt’s favorite from the whole trip, The Little Mermaid. The original story isn’t quite as happy go lucky as the Disney version. This statue is not based on the Disney version.

We also walked around the Kastellet and Gefion Fountain. We stopped for dinner and then headed back home for some more much needed sleep.

Day 2 - Copenhagen
Our second day of sightseeing was spent walking around downtown Copenhagen. We started in Fredericksberg which is actually not in Copenhagen but just on the outskirts. Here we walked around a park with a summer castle and lots of wildlife. The most interesting thing to us, as parents of a toddler, was the Pacifier tree. Apparently rather than giving your pacifier to Santa or mailing it to kids in need to get a toddler to stop using theirs, Danish children bring it to this tree. We are going to have Colin send his to this tree as well.

After a bite to eat outside, we walked past Tivoli but since we aren’t big on amusement parks we decided to explore other areas.

Next we headed over to the Stroget. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip since it’s a humongous pedestrian shopping area outside! We passed by the Museum Erotica, however despite Joakim and Tara’s recommendation our day was so packed we didn’t have a chance to stop in. Next I suffered as Matt took a shot of me next to yarn for my mom. LOL

We also walked along the Nyhavn, a very picturesque part of Copenhagen. One you may recognize since it’s often the picture used when one talks about Copenhagen.

Finally we headed to Christiania a self-governing part of Copenhagen that has up until recent years sold pot out in the open. Two of the funniest observations were the sign that said “Say No to hard drugs” and the satellite dish connected to one of the buildings.

Day 4 - Copenhagen (yes, I skipped a day, that will be in the next post)

Our last morning in Copenhagen was spent walking around the graveyard near John and Amanda’s apartment. We saw the graves of H.C. Anderson (that’s what they call him in Denmark) and Kierkegaard

Merry Christmas! Colin, Deb and I had a great trip back to Michigan, despite my playing the role of Patient Zero in a bad Dustin Hoffman movie and spreading the Norovirus to no fewer than 5 people on the trip.

In any event, Christmas morning was a dream. Colin was as wide awake as the rest of us when we got up extra early and—after he really woke up—enjoyed the electric guitar from his grandparents. He had been making a habit of strumming the heat registers in the apartment, so we thought he might like the guitar. I think he digs it even if he doesn’t quite “get” it…

We had another Christmas with David and his family at mom and dad’s house. That’s Colin making friends with Samantha who was really good with him and David with his son Andrew. Though you can’t see it, Andrew got a remote control snake to scare his new sisters with, but when I overheard them asking to play with it, I gathered it wasn’t going to have the intended effect.

I imagine the last pictures are “obvious”… Deb and I were pretty happy about John’s t-shirt, though because I was engaging in my own little epidemiology experiment and getting people sick we had to wait longer than we wanted to give it to him. Our last Christmas was with Uncle John, Aunt Amy and Cousin Jake. We’ve always known Colin to be a bit of ham for the camera, but I think Christmas #3 turned him into a monster…

In any case, we really did have a wonderful time visiting family in Michigan. We will probably be quarantined for the first 48 hours the next time we visit, but hopefully it will be soon!

Bonus points to anyone who can figure out what this is a re-enactment of. Even more bonus points to the funniest response.

Back in Earley July (yes, pun intended), Deb, Colin and I went out to Iowa to visit with Grandma Reed again and introduce Colin to some cousins, some grandparents, some great-grandparents, and one very interested dog. It seems Toby thought Colin smelled pretty good—and even wanted a taste. Colin has been around a big dog before, but not one as, errrr, “friendly” as Toby. I love the look on his face.

In any event, we had a lot of fun relaxing and visiting with family in Iowa. I’m going to split the trip up into a couple of different posts, bust one of the first things Uncle Matt had to do was clown around with his nephews (thanks, Grandpa Carl, for taking the fun picture!) on the way to play 6 or 7 holes of golf.

Despite growing up in Iowa inches from a corn field, and a father who works at John Deere, I’m (not-so-)secretly gratified to see that they are big gadget freaks like their Uncle. Here the twins are playing wtih Uncle Matt and Aunt Debra’s BlackBerries. (I was really impressed with the fact that they read all the directions to the card game they were playing. I’ve never even done that! In any case, I didn’t have to teach them how to play—they had it all figured out by the time I got around to asking if it was working out.)

ADDENDUM: Ooops. I missed this (per Aunt Suzy’s note). I like it. Not sure how it slipped through.

I was so excited for the Iowa trip knowing that we were going to get an honest-to-goodness 4-generation picture for Colin. I’m not sure why it seemed so important to me, though I suspect it has to do with my missing my grandparents (especially Grandpa Brown who lived with us for a while: he never met—and would have very much liked—Debra) and having never met my great-grandparents. If you can you should… Or something like that. In any event, we got the photo and enjoyed introducing him to family he hadn’t yet met.

In the picture above we have Mary Ann (the grandma), Onnolee (the great-grandma), Colin (the man himself), and Debra (the mom)… More pictures of family below.

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(3)

(4) (5)
(6) (7)

(1) Aunt Carol, Uncle Vance (wow, is he Great Great Uncle Vance?), Grandma (Mary Ann) Reed, Matt, Debra, Great-Grandpa Ed, Great-Grandma Onnolee and Colin
(2) Grandma Judie and Colin
(3) Aunt Carol, Grandma (Mary Ann) Reed, Great-Grandma Onnolee, Colin, Deb, Aunt Suzy, Cousin Amy, Will & Joe (possibly not in that order :grin:)
(4) Colin, Grandpa Carl and Grandma Judie
(5) Great-Grandma Onnolee and Colin
(6) Grandma (Mary Ann) Reed and Colin
(7) Uncle Mark and Colin

Hmm, do we think it was redundant to list Colin in each of those pictures?!?!

I have to compliment Will & Joe on doing a good job all week of humoring Uncle Matt and Aunt Debra. Nowhere is it clearer than in this picture. I just love it. They’re being so good to “put their arms” around Colin like the photographer had requested. I think it is so funny, despite their probable disinterest in being photographed (yet again).

I think the disinterest in the whole affair was evident on both sides. Look at the series below—Colin liked his cousins well enough, but they moved around and made noises he wasn’t used to. But Aunt Suzy’s quilts were the same as always: beautiful, cozy, comfy, and interesting. He’s got a great one we blogged about earlier from Aunt Suzy, but this Ladybug quilt was another favorite. He loved looking at it and fingering the beads and buttons on it.

• Grandparents and Baby [check]
• GREAT Grandparents (both of ‘em!) (at the same time!) and Baby [check]
• Four-Generation-Picute [check]
• Baby and Cross-Eyed and Odor-Challenged Cousins [check] [HUH!?!?!]

Signed by a real Captain and everything!

Colin really was a great flyer on our trip to Iowa and back over the 4th of July holiday, but as we were getting off (err, “de-planing”) the first leg of our flight from Des Moines to New York, the Captain of the plane saw us and pulled us aside. As he produced the attached certificate from his briefcase (I always wondered what they had in those! I kinda hoped they weren’t maps and such…) he told us a wonderful story about how his mother had gotten one of these certificates when he was a baby flying on American Airlines. He had actually sent along a copy when he applied to become a captain at American—and it worked!

So, Colin, if you ever want to be a Pilot, I think you’ll have no problem “landing” your first gig with American…

We had a rather nice one here on the East Coast. At least that’s what Matt tells me.

It was a weekend of firsts. Colin starting sleeping through the night to both Mommy and Daddy’s delight. He has learned a new sound and woke Daddy up on Saturday morning by saying Da-da-da-da-da. He spent the rest of the weekend practicing his new sound.

We drove down to The Wildwoods for Father’s Day, where we stayed at the lovely Pan American Hotel. Colin got to dip his toes in the Atlantic Ocean for the very first time and had his first mouthful of sand. The sand seemed pretty fun, but the ocean was definitely too cold for his taste.

Father’s Day was finished off with a nice cozy nap on the couch.

The main thing we did, of course, was go to the pool. Colin hadn’t ever been in a pool (or anywhere it was warm outside for that matter!), so it was quite an experience for him. I think he liked it, but mom and dad did push it a little by dunking him in the water as you can see in this video:

Mommy didn’t end up spending that much time in the water so it was mostly daddy and Colin. We had lots of fun—but it was too bad it wasn’t a heated pool. I think Colin got cold before he got sick of being in the water. Afterwards, we chilled out (heated up?) in a towel and then sat around contemplating what we thought of the whole experience. I don’t know why, but I just love that last picture of him.

Colin also got to meet some of the folks that mommy (Penny from London) and daddy (Andrea from NYC) work with. He was a huge hit at the sales meeting with everyone from the publisher of The Wall Street Journal to randoms at the resort commenting on his size (huge!), his smile (so cute!), his demeanor (happy!), etc…. We did decide that our theory about people who know daddy thinking he looks like me and people who know mommy thinking he looks like Deb is no longer valid. Now we just think people say whatever pops into their head, because we had people saying all kinds of things about who he looked like—besides, he just looks like a baby.

I think she looks great. Not the statue—my wife!

Deb’s dad Carl and Judie were in town over the Labor Day holiday and we had lots of fun running poor, pregnant Debra all over the city (and environs)…

We learned all about what is legal to dump into the water (and how far out to see you have to be to do it) while we took the ferry to Ellis Island and the Statue. We left from Liberty State Park on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, which we’d recommend to anyone visiting the islands because the lines—even on a holiday weekend—were next to nothing!

We thought the Ellis Island park was really well done. I was only sad to learn that we didn’t have any relatives (that dad could think of on a rushed call from the island itself) that came through there to look up in the archives!

Aside from the the trip over to the Statue and Ellis, I think all we did was eat: Bar Americain, the Bridge Cafe (where I first met Carl, before Debra and I were officially even dating), some restaurant in Little Italy with lots of wine and pasta, and even the Cosmic Cafe across the street, yummy yummy yummy. We also saw a performance of the Blue Man Group (where Deb got to hold the Toblerone). Oh right! We were cultural, too. We went to the American Museum of Natural History.

We had a great time. The next time we get out of town visitors we’re puttin’ ‘em to work! (Sorry, mom.)

It’s no Las Vegas.

No matter where we went, though, it was clear we were in travel-marketer paradises with no shortage of cheesy tourist-trap statues… Deb is seen here with a famous denizen of Grand Cayman (yes I will refrain from unseemly jokes about what the sign says) and I’m pictured in Key West at the restaurant where we had lunch, Crabby Dick’s (please note two things about this picture: the look on my face and the mermaid over my right shoulder).

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We walked from the pier down Duval Street to the (1) Hemingway House, shopping all the way. We took a ($11!) tour of the house given by a very knowledgable docent who told us a lot about Hemingway’s time in the house. For instance, even though Hemingway only lived in Key West for 9 years, over 70% of his life’s work was completed here, (2) in the room pictured above. His house—though more than a half mile inland—was located next to a (3) lighthouse. Given his propensity for the bottle, his friends often joked with him that he bought the house so he could find his way home after last call.

Those of you who know Hemingway may know that he was a cat freak. The Hemingway House still has over 50 cats living on-site, each of them named after a famous musician, actor, artist, etc. We met a bunch of cats, including the aptly named Charlie Chaplin. The interesting thing about these cats is that they are all descendants of Hemingway’s original cats, and all have six toes. That sixth toe acts as an opposable thumb and does allow them to grasp things in a way normal cats cannot.

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Out next stop was Grand Cayman. I expected amazing things from this little island, but I guess it really is all about the banking. It still looked a little beat up from Hurricane Ivan back whenever that was. (4 and 5) We did have a great time snorkeling at the barrier reef around the island. (6) Debra even got up close and personal with a stingray—she held it and even gave it the traditional kiss for 7 years of good luck. (Our Jamaican guide put it differently, “Aren’t you jealous, mon? She just kissed a man with two winkies!”) Deb had the foresight to buy an underwater camera which is what we used to take these photos, I think it did a pretty good job, for a disposable, of capturing some of the magic of the (7) reef we were exploring.

In any event, this posting and the two from yesterday pretty much sum up our trip. It was a lot of fun—and I’m sure I missed some stories that Deb can share in another posting or in the comments field. And if any of you see us in person, we can bore you with the 8 dozen other photos we have of the trip!

We spent 5 nights on the Empress of the Seas traveling from Ft. Lauderdale to Key West to Grand Cayman before returning back to Ft. Lauderdale. We took a couple of shots of the Empress, which always seemed gi-normous and quite nice—even after we found out it was the smallest and the oldest ship in the Royal Caribbean fleet.

The first thing we did when we got on the boat was to head straight for our (1) stateroom (sounds so fancy) (though as you can see below it was not so terribly fancy) (I felt a bit like steerage class and looked to see how they would lock us in if the boat struck an iceberg). It was if they were reading my mind, though—they had a mandatory safety drill immediately prior to setting sail the first afternoon. (2) Deb and (3) I book looked pretty suave in our (state-of-the-art, I might add) lifejackets.

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Food was a huge (!!!) part of the cruise. I have to admit, though, that there weren’t as many buffets as I thought there would be; this is not to say there wasn’t lots of food and that we didn’t stuff ourselves silly, but it wasn’t quite what I was picturing. We really ate at two different places—the more fomal Carmen Dining Room (where we had all of our dinners and several lunches) and the casual (4) Windjammer Cafe on the pool deck (which did have some buffets, but our eating habits didn’t always coincide with the buffets having the widest selection of foods—but there was always lots of fruit to keep me happy). At dinner we were seated at a table with 3 other couples, all of whom were great. Ironically (though perhaps not surprisingly), there was a OB/GYN doctor sitting at our table who was ecstatic to have a pregnant woman at her table (”I can’t get away from work no matter where I go!”). We also had a teacher and two chefs. It was a cool table, and I liked the continuity of eating with the same people each evening.

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One of the evenings (mornings, actually, since it started at midnight) the kitchen crew hosted the Gala Buffet. This was an interesting spectacle (and I feel comfortable calling it that since the buffet was open from 11:30p-12:00a for photographing only before it opened for an hour for folks to actually eat). In any event, the staff had spent something like 300 man hours preparing the “gala” spread which included everything from chocolate dipped strawberries to bread baked into specific shapes to (5) monkeys made out of citrus fruit to floral arrangements made out of cut radishes to (6) watermelon aquarium scenes to (7) a rock band made out of lemons and chicken (with a carrot/cucumber guitar).

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We had four full days on the boat. Two of the days were spent in port, one at Key West and one at Grand Cayman. We spent the other two days, the “At Sea” days, just relaxing. It was wonderful. The (8) pool was shockingly small, and really one of the only disappointments of the cruise from my perspective, but it did have plenty of deck space on which to enjoy the sun and a bar serving delicious (virgin) Strawberry Daquiris. We spent part of the time playing (9) blackjack with our friends (and tablemates) (she’s the doctor) Holly and Paul—we even entered a blackjack tournament and did well enough to both be on the (10) leaderboard at the same time! Deb and I even took some time out one not-so-busy afternoon to play a game we brought from home, (11) Skip-bo!

The cruise also had some shows and other entertainment opportunities. We watched a cheesy Broadway-wanna-be show which was pretty enjoyable. The cruise director (a real position, not just one in the Love Boat television show) hosted a very funny rip-off of the Newlywed Game with three couples who were on the cruise. We also attended an art auction at which they were selling some relatively pricey works (a Rembrandt in the $17k+ range, as I recall). Before you go thinking we’re getting all snotty on you, please know we went (I went) for the free champagne.

The “towel animals” were one of the fun parts of each evening. When we would get back from dinner, the stateroom attendant had folded some of our clean towels into various animals. My favorite was the elephant, though I think the monkey wins for creativity.

I’ll write about the shore excursions tomorrow…

Debra and I were enjoying the late afternoon (me at the blackjack tables and Debra relaxing in the cabin) when the captain came over the loudspeaker informing us that the ship was turning around since we had spotted a boat of Cuban refugees headed towards the United States. The Empress had immediately reported the sighting—per U.S. law—and been asked by the Coast Guard to stay in sight of the boat so when they arrived, they would know where to find it. This meant two things: everyone rushed to the top deck to try to catch a glimpse of the unfolding drama and we were going to be late into port the following morning.

Both Deb and I searched the web to find articles about the situation, but only came up with this link from a South Florida NBC television affiliate.

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We never got closer than a mile or two, so the photos aren’t the best given I was taking them with my little Canon digital camera. But photo (1) shows the crew members trying to re-locate the boat after we turned around and got back in the vicinity of where it had been originally sighted, (2) is the closest shot I got of the Coast Guard boat as it passed our bow on its way to the refugees and (3) shows the little dinghy deployed by the Coast Guard making actual contact. (By this time, we were already resuming our trip back to Ft. Lauderdale, so we didn’t see if they actually brought everyone on board the Coast Guard ship or how it was all “resolved.”)

The last we heard of it was when the captain came back on the loudspeaker informing us the Coast Guard had “thanked” us and were unwilling to share more information given the “sensitive” nature of the situation…

We actually talked about it at dinner that night with our table mates and had somewhat similar reactions to our fellow passengers’ reactions as we listened to the conversations among those on the top deck watching. I thought it was fascinating—and an interesting object lesson—how people’s professed politics (”don’t let any damn illegals in the country—they’re taking our jobs and costing us money!”) don’t always play out when faced with a “real life” situation. The general sentiment seemed to be of sadness for the Cubans who were so close to getting to the U.S. and were now apparently going to be sent back. Ask many of those same people a week before the cruise what their feelings about illegal aliens were and you would likely have sparked some vitriolic comments about keeping “them” out. But when you put them in a situation where the humanity is unavoidable, it appears more (morally?) challenging to be as absolute on the topic. Interesting.

We are really looking forward to this new experience and can’t wait to tell you all when we get back next Thursday.

Wish us luck and nice weather!

That’s right, after talking about it forever, Debra and I are finally going to go and spend some time on a boat. Some overnight time on a boat. A big boat.

We’re going to do just a quick little 5-day cruise at the end of June in the “Western” Caribbean (so named by the cruise industry, no doubt) leaving from Ft. Lauderdale and making stops at Key West and Grand Cayman on the Empress of the Seas. I’ve not spent any time in the Caribbean so I’m looking forward to. Of course not as much as I am looking forward to gorging on all things edible. And free room service!

(Please don’t point out we’ve paid for it with the price of the cruise ticket—I’m living the dream!)

Anyway, the cruise map:

It is wonderful! Very easy to use interface, beautiful maps, real-time updating (at least on a high-speed connection). Goodbye MapQuest!

The upside is that Deb did NOT get sick in the whole process, but the downside is approximately $45 in cold medicine and $150 in juice.

Hope everyone is healthy!