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Meet the Artist

Okay, I’ll admit it, the main reason I am posting this—aside from the fact that it is kind of neat we got a picture of Colin meeting the artist of the painting we bought for him on our Boston trip—was so that I could stop looking at my idiot face and the rest of the smokers…

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Slobber Welcomes Colin to Iowa

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.

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Grandmas & Grandpas & Cousins—Oh My!

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.

(1) (2)

(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?!?!

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Colin is a Lady(bug) Lover

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.

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Colin’s Most Recent Adventures…

We had a great trip to Iowa (and Colorado for mommy and daddy—congrats, again, newlyweds Ed & Denise Sealover!) with lots and lots (and lots and lots [and lots]) of photos. But, I’m a bit tired and won’t be posting them all this evening. But rest assured, we got all the requisite photos:

• 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!?!?!]

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Sky Cradle Club

We have proof!

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…

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Happy Father’s Day

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!

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.

We then spent the rest of the evening walking the boardwalk and having lobster tails and steak, a perfect Father’s Day dinner.

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

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Puerto Rico (!!!)

We just got back from a trip to Puerto Rico—where we stayed at El San Juan Hotel & Casino—for a Dow Jones Integrated Solutions/Dow Jones Online sales meeting. Since dad works at DJIS and mom works at DJO (when she’s back from maternity leave) and both were in attendance at the meeting, Colin tagged along. The meetings went very well, but we only took pictures of the “fun” stuff…

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.

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