It’s been quite some time since my last post.  Things are alive and well though, just very busy.  Connor has been going with Laurie to a gym and sport class at the YMCA along with an art class that he has been enjoying and I have been taking him to Father-Tot swimming on Saturday mornings.  Now with DST starting earlier it feels like spring is coming sooner.  Time to clean out the garage, clean out the shed, take the snow tires off the car…

Here’s Connor playing outside last week, he loves those golf clubs.

I also (finally) brewed my vanilla bourbon stout, just in time for, err.. spring.

I also have everything fixed up on the old VW GTI and it’s ready to sell.  I just need to take some spiffy pictures of it to put on Craiglist and it’s ready to go.

Now I just need to get the patio cleaned up, the furniture back out and the BBQ ready for another season!

It’s been a very busy time of year, just wanted to say Merry Christmas to everyone out there!

Connor is 2 years old today!  Well, it’s after midnight now so technically yesterday.  We had his 2nd birthday party today at the clubhouse which is part of our townhouse association.  Everything went really well.  I’ll get some pictures together shortly.

It was a lot of work but we had a lot of help and it turned out to be a fantastic party.  I am really exhausted though.  The entrance has no stairs and instead a twisty handicap ramp that reminds me of a waiting line at Great Adventure.  So I spent a lot of time carrying stuff to/from the clubhouse either around this mess or hurtling the railings.  I am thoroughly exhausted…

Connor recently started trying to climb out of his crib and was successful with getting out; not so successful with getting down.  After a hard spill he stopped for a bit but has started back up so we decided to move him in to a “big boy” bed.  We opted for the fire truck bed here:

Connor's New Bed

There was some debate between us over which bed to go to and what size bed as well.  You can see Laurie’s blog post (http://demandred.dyndns.org/simplylaurie/?p=32) regarding that.  We finally opted for a toddler bed given he is only two years old, well, in 6 days.  It took a little while for him to get adjusted and we needed to spend some time with him before he got comfortable but 30 minutes after leaving his bedroom, he’s sound asleep (thank God).

Our regular camera got messed up so Laurie took these on my camera phone and I posted them up here:

http://demandred.dyndns.org/photos/Connors_New_Bed-2009

A while back Laurie kept her own personal blog.  Then I went and started this one up for both of us to use as a family blog, which I have been mainly posting to.  Laurie decided to restart her blog again as a more personal blog.  Figured I’d post a link to it over here for her.

Simply Laurie

In other news our 4th Anniversary just passed this week.  Laurie bought me an Eli Manning jersey and I got her tickets for the opening of the New Meadowlands Stadium to watch Bon Jovi (May 26th).  That should be a blast

So today I get an e-mail at work from Laurie stating only “Call now!”.  However, that was a good 30 minutes before I got back to my desk at work to see it.  So since my cell phone reception is non existent from my desk I get up to head outside to make the call.  Halfway there I notice my cell phone battery is dead.  So back to my desk, I grab the phone and call.  The news I hear, Laurie’s pregnant!!!!!  Yay!!!!!   Given the time frame the baby should be born come late February early March.  Laurie took two EPT tests, one in the morning and one in the evening and both returned positive!

We are both so excited!!  However, on a side note there was some bad news.  No, not Michael Jackson dying and not Farrah Fawcett, my Mom fell at work today and broke her hip.  She was admitted in to the hospital this evening and will be meeting with the doctor to determine if she needs pins put in her hip or a hip replacement and then the surgery.    Everyone’s hoping that all goes well.  We’ll be visiting her shortly.

We bought a new dishwasher last Sunday mostly because our old dishwasher was recalled.  The recall was made because apparently if you use a dryer like JetDry it somehow eats through the reservoir damaging the wiring behind it and possibly causing a fire.  This was a GE dishwasher and GE offered a free repair where they pretty much replace the wires and seal off the JetDry container or a rebate towards a new GE dishwasher.  We opted to take the rebate.

So last Sunday we took a trip over to PC Richards and purchased a GE GLDA69cp01ww.  The dishwasher has a steel tub so it should last a long time and is definitely quiet.  Some of the material does seem a little cheap but the overall build seems very nice.  We took delivery of this washer this past Friday. So Thursday night I spent pulling the old one out and getting everything ready for the new one.  We bought the stainless steel hose for the water, so I got that all in place. I worked from home on Friday and later that day I installed the dishwasher.  It took about an hour and I ran in to no snags.  It was very simple, the water inlet line, the drain hose and a simple power connection and I ran it through a test cycle.

The feet on the dishwasher do sit back a bit further than the old one and the tile was cut out for this.  These cut-outs are now slightly exposed so I’ll have to fill them in with some brown grout when I get a chance.

We haven’t yet done our first load, as weekend dishes are generally less than weekday.  We’ll probably be doing our first load tomorrow night.

On Monday we did our 3rd annual Memorial Day BBQ.  We had quite a good turn out and a ton of good food.

Connor ended up in his pool with some guns and a beer…

We did end up with a bit of a grease fire the burned a good 3 – 4ft high and singed my hair, eyebrows and eyelashes…

But the food came out great and everyone had a good time.

And thanks again to Brent for helping us clean up after the BBQ, loan me parts for demandred, help me put demandred together and help us with clean up after Connor!

All the pictures from the day are in our photo gallery.

I left my computer unattended and Connor decides to chat on IRC.  (Geryon is my handle)

19:36 <@Geryon> ++//;;;[]3333333333333333333333
19:36 <@Geryon> ...00000
19:36 <@Geryon> .
19:36 <@opcenter> what was that? 
19:37 < brent____> connor
19:37 < brent____> he gets to the keyboard sometimes
19:39 < jarv> heh
19:50 <@opcenter> nice  

As our friend Brent put it, kid is on IRC before learning to talk!

So yesterday (Saturday) the weather was much warmer out so we decided to try and introduce Connor to the outside once more.  Since he started walking he has not really walked outside because of the cold weather.  Yesterday we took him out for the first time and in his big boy (hard rubber/leather) sneakers.

He was nervous at first to walk on his own outside.  At first he was scared and cried a little.  After a few moments of being reassured he started walking but was stopping at each crack in the concrete to turn around until he reached another crack.  While holding my hand I helped him get past this minor obstacle.  Once past this he was all over the driveway but refused to step on to the black pavement. He was running all around the driveway, between the cars, from the front to the back, etc..  Eventually Laurie and I were able to coax him in to the street while he was holding our hands.

Once he got comfortable walking on the black pavement he was off.  We did a few laps around the col-de-sac then took off towards the main road and down the side walk.  He walked almost the entire block around (~ 1/4mile) following the sidewalk the entire way without going astray.  It was so adorable.  Laurie and I were able to walk a few feet behind him for a few portions of the walk.  He got tired about 2/3rds of the way around and I put him on my shoulders.  Once we got back to our street the neighbor’s kid, Jessie (3yrs old) was out and playing.  I put Connor down and he quickly made his way over to where Jessie and his parents were.

Shortly after this, I took this video of him grabbing Jessie’s tee-ball ball and walking away with it.  I took this off my camera phone and converted it to flash, so the quality isn’t the greatest.

When all was said and done we were outside playing for a little over an hour.  Connor went to bed almost 2 hours earlier than normal and slept straight through till his normal morning time and then took an extra long mid-day nap today!  Going outside really pooped him out.