Today we drove up to Baltimore with the Jacksons to check out the Port Discovery children's museum. Here we are walking up the street to the museum. Everyone looks a little tired from the drive up, except for Jake who took a nap. That face is a pretty accurate measure of how excited he was to hang out with Jamie, Heidi, Cole, Miles and Dexter. He doesn't always get the boys' names right, but it is tricky since they all got matching haircuts a few weeks ago. We had so much fun at the museum, and then went over to Lexington Market, the oldest continually operated market in the U.S. -- it just celebrated it's 225th anniversary. It also happens to be the home of Faidely's, which is frequently voted as having the best crabcakes in Baltimore. And they were pretty amazing. Fun trip!
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Port Discovery
Today we drove up to Baltimore with the Jacksons to check out the Port Discovery children's museum. Here we are walking up the street to the museum. Everyone looks a little tired from the drive up, except for Jake who took a nap. That face is a pretty accurate measure of how excited he was to hang out with Jamie, Heidi, Cole, Miles and Dexter. He doesn't always get the boys' names right, but it is tricky since they all got matching haircuts a few weeks ago. We had so much fun at the museum, and then went over to Lexington Market, the oldest continually operated market in the U.S. -- it just celebrated it's 225th anniversary. It also happens to be the home of Faidely's, which is frequently voted as having the best crabcakes in Baltimore. And they were pretty amazing. Fun trip!
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Chuck E. Cheese
Tonight was Jake's first excursion to Chuck E. Cheese. We were celebrating Dexter's fifth birthday (Dexter is the youngest of our friends the Jacksons' three boys.) Here he is at about two months celebrating with his parents at a Moroccan-themed birthday party we threw for Ali in 2002.
Chuck E. Cheese kind of reminds me of kid's cereal. It's addictive for the kids, and kind of disgusting for the adults. Cocoa Puffs? Cookie Crisps? Who's idea was it to create all these dessert-themed breakfast cereals? C.E.C. is similarly designed to appeal to kids while repelling adults with sticky floors and soggy microwaved pizza. And Jake got the full C.E.C. experience when I dipped a napkin in a big pitcher at the kids' table which I thought was water. Turns out I used Sprite to wipe away all the birthday cake on his face. But that gave him the sugar-crusted sticky layer that is required at C.E.C.
Jake loved it all. He loved being with the Jackson boys, he loved the games and rides, he loved the Chuck E. Cheese that visited our table, and he loved figuring out that he could...well.....let's just say, "assume ownership" of coins from other people's coin cups and put them in the slots of rides he wanted to get on.
Here he is on one of those rides:
Here are the girls: Heidi, Ali and Sadie
And here's the output from a "sketch artist" machine they have set up, which I was actually pretty impressed with:
One neat thing about C.E.C. is that when you arrive with your kids, you're all stamped with a matching serial number which they check when you leave to make sure you're taking home the right kids, and not just some kid that got stuck to you.
Chuck E. Cheese kind of reminds me of kid's cereal. It's addictive for the kids, and kind of disgusting for the adults. Cocoa Puffs? Cookie Crisps? Who's idea was it to create all these dessert-themed breakfast cereals? C.E.C. is similarly designed to appeal to kids while repelling adults with sticky floors and soggy microwaved pizza. And Jake got the full C.E.C. experience when I dipped a napkin in a big pitcher at the kids' table which I thought was water. Turns out I used Sprite to wipe away all the birthday cake on his face. But that gave him the sugar-crusted sticky layer that is required at C.E.C.
Jake loved it all. He loved being with the Jackson boys, he loved the games and rides, he loved the Chuck E. Cheese that visited our table, and he loved figuring out that he could...well.....let's just say, "assume ownership" of coins from other people's coin cups and put them in the slots of rides he wanted to get on.
Here he is on one of those rides:
Here are the girls: Heidi, Ali and Sadie
And here's the output from a "sketch artist" machine they have set up, which I was actually pretty impressed with:
One neat thing about C.E.C. is that when you arrive with your kids, you're all stamped with a matching serial number which they check when you leave to make sure you're taking home the right kids, and not just some kid that got stuck to you.
Monday, July 9, 2007
What a Week
We just got back home from a week down at Smith Mountain Lake and I'm trying to get mentally prepared to go back to work. I have today off, but luckily my boss called me at home today to help with that transition.We had such a great vacation -- great weather, fun people, and lots of good food and laughter. Ali's parents hosted us, as well as 40 other people including most of Ali's family, half of Patrick's (husband of Ali's sister, Deni) family from Ireland, and my parents. We had met Patrick's family over in Ireland when he and Deni got married in 2005, but it was fun to get to know everyone a little better.
We had a first-rate fireworks show on the 4th, which Jake was about 40 percent impressed with and 60 percent scared of. He kept asking, "fireworks all done?" But the answer was always "no" since the show went on for about 45 minutes and finally Jake changed his question to "Night-nights?"
Besides the fireworks and party on the 4th, we had fun kayaking, water skiing, tubing behind the speedboat, JetSkiing, wakeboarding, hiking, geocaching, playing Bocce Ball, and relaxing a bit too. And, after several days of playing around in the shallow end of the lake, Jake finally worked up the courage to "swim" a little bit! He had his lifejacket on, but he was kicking and paddling between us and giggling and screaming "Jake Swimming!!"
It was a great week overall, but here are a few more highlights:
- Arjuna calling Sadie "Baby Shady"
- The rental guy saying he'd never seen that type of Seadoo flipped before
- Jake drinking three bowls of miso soup at the Hibachi grill
- To the barkeep at the Kings Point Pub: "I'll need 20 pints of Guinness, please"
- Patrick trying to teach Jake the Irish phrase, "How's she cuttin'" (equivalent to "How's it going"), and Jake responding, "No. Patrick's Cutting."
- Various versions of the American's trying to say "Jaysus Mary and Joseph!"
- Jake learning to SWIM!
Sláinte!
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