Zoo

Over Labor Day weekend we visited the Roanoke Zoo, which is situated right off the Blue Ridge Parkway, overlooking the town/city of Roanoke, VA. It was a really pretty setting, and a cute little zoo where you could get pretty close to all the animals. Jake had fun naming some of them. The big turtle was "Taxi", one Boa snake was "Pony" and the other was the ubiquitous "Pokeeno." Pokeeno has been the name of most animals since he started naming things about a month or so ago. We asked if he meant "Pinocchio," and he said "yes, Pokeeno." I don't think either of us have read him the Pinocchio story, so we have no idea where that comes from.

On our way back to the car, we passed a bench in a wooded area and Jake sat down. We hardly noticed, and kept walking for a minute until we hear him shouting about something. We turned around and he was saying "Jake BIGGER! Jake BIGGER!" Apparently a few weeks ago Jake was upset that his feet didn't touch the ground when he sat down and Ali assured him they would once he was bigger. Well, Jake found a bench that sat pretty low, and sure enough his feet touched the ground. He was so excited. It was pretty cute.

Hiatus

Yes, we're still here. I took a break from the blog while we were on vacation last week down at Smith Mountain Lake where, in fitting with the small town atmosphere, they only have dialup internet.

It was a great week, and the Jacksons came down with us, so we had a lot of fun with them. Jake got more practice swimming, and even jumped in the lake from the dock! We also visited a real dairy farm and the Roanoke Zoo (pictures coming soon...).

Here's a short clip of Sadie practicing crawling with Jake at her side. Of course, as soon as he realizes I'm filming, he takes the camera and uses those weird camera angles that are popular on MTV these days.

Sittin' Pretty

Greetings from Ft. Lauderdale

Typed on the blackberry, waiting for dinner, overlooking a dark Atlantic ocean...

Business travel is funny. Especially conferences and tradeshows. Normally, if you were walking down the street and someone tried to hand you a little plastic penguin, you'd probably politely decline. But at these tradeshows, people line up for all kinds of tchotchke. Platic penguins, glittery pins, little foam trucks, cheap pens that won't survive the plane ride home, and paperweights (paperweights?).

It seems like once you get on the tradeshow circuit, and you have your wardrobe of logo'd golf shirts, you get to know everyone else and you become like a traveling gypsy caravan.

But as much as I respect gypsies, and the new breed of gypsy punk rock (google it- I can't do hyperlinks from the blackberry), it's not the life for me. These gypsies don't have that great of a sense of humor and they don't know any Django Reinhardt tunes.

One of Jake's Heroes

This is Danny, Jake's Cul-de-sac hero, livin' large in the hood.
This next picture just cracks me up. After doing a wheely or two, Danny casually pulled up to the curb and laid his bike down so he could go check on the progress of the house across the street. Jake proceeds to ride his trike over to the same spot, but instead of just parking it next to Danny's bike, he heaved it up onto just two wheels so it would "lean" against the curb just like Danny's.

Three Musketeers

How cute are these kids? I'm biased about the little guy on the left, but come on, these are all some cute kids.

Sidenote: Have you ever seen those ads at shopping malls for cute kid contests? It's something like $20 to enter the contest and they promise some big payoff, but that sure is a brilliant scam. What parent doesn't think their kid could win a cuteness contest? The guy that invented that is probably retired on Fiji.

To Jake's left are his old daycare buddies, Jocelyn and Rachel. They came up through the ranks together, barely crawling when they first met, and now look at 'em!

So, Ali and I were talking and we both thought, "Gee, Jocelyn sure looks just like her Mom and Rachel sure looks just like her Mom". But we were both stumped about which one of us Jake looks like. Maybe we just can't see the resemblance because we're too close to him? Or does he look less like either of us, and more just like himself? This gives me an excuse to try out the new survey feature of the blog (see survey over/up there -->).

Go Pony!

"Come on No. 9! I've got $2 on you in the Trifecta!!"

Here we are at the Laurel horse track taking in a few afternoon races. Jake loved watching the ponies, and with Mommy's predictions, we came out slightly ahead. Not quite enough for a new pair of shoes for the baby, however. Here are a few more shots.