Tripdub Turns One!

Well, today is tripdub's one year birthday. One hundred and ninety-seven posts later, here are a few stats:

• 98 percent of tripdub readers are in the U.S., but we also have a pretty good following in Ireland (Slainte, Reillys!) and China (Ni Hao, Fergusons!)
• Top internet searches that bring random people to tripdub: Amodex and Pipettes
• Most popular video on tripdub: Pizza! (153 views)
• Busiest day on tripdub: March 19, 2007 (234 views)

In other news, Monday I stayed home with Sadie in the morning while Ali spent a few hours at work and Jake was at pre-school. She and I don't get as much one-on-one time together as Jake and I did when he was her age, so it was a nice morning. I let her feed herself some yogurt:


And then we played dress-up. Here's a video of Sadie walking around in her Baby Prison Stripe PJs, with a ballerina tutu (this is why Dads get a bad reputation for dressing their kids):

Getting Ready for St. Patrick's Day

Saturday was Alexandria's St. Patrick's Day Parade, and funny dog show and car show, etc., and we went down to check things out. It was a bit chilly, so we ducked into a Chipotle for a bite and to warm up. We got some seats right at the window looking out on the parade route and ate some traditional Irish fare -- guacamole and chips (hey, at least the guacamole was green). The parade was fun and both kids enjoyed the show. And we were happy because on the way home, two great things happened: 1) we stopped at the Italian Store in Arlington to pick up some hoagies and 2) both kids fell asleep which meant we could thoroughly enjoy our hoagies.

Here we are in Old Town, outside of a pub waiting for Ali to check out the scene inside. Turns out it was a bit too crowded for our little leprechauns: Oh, for those of you out there with little kids: I read somewhere that a funny thing to do on St. Patrick's Day is to mess up the house after the kids go to bed -- turn over furniture, open drawers, put pots and pans on the carpet -- and then tell your kids that the leprechauns came! The only challenge for us will be to make the distinction between the mess that Jake and Sadie make on a daily basis, and what the 'leprechauns' do.

Happy Leap Day

You might have woken up this morning feeling like it was March, but thanks to leap year we get one extra day of February this year. I just read that the extra day every four years isn't quite accurate, and that the year 4000, which should be a leap year, will not be a leap year, so that we can re-adjust and make sure we're back on track with the actual year which is 365.242374 days long. Ok, enough trivia.

I got back from a work trip to Florida and brought the kids a surprise that got me some funny looks from the TSA guys at the airport. On my way to the airport in Ft. Lauderdale, I noticed that my taxi driver had a tree branch in his trunk with about 5 or 6 big green coconuts still on it.

He could tell I was impressed and offered me one, which I gladly accepted. So, there I am at the airport, suitcase in one hand and coconut in the other. Anyway, we cut it open today and Jake was really excited to see what was inside. I was kind of curious what I'd find, too, since I hadn't seen a green coconut before. Turns out it had a good two glasses of coconut water in it, but the 'meat' hadn't ripened yet and was too fibrous to eat. Here's Jake at the table, scraping out the sweet jelly-like interior:

Team Lightning McQueen

I made mac n' cheese for the kids (and me) today. As we were sitting around the table, Jake looked at me and said, "Look, Sadie has tiny mac n' cheese and you have mac n' cheese and I have mac n' cheese!" I said, "Yeah!" Then he looked at me with a sideways glance, gave me a thumbs up and said, "Its Teamwork!"

Multitasker

Haircut

Today the big activity was a haircut for Jake. We go to a little barbershop in Falls Church (where the Jacksons go, too) and they're really good with kids. Normally Jake sits on my lap, but today he saw an older kid sit there on his own, so he wanted to do the same. Jake was so good - he sat still, he moved when she asked him too, and he even made small talk! "So what's your favorite color?" "Ummm, red".
And here's Sadie thoroughly enjoying some mashed sweet potatoes.
And here's a shot from my hike with Jake today. We went on a tiger hunt, but couldn't find any near this creek. At one point, to keep things interesting, I gave him a stick and told him he was Captain Hook. "And who are you Daddy?" "Well, I guess I'm Peter Pan". So, for the rest of the hike, he stuck with it, and I was Peter Pan. "Can I throw a rock in the river, Peter Pan?" "What we doing, Peter Pan?" "Where's the tigers, Peter Pan?"

Two Nights Off

This weekend we decided to redeem two of our Christmas presents. The first was a night out to Brasserie Beck and the second was an overnight stay in Baltimore. Yes, the Grandparents will go to great lengths to get babysitting duty, and we love it.

On Friday, we had a great dinner at Brasserie Beck with Stacey & Mike and Erin & Fred. We sat at the Chef's table and had a view of the kitchen. Great Belgian food and beers. Afterwards it was off to the Palace of Wonders to see a burlesque show and meet up with some old friends. Jake and Sadie spent the night at my folks house -- the first time for Sadie. Sounds like everyone had a great time. Here's a picture of Jake in his big-boy bed at my folks house:

On Sunday, we left the kids at our house with Ali's folks and drove up to Baltimore for the night. We had brunch at the Blue Moon Cafe, which was GREAT. It's just a tiny, hole-in-the-wall cafe, but everything was perfect -- great coffee, fresh squeezed & cold OJ, dee-licious banana pancakes and an amazing crab, roasted red pepper and brie omelette with homemade biscuit and homemade jam. OK, full disclosure: we were STARVING after waiting about40 minutes outside to get a table in the tiny place, so we probably would have been happy with a hot cup of coffee and a doughnut, but it turned out the wait was well worth it.

We stayed right in Fells Point in a cool hotel that was a converted factory right on the water. We shopped around all the little stores, saw a movie, caught the end of the Daytona 500 at an Irish pub, and had a nice leisurely dinner. None of which are possible on a typical night at home. In the morning, we checked out Canton and Hampden, and had lunch at Cafe Hon and tried to act like a local.

Here's Jake and Poppy making faces at each other, and a picture of our hotel and the view from our room:Thanks so much to Mike and Pat and Jack and Carol for the great gifts and for the gift of letting Ali and me spend a little time together.