Greetings from Bermuda!

I can't believe we're already halfway through our week here. I've been slacking on the blog, but the house doesn't have internet, which is appropriate for Bermuda. The pace of life here is pretty laid back, and Bermuda doesn't encourage checking email every day, especially when you can see the ocean from your villa. We're staying in St. George's, a small town with lots of history -- our house is about 150 years old. Apparently the British were headed for Jamestown and someone made a left turn, and the rest is the subject of dozens of books for sale at the tourist shops here. In any case, it is a beautiful island and the water and sky are shades of blue that make you feel much farther away than just a two hour flight from DC.

Here we are from our visit this morning to Fort Saint Catherine, in the town of St. George's. It dates back to the 1600's, and was used as recently as dubya dubya two.
Here are Jake and Sadie, busy planning out our day. Sadie is checking her map and Jake is looking up restaurants on the laptop:
This is Mimi and Grandpa with Ali and Jake on the steps of the church in town, which I think is the oldest structure in the western hemisphere. Or something like that. Ali has the brochures.

Our house here has been perfect. It was the subject of an episode of This Old House on PBS back in 2004. The owners did a complete renovation with all kinds of electronic shower do-dads and a fully-outfitted kitchen that I've been enjoying. Let's see, do I use the electric convection oven or the gas range with wok attachment tonight....

But probably the best part of the house has been the small lap pool in the back that we've used every day. Jake has been practicing his snorkeling and has gotten pretty brave with that. Sadie, at 16 months, can swim on her own wearing water wings! We've felt her pulling away from us in the water for a few weeks now, and we finally let her go this week. She kicks and bobs her way all around this little lap pool, spitting out any water that gets in her mouth, and loving every minute of it.
We're off to Tobacco Bay again tomorrow (our little lagoon/beach) to do some more swimming and snorkeling. We'll see how she does in salt water, but this girl seems right at home in the water. And then tomorrow afternoon/night, Mimi and Grandpa have the kids and Ali and I will be terrorizing the island on a rented scooter. Look out Bermujans!

Exciting Day

We woke up this morning and everyone was really excited about our trip to Bermuda next week (leaving tomorrow). Yes, we just got back from a week at Smith Mountain Lake, but Ali has plenty of vacation time with her current job, and I just told my boss I'll be working from home (just kidding, taxpayers!).

Jake is excited to go snorkeling, and play on the beach, and ride the Metro to the airport. We keep telling him, "tomorrow we're getting on a plane to fly to Bermuda!" And he replies: "and the train, right?" So, basically, we could just take the Metro to Wheaton and he'd be happy.

But, to add a little excitement, and to Jake's disappointment, we bought a new (used) car today!! And it's a minivan, so turns out we won't need to take Metro to the airport since now we can fit us and Grandpa and Mimi all in one car. I think Jake's excitement over the new car will trump his disappointment about not taking Metro tomorrow. At the dealer he said, "I don't want our old car anymore, I like this car." I told him, "play it cool, Jake, Daddy has to ne-go-shee-ate." But he had made up his mind that he preferred the "miniman".

Here's a picture from the dealer (our cameras are already packed!):

The decision to buy a minivan didn't come easily to Ali and me. I don't think either of us ever thought we'd buy one. Not that we looked down on minivans or minivan drivers, we just never saw ourselves behind the wheel of one (except all those times when we borrowed the Jackson's to move something big). But, our trusty Saab was starting to feel a little small with our 99th percentile string bean kids in the back, kicking our chairs playfully. And then Pop showed up with his Toyota Sienna and I was sold. All the room, the sliding doors making it easier in parking lots, and the third row all looked pretty nice, especially after our long road trip down to the lake.

So, there we were at the dealer, new minivan owners, and the kids had been great and patient, but it was lunch time and well past naptime. We needed some quick food, and we needed to get home. Yep, we went to McDonalds in our minivan, and we got happy meals.

Fourth of July at the Lake

We're down at the Lake for July 4th, and having a great time. Jake got to celebrate a belated 3rd birthday with this super-cool Bob the Builder-themed party and cake. We had a great fireworks show, and most of the family made it, although it wasn't the same without the Reillys this year.

Here's Sadie having fun dancing around:And Jake enjoying some ice cream:

Growth updates and Paci Wars

Today we took the kids in for Sadie's 15 month checkup and Jake's three year appointment. Height-wise, both are still off the charts. The doc said Sadie is just about where a normal two-year-old would be. This time Jake got to do some new stuff, like check his eyes by "reading" an eye chart, and getting his blood pressure checked (uh, for what -- stress??).

The chart below compares the heights and weights of Sadie, Jake and me over the first three years. Height data is on top, and weight data is on the bottom. My baby book is missing three-year data, and Ali's baby book is missing (period).


It's interesting to note that both Jake and Sadie are taller than I was at their ages. Jake is now a full two inches taller than I was at three years. Sadie is over an inch taller than I was at 15 months - and almost three inches taller than the average girl her age.

Paci Wars

So, yesterday on Jake's birthday, we decided to try retiring Jake's pacifiers, which have been the only comfort object he's had since birth -- no interest in stuffed animals or blankets or anything like that. But when it comes to pacifiers, he's always felt most comfortable when he's in bed with one in his mouth, two in each hand, and a few others scattered about. Ali decorated a little box and we told him that now that he was three, it was time to let the Paci Fairy come to take his pacifiers, and that she'd leave him a toy. He was into it, and he didn't seem to mind not having pacifiers as we read stories and did our normal bedtime routine. But when the lights went out, the battle started. He probably came out non-stop for close to two hours. He didn't say anything about pacifiers, just that he didn't want to go to bed, or that he couldn't sleep. Finally, around 11pm, we gave him a pacifier and didn't see him again until the morning.

We thought maybe last night's debacle had to do with all the excitement at home and at school because it was his birthday. We went through the normal (paci-free) bedtime routine and everything went well. But the drama started again as soon as the lights went out. He was crying and hysterical and would come out of his room as soon as we put him back in bed, for almost an hour. When we finally gave up and gave him a pacifier, he immediately went to bed and didn't come out again.

We had a quick parental pow-wow and came to the conclusion that Jake is obviously physically addicted to pacifiers and we better start looking for ones that won't look out of place when he's in high school.

And we remembered that with his other big steps (potty-training, crib-to-bed transition, etc), he's always let us know when he's ready, and he is clearly not giving us those signals now...

Jake turns 3!

Happy Birthday Jake!

Here's Jake three years ago:

And three days ago:

The mini NASCAR circuit

Jake had another fun day riding his Lightning McQueen car around. Today, he perfected the spin-slide-break move on our driveway (see video below). We also set up a few courses and he did really well handling the turns and being careful not to run over the cones. He didn't quite get the slalom course, but I wonder how well Jeff Gordon was driving on his 3rd birthday.



Sadie, by the way, is also fascinated by Lightning McQueen. She hovers patiently waiting until Jake parks it, and then she pounces. I've seen her run to it, and literally dive into the driver's seat. She was happy to just sit there gripping the wheel, until she figured out that she could reach the gas pedal. I'm not sure who was more surprised by that - me or her.

Jake's 3rd Birthday Party

We had a great time yesterday at Jake's birthday party. Thanks to everyone who came out to have fun with us. The slip-n-slide was a big hit, even though the automatic shark jaw contraption didn't work (thanks, Cole, for manually operating that). Some slipped and slid, and others crouched and crawled, but it looked like everyone had fun (even Sadie).


Here's Jake blowing out his three candles on the beautiful cupcakes that Ali put together way past her bedtime last night:


The big present of the day, from Mimi and Grandpa, was this Lightning McQueen racecar, which Sadie is modeling here:

When Jake first saw it, he had a huge grin on his face and kind of walking around it, saying "It's Lightning McQueen!" I asked him if he wanted to get in but he was still wearing his bathing suit and was worried he was too wet. But when he saw Sadie making a bee-line for the driver's seat, he jumped right in and quickly got the hang of it. Of course, all the other kids wanted a turn, and I was proud of Jake for sharing with everyone. His favorite thing to do is to park it in our garage - over and over and over. He also likes to lean out over the side to make sure he doesn't have a flat tire (like in the movie).

Fun times! More pictures here.