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.

Saturday Morning

This morning we took the kids for a bike ride to the Falls Church farmers' market. It was Sadie's first ride in the trailer, and Jake was in charge of making sure she was safe. I think she dozed off, but Jake had fun. I heard lots of "Weees" when we went down hills and "Eyeyeyeyeyes" when we went over bumpy patches. The farmers' market was packed! We got to taste some ripe ripe tomatoes and peaches and nectarines and fresh baked bread and artisan cheeses and homemade empanadas. We hit the adjacent playground for a bit, and then started the ride home and back up our little mountain of a hill to our house. I'm proud to say I made it up, towing what must have been 70lbs. "Get your muscles out Daddy!"

More Giggles

Here's a short clip of Jake making Sadie giggle. She's really starting to react to Jake, and he's loving having an audience. Little moments like these are a nice balance to the tantrums that are starting to appear.