John and Helen's Blog

Sunday, July 20, 2008

July Thus Far

We've had an eventful past couple weeks - starting with a visit from Mark, Faith and boys to our neck of the woods, and ending with a road trip to NYC for Jon Parrott's wedding and a couple days hauling Vera and stroller around the city with my mom. It was hard work, but great to get some quality time with Gramma. In between we have been trying to stay cool by going to John's Judge's pool, the lake, and of course, the Geneseo Airshow - which is the other kind of staying cool, as in hip.

We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Baby K, Vera's cousin, who is due any day now. We just have a few more weeks here in Western NY, and then we will be vacationing in and around Iowa, then moving to Boston by September. We can't believe the year here is almost up!

Vera has been developing on schedule - we just felt her first little tooth make its appearance yesterday, she drank water out of a straw today (and then spit it up shortly after), and is sitting up on her own for several seconds! Pretty amazing.

Oh, and John turns 27 tomorrow! We will celebrate by grilling linked meat and eating pie.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

We just got back from a 2 week visit to Iowa City - it was full of summer fun - and I mean full. So, apologies to all the people we thought we'd have time to see, but didn't. Sincere apologies.

Before heading home to Iowa, John, Vera, Dodger and I drove to NYC via Pennsylvania to visit John's Yia Yia, aunt and cousins. Then we headed in to "the city" for baby K's shower. After meeting up with Laura, we left John and headed for Iowa, with an overnight in Columbus with the aunties. We arrived safe and sound the next evening in time for dinner on the screened-in porch on the farm.

The time in Iowa was fairly chaotic - with family coming and going at all times. David, Lindsay, and Amelia made it home early enough to overlap with Laura about a day, so we had our entire immediate family together for just long enough to take a family picture (not on my camera). Faith, Mark, Spencer and John were also around for much of the fun. We had multiple excellent meals, lawn games, canoing in Decorah, BBQ's on various decks, a visit to the beach of Lake Darling, and more. Unfortunately, our camera ran out of juice about half way through the visit, so the various events are not documented thoroughly.