Vist to Santa 2009

Photos of the Snow of December 2009 in a subsequent post, but I have the CD with the Santa picture, so I wanted to upload it while I had the chance.

We ventured out this afternoon to the Inner Harbor where Santa has a house. Still tons of snow and ice and slush on the ground. Ripley was a bit scared to sit on her own, so Chad and I jumped in the photo with her.

Because we had issues with the CD we bought last year, they gave us the super package for the cheap package price. We went with the purple theme like we did last year. And exactly the same Santa. I think it's officially a tradition.

Halloween, Chad's Birthday, and a Visit from James and Mare

Ripley had a series of Halloween events, starting with Boo at the Zoo in Cleveland (penguin - see previous post), the Halloween Lantern Parade in Patterson Park (ladybug - thank you Grammy!), Ghoul at the School, and Fells Point Kids Halloween.

We were also happy to see James and Mare this weekend. They

joined us on our Fells Point Halloween adventure, ate yummy food with us at DiPasquales, and wrapped up a visit to the American Visionary Arts museum. We seem to have a bit of a jinx when it comes to our visits with James and Mare, as James slipped and banged himself up in the wooden tree house at the museum as we were leaving, but we are hoping for a quick recovery.

Despite the busy week, we also had time to celebrate Chad's birthday. We went to the B&O Brasserie where Chad got the mixed grill, which to our surprise came out in a ceramic pig. A memorable evening all around.

Ripley's First Birthday: Part III AKA Culann and Carolyn's Wedding (5/30/09)

I would like to say that we've been out of the country or something similarly exciting, but I have no excuse for not updating the blog. My goal tonight is to catch up. We'll see if it happens.

When we last left our heroine, she was celebrating her first birthday. Over a month later, I can no longer say that she "just turned one." Ripley Annabel is now 13+ months old. We rounded out her first birthday week with her Uncle Culann and Aunt Carolyn's wedding. Ripley was part of the wedding party - and I was her accessory. She was the ring girl and I pulled her down the aisle in a fun blue wagon. She loved being in the wagon. Was not as happy out of the wagon.

We tried to get her to go to sleep early (see her in her PJs and getting a bottle), but there was a lot going on. A sampling of photos is below. Include one of her new official aunt and uncle.

Visit to Texas - April 2009

Time seems to be passing more and more quickly for us. I think I need to commit to updating the blog once a week at the same time. Maybe Sunday night? Otherwise, things seem to be slipping away. I am going to go back and try to recreate a few things, but didn't want that to stop me from posting some photos of our trip to Texas last week.

We started out in Pearland for one night where we got to see Grandma Janet, Aunt Judy and Uncle Benny. Ripley absolutely loved the pond in the backyard. I wish we had gotten some video of her splashing, but I think you can get the gist of how much she enjoyed leaning over and splashing.

Galveston was our next stop. Chad and I decided it might have been over 5 years since we had been there, so we booked a room at the Casa Del Mar for Thursday night. We got to the city fairly early and Ripley fell asleep right as we were pulling into town, so we drove around visiting my old houses (1818 Ave. O; 2525 O 1/2 ; 3615 O 1/2) I had forgotten how close the first house was to the beach. It was very run down, but the other two (especially 3615) looked great.

Overall Galveston was on the mend, but there was still so much damage from Hurricane Ike evident. The Down on the Strand, there was a line on the buildings showing where the water had been.

We had lunch at a wonderful Mexican place called Gorditas (where Chad had a spicy beer thing called a Michelada, and then headed to the Bolivar Ferry where we saw a ton of seagulls and dolphins!

For dinner, Chad had crawfish etouffee from Benno's on the Beach and I got a falafel from a Mediterranean Chef on the Strand, both of which we took back to the room so we could put the little girl to sleep. It was a bit cold so we didn't actually get into our suits to go to the pool or the beach, but we did walk along the beach for a bit.

On Friday morning, we had an amazing breakfast at The Sunflower Cafe and took some pastries to go (including a slice of pecan pie that they somehow dipped in chocolate!) to share with Mom and Dean. We tried to go on a Galveston Duck Tour, but the PA system wasn't working, so the tour guide thought we wouldn't be able to hear and didn't want to go ahead with the tour. We'll have to try again on our next visit. On our way out of town, we stopped off at Katie's Seafood Market (1902 Wharf - right off the Strand) to pick up some shrimp for dinner. We swung by Pearland again, picked up Mom/Grandma Janet and headed up to Hilltop.

It is always so relaxing to be at Hilltop. We went into Jewett on Saturday to the Flea Market. The only purchase was some kettle corn because Chad can't ever pass this up. We went to the cantata service at the Hilltop Chapel for Easter Sunday. Ripley did well for about half of the time, but she got tired fast so she and I sat out in the lobby for the second half. And finally on Monday before we left, we got to see the cousins and Aunt Emily and Uncle Freddie before we headed back to Hobby Airport to fly home. All in all a most wonderful visit. We can't wait to get back so we can swim in the Texas pool!

Christmas in Virginia

We continued with our beach tradition for Christmas this year by meeting up with Mom, Dean, Jenny, Jon and Nicole in Virginia Beach. There were even a few furry friends who joined us. Ripley and her cousin Dexter got along quite well.

Ripley enjoyed being with everyone - and she loved the shiny wrapping paper that might have been more fun than her presents. There were walks on the beach, some letterboxing and just good family time. Ripley would like to thank her Grandma Janet and Grandpa Dean for renting such a fun place for us to all be together.

New Years at Cape May

We'll get to Christmas eventually, but a few words about New Years. We've been so lucky over the years to be able to meet up with our "architect" friends (even though not all of them are architects) in Cape May for New Years. The short version of the story is that Chad's college roommate Alan went to high school with Scott, who married Nina and had Cai and Von. Scott knew James from grad school (I think - and/or living together in Philly); Mare is James' sweetie and they live in NYC. I should ask again how Teresa knows Scott. Anyway, we all have a fun time together that involves a big house, walks on the beach, dominos and Guitar Hero/Rock Band.

This was Ripley's first new years in Cape May. We did a few new things - including going to Sunset Beach to watch the sun go down over the water. A fun adventure!

Santa is Coming to Town

I have a lot of updates to make, but in the meantime, here is a video from the pageant at Ripley's daycare. The babies in the infant room were the "reindeer" on Santa's "sleigh". I am definitely biased, but I think she is the most adorable reindeer of them all.

More Holiday Stuff

We spent our last weekend of 2008 at home doing fun holiday stuff. On Saturday, we went up to Hampden (a neighborhood in Baltimore) that has a 34th Street. Each year every person on the block decorates in quite the lavish fashion - and it is called A Miracle on 34th Street.

On Sunday, it was a gorgeous day, so after brunch with Lea and Bill, we walked over to the harbor in the big girl stroller (did I mention I left the small snap and go stroller in Texas!) which little girl has taken to quite well - and by taken to, I mean loves to gum. At the harbor, we saw:

Catching Up - Baby's First Thanksgiving

It has been a busy few weeks and will remain busy through the end of the year, but I finally think I have a bit of time to try to recreate some of our adventures. They started with Ripley's first Thanksgiving. We have some wonderful holiday traditions that we were so excited about sharing with little girl.

Things started with the trip north on 95. Usually a 2 1/2 hour trip, we know it is going to take longer on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, but we were able to leave around 3:30 and pretty quickly made our way through Maryland, only to come to a screeching halt in Delaware. For those of you who do not travel this stretch of road, 12 miles of I-95 are in Delaware. Doesn't seem like so much, but this 12 miles took us 1 1/2 hours to traverse. Once in Jersey, things were fine again and we were there by 7:30 or so.

A wonderful Thanksgiving Thursday with good food and good company. Uncle Tom came over from Detroit. Matt, Christine and Deirdre joined us. But we did miss Uncle Culann and Aunt Carolyn who went up to Michigan this year. And Chuck was laid low upstairs with a stomach virus. I am glad Ripley will be too small to remember they weren't there - and we hope that we'll get back on track next year! Daddy took time away from carving the turkey to handout with ittle girl in her pretty dress.

Little girl got us up early on Friday, so it made sense to hit a Black Friday sale (for the first time) - to replace our camera which was taking way too many blurry photos. After a nice brunch, Chad, Ripley and I headed to Cape May, where we stayed at Congress Hall, a super cool historic hotel. We walked along the beach, did some shopping, played some skee ball at the local arcade, and ate dinner at our usual - Stumpos. We made it an early night, put baby to bed and followed in the tradition of watching a movie by watching Hancock (much better than we thought it was going to be).

On Saturday, we took our time and headed to the Cape May - Lewes Ferry to begin the ride home. It was baby's first boat ride and she had a wonderful time looking out the window at the ocean. We look forward to many many more Thanksgiving adventures.

Texas Photos - details to follow

We got home from Texas this afternoon at about 5 pm. I've been unpacking and such. I'll write more about both Thanksgiving (including our trip to Cape May) and the Texas adventure soon, but for now, feel free to browse the photos on my Picasa site.

**UPDATE - I don't think this includes the photos from our camera - just the ones from my Mom, Margie's, Aunt Judy's and Chelsea's - I'll try to get the others up soon!

The Rest of the Halloween Story

Ripley had an incredibly busy week with Halloween activities. It started on Sunday with the Lantern Parade (see previous post), and continued on Wednesday with her play group. We started going to Wednesday play group back in the summer when I was working from home, so it was easy to arrange my schedule to visit with other Fells Point/Butcher's Hill moms and their little ones. It has been harder this Fall, but we manage to go every other week or so, and this week was the Halloween dress up event. Ripley was Tinkerbell, courtesy of her aunt Jenny.

Ripley is no longer the youngest in the group - she was for quite a while - but the majority of the babies are still about 2-3 months ahead of her, so it has been fun seeing what she is going to be doing (crawling!) before we know it.

On Friday, we had 3 events. First came her appearance as Tinkerbell at her day care party. To the left you can see her as "angry" Tink with Miss Crystal (purple hat) and Miss Kari (green hat). I think she was mad that she couldn't have a cupcake with bright orange frosting. Or maybe she was just hungry.

We went from our day care party to Ghoul at the School. Community groups and businesses set up tables at Patterson Park Public Charter School and the kids walk around and get to trick or treat. Daddy aka Dr. Kramer Dr. Kramer Dr. Kramer (it is so fun for his students to see him at events like this) carried her around. It was a gorgeous afternoon, and she had a nice time being the center of attention.

And finally, after a short stop at home for a nap, we headed up to see our friends the Kannams. I am mad that I did not get a picture of them - Peter was a coconut tree, Zachary was a soccer ball, and Cole was a Siberian Tiger. Ripley had drooled all over her Tinkerbell costume, so we changed back into tofu pup to round out the week. I stayed at the house and helped hand out candy, while Chad took her around with the boys. All in all, it was a very fun first Halloween, but I don't think Chad got her enough candy when they were trick or treating. I suppose that will have to wait for the upcoming years.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Halloween

So our week of Halloween kicked off on Sunday with the Halloween Lantern Parade in Patterson Park. This quirky event occurs every year, but this is the first time we've gone because we are usually out of town Halloween weekend for Chad's birthday. This year the celebration came to us (a fun visit from Granny Vivienne and Pop Pop), so we were here. The parade was supposed to happen on Saturday, but it was much too rainy and windy, so they did it on Sunday.

Ripley did not march in the parade this year, but she did dress up so that the people who were marching by could see her in her first costume - what I like to refer to as the "tofu pup" outfit. To the untrained eye, it could seem like a hot dog costume, but her vegetarian aunt (Carolyn) was part of sending it, and knows Ripley's mom is vegetarian, so I have no doubt it was a tofu pup. Then again, if her uncle Culann had anything to do with it, I suppose it was a hot dog.

There were many many Patterson Park students who kept coming up to Ripley's daddy and yelling Dr. Kramer Dr. Kramer. There was even one little girl who I thought was going to hyperventilate from the excitement of seeing her principal outside of school.

I am trying to convert some of the video Chad shot so you can see the coolness that was the parade, so I might add this later. For now, this picture gives you a sense of what it looked like. I think next year, we'll be sure to make a lantern for little girl (and let her help, of course) and will figure out a way to help her march/roll with it. It seems like a fun tradition to start.

This is just the beginning of Halloween 2008. Still to come - Play Group Halloween; Day Care Halloween; Ghoul at the School