Busy January

Wow, this has been a busy January, both at work and at home. First things first, I heard Friday about my new job! Tom is going to to be the Commanding Officer of the ASPEN, a buoy tender in San Francisco (yay!) and I am going to be the Sector San Francisco Waterways Division Chief (another yay!). Amazingly, we both got our first choice this year. So we are very happy and now the planning can begin in earnest for the move out west.

O has been very busy too. He says new words everyday, and puts two or three together for short sentences. He is actually very good at communicating what he wants or needs.

He still loves music and his little piano:
Yesterday, we went to roller derby in DC. After the roller derby fun, we had some people, including Kristen back to the house for calzones. O was a charming host, as usual:

He is very focused at times - in this photo he is pretending the giraffe and the drum are a mini-blender like we use to make smoothies, complete with sound effects.
Very focused on his piano playing...
And here, he is pretending that his blocks are faucets and soap dispensers. He put his cups under the pieces and would make water noises as he "filled" them up. Pretty cool to see him pretending like that.

New Friends and Old Friends

We had quite a weekend here in DC. On Saturday, Nan and Pop came to spend the day and night with O while Tom and I went to a show and stayed out overnight in NW DC.

They brought some new friends for O to watch and play with, introducing Charlie and Goldie...





After Nan and Pop got settled in, we headed out for a nice afternoon to ourselves before meeting some friends for dinner before the show. One of the folks we had dinner with is Ryan, a good friend from high school who Tom has not seen in over 10 years. Turns out, that in addition to his day job, Ryan has started a company making gourmet marshmallows! He brought some for us to try, and they are delicious.

The show we went to was Paul Cebar, at the Barns at Wolftrap, which is an amazing venue. We had lots of fun dancing the night away. I don't think I have danced that much in at least two years! It was a great show.

Today we met up with Marcus and Bea and the kids for a nice walk along the canal tow path in Georgetown and lunch. Nice three day weekend overall. Tom is heading down to Portsmouth, VA for a few days this week, so the little man and I will be on our own.

Snow in DC

We finally got some snow today. Not just flurries, but big fat snowflakes. It even stuck to the grass. O was not sure what to make of it hitting him in the face as we walked to the house from the car.




Two days ago it was 60, tomorrow is supposed to be in the mid fifties. It is a wonder we are not all sick.

Happy New Year!

Hurray 2012!!!


Happy 2012!! Wow, another year has come and gone. It is amazing how fast time seems to be going. Before we know it, our little family will be packed up and moved on to San Francisco and our time here in DC will be gone.

We had a great few days here. Last night, we were hosted at our friends Tracy and Steve's house along with some other great folks. O was great - he hung in until about 8:30 and then told us it was time for night night. He went to sleep like a champ away from home - such a good boy!

As for Tom and I, we had a great evening eating delicious food and hanging out with old and new friends for the New Year.

Today, we hosted an open house for friends. We had about 25 people and lots of good food. It was fun to have a house full and O enjoyed making his rounds and charming the crowd.

Happy New Year from Tom, O and I!

Merry Christmas Travels

We had a great Christmas this year. First, we went and had fun at Nan and Pop's House. Even before opening presents, O had a great time playing with the truck bank, putting coins in and getting Mom or Pop to shake them out.
Nan and Pop got O this beautiful toy chest - full of wrapped gifts, of course...
Here is O, playing with his new Weebles and Weeble boat.
O really liked opening and closing the doors on his new truck bank.
... and sitting on presents before opening them.
Here we are outside ready to ride his new bike. Unfortunately we did not get any good shots of him riding.
Drilling with Pop. He was so cute copying the technique!


After a couple days of fun with Nan and Pop it was off to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. O was enthralled with the train under the tree.
Christmas morning - straight to the train control box!
Then on to tackling the presents!
Big grown up man with his new backpack...


Spontaneous Mom hugs! I will take that for a Christmas present.
He was very determined to get himself and his owl into this small box...
When backwards did not work, he decided to just lie down with his head in the box.
And finally, O with Santa Grandpa!

Christmas Party

O's classroom at daycare had their Christmas party on Wednesday last week. The kids and parents all had a lot of fun. His teachers had smoothies for the kids' treat, and O kept on asking for more, more, more.

After smoothies, the kids opened the presents that all of the Moms and Dads bought for the classroom. O really liked playing with the picnic basket he opened. He was very intent on getting everything out and put back in.

Very, very intent...

And, of course, some trucks.

The Bahamas and Back

Last week our little family traveled to The Bahamas. I had a conference for work so we all went a couple of days early for family time. O had a lot of fun playing in the sand and swimming. While I was working he and Tom hung out at the beach, went to the water park at the Atlantis Resort and to a local bird zoo. Unfortunately, Tom did not get a lot of pictures being on his own with the energetic little man and we had a little camera trouble also.

Here is O having fun in the sand, He would say "dump dump dump" whenever he played with the truck. The hotel had a little beach and they had sand toys for kids to borrow in the little cabana, O would go each morning and ask for his bucket and some trucks. He had those guys wrapped around his finger (just like Mom and Dad).

O was not thrilled about the bird on Tom's hand, but he warmed up a little after a few minutes. They also saw a flamingo show..

We happened to be there for a street parade called Junior Junkanoo. O loved the drumming and dancing - this junior version was a precursor to the big parade on Christmas.

Silly