Spring Visit

Seattle University is on the quarter system, which means while summer has already begun for most colleges, we at SeattleU are coming up on our last week. The last few weeks have been a grind, with students and professors limping their way to the finish line, but the end is in sight! All this is to explain why I've been negligent in my blogging duties, but the holiday weekend has given me new energy.

The highlight of the past month was a visit from Emily's parents, who stayed with us for a week. Needless to say, Michael was elated to see his Gaga and Papa and relished their love and attention. He began by taking them to his favorite bar for happy hour. (Half price drinks if you bring your own sippy-cup!)

He also took the opportunity to show off his new walking skills. Gaga and Papa bought him these "chompers" for Christmas, and they've really been getting some use in the last few weeks.




Next on the Seattle tour was a careful inventory of Michael's changing table. It's cute in this video but slightly less charming when the inventory is a stall tactic at bedtime.




Here's some more walking with Emily and Gaga:

On a trip to the mall, Michael made a stop at the kids' area and got himself into a little jam. It was only a small lip but when you've got a tummy like Michael's, it is not easy to work yourself out of such a tight spot! Fortunately, he was content (for a while) to watch the bigger kids run around.

The visit also included a trip to the zoo, where Emily is now a proud member. It's not easy to get pictures of Michael with animals in the background; both have a hard time keeping still and looking at the camera for more than two seconds. It helps when the animals are stone statues, but even then Michael wouldn't look at the camera!

The tractor in the zoo's farm area is always a winner:

In fact, vehicles in general are a real Michael favorite. Here he is driving the boat on a trip to the playground with me and Papa:

Another highlight of the visit was a trip to Spokane where we caught up with Papa's cousin Betty, whom we visited in Idaho on our drive out west last summer. She was in Spokane visiting her son and daughter who live there (another daughter lives in Seattle), so we took the opportunity to see her and the two families on a wonderfully sunny Saturday afternoon. Here is Betty with Michael and Gaga.
And here she is with her kids Nancy and Walt:
And finally here is Michael with Gabe, Joe, Lydia and Dominic (clockwise from top. Gabe and Joe are Nancy's kids, and Dominic and Lydia are Walt's. Michael was mesmerized watching all the older kids play, and all four of them were so sweet with him. Emily and I left hoping that Michael will be just like his cousins when he gets older!

Michael's play included mowing the lawn. We said he didn't have to, but he insisted by saying, "No, no, you keep playing. This yardwork will only take a second."

When he was done with the mowing, he spent some time contemplating a blue ball: Hmmm. What is this good for?

Why, yes, a pillow!

Of course, playing is hard work, so Michael snoozed for part of our drive back to Seattle the next day. Fortunately for him, he was awake when we stopped at Dairy Queen for a treat!
Here's one more video of Michael walking, this time with Gaga and Papa. Alas, there are not many pictures or videos with Papa in them, since he was behind the camera most of the time. When you see Em's camera skills in this video, I think you'll see why.

Fortunately, the photo turned out better than the video:

Michael was very sad after his Gaga and Papa flew home and asked for them all day long. However, he was comforted to know that he'll see them soon in Syracuse when we visit the East Coast this summer.

Easter Preview

Today turned out to be a (relatively) pretty day here in Seattle so we took the opportunity to do a photo shoot in Michael's Easter outfit. Actually, there were two photo shoots, the first at a children's consignment shop in downtown Winslow, whose owner is also a photographer. She set up a little studio outside the shop and had real bunnies for kids to hold during their shoot. Michael sat for about five minutes with a bunny in his lap, and he was loving it! He would pet the bunny gently and then look at me and Emily with a huge smile on his face. We won't know how the pictures came out till we see the proofs, but he had a lot of smiles, so hopefully we'll have some keepers. Riding the wave of photographic mirth, we had our own photo shoot back at the cottage. Who knows what the weather will be like next weekend, so we thought we'd get some shots of him today in his special Easter shirt. Our plan was to get him with the tulips that are just blooming in the yard, but every time we set him down, he would start crawling into the flowers. This is one of the only shots I got before he took off. Plan B was to have him walk along this little wall. He stopped walking every now and then, and I'd try to get him to look at me.

I love the next picture; too bad it is a little blurry.

I don't know what he's holding in this next one, but I like to think he's giving of the Italian "what-do-you-want?" gesture.

Che vuoi?

This next one struck me as similar to the famous "Loneliest Job" picture of JFK, except Michael's job is not quite as lonely or stressful as the President.

Last is our favorite from the photo shoot: What a handsome little boy!

Mornings with Michael

Back to back posts! I'm a roll here; the end of the college basketball season has significantly cut down the time I waste on UNC message boards. But don't get used to this level of output. It will not be sustainable in the long term. This post is just to show what I encounter when I go in to get Michael first thing in the morning. He's usually standing up, but this morning I caught on him just before he stood up. He still wears his sleep sack which makes it a little tricky. Just seconds before this video, he went head first into the bars.
He usually wakes up in a good mood as he did this morning.

Another very cute thing that he does and which we're just getting around to documenting is to nod yes to questions. Here is a video I took with my camera this morning, which unfortunately doesn't have any sound. If it did, you would hear me asking Michael, "Do you love Dada?" (nod), "Do you love Mama?" (nod). We went through the entire family like this and he nodded for everyone!

Near the end of the video (at 1:05), when you see him smile widely, it's because I asked him if he loved his cousin Chandler! As soon as I said her name, he got so happy! Later in the morning we did the same routine with the video camera, so as soon as we learn how to download videos from the camera to the computer, we'll post it with the sound. In the meantime we are enjoying that fact that he has not yet learned to say no, but we know the day (...the year?...the years?) is coming when that's about all he'll be saying!

A Trip to Victoria and More

At last, I've gotten around to narrating a recent visit from Honey and Poppy Davis, who were here for a week last month. Since it was spring break at Seattle University, we all took the opportunity to hit the road for a few days. Actually, we hit the channel waters, namely, the Juan de Fuca Strait, which divides Washington State from British Columbia, Canada. Our trip began with a drive to Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula, from which the MV Coho ferry leaves twice a day. It was a beautiful day with a clear view of the Olympic Mountains, as we left the port.

The ferry definitely had more side-to-side movement than we're used to, and it took a while to get our sea legs. Michael had a little fall (strait trippin') but nothing too bad. Soon enough we were looking around the boat, and Poppy took some time to enjoy the on-board entertainment.

After a 90 minute ride, we arrived in Victoria, where the harbor (or as they say harbour) was busy with boats and seaplanes coming and going.

From the harbour, you can see the two architectural jewels of Victoria. Here are Honey, Poppy and Michael, standing in front of the Empress Hotel, as we prepared to disembark.

The other jewel is the Parliament Building, which was designed by the same architect, Francis Rattenbury. (Later that afternoon we took a self-guided tour of the buildings.)

Right in front of the Parliament is a statue of the city's namesake, Queen Victoria. Vivat Regina.

Besides regina, Victoria was also called imperatrix, or empress, which is where the Fairmont Hotel took its name. The hotel's claim to fame is its afternoon tea, which we had heard is one of the things you have to do if you're visiting Victoria. Naturally, we made reservations and, soon after disembarking the ferry, found ourselves relishing tea and pastries in the Empress's elegant dining room. After his initial faux pas of trying to add his own sugar cubes to his tea (you should have the waiter do it for you), Poppy settled in to his cup of Empress Blend. Honey and I were quite fortunate that the Empress has "Celiac offerings," which closely approximated the regular menu. Here is the tray that Emily and Poppy shared.

Yes, it was delicious, but poor Michael, who had a cold for almost the whole trip, was a little out of sorts. It's times like these that my habit of eating fast really pays off; I think I set an Empress record for inhaling the pastry tray and then took Michael into the lobby where he fell asleep with some rocking. An unexpected side effect of the pastries and my rapid consumption of them was an intense sugar high. Emily and I have both given up sweets for Lent but gave ourselves a "traveler's dispensation" (that's legit, right?) for our trip to Victoria. Those tea pastries hit us hard, and the high was followed by a serious crash at the hotel, as we watched the NCAA tournament.

But before heading back to our own wonderful hotel (the Marriott, of course), we took a walk around the shops near the Inner Harbour. Here is the entrance to Chinatown.

And here is Michael not enjoying one of the stores we dropped in. Initially, I thought this chair might be a nice upgrade for the rocker in Michael's room, but he made his feelings pretty clear.

Once back at the Marriott, Michael and Honey resumed one of their favorite activities during the trip: watching the cars, buses and trucks drive in front of the hotel. The highlight of the next day was a bus tour of Victoria and the surrounding neighborhoods. (Or is it neighbourhoods?) Michael was into the tour at first...

...but in short time his interest waned and he slept for most of the ride. He looked so content sleeping, that I was also inspired to close my eyes for part of the tour. We saw lots of the city and agreed that we'd bring our van next trip, so that we can explore some of the outlying neighbourhoods. We also put off the Butchart Gardens till the next trip, because there weren't many blooms out in early March, and it would have been expensive to get their without our own vehicle.

Our two days in Victoria flew by and soon we were walking to the MV Coho for the ride back to Port Angeles.

Here's a picture of me and Poppy on the ride back, with Poppy sporting his new Hollywood-producer glasses.

Once again Michael found a comfortable seat and snoozed. He was such a trooper on the trip, even with his cold. Such a sweet boy, as always.

Okay, maybe not always sweet; well sweet but messy. Here is one of the few pictures I took after our trip to Victoria. Once Michael got going with his rice dinner, it went from messy to messier. This was a straight-from-the-high-chair-to-the-bathtub kind of night.

Here are a few pictures that Poppy took during their visit. Here is one of Michael wearing a hat that was purchased at the USS North Carolina last summer. Whenever he wears it, we like to tell him that his Uncle B used to have one just like it.

And sleeping again. Looks like he was having some sweet dreams.

And lastly, a shot of Michael and Honey looking out over the Puget Sound to the Seattle skyline.

Baltimore Visitors

Here on Bainbridge Island we have just wrapped up a fortnight full of wonderful visitors. Just yesterday my parents left after a week's visit, which included a trip to Victoria, B.C., but we'll save that visit for a post later this week (or next). Before them, we had some friends from Baltimore fly out to visit. In fact, our first visitors from Baltimore were Anne and Kent who came last January for a long weekend.

Anne and Emily worked together at Loyola in Balto, and we had fun catching up on the news from the school and the city. It also helped that the Ravens were still in the playoffs during their visit, so we could root for them against the Chiefs, and their visit also coincided with the Seahawks' improbable win against the New Orleans Saints. It was a memorable weekend, indeed.

More recently, our friends Brendan and Abby used a free Southwest flight to fly out here with their beautiful daughter, Mary. Brendan, Abby and I were all Jesuit Volunteers in the Bay Area -- they were in San Francisco, but I was keeping it real in Oakland -- and by good fortune we all wound up in Baltimore. Equally fortuitous was the news that Emily and Abby, besides both working at Loyola, had the same due date for Michael and Mary! The parallel pregnancies were a blessing for everyone: Abby and Emily compared notes, while Brendan and I compared our bewilderment. After they were born, we got to work planning their wedding twenty or so years from now.

With that backstory, you can imagine Michael's nervous anticipation as we prepared for their visit. Naturally, he wanted to shower up before their date, and like a gentleman, he gave Mary the tub, while he settled for the sink.

The date itself took place at Battle Point Park. From the beginning, Michael wanted to show that he was tough and rugged; he went straight for the dump truck placard.
Little did he know that Mary was actually an expert on the digger!
Next they made their way to the sandbox and the big rock that is painted like a frog.

And finally, back to the cottage for an elegant dinner for two. For the most part, it was a quiet dinner, but a couple of times they passed food back and forth to each other.
After dinner, the sweet little ones got into their sleepers and prepared for bed. Would there be a good night kiss?
Who knows? The next morning both babies stonewalled our questions!

All in all, it was a great long weekend with Brendan, Abby and Mary. We look forward to seeing you all in Balto sometime this summer!

Game Day!

Michael woke up this morning and said he had a good feeling about the Tar Heels tonight. Fortunately, he had just the outfit for their game against Duke. Go Heels!