West Point Visit

 While my family was here we made the short trip out to West Point, NY. We did a thorough walk through of the Military Academy's visitor center and free Museum. 

 Reporting for duty.

Down in the basement they had an Atom Bomb display as part of the large weapons exhibit. I'd never been close to one before, amazing to think how destructive such a small and simple looking thing can be.

I also enjoyed the history of war gallery that pointed out the major shifts in military strategies over the years and the war leaders that introduced them.

I don't have many pictures because I was the one lagging behind everyone reading the exhibits, but we can take you when you come to visit :)

Danbury Railway Museum

Happy March everyone!

We're all settled in our new apartment here in Danbury, CT and are having fun in the same ward we were in a year ago.  It's good to see familiar faces and know the territory.  

We had a blast when the Quinns came out to visit last week.  Having family around is the best.  Hint hint. For those of you who have slept on our floor, we just got a second air mattress!

Here are some pics of our visit to the Danbury Railway Museum, otherwise known as Ira's Dream Come True. 

Ira followed Grandpa out to the train yard...

and almost immediately biffed it on some slippery ice.  

Ira calls this the "Thomas Train."  I keep thinking the Thomas shows will bore Ira out of his mind, but since he got scared out of his pants watching Veggie Tales last week, I guess boring is a-o.k.  

We tried to replicate some train yard super model shots they had in the museum with Mckay.  

So majestic. :)

Ira with Grandpa and Grandma.

I'm not a huge fan of having my belly-shot taken, but I had to show off the Pennsylvania car.  

I can still get the top and bottom buttons together on my coat, but nothing else.

Speaking of being pregnant, I'm feeling good and have been nesting like crazy!  Now that I've got less than 4 weeks till my due date, I'm suddenly packing hospital bags, organizing cupboards, setting up babysitting, and reading up on birthing.  I feel like I've just sprinted a few laps after bending over to put on shoes, and can't stop checking out books for Ira about becoming a big brother.  We're really liking our Bradley class, and love the birthing center I'll deliver at if all continues to go well. Here's a link if you're curious. http://www.ctbirthcenter.com/

Work is keeping Anthony busy, and being a few blocks from a library and park are keeping Ira busy.  Spring can't quite decide if it's begun or not, but we try to get out when we can. 

More Quinn photos and updates from Anthony are pending.  

Have a happy Sunday everyone!   

Ira Moving

Despite some health concerns with Ira he was a gem during the move.

Of Course he loved the boxes

He was really cute. He would curl up inside the box and close the
top and yell, "Where is Ira" 

He would then explode out of the box.

This hat caught his eye while we were moving and he
won't let us take it off. He even slept with it on a few times.

Back East

Our move back to Connecticut is over and we are getting comfortable in our new apartment. Leading up to the move everything seemed to be falling perfectly into place, but that was too good to be true. The movers came on Thursday and packed our lives into boxes and left, giving us what we thought would be a week to say our goodbyes and travel. However, later that afternoon we got a call and they wanted to deliver our stuff that Sunday. We went into scramble mode to leave the next afternoon. That evening we did all our apartment cleaning and as we crawled into our sleeping bags wearily made plans for finishing up work, returning items our friends had lent us, and saying some quick goodbyes then heading out. We woke up the next morning to find some blood in Ira's diaper, the final piece of evidence to confirm our growing suspicions that something was off with Ira (He had recently started to refuse to use the potty, even with good incentives). All signs pointed to a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI). We added 'Go to the Doctor' to our list of things to get done before we left.

Sharon was the lucky one that had to deal with most of this while I tried to get my projects at work wrapped up. The list goes on and on as to the challenges she faced. President Obama was giving a speech in Ann Arbor that morning, so she got stuck in stopped traffic while they closed the freeway. She got stuck at a train crossing because the train stopped. Her phone and GPS to get to run the last few errands ran out of battery resulting in getting lost a few times, she got pulled over by the cops, and risked a guys job to break into my work to pick me up. Sharon is amazing though and miraculously worked it all out and made it back to pick me up at work. After hastily throwing all our stuff into the car and turning our keys in we grabbed Ira's prescription and headed out of town.

We made it to the Romero's in Niagara Falls that evening after an uneventful drive through Canada other than the border patrol giving our stuffed car a few weird looks and asking a couple of times to verify we hadn't stopped somewhere along the way to buy anything. It was great to see the Romero's again. It felt like it had been a long time and was defiantly too short of a visit before we were back on the road. We made it to our new place Saturday evening and our stuff was delivered Sunday.

Ira's antibiotics seemed to be working well until Thursday when his temperature was up to 102 and didn't want to do much of anything but snuggle and grump.  Friday we took him in for a very long and traumatic doctor's visit with his temperature down to 100.5.  The pediatrician couldn't do much to find out what was wrong since Ira was busy kicking and screaming and punching the nurse.  Saturday, we finally got a urine sample from him at home and took it in.  His temperature is back to normal and it looks like the infection is clearing up, though he still says it hurts to use the potty.  It's been frustrating since he's been refusing to drink very many fluids or use the potty regularly, but other signs are pointing to recovery.  Thanks for the prayers!

In the midst of our first week craziness, Sharon made it to the Connecticut Birthing Center, which is a few minutes away and looks great.  We're signed up for a Bradley class (since Sharon may want to become a Bradley instructor someday), and are happy to find old friends at church.  This has been one of the more stressful moves, but things are falling into place.

Thanks to all our friends who helped us out.

A Farewell to Motown

Ah Detroit.  How we will miss you.  To continue Ira's birthday celebration and as a farewell to the city, we decided to check out the "North American International Auto Show."  Don't ask me why they have "North American" and "International" in the title.  I'd understand if NAIAS was a mind blowingly cool acronym or something.  

We haven't spent enough time down town, so it was fun to get a better feel for the city.

 "GM or Ford? GM or Ford?"

 The toughest prosthetic arm a girl could ask for.  

  

 "Hmm, I'll take it."

 Ira wanted to sit in every single car he saw.  I sat him in this one, and he wanted me to go hop in the drivers seat.  But by the time I got to the other side of the car, a tiny toddler girl had appeared there.  When I asked her if they were going to run away together, she flashed her big eye lashes a few times, and then gave a deliberate nod of the head. 

 We met up with the cousins there, James and Janet Quiles.  It's been fun getting to know them better.

 I don't really know anything about cars, but these cars were FANCY.  You know, concept cars with solar panels, tiny buttons to open the doors, and stereos that took up 3/4th of the inside space.

On an unrelated note...Happy Chinese New Year!  It's the perfect chance to restart your failed resolutions from non-Chinese new year.  It's the year of the dragon so I whipped this up with some random puffed rice cereal we had in our cupboard.  It was fast and easy, but puffed rice "crispie treats"  are nothing like using the good crunchy stuff.  Imagine frosting covered styrofoam.  

 Ira's dragon face.

Ira's other dragon face.

We also painted some eggs red, which was fun considering Ira's obsession with the color.  The egg symbolizes new life, and red is the color of happiness.  I'm not sure how authentic of a Chinese tradition it is, but it was just right for the little man's capabilities.

In other news, the movers come tomorrow!  We still don't know when they're delivering our stuff, but it will be at least by the 4th.  So, it's sleeping on the floor and minimal toyage till then.  Wish us luck!  

Monkeying Around

Forts are awesome. Dad can sleep while
Ira plays

Ira had a little trouble sharing with a friend we were
babysitting, until he realized there was enough to go around.

Getting creative with the snow.

I hope no one saw me eat that yellow snow...

Dad trying to imitate Ira's camera smile

Exploring music has been fun, I wish we lived near my sister
Tiffany so she could teach him.

Ira - Two Year Celebration

What a wonderful two years it has been having Ira in our lives. Many people we meet tell us to 'enjoy him like this' while he is small and sweet, but he has only become more enjoyable as he gets older. We are particularly enjoying dance parties(that we have to have every night before bed), potty training (which he is finally catching on to), and his general curiosity.

For his birthday we decided it would be fun to get up close to some fire trucks, one of his other passions as of late.

We visited the Ypsilanti Fire department with some friends
including his cousin Janet (above)

He had his usual, silent, awe struck child enthusiasm as he soaked
in the experience.

He got to turn the lights on and off

His favorite was sitting in the back of the cab. He didn't want to get out.
We had to convince the fire Captain that he was really enjoying himself
despite his experssion.

His friends that came along. I love that he wore his (fire) boots and
is standing to attention here.

Sharon made an awesome fire truck cake for him. It was a surprise.

The happy two year old (thanks for the shirt Camille),
we got him a little train whistle that he loves.

Ira showing his dance moves off to cousin Janet.