Good Morning!

A lot has been going on since our last post, nearly a month ago already! We are all doing well. Owen is walking with full gusto, since about a week and a half ago. We have been chasing after him ever since!


Tim and Jan went on a transatlantic cruise, and we moved into their house while they were away, to keep Molly and Howard company while they were gone. We learned some very important things from this experience.

Lesson number 1: Owen loves to pull anything and everything out of ground-level cabinets that he can reach. We zipped around baby-proofing what we could, and then played guard the rest of the time. It is pretty humbling when you sternly say, "NO!" to your child, only to see him burst out laughing at you as the response. My favorite part was when I glanced over from the kitchen sink to see Owen standing over Molly's dish (Molly standing to the side with an incredulous look on her canine face) and Owen shoveling kibble into his mouth! Usually when we say, "Ah", Owen will open his mouth for us...comes in handy when he has put contraband in, and we need to see what it is and remove it...so when I did the "Ah", imagine a little mouth full of kibble mimicking my "Ah" back. Something like a mouthful of marbles, if that helps. And my finger swiftly scooping out 4 or 5 pieces before he knew what was going on.

Lesson number 2: Molly is an outstandingly good dog! and I even made friends with Howard, while our own squirrelies were staying over and encroaching on his territory.

Lesson number 3: it is confusing maintaining two households at the same time. Is there babyfood and milk wherever we are going to be? Where is that shirt? Darn, it is at our house...etc.

Lesson number 4: It is good to be home. After many grosse loads of laundry, we are unpacked, groceries are restocked, and if we can't find it here...it probably only exists in our imagination.

Lesson number 5: Owen has no threshold for laughing and having fun. Watch the following video as case in point.


Over the last weekend, my parents, Bob and Lee Hamill, drove from Cedar Rapids Iowa for a visit with us. Fortunately, we had an extra house to offer them accommodations, and that probably only slightly deferred the expense of their gas to get here and back! We enjoyed our sunny days by shopping for flowers and herbs to plant in the front of our house.

This is my first time in my life having a place to garden...what fun! Dad and Lee enjoy spending their weekends working on their yard, so it was a great activity to share together. We also went to the Krohn Conservatory Butterfly Show, and got some wonderful pictures. Owen was a walking fool the whole time we were there!









He was moderately interested in the Butterflies, and really interested in the flowers and other children everywhere. A little girl made friends with Owen while we were there.


Chris continues to work for PDG, with a few weeks on, and a few weeks off. He has been meeting many theater people in the Cincinnati area, and trying to line-up design work for himself. He has a couple promising leads for shows in the 2009 season. I have also been getting back to doing some piano tech work, and the quest for piano students continues...