Wednesday, May 15th
Oh, where does the time go? The last two months have been busy. In March we had a demo party to remove the stairs, Mike and Steph came down and we went out. The following weekend was the annual McCarty party. The tenants in the condo moved out after buying a place of their own, and I got the condo re-rented a few weeks later. We had Sarah's family down for Easter.
April we didn't get out as much since it was the end of the semester for Sarah and she had final papers due. I took Derek down to my mom's to help her move furniture so she could get her living room painted, and we helped Sei Youn move out of his apartment. Eriq and Dean came over to help with the house. Derek is walking full time, but other than a few new words isn't much different. Bigger, obviously. He's growing really fast.
The last couple of weeks Sarah was off school and now is starting a new internship, but other than my monthly night out with Steve and meeting Eriq and Matt B for coffee, I haven't been up to anything exciting other than working on the house. We're planning to go up to Sarah's parents' property for Memorial Day and to a cabin for my birthday, but between Sarah's school and the house we're expecting to have a pretty quiet summer.
Tuesday, March 5th
I just want to give a brief summary of events to date. Despite Sarah starting a new semester of school we've managed to get some work done on the house. Derek is starting to walk a few steps here and there and saying more words every day. He's up to six teeth with another one coming.
In January I went to Wisconsin to help Matt B plan his kitchen remodel and Eriq came down to help with the house. February I went up to Matt's to play Axis & Allies. We went down to my mom's for her birthday. Eriq came down and we went to the auto show.
Now we're into March. Steve and I had our monthly evening out this past Friday following a user group meeting I attended for work. Despite Sarah's school schedule we're plowing ahead with work on the house. I expect that will dominate my weekends for the foreseeable future. In short, it's been life as usual.
Monday, December 31st
As the year draws to a close, I'm going to review some highlights of the last few months. Obviously recapping everything isn't realistic. We took one more camping trip in September to Wyalusing. It was pretty cold and Sarah had to work on a paper for school, so we wound up spending a lot of time sitting around the campfire.
In October, with Sarah busy with school we didn't do a whole lot. We cheered Will on at the Chicago Marathon, Eriq and Meg came down for a visit, and we went to the McCarty's annual pumpkin carving party. We kicked off November with a cabin trip to Galena for Sarah's birthday, leaving Derek with Sarah's family so we had a weekend for the two of us. I went up to Milwaukee to help Matt B celebrate his fortieth birthday, we celebrated Thanksgiving at Sarah's parents' house, bought a new car (a Subaru Impreza hatchback) and threw a birthday party for one-year-old Derek. He ate cake for the first time, and he enjoyed it very much. He also got a ton of toys and clothes from friends and family.
We went to dinner with Steve and Kathryn, saw Dean and Siobhan's house now that they've moved in, visited Mike and Steph, and went to Minnesota for Christmas. Tonight we're going to Eriq and Meg's for a New Year celebration. That's the highly condensed version!
Tuesday, September 11th
The Dunes were fun. The campground is a bit crowded and our site was right by the gatehouse, but it was still a good time. We got in hiking, dune climbing, swimming, and beach time. Sunday my mom met us at the beach and we had lunch. Unfortunately it started to rain so we had to move into the pavilion, but we all had fun. Derek ate some sand and splashed in the water and really seemed to enjoy himself.
Derek popped his first teeth a couple of days ago, two in the bottom. My mom has been coming up on Wednesdays to watch him in the afternoon so that we can get some stuff done. Sarah's got a ton of schoolwork and I'm plugging away on the first floor. Sarah's also started her service commitment for school, so her mom has started babysitting Derek on the days she has to go to that.
Sarah's brothers spent last weekend with us, helping us on the house on Saturday and then going to a concert not far from us. Her parents were in the area to pick up some furniture to reupholster and they brought lunch to grill, which was really good.
This weekend should be pretty laid back. Next weekend we're going camping at Wyalusing State Park in Wisconsin.
Tuesday, August 14th
We got back from Branson late on Saturday. It was a long drive both ways, but we did have a lot of fun. Nicole and Rob brought their boat so we spent some time out on the lake, some time in the pool, went mountain biking and rock climbing, saw The Dark Knight Rises, as well as a fair amount of time relaxing and reading.
I'm back in the swing of things at work, figuring out the next steps on the house, Sarah's started school, and Derek is exploring the house via army crawl and looking more like actual crawling every day. This weekend I'm helping Eriq with his fence and playing poker with some friends. The following weekend we're going camping at the Dunes.