Pics from my phone

I've had some problems with my phone lately mostly related to a lot of spontaneous rebooting. Turns out it is likely from a failing power switch. I loosened the phone and then tightened it back together and, surprisingly/luckily it started working again. I went to copy some pictures off of it and found some interesting shots from over the last year:

This was at our favorite Mexican restaurant in Baltimore where Richie discovered his love for cheese cake.

Just before we left Baltimore, I snapped a couple of pictures of this Arabber selling fruit. Moments later, his cart was crushed by a car. Fortunately, he was okay. See this link for the story: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-06-27/news/bs-md-ci-arabber-accident-20130627_1_arraber-car-crashes-arabber

One of our last visits to the Maryland Science Center. We do miss that place and living so close to it!

Here is Richie in the cab of the 18 wheeler used to move our stuff to Pittsburgh:

Flash forward to this last week in Florida. Here is Richie at the Shell Factory. Pretty much the only place in Ft. Meyers where you can still get whole shells.

Here is cousin Sarah, all grown up!

Richie playing with his cousin Michael

Cousin Jared with his favorite stockingstuffer...a stuffed broccoli

ML and aunt Ginger playing Richie's game, The Crystal Portal on my iPad....until all hours of the night!

Wet Halloween

We got rain as our trick this year. Interestingly, the businesses that are down the street from us hand out candy from 5:30 - 7p, so no one was trick-or-treating at the houses until after that. Not surprising, but unexpected. Richie was dressed as a knight. ML was dressed as a soaking wet mother in the trench coat!

We set up our front porch, but this was before the heavy rains.

Warrior Knight!

I have a feeling we'll be seeing this costume used beyond Halloween!

BIG Changes

This is going to be a text only post...sorry everybody....I just cannot seem to find an opportunity to get pictures posted....

During this last week, Richie, somewhat spontaneous started READING! He's sounding out words and we've been testing it by giving 1st reader books that he's never seen. Some words he has memorized, others he has to sound out. This is VERY exciting for me because I've been a little concerned at his lack of interest in making this step. He's known his letters and sounds for about 2 years.

Another big changed happened to Richie today. I took the Nintendo DS away. Not in time-out. I'm done. Or rather, he's done. It has been a progressive battle that usually surrounds it and so I told him that I'm taking it away until he can better balance play, work and studies. He cried for a few minutes, but he seems to understand and is hoping that he'll be ready by the time he's 5 or 6.

In other, happier news, Richie has been enjoying Pre-school at the JCC down the street. We've been investigating the different kindergartens and elementary schools in the area. We had a 3 hour tour of one today. They did a nice job having one of the second graders give us a tour (with her mother). Richie announced that he was in love with our tour guide because she was so nice to him. I tried to explain to him that she is supposed to be, that it was her job, but then I realized that it was just too complex a conversation to explain the nature of a service industry. :-) Richie invited her over for a play date, which I thought was cute but too much of a conflict of interest for the adults. But maybe I'll throw caution to the wind and invite them over for a little play date. We've now toured three different schools in the area and I think they all of different things to offer. And, if all else fails, our local public school is actually pretty good according to our pre-K teacher.

We all continue to enjoy the area and love our house! We have had some challenges, including our dishwasher deciding not to close properly and leaking onto the floor and having to replace our refrigerator, but the challenges haven't been too great. We've started putting up some sheers on the downstairs windows. Part of this came up because the people that trimmed our trees really cut back one of the big shrubs in front of our dinning room window that blocked street traffic from seeing in. I think the sheers are nice in that we can still see out.

We also had the roofer come out this weekend. He did much of the roof, but needs to get a cap for the secondary chimney and decided to do the tall roof and point the secondary chimney when he's got the cap to put on. He did a nice job and fixed many of the slates that were sloppily installed.

Ugh, on the down side, we STILL. HAVE. STINK. BUGS. I just put one in the toilet.

Richie has started doing some after school programs like Tiny Ninjas! His teacher makes them to push-ups when they get into trouble. Richie likes showing us how well he does push-ups at home! He's also been swimming at school and will start doing an added lesson once a week. But I don't know first hand how that is going.

Going back further in time, we had a really nice visit with Omie, when it was still warm outside. Hopefully I'll get around to posting some of those pictures...some day.

On the home front, we started looking at Stickley furniture in the late summer. Two weeks after we visited the local store, they (Stickley) closed the store. We went to the sale but realized we were about to pay as much for as bed frame as a hand crafted one that we had really liked from a store around the corner from us in Baltimore. So we decided to buy the one in Baltimore, which is actually hand crafted in Peru (http://www.artesanosdonbosco.com/). Now we just have to get around to getting a mattress for it and move out of our guest room. Then we can start having guests! Oh wait, too late.

Another cute spontaneous outburst, Richie went up to Mama and said, "You know who my best big-boy friend? Uncle-Curly! He's almost as silly as a clown." Of course, I thought it should be me, but now that I've taken the Nintendo away, I'm sure I'm off of that list for quite some time.

One last thing, and maybe the most important. Richie came up with the cutest little saying a couple of weeks ago. He claims that he made it up, but it is the cutest thing. "Love is nearby!" And if you ask him where it is, he'll point to himself.

Richie's first patent?

Firstly, an explanation. Richie believes band aides are magical. If you have a cut all you have to do is put a band aide on it, make sure to not get it wet, not take it off for a couple of days and the cut will be gone! Never mind that there is polysporin on the cut and humans have the ability to heal.
So one day last month, Richie discovered while showering, that he had a tiny cut on his finger. He immediately demanded a band aide. After he was finished showering, was dried off and while I was putting the band aide on him, he had an idea. He said that since band aides are magical and can heal cuts and that kisses make cuts feel better, we should have band aides that have kisses in them. Maybe, he could just put red heart stickers on his band aides (cuz hearts to Richie mean kisses and red ones are the very best). So that is what we did. I think Richie should apply for a patent for putting kisses in band aides.
MaryLee

I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way.

It has been a long time since I've updated this and it's multifactorial including the passing of Grandma' Gert (may her memory be a blessing), intense work load, accepting a new position, and trying to get ready to move. The latter of which has been occupying a tremendous amount of time.

I accepted a faculty position at the University of Pittsburgh earlier this year. We decided to buy a house instead of renting given the current market conditions. Apparently, a significant number of other people made the same decision! In the area we are looking, houses in our price range were going contingent in less than a day, so we had no opportunity to go see them. That went on for a couple of months. Then, like a light switch, it all stopped about a month ago. Houses were suddenly languishing. There was one house that we say the first day it was on the market that we liked and we made an offer. (A low offer.) It was rejected in part because they just put the house on the market. We investigated some other potentials and placed bids to no avail. But, that other house was still active. After three weeks of the owners not receiving any other bids, we re-entered negotiations and were able to come to an agreeable price.

Home inspection took place last Wednesday and now we are awaiting appraisal. There are a few things the inspection turned up, some of which we'll want the sellers to remedy. But nothing too serious. After the inspection, we took a moment to introduce ourselves to the next-door-neighbors with whom we'll share the driveway...if we get the house. Hopefully the house will appraise sufficiently and we'll be able to move forward. If not, renting, again, will likely be in our future.

In the meantime, it's summer! I'm done with work for the most-part. Richie is done with school, and now ML has to deal with two Y chromosomes in the house all day!

These may not be in perfect order.....

When the circus comes to town, they walk the elephants through downtown one of the days to have lunch at Lexington Market. Baltimore is the last city in the US that has/allows this. I suspect because, normally, just being in this part of town is so dangerous that the addition of unrestrained elephants has a negligible impact on the overall risk.

I thought I had rotated this already, darn it! Here is a sideways picture of Richie with cousin Sammy after doing a bunch of experiments at the Maryland Science Center.

Richie and Sammy building with paper cups with Richie's buddy Linda who works at the MSC.

Pretty self explanatory:

Post ice cream sandwich treat!

Dad's night out! I was invited to see the O's vs. Rays in the seats owned by CSX!

Four of us dads out having fun!

On one of our house hunting trips to Pittsburgh we stayed in a hotel with a pool which Richie really enjoyed!

This was a bunny at one of the houses we looked at.

We saw one of these restaurants at pittsburgh!

Back in Baltimore at the Zoo.

Richie touching an ostrich egg.

There is another picture of Richie when he was quite small in this exact spot.

Richie in an oriole's nest.

Richie as a turtle.

At one of the Inner Harbor Social, Richie had his face painted like a butterfly!

One of Richie's buddies wanted the same...

Richie and Daddy went to the planetarium and one of us passed out.

Now the time-line is messed up because the following is off of my phone and not ordered in time. Here is Richie and Omie playing at one of the fields at the Naval academy in Annapolis

Here is the boy at B&O railroad museum.

These are actually the most recent pictures. Okay, here's the story. When we went for the inspection earlier this week, Richie was being babysat by the family with the friend that had his face painted with Richie, above. We drove home after the inspection and went to pick him up around 8:45p. When ML went inside, Richie said he wanted to stay so he had his first sleep-over! We picked him up the next morning. Around 4p that afternoon, I called down to Richie from the bedroom (I had probably been taking a nap) and had no answer. ML walked into the living room saying something like, "Richie, your Gaga is calling you!" to find him passed out on the couch, with the iPad still in his clutches! He had been asleep so long, the iPad had turned itself off, which takes a while given he was watching Netflix. I took him upstairs with the hope of waking him up around 5p for dinner. He had no interest in getting up. Ultimately, he woke around 3:30a (I am told) very upset that he did not have any cold water (there is usually water by his bed). He was also upset that he was put to bed without any story time or singing time. ML tried to explain what happened but he did not remember (rather he denied) falling asleep on the couch. He quickly fell back asleep until around 8a!