A Taste

We discovered we really aren't cruise people. Although the dinners were nice. Clearly Richie had skipped his nap. More pictures to come....

Sandy

She has finally arrived! And, water is leaking in from the front door likely from the window above or higher. Not much to do about it tonight. Hopefully things don't get worse!

MaMa's contribution to the pix

Okay, I (ML) have some pix, but Richie is very wiggly and my phone is not very good at catching wiggly subjects. It is very slow.

This is Richie at The Walters Art Museum Family area. They have, as El has stated, various costumes for the kids to play in and they have shelves of stuff for them to touch and arrange as they like.  Richie is wearing his favorite, a simulated chain mail tunic. I told him about being able to hear the ocean in shells and he is checking it out. He listened for a long time and then asked if it was really the ocean because he could hear people talking. He then stated it was pretend, but he liked to think it was the ocean.

This is Richie at the space area of the Maryland Science Center. He is wearing a jumpsuit like the astronauts wear that actually flew on a shuttle mission.
He is building a rover for a future mission.

This is from earlier in the summer. It is at a new park on the Inner Harbor near Harbor East called Pierce's park. This is a "Willow Tunnel" for the kids to run through. This was just after it opened so the willow is not very thick, yet. It is a really different sort of park.

 Our neighborhood, Federal Hill, has a big (well big for the size of the hood) 4th of July celebration. There is a parade that includes the neighborhood firetruck (No. 2), antique firetrucks from around the area, troops in Revolutionary uniforms, a Statue of Liberty on stilts as well as anyone else that wants to decorate wagons, strollers, pets and walk. Then, there are contests, games, ice cream and......SITTING IN THE FIRETRUCK AND TOUCHING ALL THE STUFF!
I could not get Richie to come out and let someone else have a turn.






Again, I apologize for the picture quality.

okay...OKAY!

So PapaNat e-mails Gaga that it's time to post some more pictures....but Gaga hasn't copied any more pictures over to the big computer since the last post! What can I...I mean he say....it's been a really busy time without many photos. We've been enjoying our wonderful fall weather and going to the park a lot! This is the weather that really makes Maryland one of the best places to live! Fall and Spring just stretch on-and-on.

As we get closer to Halloween, which will be a little sad for me because Richie will be on a train heading for Florida, we've been talking a lot about pumpkins. We carved one for him this evening. But why I bring this up is not because I have a picture, but because I want to review some Richie language that I think is cute. Oh well, here, enjoy this sideways movie of Richie first...




Real Word               Richie Pronunciation
(Old list)
Potato                       Bollito
Pink                          Pink-ink
Elephant                    Apoleet
Dada                         Gaga

(New list)
Sure                          Show
Door                         Doowa
Saturn                       Satur-ine (as in, can we use the telescope to look at Satur-ine)
Jack-O-Lantern        Jack-O-Lanter-ine (as in, "Can we carve my)

We actually worked at correcting the old list. I mean, he can SAY Dada and Daddy, he just chooses not to. But, I miss the old words oddly, so I don't think I'm going to be so quick to correct the new list. I'm show I'll pay for that late'a.

Okay, here are some more pics to feast upon....

Here is Richie at The Walter's Art Museum. I think I've post a similar picture in the past. They have little costumes to dress-up in and this is part of a chain mail costume.

Clearly getting close to nap time for both of us!

This is just a neat T-shirt logo that went around a few weeks ago. I actually picked up a couple of these shirts...I really like them!

This was from earlier this summer at a department sponsored picnic.

One of the assistants gave Richie a ball! We got it signed by the O's mascot, "The Bird." Oh, and he signed Richie's hat, too!

Toward the end of the game, he just gave out. It was a VERY hot day.

Some leftover Larriland pictures...obviously from earlier this summer!

Richie got to climb a peach tree!

I suppose I could crop out mama's arm so it would look like he was sitting in the tree without help. :-)

More catching up....

It was time for our annual migration to Atlanta to visit family and friends. It was a little more challenging that years past, but then, last year was pretty challenging, too. Alas, you're not here to dwell on such things...you're here to enjoy Richie! So, why is the first picture one of MY birthday cake? I'm not sure, you'll have to ask Google. It's the first one that showed up and I don't have time to rearrange them.

Yummy red velvet cake made from scratch by my cousin Beth. It is only bested by ML's Tres Leches...which I have not seen yet this year...hmmm....

Went to the GA aquarium (as usual) and there was a frog exhibit! Richie really enjoys frogs! We got to play with some around Ninia's pool, too.

I'm not sure which Richie was more impressed with, the tunnel with all of the first around or the fact that the floor moved!...I think it was the latter.

I asked our "neighbors" in the other penguin hole to take a picture of us and I did for them, too. Initially we were doing it at the same time and then we realized how silly that was. 

Out at Ninia's neighbors looking at the (vicious) farm animals!

Farmer Eli!

Don't STEP IN IT!! You only have ONE pair of shoes and we're leaving tomorrow......NO!!!!!

Who knew goats did this?

We stayed at the same hotel on the way down to GA as on the way back. We decided to get a room with two queens so we wouldn't have to deal with Richie's mattress. Too bad this is how he sleeps at night. Got enough room Mama?

 Richie wanted to be a snake this year for Halloween. He'll be spending Halloween on a train to Florida, but this is what he'll get to wear.

I think this was the O's game from Richie summer reading program. For some reason, we decided to sit in our assigned seats which were rather nose-bleedy. Here is a picture of the section I usually go for independent of which tickets we have.

This is from our Baltimore "National" Aquarium.

Early July

We went to Larriland Farms to pick some blackberries and plums! So, why some many pictures of Richie in a plum tree? Well, one of Richie's favorite morning activities is to pretend to climb a plum tree and pick various fruits for breakfast. No, the tree is not limited to plums. There is almost always a few watermelons up there, bananas, apples, strawberries, grapes and multicolored plums. The multicolored part is key, by the way.

Thus, having the opportunity to be in an actual plum tree was particularly special...and next to impossible to bring to an end. Obviously, I didn't take any pictures/movies of the aftermath. ;-)

Late June

Here I am working night-shift moonlighting. Yes, that does mean some extra scratch! The shift runs from 1a till 7a and so I have a time to get caught up here and with other chores around my office. Late spring we had the Blue Angels performing a show over at Ft. Mc Henry. The practiced one day and Richie saw some of it from our deck, but he actually slept through the real show which was loud as crazy! Here are some shots of the 1.5 hours show. He did not even stir. All of these were from our back deck.