Family visit & other stuff

Originally posted September 30, 2013

Hi everyone,

Many months have passed and we apologize for having little to say in that time, truth is we’ve allowed ourselves to use the “dodgy MAC” as an excuse not to bother!

The major reason for this update is that a week ago we booted my parents out of the country, they’d come over for their traditional annual trip and this time didn’t bring a hurricane - hooray!  We packed in a lot of trips, and have plenty of photos from such locations as The National Zoo, Luray Caverns, Baltimore Aquarium & Great Falls.

Of course the big development is that Ryan can actually talk now, which is the first time they’ve been able to enjoy that.  Naturally Ryan got shy and said bugger all for the first 3 days..... sigh.  But then he began to relax and be happier with the guests - obviously inspired by the cookies he often got...... and he was able to show off his various vocal range.

The most common phrase was “More Wall-E Robot” which led to my parents probably seeing the film about 10 times in 20-30 minute segments - I doubt they were impressed, still it’s a class above Downton Abbey or Coronation Street..zzzzzz.

Weather was awesome with just a half-day (Saturday) of rain, but we knew that was likely & planned accordingly.

All in all, a successful trip.  We’ll see when they plan on coming back, I’ve heard whispers it may be for Jessica’s big birthday next year ;-)

Over here, all is well. Officially I’m no longer a Target employee which is great because the style of management grated much too often for me.  As I said “If you want to pay me $9 per hour, give me a little respect, if you want to treat me like **** - you pay more”. 

Oh, the soccer ball? Well it is a proper soccer season and the mighty Pool seem to have started reasonably - losing to the Saintly Shambles notwithstanding - plus Ryan enjoys naming the various balls, football, baseball, soccer ball etc.  We’re slowly getting him to understand the most important thing about soccer.... “Man Utd are scum.” Once he masters that, the next step is “USA always beats Mexico 2-0 in Columbus!”.

Later.