February

I love February! Love it. Hope you are enjoying your winter. We are enjoying lots of warm temperatures and no snow. Last week we thought we were getting a storm and well this is what we got. Total bummer. I am still hoping for one storm and a snow day before March. I just don't know if we are going to get it.

Onto the goods. Gradon is 18 months. How? I don't even know. I do know that he is tearing up my house and is into EVERYTHING. I thought I had a lot of work to do around here, he has totally been rocking the boy role in our home. I love him to bits. He is the funniest little boy. His favorite words are 'GO" (very loudly), cracker, shoes, MAMA (also very loudly) and Boom. Hilarious. He loves shoes, books, animals and music. He loves to READ! I sit down on the floor, and he backs his little self up onto my lap and expects lots of books. I love this right now. *so much* He also loves to hit and throw things. He thinks hitting is hilarious. We do NOT. We are working on that. His new nickname is 'Turbo', simply because that boy does not walk, he runs everywhere he goes. He is also ridiculously friendly. He says 'Hello' to everyone. Everyone. And has no idea what personal space is, he wants everyone's attention. Cute, cute boy.

Also, I have been shooting a lot! I had an incredible session this week at one of my favorite places with a new client. It was a dream. I will post some of those soon.

With all of this wonderful weather we have been having we had the chance to go on a afternoon outing with some of our favorite people to the Horse Center here in town. What a great place! I must go back. Sophia was in love, and so was the boy. He wanted to climb into the stalls with the horses several times. It was a good day.

Things are going well around here. I have about 6 weeks to my next race, another half marathon, this one in DC. Chris is finally finished with his OB/GYN rotation, one of the worst in my mind to this point except internal medicine. He has psychology next, which should be pretty low key, and after, probably the busiest one to come, with the worst hours, surgery. (Which by the way is something he is really interested in) so on we go.

This summer begins his optional rotations and we will really narrow down his specialty and make some big decisions.

Summer Wrap Up

Irene has come and gone, and gratefully we did not lose power or suffer any damages to our home. We feel very blessed. I know several families in our area to lose power for many hours and have some damage to their yards and homes. Today 27 schools are out of power in our county, so Ellie is home today. She is very disapointed to miss school, but I assure her she will be back either tomorrow or Wednesday. The weather this past week was really weird, so we really didn't get a great 'last week of summer', but today we have plans to head out and enjoy the post hurricane sunshine.

Here is one of our last summer outings, tomato picking and canning. There are many local farms here in Maryland, something that I adore about living here. I wanted to pick tomatoes and can last summer but having a baby put a damper on that plan. =) This year we picked 20 pounds of tomatoes which made 6 quarts of lovely red soup and sauce ready gems.

Ellie had her open house for 1st grade last week. She is so excited becuase she has the same teacher from last year! Her much adored teacher has recently gotten married and has moved up to first grade and we lucked out to have her for another year. She knows several of the children in her class and is looking forward to making new friends. It is going to be another great year. We are also excited that the middle school has officially split from cradlerock elementary and has it's own name and administration, great things for both schools.

We have some fun plans for fall. We are hoping to head to Seattle for Chris' brother's wedding in November. The last Cochran brother is tying the knot and we are looking forward to celebrating with him and the family.We are also looking forward to seeing my parents soon, we think they are coming to visit in November. All in all a great summer, and more good things to come!

Earthquakes and Hurricanes

It has been a very exciting week here on the East Coast. We had an impressive earthquake on the 23rd that cracked the Washington monument in DC. That is very sad to me.
The day that the earthquake hit I was standing in our bedroom folding piles of laundry. The neighbor boy across the street was mowing the lawn. It was strange at first, I thought the shaking was from the sound of the mower, but the quake got bigger and it rolled through my room bringing pictures off the dresser and gave me a really good shake. It woke my baby from his nap. My neighbors came pouring out of the houses like ants. We talked about it and I told them it felt close to a 6.0. One of my neighbors went in to check the news and told us it was located in Virginia, and it was 5.8.

It reminded me of growing up in California and the earthquakes we had there. It mostly reminded me of the San Francisco Earthquake that we felt in 1989. I remember exactly where I was when we felt that one. It was very sureal.

And now we are waiting for what Hurricane Irene is going to bring. I have been watching the weather channel and checking online the status for three days. One of the most frustrating things about all of this is that things keep changing. At first the predictions really frightened me, and now things look a bit more manageable. I am a little embarrassed to say that we aren't as prepared as we could be, but I think we will be fine for a couple of days. I just hope we don't lose power for a long period of time. Ellie is supposed to go back to school this Monday, she is so excited. We had  agreat time at her open house yesterday. She is really ready to go back to school. I really hope  that on Monday we are in good enough shape to proceed with life as normal. Yesterday was a beautiful day here, and now, this morning the rain has started a little. I am hoping we are safe and sound by tomorrow night. We shall see.