6 month review

Yes, yikes, it's been nearly half a year since I've updated. Truth is, not much has happened with Rew and I, although of course Riley is changing daily. We had a rough summer of field work, followed by the fall semester descending. And now we have one week of classes left and I feel as though I never dug out from under that mess! In any case, we are happily gobbling in STL now, and the Christmas season, AGU, etc approaches. Time to get ready for next semester. Here are a few pictures from late summer and autumn, mostly of Riley as usual...in no particular order...

We tried to get outside as much as humanly possible this fall. This picture is taken on top of a erratic at the Arboretum. We had several nice hikes there before it got wet and cold. The best was the acorns. It took us about an hour to get the 1/4mile down the trail to this erratic, because Riley kept stopping to stuff acorns in his little pockets. On the way back, the wind picked up and they were raining from the trees. You should've seen the look of astonishment on his face.

We've had a 3rd birthday! Riley had two parties and lots of Grandparents come visit. And, as you can see, he's still at the top of the growth charts. Goodness me.

We went apple picking during an early fall trip to St. Louis [Eckert's Farm], where for some reason they had a baby camel. Her lips tickled when she ate out of our hands. Riley wasn't convinced, as you can tell.

The three musketeers [at the apple farm].

Uncle Dane came back to the States late in the summer. He was in the country for about a week, and we saw him for a day or so when we were helping Aunt Kitty move stuff into her new apartment. Riley set to work bossing him around and teaching him how to play properly.

Halloween! We had an astronaut [Riley, not the kitty]. Riley seized on the occasion with aplomb this year. Rew and I were sick as dogs, dragging along behind him.

Back from the field...

We're back in town after a grueling trip to Yellowstone. We had tons of help this year, and somehow it was still exhausting. Riley got to hang out with Grammie and Bumpa for nearly a week while Rew and I went out in the field. He had a great time keeping them on their toes. Then Andrew's Dad came to visit with us and we did some camping with Riley. The three boys hung out during the day while I battled the mosquitos. We had a near catastrophe - the beloved Ikea Kitty went missing for several days and we thought she was lost for good. But she was later found hangin out in the bottom of Riley's sleeping bag. Crisis averted, but not before I bought a back up off of EBay [now we have a spare for the future]. Turns out this 5$ toy is quite hard to find now that it's off the shelf!

We've been trying to catch up all week. We took Riley to school on Weds, our first full day home, and we played hookey to grocery shop, do laundry, and see Harry Potter. Have to say, it's a little strange that those movies are over. Andrew and I have been watching them on the big screen for nearly all of our relationship! Today, we took Riley to see his first film too, with a couple of his little friends and assorted parents. The little guy had NO idea what was going on, thinking that the promised fun was going to be revealed in the arcade area. When we told him we were in this strange place to see a brand new Pooh video, he thought we were going to watch it on those little screens on the video games. As soon as we walked into the theater, his little eyes riveted to that screen, even though it was only the pre-preview garbage up there. He sat still in the tipsy chair the whole time, and everytime a new preview or commercial came on, he said "Mommy where's Pooh?". I mean really, who keeps a 2 year old in suspense with commercials like that?!! Do they think they have their own wallets?! Anywho, he just loved it, and would occasionally belt out commentary. At the end, when people clapped, he clapped too. it was all very sweet.

Here's a picture down the maw of a hot spring. Andrew was mapping features for us, and he took this shot. Don't worry, he's not as close to it as it appears here.

Riley seemed to get a hold of our new camera constantly, and my "film roll" is full of these self portraits. There are also a lot of pictures of the steering wheel and his new bison purse [which he LOVES].

The little guy really loves tent camping. He gets so excited. Here's a shot from a cozy morning.

Full of glee and excitement in the campground!!! I'm sure there are lots more pictures of him from his grandparents, but we don't have them yet. Otherwise, most of my pictures from the trip are of sample locations...snore....

Here he is at the theater today, with his little friend Abi. They both had these looks on their faces the entire time!

Still Unscathed.

Despite the forces of the world messin' with us this month, we have escaped unscathed. Andrew was supposed to fly on this cool renovated B-17 for a Father's Day gift this year. We went to the airport where they were running these flights and watched it and the P-40 they had take off/land a few times. Andrew didn't get to take his flight though because the B-17 landed...and then started gushing fuel. Needless to say, they cancelled the rest of the flights. Two days later, the plane was a smoldering pile of scrap in the middle of a corn field. It had caught fire on the way to Indianapolis. We're actually quite sad- there aren't that many of those things around anymore.

Here's a shot of the B-17 in flight, over the back of the P-40.

And here's the Liberty Bell pouring jet fuel on this nice man. The fire department was called.

Last night, we had a little solstice excitement. There was a huge thunderstorm that began right as we put Riley to bed. Andrew checked the weather online and saw that there was a tornado warning in effect. We watched out the windows for a few minutes, and the trees swirling about like corkscrews convinced us that a trip to the basement was necessary. We have these 80 ft. ash trees in the back yard, which would make short work of our house if they fell on it! So poor Riley was pulled out of bed right after he'd fallen asleep. Luckily he found Andrew to be just as nice a mattress and went right back to sleep. We heard trees falling while we were in the basement. When it was over, we saw that a branch of the ash had narrowly missed Dane's car in the driveway. Trees were down all over the neighborhood. The ash across the street hit 4 cars. We of course lost out power during all of this, and found out this morning at work that there was actually a tornado here. Good thing Andrew checked because we never heard the sirens. We ended up with superficial damage, but our block has been trashed! One house had 4 big trees topped off in it's front yard.

Here's two topped trees. The evergreens seemed to take it especially hard. We got lucky that the two in the neighbor's yard didn't come down on us too.

Every yard in the block had branches if not full trees down. The curb was a levee of broken limbs.
This house is under construction now, and lost a big maple in the front yard that narrowly missed the porch.

Lastly, here are a few pictures of my favorite subject, doing what he does best...

Riley's new art table in the basement is a HUGE hit. He loves to go down there and create without us pestering him.

Our first harvest from the garden was these cool white radishes. Riley loves to pick stuff out of the garden, even when it's not quite ready yet. Also check out our awesome new fence [aka rabbit shield].

This year's trip to the tadpole pond. Always a favorite!

That's a BIG hole...

in the ground. We returned this weekend from our small vacation to the Grand Canyon. Rew was already out in AZ for a departmental field trip, so we decided to take advantage of it. Riley and I flew solo to meet him in Phoenix last Monday, and then we drove to the park. We camped for 4 days before returning. The camping was...interesting. Riley had trouble staying in his "camping bag", so would get cold at night and wake constantly. It was in the 30s at night, so you can see why this would be a problem. By the third night, we were getting the hang of it...but then Riley threw up all over the tent in the middle of the night. Ugh. Not much you can do about that, but mop up and wait until morning. So we spent the next morning laundering people and jamjams. We had a nice time, got to visit with Grandma a bit, and are now rested and ready to get back to the grind...

Riley was very proud of his rock circle he made.

Soooo tuckered out after his night of puking that he actually fell asleep on the tram, and then let me carry him and transfer him to a spot by the side of the trail.

In our tent! Riley was transferred from sleeping in the car directly to the tent on our first night, so when he woke the next morning, it was a big surprise and he said "We're in a tent!". At 5:30am.

Ok. It's been a while.

Well, what can I say - a lot has happened since my last [oh so long ago] post. In fact, I notice that the last time I posted was before Chicagoland was locked in snow and ice for the winter.

Oh well. We're now in the thick of the it's-summer-try-and-cram-as-much-research-in-as-possible-before-the-students-come-back phase of our lives. Andrew left this morning for a week with department students in the vast wilds of Arizona. Silly, foolish man. I just hope they don't run him ragged as Riley and I will be joining him there next week to see the Grand Canyon. As our new library book on the subject says, "The Grand Canyon is one of the most beautiful places on Earth," and I've never been there! We're camping, which means Riley will be the only one sleeping.

Riley has changed incredibly since October, which doesn't seem like that long ago. His language skills have exploded, going from his simple sentences of last summer to treatises on things that have happened in his amazing, short little life. He's got his alphabet down like a pro, and loves to point out letters on signs as we're driving around town. Today I enjoyed a nice adrenaline rush as he suddenly screamed out from the back seat "LOOK IT'S A 'Z' MOMMY!" he has also developed a knack for imaginary play. We've gone through pretending to be Dora and Boots to now pretending to be Shrek and Fiona. Riley doesn't know yet, but Fiona is still buckled into the passenger seat of the car, where he made me put her this morning.

Too bad for her it's going to be a cold one tonight. Yup, a frost advisory will likely ravage my poor beans. It's spring here, really. We've been taking advantage of every possible sunny and mostly warm minute outside -it was a really really long winter. Here are a few pix of our spring exploits so far...and hopefully I won't fail to post again until this fall.

Recent Riley art. Note the careful tracing of the 'S'. I nearly dropped my breakfast on the floor.

See, spring! Flowers, and fleeces, and hats, and runny noses, and frost...

At the Arboretum a couple of weekends ago when we had an unseasonable warm spell.

The daffodil meadow at the Arb. Quite nice. And also fun to stomp on, apparently.

Don't ask about potty training and naps. I'll just growl at you.

Big Steps

Well, it's been so long since my last update that it's nearly pointless to try and play catch up. I'll just sum up by saying, the semester began, we're busy as usual, and yay happy autumn! We've had several fun trips to St. Louis and Philadelphia [last free airplane trip!], been to the zoo and Arboretum a gazillion times, and have in general been trying to enjoy the outdoors before it gets cold!

Riley's second birthday was last weekend. We had a big party to co-celebrate with two of his friends who also turned two [Abi and Abby]. There were LOTS of people there! Luckily, it wasn't at my house. I was in charge of the decorations, and Grammie helped me put everything up. Then Sunday, we had a family get-together at home, and Riley got to do it all again! Lucky kid. He was very excited about the prospect of birthday this year, and has begun to associate all cake with "happy day". We're enjoying the plethora of new things to explore and play with!

Here are some pictures of adventures since the last post, plus birthday stuff!

We've been apple picking. Riley thought the picking part was great, but wanted to take *one* bite out of every apple he picked.

Fun with sticks.

Riley had his first hair cut a few weeks ago. We were in St. Louis and my Aunt Janet did the job. This is the "before" picture....

and this is the "after" picture.

This one, I just thought was the world's sweetest little expression ever.

For the birthday party with his friends, we had a Music Together party, which is the "brand" of music class that a lot of us go to together. The teacher came to the party and we got to play instruments and dance and sing. It was super cute to see all the kiddies makin music!

In the music theme, we had a great cake for the three birthday kids. Here they all are getting ready to blow out candles together.


As an afterthought, the music cake was great, but the black icing was a bit of an unforeseen disaster. This is a pretty tame picture - we have one where it looks like he's grown a full beard.

"How old are you?" TWO! [He can't hold up two fingers on the same hand yet]

And finally, the special digger truck birthday cake from the bakery in town. He thought this was AWESOME!

Home Again and Last Good Summer Getaway

Wow, how the summer flies by! That probably has something to do with the fact that I spend most of it doing field work! We're back from our Yellowstone adventure, all in one piece and I even managed to get some great samples! Riley and Daddy hung out together for four days in and around the park while I worked. Quality bonding time, I think. They went for a lot of short hikes, and visited all of the gift shops. They even encountered a bear in the wild [YIKES!!!!]. Then, we were lucky enough to have Grammie and Bumpa and Aunt Cailin join us. Riley got to hang out with them all day while Andrew and I did field work. It worked out great for us, but I think he gave his grandparents a run for their money! When we would unite at the end of the day, he would be full of excitement chattering up a storm, so he clearly had a great time.

We've been back for just over a week, although it feels like ages ago. We've been pretty busy already, trying to get things done before the semester begins. We also recently "discovered" that we haven't taken our bikes off the rack in 5+ years, save to move them from St. Louis, to Maryland, to Chicago. That's ludicrous. So we had them fixed up, and bought Riley a little kangaroo seat so he can join in the fun too. Needless to say, he thinks it rocks!

This past weekend, we took one last stab at a little family vacation before we're enslaved by the education system for the next 9 months. We took a long weekend and drove up to the Grand Haven area in MI with some friends, rented a house, and did some serious playing! We went to the beach and the Grand Rapids Zoo, picked blueberries, and in general did nothing but relax. To be honest, that felt a little weird, but we got used to it quickly!

School starts Monday. Woe is we.
Now some pix:

Now doesn't that look like fun?

Riley and Abi playing chase at the rental house. They were thick as theives the whole time.

Riley dipping his toes in Lake MI...his first beach experience! He thought the giant sandbox was fabulous, and liked to kick at the waves.

The aforementioned Giant Sandbox

Blueberries!