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!

Last Free Days of Summer

Thought I'd add a quick update tonight, since we're leaving for Yellowstone on Weds. We're really wrapping up our summer here, because when we return we only have a week before classes begin. It's been one crazy summer! Since we've come home from Turkey, we've been to several parties for Riley's friends, and had many outings to the zoo and Arboretum. We get to spend a lot of out time outside each day too. Our garden is producing cucumbers, and has managed to set itself up to produce tomatoes by the ton while we're away [of course]. Riley's taking swimming and music classes once a week, and going to school too. So we're all very busy!

Riley's new skills include having mastered all his colors and he's now working hard on his numbers. Also learning to catch, which is pretty funny.

Our exploits...
A trip to the zoo last week revealed that Riley is suddenly harboring a fear of goats. I blame daycare.


I splurged and got him these big trucks. Trucks are all the rage right now. This was moments before he decided to ride the green one, which tipped him headfirst into the pavement, with a sickening "squishy" noise. The bruise is fading finally...


Some brilliant person brought a bounce house to a BBQ we went to. It was fabulous! Riley's here with his friends Abi, Andrew, Graham, and Evan [upsidedown].


Here's our first cucumbers! Riley loves to pick the veggies and thinks it's pretty cool. Not that he'll eat any of them, of course.

I let Riley help me cut up the cucumbers and tomato for a nice salad using his special safety knife. Doesn't he look proud?

Impending Stardom...

Back from Turkey, and everyone has survived the trip even though Delta did their best to ruin the trip home. Riley did just fabulous on the last leg of the trip with Daddy while I worked. They hung out at a small village festival, and went to a nice park with a pretty lake.



Riley is still a little bit jetlagged, even though we've been home over a week. So we're getting a lot done around the house in the early mornings before work. He's been having a great time exploring all his old toys again.

This week, Riley has shown some beginning signs of interest in the entertainment industry. He has previously been singing along to songs with hand motions and maybe a few words here and there. But a few days ago, he sang Twinkle Twinkle all the way through, in Riley speak. We were at the dinner table, and it took us a minute to figure out what was going on. I caught one rendition on video- here it is - he skipped the "like a diamond" line in this version, but it's a work in progress.




This morning, he was running around doing his best Britney Spears impression...

That's a toy canteen around his neck and paper slippers from the Hotel Nena in Istanbul on his little feet. I have no idea what happened to his shirt.

Greetings From Istanbul!, Second Installment

We are all doing great here in Istanbul. We've more or less acclimated to both the weather and the time zone. Riley has proven to be a champ, letting us see most of the things that we wanted to see in the first few days here. We've been sure to include a lot of outside time in parks to let him stretch his legs a bit. He's not as fond of the backpack carrier as we had hoped he would be, but we've been managing ok all the same. We've seen the Hagia Sofia, Blue Mosque, Cistern, and Topkapi Palace and Gardens so far, with a good deal of walking about as well. The Topkapi Palace has been the only Museum like place that we've attempted with him, and it went...ok. Riley was more interested in running in a retrograde fashion, than in going into the next building where we wanted to go. So, we probably won't attempt any more museums this trip.

We've had a couple of nice culinary adventures as well. The food here is basically your typical Mediterranean style food. The real fun is in the deserts and sweets! Yesterday, we chanced upon a great find down a side street where there weren't any tourists. Riley made fast friends with a little girl who came over to our table to visit. They ran up and down the street together. I think he was glad for some littler person companionship!

We have 2 more days here in Istanbul. The main plan is to hit the Grand Bazaar, and perhaps wander a little farther afield into less touristy areas a bit. Then we head to Taskesti, for field work!

Here's our little guy passed out in the hotel shuttle on the way from the airport in Istanbul. He'd had about 4 hours of sleep on the trip over, and not continuous.

At the Blue Mosque, waiting in line to get in. Riley was having a fruit bite snack.

Yesterday afternoon, we hit the park to give Riley a break. Here he is in a tree, and you can just see the Hagia Sofia behind him [reddish building].

Enjoying his first taste of Turkish cuisine last evening, a tavuk kebap rolled in Turkish bread, which is like a crepe [he'd eaten only pasta and french fries up to this point].

The boys underground in the Basilica Cistern, which dates from the 6th century. I love his little face sticking around the side of Daddy.

Greetings From Istanbul!

Merhaba! Well, this is our first vacation where we have the opportunity to update the blogosphere in semi-realtime...so here we go!

We arrived in Istanbul yesterday after a grueling trip to get here, and learned a few important things about traveling abroad with a toddler:
1] Never ever leave your stroller behind, even if you know it will be useless where you're going. It turns out airports are big, and kids are heavy.
2] KLM has in flight Baby Einstein videos. Nuf said.
3] If you have multi flights, like for example Amsterdam and then Istanbul, it might just be worth overnighting at the first stop.

All in all, our journey went really well, and Riley held up like a true champ. He is definitely a veteran traveler! He thought it was all just a big game.

So we are in our second hotel room now. There was a slight difficulty with our first, but nothing that couldn't be easily resolved. Let's say there is a happy-to-please hospitality industry here in Istanbul! We had a marvelous dinner last night here, with my student Erin along. The adults tried all kinds of wonderful foods, but Riley was just too tired to put up with anything novel. He fell asleep in record time last night. In fact, we all went to bed around 9pm, which was a good thing, because Riley decided 2:30 was the perfect time to get up for the day. It was a long wait until the restaurant opened for breakfast!

We're hanging out now in our new hotel room while the little guy has a nap, and then maybe we'll go see the Hagia Sofia or something this afternoon.

The Hagia Sofia at dawn this morning, right after the call for morning prayer. Totally breathtaking and like nothing we've ever laid eyes on!

Here we are all bushy-tailed and not so bright-eyed in front of the Blue Mosque, and Hagia Sofia [which is to the left of the picture], up on the rooftop restaurant of our hotel from last night.

Here is the Blue Mosque from the roof top restaurant at our new hotel today. Impressive!

And here is the lovely indoor atrium garden at our new hotel [the Hotel Nena]. Boy would I love to have one of these in my house!

Riley's First Camping Trip!

As the title implies, we went camping yesterday! This was Riley's first time in a tent [outside of me, that is]. It was a raging success. We went to White Pines State Park here in IL, and just stayed one night but met several of Riley's friends [and their assorted parents] there. Yesterday, we went on a short hike with the kids, which involved fording several small streams. The kiddos loved that part! Riley slept like a champ too. Too bad Mom and Dad were kept up late by the morons blasting the Blackhawks game all over the campground.

Ok, so this one's not from camping- it's at the Arboretum tadpole pond. I just love the disgruntled look on his face.

Camping! Best part: there was a doggie at our campsite.

Braving the rapids. Riley thought this was fantastic.

By this time, we were all quite wet. It was a hot day at least. Not long after this, Riley turned and said "up?". Of course.

Yay tents!

We must've worn him out. He fell asleep on our hike this morning. This is the new backpack that we intend to tote him around Istanbul in...