the longest week

I warn you, this is going to be a scattered, wandering post. I don't think I still have my mind scraped back together fully....

Last Wednesday, Jack and I went out to Oregon to visit with my bestest-best-friend Chris and to go apartment shopping since we're moving back there. Today I feel like we're really back home at last!

It all started with an 11 1/2 hour trip before I even laid eyes on Chris. Then we got to drive for another 1 or 2 hours to get to her house. But it was totally worth it!

Chris has bunnies and chickens, along with a dog. Very exciting for a little boy! He quickly decided that the black animals were called "dog dog dag dog deg dog doggem!" and that other-colored animals were for laughing at. :)

On Thursday, Chris and I threw Daphne (her daughter) and Jack into the car and drove around to look at a bunch of apartments. We found a bunch that were really crappy, but a few that I can definitely be happy moving in to. That was definitely good to get out of the way.

Friday marked the beginning of Parents Weekend at Delphi, so we went out and schmoozed. I accidentally left a pair of Jack's pants in the Lower School. Shucks! But at least we're headed back that way so they'll eventually make their way back to me. While we were in the Lower School, we met a whole pack of the under-3-year-old crowd, which Jack was very happy about. He was really interested in what they were doing and that there was a whole GROUP of them!

Saturday was very busy! Chris's sister (also Melissa) showed up late Friday night, so on Saturday morning we got to meet Eli and Noah, her two sons. The kids all got to play on Saturday and then we went to a barbecue at Delphi in the afternoon.

On Sunday morning, we went strawberry picking and got the best strawberries EVER for $1 per pound! I'm in love with that fact. :) Jack ate strawberries until he was soaked in juice head to toe, and we left with about 4 lbs of strawberries. We made jam that night. Chris gave me a personal tutorial since I am unable to make jam gel, and lo! It actually worked this time! I still don't believe it. :)

I went to commencement on Sunday afternoon, and even got to hear most of the speeches. We did have to leave toward the end to get a banana. Jack was very good otherwise. :)

Sunday afternoon was very nice, because I got to spend time with Dege, one of my favorite people in the world. (My second dad, for those of you who don't know him.) We spent about an hour and sat in front of Starbucks talking about Real Topics and just chilling out from the weekend. That was really wonderful!

I packed in a hurry on Sunday night and on Monday morning got up at 4:00 a.m. to get to the train station, to ride to the airport, to fly from Portland to Newark, to fly to Boston, to drive home in rush-hour traffic. Geeze. That was a very long trip, too, though alleviated by the fact that we had an empty seat next to us on both flights. And by the fact that the trip from Newark to Boston mysteriously had an hour shaved from it!

So we finally got home on Monday night and found that Alex had made us a very nice surprise: He rearranged the living room, which had been driving me NUTS, and now it's a very nice big, open space with plenty of room for throwing toys around in! Thank goodness for husbands, eh? :)

Tuesday pretty much was just me trying to figure out when to have Jack nap to re-acclimate him to the east coast schedule. I was feeling very grumpy about life by this point, but chalked it up to having skipped my vitamin regimen during the trip. This can make me VERY irritable.

Wednesday morning: Took my vitamins again, though it didn't seem to help much. Still grumpy as a bear! Part of the problem was that Jack just WOULD NOT leave me alone. He had been insisting on being in my arms all the time since we started the trip.

Did I mention that my cat just got back from the vet on Tuesday after having a million kidney stones? I couldn't get him to take his pills, so I had to drag him in to the vet's, where it took them four tries to get him to finally take them. At least they're only two minutes up the road!

After all this nonsense, Jack and I took a biiiiiig walk around the neighborhood while talking to Alison about Life, the Universe, and Everything. We walked here and there, hither and yon, etc., etc., and what do you know? Holy mackerel, life is okay again! Jack is perfectly happy to play on the floor and not be in my arms, and I am suddenly a happy person again. :)

The whole trip was a blast, but now I feel like we've really arrived home and are back to normal life. What a relief! And now, on to more normal domestic issues, such as "why doesn't my sourdough smell sour??" and "Where is my cat hiding this time? (Sure hope he's not peeing on it, wherever it is!)"

Greek Bear

Alex's parents have friends who live in Greece -- a whole family of folks they go over and visit every so often. It all started with one of the family daughters (Athina) being Markita and Michael's student. Anyway, Athina got this awesome bear for Jack. She has two babies, so she knows what they like. :) It has a string in the back that you pull to get a music-box lullaby playing.

He thought the pull-string was really interesting.

"Did you see this awesome bear??"

Even the bear's gift bag was a fun toy. :)

This is his face when he's saying "B-b-b-bb-bb-b-b-b," which means "Gosh, I am just so interested and happy right now -- mostly very interested!"

What a great present!

Also, there was some quiche.... :)

I didn't get to try the quiche because I was pretty well overdoing it on dairy while we were there, but one can only assume it was delicious. (It looked really yummy and it all disappeared!)

More from Mizzou!

Uncle Eric has my sweet tooth, so we banded together and made a delicious Nutella cake.

Jack ended up with a spoon of his own, at some point. You can't see it, but he was having a great time whacking things and biting the spoon. (AKA "cooking".) :)
I'm not sure where Jack got to.... probably off with Granny or Grampa
...and then it was down to Eric to finish the cake. :) I'm pretty sure I was in and out still, but the cake took a while and Jack didn't really have the attention span for it.

Starting the Missouri blogging

We've been in Missouri since Tuesday, so it's about time I got on the blog and posted some things! I have been accidentally stockpiling photos, so I'm probably going to do some time-delay stuff. Stay tuned throughout the week!

Here are some pictures of Jack with the grandparents!

family time!

The menfolks helped me cook up some dinner one night:

Daddy time!

Jack is chewing on a great bracelet that Grandpa Jack got for him. It's very plastic and rubbery so it worked immensely well for teething!


Here's some prized daddy snuggle time:
And some daddy play time!

miscellaneous vacation pics

This is known as "Baby-zilla"! Alex put one of Jack's new toys to good use:

All this vacationing was hard work!

dinner out with Uncle John

This was his very first time in a high chair!


He played with spoons while everybody else ate. All that silverware throwing wore him out!

Uncle John's visit

Uncle John lives nearby and always tries to come by when we're in town. Jack liked him too! :)

Jack and Uncle Eric, Part 2

Jack looooves Uncle Eric!
See? :)
"Mom, what are you doing with that camera??"

Jack and Uncle Eric