Have a nice trip, see you next fall!

Well, hopefully sooner if possible.

It has become sort of a tradition (since last year, anyway) for us to take a trip out to the Midwest every fall. We do it in October because of a number of events: my birthday on the 6th, Dad’s birthday on the 15th, and our anniversary on the 26th. Also, the weather is not too hot, and tourist destinations are less crowded.

As you may have guessed from Recent Diaper Changes, we recently took this fall trip, from Friday, October 13 to Saturday, October 21. Here’s the low-down:

Continue reading…

4/5

Today I have two lovely women to celebrate!

I would like to wish a very happy fourth anniversary to my wife, Rebecca. You’re the greatest wife a husband could hope for, and the best mom a dad could want!

I would also like to wish a very happy five month birthday to my daughter, Catherine. I love watching you grow and learn new things. I am looking forward to many more happy years of getting to know you!

All my love to the two most important women in my life!

Recent Diaper Changes

Over the past week or so, Catherine has had her diaper changed in the following locations:

• The back seat of Becky’s grandpa’s car.
• The front seat of said car.
• The hood…
• The trunk lid…
• My old bed at home in Mount Vernon, OH.
• In the nursery at Mansfield First Alliance Church.
• At Mark and Kirsten’s apartment in Mansfield, OH.
• At Megan, Matt, and Henry’s house in Columbus, OH.
• At Becky, Todd, and Luke’s house in Wooster, OH.
• At a changing station in the restroom at The Barn.
• On the desk in my dad’s office at Mount Vernon Nazarene University.
• At a changing station in the restroom at the Madison, OH Public Library.
• In the living room at the Lyttle house in Williamsville, NY.
• In our hotel room at the Days Hotel and Conference Center, Toronto.
• In the washroom at St. Lawrence Market.
• On a park bench outside of Casa Loma.
• In the washroom at Spadina Garden.
• In a public washroom outside of Toronto City Hall.
• On the floor in the washroom at Quizno’s on Yonge St. in Toronto.
• On a bench near an elevator in the Royal Ontario Museum.
• On the floor in the washroom at Indochine.
• In the washroom on the Observation Level of the CN Tower.
• At various rest stops along Interstate 90.

Wow. We’ll give you more details on the stuff other than diaper changes soon.

Life with Catherine

My Daughter

I just wanted to write a little bit about why I love life with my daughter, Catherine.

When I first walk into Catherine’s room in the morning, and she opens her eyes and looks at me and smiles, it melts my heart. Just about anything that I was worrying about for the upcoming day goes away. Catherine looks so incredibly happy to be awake… she smiles, giggles, and then dances around on the bed like waking up is the most fun thing in the world. I only wish that I had that kind of energy and enthusiasm every morning when I woke up.

Catherine loves playing little games. We’ve recently invented a new one: The Fort. It goes like this and then like this. Underneath, it looks like this. She loves it, and so do I. She also enjoys playing with the simplest things.

Since Becky is breastfeeding Catherine, I don’t get to feed Catherine all that often. But on the rare occasion that I do get to give her some pumped milk (for example last week, after Becky’s surgery), I love it. I can completely understand why Becky enjoys it so much. Catherine looks at me like I’m the best thing in the world.

All of this is why, even after the occasional night where she wants to stay up until 2 a.m., I can do nothing but love her.

P.S. I have finally added some banners featuring Catherine. There are three of them. Please feel free to keep refreshing the page until you see one.

Gordon College Homecoming 2006

A.J. Gordon Memorial Chapel

This past weekend was Homecoming at Gordon College. Not only that, but it was our class’s 5th year reunion. So we were awash in a sea of events and people!

On Friday night, we met some other Gordon CompSci majors and professors for dinner at Acapulcos. It was nice to have a chance to sit down and catch up with some folks I hadn’t seen in a while. I took a few photos there, which you can see in the photo gallery.

Several of our friends made special trips up for Homecoming: Joanna and Shawn came up from Florida, and Leah , Bob and Baby Lucas came up from New Jersey. Jenn and Matt came up from New Jersey, too, and stayed at our place for the weekend! (They also “rang” the bell… ) We made room for them in our apartment… we had to move Catherine back into our room temporarily, but everything went smoothly.

On Saturday, we headed over to Gordon for various homecoming activities: a reunion luncheon, class photo, and meetups with our respective department faculty. We got to reunite with quite a few people who we hadn’t seen much, if at all, in the past few years. After all of the activity, Becky and I hosted an open house at our apartment. It gave us some more time to visit with the folks we had seen briefly at homecoming. We had a very nice spread of food, a number of babies to admire, and plenty of DDR for anyone who wanted it. Good times were had by all! All of the photos from the day can be found here.

Most of the festivities had died down by Sunday, but we did have breakfast with Jenn and Matt, and lunch with Bob and Leah.

It was great to see everyone over the weekend, and we wish that we had more opportunities to see all of our old friends from Gordon! Hopefully we’ll get to see you all again soon!

Topsfield Fair Parade

The RCMP

Last weekend, Becky, Catherine and I went to see the Topsfield Fair Parade. Our friend Beth lives in downtown Topsfield, right on the parade route, so we hung out with her on her front porch and watched the parade go by. There was a troop from the RCMP, lots of Fire Trucks, campaigning politicians, and even a special celebrity guest! And yes, there was a walking Boston baked bean. You can see all the pics here.