Nothing Much to Say

Just thought I should post some pictures since Hattie turned 5 months old this week. We really haven't been up to much since both Grace and Harriet have had colds for about 2 weeks. They've been to the doctor multiple times. Grace has had a really bad sinus infection and Harriet started throwing up yesterday (no, it was NOT spit-up as I was questioned 100 times - she does that every day!) Needless to say, we've done a lot of watching movies and playing with trains.Today, all seems to be well. Our weather is gorgeous. I think this is the first time since we've lived here that we've had lots and lots of really beautiful days in a row where it isn't too hot, too cold, isn't humid, the bugs are almost gone, and the sun is shining all the time. This is what people must mean when they think that late summer and fall in New England is spectacular. It really is this year. I hope it lasts, but I'm afraid it won't.
Just some bits and rambling... David and I found out something we didn't know about each other after 9 years of marriage. We both like black licorice and we didn't know it and we've never bought it the whole time we've been married because we didn't think the other liked it and didn't want to eat the whole package alone! I finally decided last week that I was willing to eat a whole package and brought it home and found out that David was a fan too! This week-end, we bought good and plenty's! I guess there is still EXCITEMENT in our lives! Although, we are both pretty predictable being such type A personalities. We pretty much by our choices that we make well in advance and after being together a decade, we've both "seen that movie."
Our dogs continue to be good girls. Since we took "their" couch out of the den and made it into a guest bedroom/office, they have taken over the bed. (Don't worry- we'll wash it well if anyone wants to come visit!) I thought they looked pretty cute taking their afternoon nap in bed like an old couple (they are an old couple in doggie years.)Well, there's David home from the Priesthood session of conference, so I guess I'm done rambling.

Thomas, We Love You!

What's a picture worth? At least a million words in this case. Grace got to meet her beloved "Thomas" yesterday at a festival in Carver, MA called "Day out with Thomas." I guess they do it all over the country and we were lucky enough to have it come to Massachusetts this fall.


Grace's love affair with Thomas started about a year ago when we started going to the Stow library for story time. After story time, we got in the habit of checking out videos (and a few books once in a while.) One of the first videos we checked out was a Thomas the Tank Engine DVD. She instantly fell head over heels for the funny little train characters, their stories, and all of their moving parts. We either checked out or rented a Thomas video every week for a several weeks until Grandpa Lyle actually bought her one. We had been checking them out so that we could take them back but now we owned one that could be watched over and over and over and over and...
I think Mo-Debbie bought Grace her first Thomas train. It is one of the smaller "take-along" trains (I knew nothing about that at the time) and she seemed pretty happy to have just one train named Thomas. Then, came another train named Percy (also one of the small ones.) They were a great pair and Grace loved them. She asked Santa to bring her some track for them for Christmas. Well, Santa and all of his helpers donated a few pieces each of track and buildings and a few other trains (this time of the full wooden size that work on the wooden track.) At Christmas we had Thomas, Percy, Lady, and James. I wish I could name all the ones we have now, but the collection of track and trains we have gathered in less than a year now takes up an entire corner of our living room and is spilling out of the large bin I bought for them (thinking it would be plenty of room for whatever Grace ended up collecting!) I thought Grace might tire of playing with them, but a year later she loves them more than ever and has plans to ask Santa for more Thomas friends and more buildings and more track. I guess it makes things easy for Santa because he knows just what to get!

So, yesterday, we packed up our car and drove the 1 hour and 20 minutes to Carver, MA to meet Thomas. It was a day-long festival of a few amusement park rides, an expensive hot dog, some long hot lines, several gift shop items (including the Harvey crane train), a few temporary tattoos, and a much awaited train ride pulled by Thomas the Tank Engine himself.

I will never forget the glee and pure joy that exploded from Grace when she first saw Thomas coming around the bend pulling his cars behind him. She squealed and squeaked and grinned from ear to ear and jumped up and down. She was SO excited. She had been planning this outing for months and had talked about it all day long for at least a week. It was a great moment to see her so happy. It was also hard to have to wait 2 hours until our train time!

We finally got to board one of Thomas' coaches and away we went for a big loop around the park. When we got off, Grace couldn't wait to run up and hug Thomas and tell him thanks for the ride and that he did a good job. Unfortunately, this was also on the minds of the 200 other kids on the train and we ended up in another line. Just before the next departure time, we made it up to the front of the line and got to meet and touch the actual Thomas train. It was a grand moment for her.

I have been trying to think of a time when I was a kid when something was that important and that magical to me. I think Disneyland came close, but I don't think it was quite on the level that Thomas is for Grace. Finally last night, it occurred to me that Grace seeing Thomas was about equivalent to me going to my first (and second) U2 concert. The only difference is that Grace got to meet her Bono! After seeing U2 in concert, I couldn't sleep for days or think about anything else because I was so full of adrenaline from the experience. The same thing has happened to her. She COULD NOT fall asleep last night. When she finally did, she didn't sleep as long as usual and got up very early this morning. Her first words this morning as she woke up were "Daddy, did you dream about Thomas? I had dreams about Thomas and Harvey and..."

Well, we could talk about Thomas all day, but for good measure, here's a cute picture of Hattie...

Little Dancing Queen

When thinking about having a daughter, I have always thought about the first time I might take her to dancing lessons. Growing up, my sisters and I took dance classes from the time we were tiny until we hit the junior high years and had to narrow our focus on things we really wanted to pursue. Of course, I dropped my dancing lessons for horses. Partly because I couldn't do both and had to choose, and partly because I had hit a point in dancing where I couldn't really progress any more because (as David says), I'm put together all wrong.

It was always my Grandma Pearlie's dream that one of us would get good enough in ballet to dance in the Nutcracker at Christmas. She took us every single year (still going.) So far, no one has danced in it though.
Tonight, the dancing moves to the next generation of tiny blonde little girls. I was seriously so excited to take little Gracie. I was almost more excited to take her dancing than I was to take her riding for the first time. Riding is just something that we do - like breathing it seems, but the first dancing lesson is almost a rite of passage for little girls.

Last week, we excitedly went shopping for Grace's first leotard, tap shoes, and ballet tights. She is actually wearing ballet shoes that are at least 20 years old - from one of my sisters, or maybe even from me. We shared and passed down the dance shoes so many times, I don't know if they really were mine or not. She proudly wore them tonight even though they weren't as pink and shiny as the new ballet shoes that showed up in class. Her "mo-Debbie" had saved them all these years just for her. Her tap shoes are white in the New England dance tradition. When her teacher told me their dress code included white tap shoes (not black), I was a little mystified. I've never seen white tap shoes before, but the girl at the dance store explained that it's a New England tradition that doesn't seem to translate anywhere else.
So, complete with black leotard, white tights, old pink ballet shoes, and new white tap shoes, we headed over to dance class tonight. Grace even let me put a ballerina bun in her hair (she barely lets me brush it, so this was HUGE!) She was picture perfect, beautiful and cute at the same time. She gladly followed her teacher to her dance room and left me with Hattie in the foyer without looking back. Her class is a half hour of ballet followed by a half hour of tap.Parents aren't allowed to watch except for on special days, but Grace reports that she learned how to warm up her legs, stretch, held onto the barre (correct spelling, right dancers?), and learned how to shuffle with her tap shoes. She says that tap dancing is hard to do and that it makes a lot of noise. She tapped softly, but the other kids tapped loudly.She came out complete with a smile on her face, a pumpkin sticker on her ballet shoe, and a lollypop in her hand. She said she had fun (which is rare for her to say when she has fun - she usually says she had a hard time because she had to leave.) She wants to go next week, so I think it's going to be a good activity for us this winter.

She has one lesson a week for the school year and then will have a recital in June. We'll see if she turns into a little dancer! At the very least, she's learning how to use her body a little bit and making a few friends.

Nummy in the Tummy

Hattie recently turned 4 months old and had her check-up last Friday. She's still a big, scrumptuous baby. She's in the 92nd percentile for weight and height, weighing in at 16 pounds and measuring 25.75 inches. She had a very healthy check-up except that her doctor found a heart murmur. I have one and we have other heart issues in the family, so it wasn't a surprise, and I'm not even really too worried about it. She's thriving and I don't think it's anything serious. Her doctor doesn't either, but she's still sending us to a cardiologist next month to make sure all is well.

At any rate, Hattie got the go ahead to start eating solid foods. She has had her first rice cereal and ate it right up. She is seriously a funny kid. She has the silliest personality and makes me laugh out loud on a daily basis. She's quite the comedian at 4 months.

She is just a smoochy, fun, little kid. Although, she is quite sensitive and fusses at the tiniest bit of discomfort (belly, teeth, etc.), she more than makes up for it when she's at her best. Her daddy is even getting brave enough to tend her for a few hours at a time so that I can go teach riding lessons. We're hoping that the cereal will help out in that department since she's decided that the bottle is not her style. She even slept for 9 hours on Sunday night (it didn't help me though, because I kept waking up worring that something had happened to her!) Go Hattie!

OK, We're Home...

For those of you living vicariously through our exciting life stories (wink wink), you can take a deep breath and relax, because we're home from vacation. Whomever says that vacation is relaxing doesn't travel with kids. Not only were their schedules entirely interrupted and their familiar surroundings taken away, we went at least 2 or 3 places a day for the (almost) month we were gone. Our kids were so fried from traveling that Grace was asking to go home to Boston during our last week in Utah.Needless to say that we didn't blog the last half of our trip because we were so busy and tired and we haven't blogged since we got home because we have been so busy and tired! It took me 10 days to get back into a routine where I actually have clean clothes, fresh towels in the bathroom and I can see my kitchen counters and I'm making 3 meals a day at the right time. It took about a week to put everything away that we brought home (including doing all of that laundry and putting it away.) I think David still has a pile of stuff in our bedroom that hasn't been put away.

Hattie sure grew a lot on our trip. While we were gone, she learned how to roll over completely (well she made the last step of getting her arm out the morning we got home), she started laughing out loud, she gained several pounds and at least an inch, I think, and she started playing with toys.

Grace had a great time in Utah because there was someone to play with her and tend to her every need 24/7. It's been a bit of an adjustment to be back at home with her busy mom and fussy sister where she has to entertain herself a lot. I had a whole bunch of work to do for the barn when we got home too, so she really had to get self-sufficient again.

I'm just so very grateful for modern conveniences. The plane trip was pretty quick, considering we made it to Utah in under 5 hours (not counting those pesky airport hours) to see our family. The poor pioneers took months to make that journey to never return to their families. We also have cell phones with pretty much unlimited long distance calling, the internet with instant photos, and now David's new computer with the web-cam makes it even easier to see people who live 2500 miles away.
Even real mail makes it back and forth in 2 days. It's a huge blessing for me. Let's just say that had I lived in the 1800's, I wouldn't have even made it here from Europe, let alone have trekked across the U.S.

So, now my projects for fall will be:

-finish Harriet's Christmas stocking (we'll see how that goes since it was supposed to be Grace's after she was born, but her Grandma rescued me and made her one in the mean-time!)

-keep up on my desk-job for the barn (it's actually addicting since I LOVE e-mail and it's heavy on the e-mail)

-teach a few riding lessons each week

-catch up on some photo albums and scrapbooks (yeah right - this is always on my list and never gets done...)

-David would love it if I'd spend a few hours in the yard undoing our jungle

-finish the book I started a month ago - half way there!

-Christmas Shopping!!!

When I'm done with all that, it will be time to make another trip to Utah. See y'all in January. (Of course, that y'all is meant for the folks out west...)

Here are some random photos taken in the last month from our trip and just after returning home. The one above is a shot from my car wind-shield looking East towards Mount Olympus - remember how I said I almost wrecked my car multiple times while trying to take in the sky while driving? - this is why! Enjoy :-)

Livin' it up in Utah!

David has been bugging me to blog and since he's done the last 10 entries or so, I guess it's my turn. I've just been out having too much fun to spend time on the computer to blog. I have been thoroughly enjoying my time in Utah. I miss my family terribly and it is so nice to see them every single day for weeks! If I'm not careful, I trick myself into thinking that I live here. Besides my family, I also miss living in the Salt Lake valley. I have almost wrecked my car at least 3 or 4 times now looking at the sky and the mountains. I cannot get enough of the huge expanse of blue sky, puffy white clouds, and giant peaks poking through them that you can see here. I feel like I can really breathe here. When I'm in New England I get so claustrophobic in the endless trees and leaves. I realize that the sky and weather isn't always like this in Salt Lake, but it is a lot of the time and I truly miss it. It feels so refreshing.


Anyway, Grace and Harriet and I have done a lot of hanging out with my sisters and my mom and my little nephew. We came a week before David did and got a lot of girl time in.
This past week we've moved to David's parents house and have gotten some more grandparent time in along with some Aunt Christine time. We also got a rare opportunity to see David's brother, John's family the first week-end we were here. Grace absolutely adores all of her grandparents and aunts. She has a hard time deciding which one she'd rather be with. It's hard to rip her away from one to go see another and then the same again when we have to leave that one. Harriet has been a trooper going from place to place with us and letting new people hold her. She's getting to know everyone much better. I know she won't remember them, so we'll just have to keep flying back and forth. Somehow though, I think she remembers my sister Emily, who was one of 4 family members to come and see her as a tiny baby. Emily is the only one who can pick her up and have Harriet instantly snuggle up and quiet down. Emily and Harriet can snuggle for hours at a time. I desperately want Harriet and Grace to have strong connections with our families and to really feel bonds with each grandparent, aunt, uncle and cousin for the time being. I realize that as you get to be an adult, your extended family becomes more extended, but for now I feel it's really important and I want them to have every opportunity to have a close-knit family.

So, here are some pictures of our "hanging-outs." We have been to lunch a bunch of times. We have played "beauty shop" with Aunt Jess. (She does our hair every time we come to Salt Lake - both of us look much better!)
Harriet went swimming for the first time at Aunt Em's pool and really liked the water. Grace is having her first sleep-over tonight with Aunt Em and Jess. Well, as I wrote that last sentence, Emily called to say that Grace wanted me to come and pick her up (10:30.) So, the sleep-over didn't last too long. I guess that they had fun though and had pizza and colored and played the piano and played with Emily's kitties (so Grace reports). She came home wearing jammies with teeth brushed so she must have almost made it. 3 and a half years old is a bit young to stay the night away from your mom, so I knew it would probably end short anyway. Better 10:30 pm than 2:30 am!

A new technological era for Chappo's friends

Friday night Jared and broke a barrier. Recently we had both purchased new macs and we were anxious to try out the iSight and try some video conferencing. Jared called on my cell phone (which was another barrier Jared finally broke through recently) and we configured everything properly. Then with the click of a button we were chatting. While this may not seem like a lot to some, it was momentuous for me. Now I can take part in live fantasy drafts with friends back in SLC. We can see each other's children in action. While this will mean Jared and I will have to be dressed when we call each other now, it will be a lot of fun.

Perhaps most important will be that Grace and Harriet will be able to see and talk with relatives. While I am here on vacation I am going to get my parents set up with a webcam so that we too can chat. Perhaps Grace will have fun talking with Grandpa and Grandma if she can see as well as hear them.

Yeah for technology!

Visiting old friends

Yesterday we went back to visit friends in the 'hood where we lived for six years. Despite the reputation that South Salt Lake has, we lived on a great peacful, friendly road. During our time there we made some good friends and really enjoyed the sense of community and friendship that we had with others on Leslie Avenue.

On Saturday as we drove up to the Golden Spike we passed through Willard and I asked my mother if she ever got nostalgic as she grew up in Willard, Utah. She said no, not really and I was a little surprised by that. I know that I get nostalgic. I really miss living on Leslie and being a member of the Southgate ward. We made some good friends and had many good times.

As we walked into the church building Sunday morning I immediately felt at home. Many, many people came up to us and asked if we had moved back. They were hoping that we were back, but unfortunately it was just a visit. It was very enjoyable talking with old friends and catching up with others. It was almost as if we had never left. Michelle and I both miss that ward. While our ward in Massachusetts is full of genuinely nice people, Michelle and I feel that something is missing. As we drove away from the Southgate ward, Michelle nailed it on the head. The difference between the two wards is the sense of fellowship and community. In the Southgate ward people struggle-temporally and spiritually and recognize the need to share the burden with one another. It is that sense of need of others that may be lacking in Massachusetts. While that may be due to the difference is socio-economic status between the two wards, it is something that we miss. Both feeling needed and needing others.

While we often refered to our six years in the Southgate ward as a mission, we do miss it and would return in a heartbeat if possible.

Thanks to all of our friends who made our return an enjoyable time.

Trains, planes, and automobiles

Grace is into trains. What more can I say? She loves trains. She has gotten into Thomas the Tank Engine, but it really doesn't matter if it is the Island of Sodor and some other train, Grace loves trains.

Last time Michelle and Grace came out to SLC they went to the Railroad Museum in Ogden, Utah. Grace had fun, but she was a little timid around the big locomotives. However, she loves anything about trains and when I told her there was a place with steam engines and that we could get on them she was hooked. So on Saturday we headed up to the Golden Spike National Monument where the transcontinental railroad came together on May 10, 1869. After a long plane ride to get to Utah, we then took the 2 hour drive north and then west to get to Promontory Point, Utah to see the trains. Grace was excited and could hardly wait to get up there.

We chose Saturday to go because the park was having their annual Railroader's festival where they bring out games and motorcars and handcars for people to try. The first thing we saw when we pulled into the parking lot was a shuttle made to look like a train. Of course Grace had to ride on that so we had to add that to the agenda.

We were the first ones to arrive and had to wait for a few minutes before the steam locomotives arrived. This is what Grace had waited for. The Jupiter arrived coming to the sight backwards (Central Pacific Railroad came from California) and then the No. 119 from the Union Pacific arrived. All I can say is that the steam engines have loud whistles. Grace didn't mind. She was so excited. I almost think that for the time being the Jupiter and 119 have replaced Thomas as her favorite train.

It really was a nice day. We only spent a little over 3 hours at the park, but we saw and got on board both steam engines. We rode on a motorcar and then Grace, Grandma, Aunt Christine and I got on a handcar and pumped ourselves up and down the track. That may have been Grace's favorite activity. She wanted to go again, but Harriet and long lines prevented us from doing so. She does want to go back however. She has been asking if we can go back to see the trains again. While we won't be going back to Golden Spike, Grace will be lucky to go to a Day Out with Thomas back in Massachusetts.




We all enjoyed the day's events. The only thing I didn't do that everyone wanted me to was participate in the buffalo chip throwing contest. They were real buffalo chips and I decided to pass. I have enough baby diapers to deal with.

Catching a few Z's

Friday night we were hoping to have a BBQ with all of friends from the Southgate ward. Unfortunately, circumstances prevented it from happening on Friday. However, we still wanted to get together with the Zabriskies. The Zabriskies moved into a house on Vidas not too long after we had bought our house on Leslie. We became good friends. Alan and I would go out on bike rides and had fun working together with the young men. It was a great friendship as both Michelle and I really enjoyed doing things with both Alan and Jennie. However, as is common in South Salt Lake, the Zabriskies ended up moving to Las Vegas in 2002. We have remained friends though. In fact, when Grace was born, we were probably stupid parents but we took our 5 week old baby down to Las Vegas and walked up and down the strip and saw the sights and sounds of Las Vegas. Now the much wiser parents waited until Harriet was 12 weeks old to catch a 5 hour airplane ride back to SLC to visit family and friends. When will we learn?

When we and the Zabriskies both lived in SLC neither of us had any children. We both have 2 children now and enjoyed eating some good food (Brookside Broiler and Grill--best beef ribs in town) and talking about the joys of having "the kids". More changes are coming for Alan and Jennie as Alan is probably going back to school next year and they will find themselves in a new locale. Good luck to them. We miss their friendship, but look forward to seeing where they end up.

So what is the first thing you do...

After a long flight that was delayed due to increased security, the first thing I wanted to do was eat. Not just any food, but some good Mexican. After a year and half away and living in an area without good Mexican food I needed some mole! None of this seeing family or friends, I needed some mole coloradito. Luckily the Red Iguana is right there close to the airport. As all the locals here know, it is the best Mexican in Salt Lake. A total dive, but excellent food. It may just be my favorite restaurant. The four of us had some great food and I was in amazement how much better the chips, salsa, and mole were compared to the places in Boston that we have been. New England has some great seafood, but the west and southwest has its Mexican.

Luckily I got a great lunch in because when I got to my parents they had been waiting for me to solve some of their computer problems. It looked fairly minor, but 5 hours later and a bunch of cursing MSN I finally got it all resolved and it is once again running like it should. The next project will be to get a webcam up so that we can have video chats once we are back on Boston. Stay tuned for our great vacation adventures.

You gotta love free wireless

As you can see from the photo I am quite interested in something! Actually I am tired. I slept for only 4 hours last night and woke up at 3 AM in order to get to Hartford for my 7 AM flight. On the way in I heard that a terror plot had been uncovered in London and the terror alert there and here had been raised. What that really meant is no liquids, gels, or anything like that in the cabin area. What part of no shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, etc. do you not understand? I was amazed how people didn't understand that and had to have their bags searched and the offending material removed. It was backing up security, but luckily I was prepared and now I am waiting for my flight.

Things did get better when I fired up the macbook. Free wireless! Yahoo! Literally. I can check my email and fantasy sports. You have to like that. Now if I can only make it through the 5 hour flight. The Red Iguana is waiting!!!

Let the vacation begin!

On Thursday everyone here woke up at 3:30 AM in order to get ready to take the girls to the airport. Michelle decided that she needed more time in Utah so she took Grace and Hattie and left me behind. Luckily I only have 3 more days of work and then I will be having fun with them. Besides the fact that one should only ever experience one 3:30 each day, it all went fairly smoothly. The drive to Hartford was a little long, but the cost savings makes up for the fact that I have to drive there twice. Michelle was not originally assigned a seat next to Grace and the Delta agent wasn't very nice about getting it resolved, but finally the logic kicked in and no one wanted to set next to a three year old on a 5 hour flight. Both kids were great on the plane and are now enjoying time with relatives. Grace immediately warmed up to everyone (even though she won't talk on the phone to any of them) and is extremely excited to have grandpas, grandmas, aunts, uncles, and cousins to play with. She will have a hard time when it is all over and we are back home.

As for me and my week of bachelorhood, not much is happening. I am experiencing for the first time the pains associated with a real job and vacation. Currently I am dealing with getting everything in order so that while I am gone things are getting done that need to be ready by the time I get back. What a headache, and yet the thought of a real vacation (after not having one in a year and half) is keeping my going. My family will probably get the shaft while I am in Utah since I have my schedule pretty booked. I feel bad about that, but so much to do and little time to do it.

Assuming I don't get sick from malnutrition (eating mac & cheese, raman, left over spaghetti) over the next few days, I will see those in Utah on Thursday.

Mac Attack!

For years I have been saying that my next computer was going to be 1) a laptop and 2) a Mac. I finally had the need to get a new computer and so I kept my word and ordered a brand new macbook. It has been a lot of fun playing around with it and it feels so good to be going away from the evil empire once again.

In graduate school I used a linux box and survived the whole time. I wrote my dissertation in tex and learned to live with the few annoyances of not having plug and play with some devices. However, the power and stability of the OS more than made up for any lacking features.

The mac is even better. Not only do you have the underlying unix at the core of the OS but the fine folks at Apple have wrapped a great gui around the core. Things just work and I won't have to deal with dreaded blue screens of death anymore. While it has taken some time to get everything converted over, I am now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I have gotten my iPods converted over to mac and my gps is working. If only I could get my PDA to work I would be set. I am almost willing to say I'll never go back to microsoft. If I can convince Michelle of the power of mac then it will be the good ol' apple from here on out.

Here's to the super fast, blogging, podcasting, do it all out of the box macbook.

My cute little girls!

In honor of both Grace (years) and Harriet (months) being 3 we decided to have some pictures taken. Michelle wanted some pictures of Hattie at 3 months because that is when Grace had her first photo shoot. Grace is way into 3 right now. In fact she has to sign everything Grace3, not just Grace. She is very excited now about Harriet and thought it was great to have their pictures taken. While Grace is almost a tom boy at heart she really is gorgeous. And I am totally unbiased about that. Michelle and I are both in amazement that 2 ordinary people could have such beautiful children. While Hattie is darling, it is in a different manner than Grace. It is amazing to her parents how different she is from Grace in both appearance, actions, and personality. You can judge for yourself, but I feel pretty blessed to have 2 wonderful daughters.

The picture here was entered into the monthly contest. It would be great to win, but regardless I know that I am a winner thanks to Gracie and Hattie.

Freakin' Wicked!

Grace left little doubt as to the fact that she is a product of her environment. First some time in Utah and now in Massachusetts. On Saturday we were getting ready to drive up to Nashua, NH to do some shopping. Grace kept saying that she didn't want to go in "Daddy's car". When I asked her why she didn't want to go in my car (1997 Subaru Outback) she said, "It's too freakin' old." Michelle and I just started laughing. Once I finally go over the freakin' old thing I asked her how come she likes mom's car so much (2001 Nissan Pathfinder). She said, "Mommy's car is wicked cool!" What more can I say. Michelle and I couldn't stop laughing and we realized that we have one crazy BayTahn for a 3 year old.

Copo de Mundo and the TDF

There are two sports I really enjoy that I can't believe Americans don't get into. Perhaps it is the American arrogance that keeps people from watching soccer and cycling. I have heard all the excuses about why American's don't get excited about soccer, but I have to say that if people stopped watching the World Cup after the pathetic American showing than they really missed out. The quarter finals and semi-finals saw some incredible games. The Germany-Argentina, England-Portugal, and the final of France-Italy were all extremely entertaining. People often say soccer is boring, but in reality it should fit American lifestyle well. No commercials, no breaks, no timeouts. Heck the players don't even know the official time of the game. If people really think that soccer is boring and probably is because that don't understand the game. Before moving to Boston I was a very casual baseball fan. I would watch some of the playoffs and the world series but thought that the game was too boring (and long) to follow during the regular season. Now that I understand the game better, I also appreciate watching and observing the subtleties of the game. Regardless of how Americans do in soccer, I hope that sports fans across the country will tune in.

Another sport, cycling is equally baffling why American don't tune in. Armstrong was a great force in bringing cycling up in popularity, but I couldn't believe it when OLN said viewer numbers were down on its TDF coverage. For the first time in 8 years we actually have an exciting Tour de France. Only 2 real days of cycling left (with a ceremonial last leg) and the yellow jersey is completely up for grabs. An American may or may not win the yellow jersey and it just doesn't matter. The excitement and intrigue of this year's tour as had me at the edge of my seat at work keeping up to date with the www.velonews.com live feed. Here is a sport where people get on a bike for 21 straight days and ride more than 100 miles per day up grueling hills, across flats, and sprint up to 70 kph. For an interesting take from an amateur on one of the climbs they do take a look at this article. This year's tour has seen a guy come from 30 minutes back to claim the yellow jersey. A tour favorite bonk on the hardest stage (Landis) and go from wearing yellow to more than 8 minutes back. Then the very next day he attacks and rides solo for almost 130 km to reclaim all of his time but 30 seconds and be back in contention. Armstrong was great in that he was so dominant, but at least we actually have some intrigue this year. Who will wear the maillot jaune on Sunday in Paris?