Hobber Dobber

That's right, curling season has begun. The Willard rink started the year off with a win on Friday night. It's a nice change to curl on Fridays instead of Sundays... no need to rush home since it's not a school night. We curled with Jamie and Adam this week (we have a 5 person team, so our team will rotate weekly between the three guys - Rosie is the other guy), so we were fortunate to have Jamie's mom and her husband volunteer to not only babysit Sylvia, but Zach as well. Thank you again Charleen and Mike! It was a fun night - good to have some adults-only time.

Saturday was all about the kids. We started off our morning at "truck day" in Woodbury - sure wish I could post the pictures. There were all sorts of trucks parked at the library here, everything from fire trucks to a UPS truck to a school bus, and the kids got to climb around and in them. Zach is all about driving lately, so he got a pretty big kick out of sitting in those seats, turning the wheel. It was hilarious to walk towards the parking lots and hear constant horn honking. :)

Saturday afternoon we headed out to Cokato Lake, back to the Brodd Family Compound, for pumpkin carving with our friends. We stopped at a pumpkin patch along the way, and Zach was delighted to find a cow nearby. He walked up to the fence, stopped, and said "big!" I always forget how big cows really are too! The cow cooperated by mooing, and Zach's eyes got huge. We eventually got his attention back to the pumpkins, and picked one out, although once we got to the Brodd's, he wasn't the least bit interested in carving it. However, our friend Kirsten cleverly brought along some golf tees and a toy hammer, so he did have fun pounding the "nails" into the pumpkin. In addition to the pumpkin fun, Zach played a lot of football with the other kids and some of the dads too, we feasted on chili and all sorts of yummy snacks and desserts, and hung out by the bonfire (it gets dark so early these days!). It was oddly warm for this time of year, so it was good to be outside. A good day with our friends and their kids, wish I could show you the pictures. Sigh.

Mysterious disappearances and shocks

I forgot to mention two other things on my last post...

We closed on our Mpls house last week, and unlike the closing on this house, it was anything but smooth. We could call the story "the mysterious case of the disappearing closer"; the buyers' title guy called an hour before the closing with a "family emergency". I put the term in quotes because not only did he never identify this emergency, he also was completely out of contact for 2 days. With today's technology - how is that even possible? Anyway, so without the mountains of paperwork to be signed, let alone the check for us, the closing didn't quite happen that day. But it did get done a couple days later, so fortunately we are no longer the owners of two houses. Whew.

And the other thing - some of you have asked how Zach adapted to the new house. The answer is - very well! No major hiccups at all, he seems to love it here, particularly his new room. Koskie, on the hand, is a different case. The first few days he was one nervous dog, following us everywhere, worrying that he was going to get left behind or something. He's kind of a nervous dog anyway, so we weren't very surprised by that. Then he seemed to adjust... until we used the invisible fencing. Sigh.

As I think I mentioned before, we were thrilled to find the house already had IF installed, as it saved us the time and effort to do it ourselves. The previous owners left behind the collar, so we were all set. Except, that typically when IF is installed, little flags are put up around the perimeter of the yard, and someone comes out and does some training with your dog. Well, we took a few shortcuts and just tried to train him ourselves, and then came the inevitable day that he got shocked. Now the poor dog won't go in the backyard. The question "Koskie, want to go outside?", which used to elicit a lot of excitement and Koskie right by the door, now results in Koskie running upstairs and hiding, if he isn't already up there anyway. His favorite hiding spots are in my closet or behind the glider in Zach's room, in case you were wondering.

So, needless to say, now we need to go out and get the flags and train this dog properly, so he no longer thinks the backyard is a terror. The adventures continue!

Latest adventures

Still picture-free - sorry. Haven't had enough time to do more than basic trouble-shooting, so you're stuck with just words for now.

We had our neighborhood block party Saturday night, and it confirmed what we already knew - we live in a great neighborhood. It was a good way to meet neighbors we hadn't met, although it was pretty overwhelming. Too many new faces, especially when you factor in all the kids. I think Scott is already looking forward to next year, since he missed the golf outing prior to the party. Sounds like the guys had a good time... one of the gentlemen went home to "sleep" after the golf, even when some of the others went to try to get him up. :) We also found out that there's a neighborhood softball team, another chance for Scott to hang out with these guys next summer.

Zach, probably needless to say, had a great time. He was constantly surrounded by kids who wanted to entertain him. He got a bit overwhelmed at times, so he'd come and find one of us. But by the end of the night (well, the end of his night anyway), he was nodding off in his chair.

Friday night was an open house for our new night of curling in the mixed (2 guys, 2 girls) league. It's hard to believe curling starts next week already... we're looking forward to it, but at the same time curling means that it's winter - certainly not looking forward to that.

Lots of Zach updates - our little chatterbox has been saying all sorts of goofy things. I'll save most for my next blog, which hopefully will include some pictures, but some of my favorites are things that he says from his crib as he's waiting for us to go get him:

• Mommy... Koskie... down... carry... yeah, ok!
• Snuggle!! (he's into snuggling these days... I think a symptom of several new teeth making an appearance at the same time)

Oh, and one other funny thing I saw the other day as I was driving down the street towards our house... a little boy (8-ish) hanging from a street sign. Do you know how high a street sign is???

Suddenly a little boy

Still can't get pictures to post, and I have no idea why. Sigh.

Tonight I found myself looking at Zach and being amazed at how we suddenly are the parents of a little boy. And as silly as it sounds, it really does feel sudden. Besides that his legs look longer, and his face a little less chubby, it's that I find myself having conversations with my son! His vocabulary has not only expanded at an exponential rate, but he's actually initiating discussions, not just responding to questions. And he's starting to sing, at least sort of... the usual row, row, row your boat, itsy-bitsy spider, Old McDonald (he does a mean "EIEIO"), and of course, the Sesame Street theme song. He doesn't quite have the melodies down, so it's amusing, but he's trying!

A little less amusing (although sometimes I have to turn away so he doesn't see me laugh) is how he is responding to discipline. He has started another hitting phase (yippee), so I find myself often saying "we do not hit". I say it nice and slowly so he gets it and understands the importance, and typically about 30 seconds later my little parrot says - "NO... do... NOT... hit." Can drive me crazy - he understands, but he does it anyway!!!

No pictures...

Argh... I can't seem to get pictures uploaded. We finally got our wireless working, yahoo! But now I can't get pictures on here - and I have lots to share. I'll keep trying, I guess.

In the meantime, thank you to all of you who have been checking in to see how we're doing. We are definitely settling in; in fact I've reached a state of inertia when it comes to unpacking. We have all the fundamentals put away or at least accessible, with the rest of the boxes hidden in closets and rooms we don't use much. Which means I have zero motivation to keep unpacking. I do have to say our office is calling me... who knows what sort of important paperwork we have buried in a random box!?!?! But this truly is "home" already - which continues to amaze me. Although Scott probably won't feel completely at home until we get the new tv he's been lusting after. :) On Saturday we've been invited to the neighborhood block party - a good chance to meet and get to know more neighbors!

What I was going to blog about was our recent adventures with Zach's buddies. Last Wednesday we had our usual "playdate" (a word I never imagined I'd use) with friends; we met at the sculpture garden for this one. It's a beautiful setting, so I brought my camera and got some fun shots of the kids - Zach's friends Maggie and Clark were there this week - with the sculptures, flowers, and Zach dancing around in a puddle. Hopefully I'll be able to post those soon.

We also had fun last week with my college friend Mary and her daughter Kelly, who came to visit from the Ft Worth area. Kelly had just turned 1, and is absolutely adorable. It was really amazing to see what a difference 8 months makes - it's hard to remember when Zach was that age! While Mary and Kelly were here we spent lots of time just hanging out with the kids, up at my friend Cindy's (also a UW alum) house. The three kids, which includes Cindy's daughter Caitlin, who is 3, had a lot of fun playing together - the noise was staggering. Friday night we three ladies went out on the town, having dinner at Bellanotte in Minneapolis, followed by drinks on the patio the Chambers Hotel. We definitely enjoyed a night out - a long leisurely dinner is something we don't get to do very often! And again, I got some really fun shots of the kids, especially the three of them in the tub... but can't get them posted! UGH!

As a side note... today I discovered a big benefit to living in the suburbs - at least this particular one. I went to get my address changed on my driver's license - and what a pleasant experience. A very nice setting, lots of people ready to help me so no waiting - it took about 3 minutes total, and that was just because I had to chase Zach around while trying to fill out the form! Quite a change from our Mpls experiences.

Home sweet home

And internet, sweet internet! We finally got hooked up with cable and the internet on Wednesday... difficult to be disconnected, especially when Scott had to listen to the Twins/Sox game on the radio!! Anyway, hopefully you understand why it's been a while since I've blogged...

I’m actually surprised at how quickly our new house has started to feel like home, especially with all the unpacked boxes still surrounding us! But apparently home is not only where your heart is, but also where your stuff is, because once we had our “stuff” around us, we felt at home.

The move went as well as can be hoped for! It was a little warmer than one might have thought for a day in mid-September, but I guess that’s better than rain. Our friends were great – we had help all day, and got things done pretty quickly, I think. My parents did a great job of distracting Zach (we thought my mom was lost, they were at the park for so long!), so we were able to focus on loading, unloading, and starting to unpack.

Here are some pics of our efforts…

The enormous truck that didn’t quite fit all of our stuff (how is that possible???)

Relaxing with pizza and beer at the new house

Putting together the most important piece of furniture for our first night

Zach exploring his new front yard

Zach “helping” dad put together our new dining room chairs

As you can imagine, we've spent a lot of the week figuring out where to put stuff, especially all the boxes of things we've had in storage since March. As I write this, we are functional, at best! But despite being surrounded by boxes and empty walls (with HUGE holes in them... what did those people use to hang things???), we are loving the house. And we can't say enough about the neighborhood - we've met lots of our neighbors, especially the kids. Just one example: when Scott came home Monday night after work, he found Zach and me in the backyard, surrounded by six neighborhood girls, all of whom wanted to play with Zach! As Scott said, I just needed a magazine and a chair!

Kids galore - and maybe a babysitter!

I'll keep this short, since we've barely started moving and I'm already tired! Our closing went smoothly, and we hauled quite a bit over today using our cars and my parents' mini-van, but the big move day is tomorrow.

We got several unexpected bonuses today:

• we found out our new yard already has invisible fencing. One less thing for the to-do list!
• the sellers were throwing away one of those battery-powered kid-sized cars (a truck in this case), that we got to keep for Zach. I'm normally not a proponent of those - kids should power their cars with their legs Flintstone-style - but we couldn't let one just go in the garbage!!
• there are even more kids than we could have imagined in our neighborhood, they were everywhere! Water fights, tutus, trampolines - lots of fun going on. Zach is going to have a ball, just watching if nothing else.

We met a few more of the neighbors, and discovered directly behind us is a 14 year old girl who babysits! WHOO HOO!!