Memorial Day

Memorial Day

Three day weekends: a great chance to clear out the DVR, go to the pool and catch up on your blog (cough).  For me, Memorial Day has usually meant the first paid holiday of the year, the first break after a long start to the year.  I always try and pause to think about what it takes to preserve my right to vote, complain about the government and buy bite size Butterfinger bars on a whim.  But to be honest, I’ve only known a handful of veterans and currently serving military in my life so this holiday has never had the impact it has for some.

Until this year.  My job this year has allowed me to work side by side with a lot of current military.  They don’t control my raise and aren’t reading my blog so I can guarantee this isn’t brown-nosing, but these men and women are phenomenal.  Everything that I love about a great co-worker I have found in literally every single one of the military leadership I’m lucky enough to work with.  Incredibly respectful, intelligent and humble, it makes me wonder if I should have joined ROTC in college.  I am honored to work with them as often as I get to.

The best example of this I can share without being shot is simple, but always seems to stick with me.  We have a long hallway at work.  As people pass, most keep their eyes down or maybe grunt a hello, myself included if I haven’t had my daily bite size Butterfinger.  But without exception, every military member looks you in the eye and says clearly, “Good morning Phil/Rick/Whiskey Juliet (don’t ask).”  Our country is doing something very right to have these folks on our side.  It sure makes me sleep a lot better at night.  Thank you to our military, past and present, for everything you do.

Kidless in Seattle..err...Wyoming

When we decided to go out to DC, there were two momentous occasions we knew we would be traveling back to Colorado for:

  1)  The birth of our friend’s daughter, Miss Alice Ann Nelson

  2)  The graduation of Jenn’s brother-in-law, Dan “Man-Class” Hagerman, from pharmacy school

As with any trip when you have kids, the trick is what the heck to do with them. For the first event, we decided that it was most important that Jenn go back and help out with the new baby, especially since I was at a new job and she had earned a break from the kids. For the second one, neither one of us were going to miss this event several years in the making. With the promise of good old-fashioned college debauchery and a very real fear of taking our kids on an airplane, we begged my sister and brother-in-law to watch them for the weekend. Without a second thought, or really consulting Peter, Steph gave us an enthusiastic “Yes!”

I can’t overstate what a gift this was.  A weekend to stop being parents and just be married adults was amazing.  At one point Jenn and I were literally pacing around her sister’s house for about 15 minutes because we didn’t know what to do without a child to wrangle. Meanwhile, they were going to the zoo, the bouncy house and the park, having a great time. Peter bought Brynn her first comic book (“magazine!”) and changed his first poopy diaper. It’s a miracle the kids wanted us back. God Bless the Lovegroves.

We had such a great time.  Abbey and Dan are phenomenal cooks and threw two parties on graduation day.  The first, a lovely luncheon with family.  We had burgers/brats, played lawn games and got to know Dan’s family.  The second: a beer-infused, meat-laden tribute to college worthy of my fantastic brother-in-law’s hard work.  We dined on a huge tub of slow-cooked brisket, two kegs and a sweet cake shaped perfectly like an open bottle of little blue pills (no, not those little blue pills). In true college form, someone happened to have pulled pork and a half-keg from another party and dropped it by.  To finish the epic night, Abbey found someone she didn’t know sleeping on her couch at about 1:30 in the morning.  Classic.

The next foggy morning, Paul made a great breakfast and we said goodbye to Jenn’s family.  This was a tough one since this will be our last time seeing them until we get back next year.  After a year in 2011 where we went back to Wyoming six times, it’ll be tough not seeing everybody.  

We hit the road with heavy hearts, but they were lightened by the last part of our trip: Sunday Night Dinner with the Nelsons!  It’s been WAY to long for me, so I was pretty excited.  Holding baby Alice was the highlight of a night filled with highlights that included Maggianos for dinner, doing math problems with Ryan and going to the Avengers movie.  To anyone who knows me, math, kids and comic book movies are pretty much my ideal night. What a great evening.

And yet, no matter how much fun we were having throughout the whole trip, it was amazing how much we missed the kids.  We thought we needed a few nights away to remind ourselves of who we were.  It turns out that who we are has become so wonderfully intertwined with those munchkins, it’s hard to be ourselves without them around.  After everything, coming home and having them tackle-hug us was one of the best parts of the whole weekend.

Bikes

Like most stories from my childhood, this one is pretty embarrassing.  The last bike I owned was a used, three-speed Huffy I had when I was 14.  It was great for sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night and riding the back country roads to visit girls.  Nowadays, it would be pretty embarrassing to be seen cruising around on.  For almost our entire married lives,  Jenn and I have wanted to get bikes.  And for most of that time, something has always gotten in the way:

2003: We had recently graduated from college, paid for a wedding, paid for a honeymoon, paid the deposit on our first apartment.  After a whole lot of paying the man, we decided no bikes this year.

2004: We saved up every penny for the down payment on a new house.  Our house is near some really great bike trails. The irony is sickening.  No bikes.

2005: We needed a new car and didn't want much in monthly payments so we made a big down payment.  The CRV has been worth every penny...but no bikes.

2006: The winter before, our furnance died, and after a couple of nights spent wearing sweatshirts and stocking caps to bed until the repair man could come, a new heating system was in order.  We'd also survived two summers without air conditioning and it was miserable.  Sorry bikes, maybe next year.

2007: Italy.  The trip I'd been dreaming of for six years since I'd been in college.  One of two things I wanted before we started having kids: Get my masters degree and go to Italy with Jenn.   Yeah, bikes can wait.

2008-2011: To quote Jenn's favorite Beatle, "Life is what happens when you make other plans." Among other major life events, we found out early in 2008 that if we wanted to have kids, we'd be saving up a boat load for an adoption(s).  One boat load = no bikes x three years.

This brings us to a couple of days ago.  We went to a downtown bike shop with tax refund in hand and determined not to let another year slip by.  We found a really great place that didn't stick their noses up at us because we wanted hybrid bikes to haul around our kids.  Forty-five minutes later we had two bikes, four helmets, a bike rack, bike pump and other miscellaneous items that added up rather quickly.

It's shocking how easy it was to spend that much money--but the important thing is we finally  have bikes!  I can't wait to ride the Mount Vernon trail that runs along our house and take it out along the trails behind our house in Colorado.  Most of all, I can't wait to buy Brynn the "tiny bike" she asked for as we headed out of the house.

The Garbers Come to Washington

Yay!  More visitors!

One of the toughest parts about coming to DC for the year was taking the kids away from their wonderful grandparents.  Every kid should be able to go visit their grandparents and see cows, ride tractors and chase deer off several acres of beautiful land tucked against the mountains.  So being in the urban sprawl that is the DC area, it was great to have a little piece of home visit us.  Jenn's parents came to visit for a full week....and I emphasize the word full.  Every day we spent seeng the sights, wrangling squirrely kids and enjoying great food and company.  All while I was working a swing shift (4 pm - 12 am).  The following is what I can remember about our itinerary.

Tuesday
Jenn's parents arrived in the evening after I had gone to work.  They picked them up at the Metro station, and the kids were so excited to see them.  Jonah loved the minivan we rented for their visit, because it meant Nana and Pop-Pop were right there to make his car rides much more interesting than normal.

Wednesday

Newseum--just for you, Steph!  

With our babysitter coming on Wednesday, we were able to visit some of the more kid-unfriendly museums around DC.  Jenn folks suggested the Newseum and it was fantastic.  I'd never even heard of it with the amazing suite of museums available to us here.   A huge six-story museum dedicated to journalism and its affect on American history.  It has a large piece of the Berlin Wall, the radio tower from the 1st World Trade Center Tower and a tribute to Pulitzer Prize winning photos that made for a very powerful and sobering experience.   After a fun lunch where we saw an old college friend of Jenn's (crazy small world!) I had to get home to go to work.  Sigh...

The rest of the day we (meaning Jenn and her parents) was spent at the Museum of American History.  Philip and I had been there before a few weeks ago, but there's always something new to see.  We hit the highlights of the museum, and then headed home to relieve the babysitter.

Thursday

Now that we're babysitter-less, we set our sights on more kid-friendly venues.  First-up: The zoo.  Thanks to the Nelsons, we have a full year of free parking at our zoo visits.  Which is especially great since we can't see the zoo all in one visit.  This was our third visit and yet we found ourselves in an area of the zoo we'd never been.  There's a long path that goes by several exotic birds (yes flamingoes Jules!) and everybody had a good time.  In fact, the path was so long and out of the way, we only had enough time to quickly peek at the lions, tigers and panda bears before leaving in time for naps.

I had 15 minutes to change for work.  By the time I left for work, every single person in our was fast asleep.  Sigh...

Friday
After three nights of swing shift and just over five hours of sleep on top of a full day of sight-seeing, I was beat like a drum.   So I stayed home with the kids while Jenn and her folks went to visit the Manassas Battlefield/Battle of Bull Run.  I almost wish I'd powered through because they came back from the visit with a lot of great stories and I could only contribute a mildly funny poop story.  Who knows, if I'd gone, maybe Brynn could have charged a trench with her brother gripped firmly in tow.

Saturday
 
My favorite day of the whole week.  With my last swing shift coming tonight, I decided to power through another busy day.  The agenda: Mount Vernon.   Located exactly six minutes away from our house (which is actually on some of George Washignton's old property), I thought this was a minor out of the way sight seeing event, we'll be back by lunch.  Wrong.

Mount Vernon is AMAZING.  They keep the fields on a seven year crop rotation like George Washington did.  They have livestock like lambs, pigs (including one very lazy/looked dead piglet) and chickens.   They have cherry trees.  George and Martha Washington are buried there.  Lots of room for kids to run around and get tired.  That's a recipe for a successful family day out.  We dragged ourselves away after three hours, and Jenn went back later that day to pick up her parents, who were having too good of a time to leave when we did.  If you come to visit us, we're going to Mount Vernon, end of story.  Now on to my last shift.

Sunday

"You said there's what in here?"

Oh yeah, it's Easter!  Kids have to find eggs and get a  basket.  Crap, I haven't planned anything!  Thankfully, my wife and mother-in-law are more than on top of it.  A basket is waiting on the fireplace mantel.  Candy is in the pantry.  Bunny-shaped pancakes.  After 8.5 years of marriage I should know my wife always has it covered.  I'm just along for the ride.

Brynn wasted no time.

We had a fantastic day around the house, topped off by bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin, deviled eggs and Jenn's patentedly delicious mashed potatoes.  Time for a glorious food coma....

Monday
After going to bed at a reasonable time for the first time in almost a week, I was refreshed and ready for a long walk about the DC area.  Jenn's mom had worked out a personal tour of the capitol with the Wyoming senator's office.  Wyoming is a great state.  There's like five people per elected official so we found ourselves in the senator's office ready for a personal tour of the Captiol Building from a fellow Wyomingite.  It was fantastic!  This was my third tour and this one was easily the best.  The key was that FINALLY someone knew where the second Wyoming statue was.

If you haven't gone to the Capitol Building, let me explain.  Every state has two statues in the Captiol Building, based on someone famous from your state.  The first Wyoming statue is in the main building as you line up for the tour.  NO ONE knows where the second statue is.  I have actually temporarily left the tour group to try and find the second.  When the tour guide asked us what state everyone was from, she actually said, "What?" when I said Wyoming.  Luckily, our Wyoming tour guide found the second statue in an obscure corner of the building reserved for Millard Fillmore's secretary's assistant, or something like that.  With a four year question finally answered and my body exhausted from a long day of walking I again slept amazing.

Tuesday
On our last day with Jenn's parents, we had yet another great day planned.  Roy and I went to the Air and Space museum near Dulles and we had a babysitter coming over so all four of us can go out to dinner at a great seafood restaurant right on the water.  Or so we thought...

Construction on the beltway was rough and confused the poor Garmin Lady, so it took an extra half hour to get there.  Thankfully, the road groutchiness faded away pretty quickly once we got there.  The largest museum in the world, it holds the Enola Gay, the SR-71 Blackbird and as of just a few days ago, the Space Shuttle Discovery along with hundreds of other planes.  Good thing I brought my walking shoes!  As if this weren't already a perfect venue for an aerospace engineer and an engine lover, the planes are restored in the Paul E. Garber facility, Roy's brother (well not exactly, just coincidence they share a name).

Halfway through the trip though, I got a text from Jenn saying our babysitter was sick.  No more going out to dinner.  Thankfully with two great cooks in the house, a trip to Whole Foods was all we needed to have a nearly-gourmet meal at home once the kids went to bed.  Crab, salmon and steak appeared on our table and we had a great final evening.  We toasted to an amazing week and to the very best in-laws I could have ever hoped for.  Sigh...

My week as Mr. Mom

A couple of weeks ago, we were incredibly excited to welcome Alice Ann Nelson into the world.  Jenn went back to Denver to help out our friends and I took a week off to be Mr. Mom.  I've done days and even a weekend, but this was uncharted waters.  More than one male coworkers said, "Dude, really?  Good luck."  They said it so much like a good bye that I don't think they planned on me making it back.  Below is the chronicle of my week as Mr. Mom.  And the list of bad movies I watched since Jenn wasn't there to roll her eyes at the movie choices.

Day 0: Jenn leaves
Dropped Jenn off at the airport and since this was the day our babysitter came over, I got to go to work.  My last day for six days.  If I had known what I was getting into, I would have stayed later.

Brynn Quote:  Me: "Am I doing a good job like Mommy does?"
                      Brynn: "Mmm...no."

Awesomely Bad Movie: Limitless - Not bad, not awesome, just a fun shallow movie I probably wouldn't have watched otherwise.  If I could learn how to fight just by watching Bruce Lee movies, I too would walk around with Bradley Cooper-esque swagger.

Day 1: Huber Park day
Unintentionally we spent an hour and a half at two different parks after naptime.  They were having a great time and I was hoping they would sleep in.  Spoliler alert: they didn't.

Mistake Mom wouldn't have made: It literally took us 20 minutes to leave the house.  I forgot the sunscreen, then jackets, then Jonah's hat.  It didn't take long to realize that while I'm typing up blog posts, Jenn is organzing our life.

Brynn Quote: "No, I just need to dump this bark on Jonah because he's dirty"  The logic is still blowing my mind.

Awesomely Bad Movie: The Killers.  Highlight is when Ashton Kutcher grows out a mustache to be like his father-in-law Tom Selleck.  It took an hour and 45 minutes to reach this peak.  Awesomely bad indeed.

Day 2: Bouncy house
I found an fun inflatable bounce house facility about 20 minutes away.  We went for an hour and bounced to our, er...I mean the kids', hearts content.

Mistake Mom wouldn't have made: Putting Brynn in a dress for the bouncy house and forgetting the short shorts that went with it.  A lot of people got mooned.

Brynn Quote: (astonished) "Whoa, Daddy you're eatting veggies too?"

Movie: Iron Man 2.  I'd already seen it, but I event watched Green Hornet I love Superhero movies so much.  FYI, Green Hornet is just bad, not awesomely bad.  Iron Man 2: awesomely awesome.

Day 3: Birthday Party
A co-worker of mine invited us to her son's birthday party.  People who have kids close in age to us are nice to visit because they have their outlets covered and tons of padded objects to play with.  Birthday parties are great because they have cake.  Done and done.

Mistake Mom wouldn't have made: Forgetting the diaper bag in the car.  Also almost wrapped a boys present in pink paisley wrapping paper because I thought it was the only thing we had.  Fortunately, Jenn saved me from certain retraction of my man card.  I'd like to add least get credit for trying to wrap it.

Brynn Quote: This one must have been going through her head when she was handed a bat and told to hit the piñata as hard as she could.  Something along the lines of, "Are they freaking serious?"

Highlight: Movie night with Brynn after Jonah went to bed.  Finding Nemo and some popcorn.  My favorite moment during Mr. Mom week.

Awesomely Bad Movie:  Kickass.  Lose the bad because this movie was just flat out awesome.  Hilarious combination of teenage angst film and superhero epic that oddly worked, pulled together by Nicholas Cage being...who Nicholas Cage always is.

Day 4: Charlottesville
A great day in C-ville with my sister and her husband.  Knowing I'm out matched and outwitted by my two children, they came prepared with games, tasks and more energy than I could muster.
 
Mistake Mom wouldn't have made:  Remembered a change of pants for Brynn....but not a change of underwear.  You're going commando, kiddo!

Brynn quote: (Upon being told by Aunt Stephy she could pick one toy as a present)  "I want this, ooh I want this, ahhh I want this..."  Repeat 30 times for full effect.

Movie: Replace movie with an hour and a half of online Mario Kart with Peter.  The long dormant video game player inside me stretched his legs and rejoiced...and then got beat down by Peter and a bunch of Koreans online.

Day 5: The Little Gym
I had been wanting to try out the Little Gym close to us as a way to get the kids out and using up some of that infinite energy in a constructive way.  Today was the only day we could do a free trial, so we went.  We came back and Skyped with Mom!

Mistake Mom wouldn't have made: Jenn inevitably would have done enough research to realize that Brynn would become ineligible for My Gym when she turns three--in two months.  Oh well, we got some exercise.

Brynn quote: Jenn: "Hi Brynn, I miss you!"
                    Brynn: "Where's Baby Alice?"

Awesomely Bad Movie:  Gamer.  Unintentionally, I saved the most awesomely bad for last.  Ex-cons sign up to get injected with nano-cells that allow them to be controlled by video gamer players.  They then go and kill each other in an attempt to...win I guess?  Spoiler alert #2, they take down the establishment and their plot to control the world.  Even too bad for me.  That's REAL bad.

Day 6: Nothing, Glorious Nothing
Just a day of hanging out around the house and soaking up my last full day as Mr. Mom.  It was an incredible week.   Selfishly, I got to workout for an hour every day, sleep in (a little), do TONS of fantasy baseball research and cook dinner...all of which never happen in my normal life.   I probably won't remember any one moment, because it was six days of blurry insanity.   Just the feeling of being surrounded by my kids at home and sharing in their love of bugs, books and belly buttons has made an indelible impression on me.

I am so freaking excited to be back at work.

Fantasy Baseball - East Coast Style

I have two favorite days  a year. The first is the day I draft my fantasy baseball team.  The second is the day I draft my other fantasy baseball team.   The second day is today, planned while Jenn is gone so she wouldn't have to deal with the silent treatment she usually gets on draft day.  I got hooked on Fantasy Baseball five years ago now and never looked back.   In the ultimate stats game, baseball makes perfect fantasy sense.

Baseball has been my favorite sport since my dad took me to my first Astros game.  Back then I collected baseball cards, which helped me keep touch with players throughout the league.  I would read up on all their different stats and if they weren't very good they went to "the box."  The box was a long skinny cardboard box, no filing system.  It was where cards would go to get forgotten.  The good cards went to "the book."   The book was a 100 page baseball card storage binder alphabetized by team and player name.  I was pretty nerdy little kid. (Glad I grew out of that!)  The book contains a Mark McGwire rookie card (now significantly devalued), four Nolan Ryan cards and about 150 Astros you've never heard of because I was a huge Astros fan.  Every Astro made the book.

Sorry, that whole digression was to point out that for a while in my teens and early 20s, I didn't follow baseball very closely.  I knew how the Rockies were doing and could name the starting roster, but in the rest of the league, I really didn't follow.  Fantasy baseball is now my grown up way of keeping up with the sport I love.  Normally I wouldn't care about the Toronto Blue Jays, but if they lead the league in home runs, I'm eyeing their third baseman.

Now being in DC, it's fun because I'm getting to hear all of the hype leading into the baseball season for East Coast teams, namely the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals.  I'm pretty stoked that both stadiums are about 20 minutes from each other and only 30 minutes from me.  Here are a few guys I'm excited to watch this year up close and personal.
 
        Ryan Zimmerman (Wash) - I'm a sucker for a guy who plays defense and Zimmerman is one of the best.   Any oaf can make chicks swoon by hitting the long ball, but give me a bare-handed play across the diamond and I'm one martini away from a bad decision.

       Gio Gonzales (Wash) - He transferred from Oakland last year and was great, despite being in the hitter friendly American league.  I'm hoping he can help the Nationals go far this year so maybe I can go to a playoff game.

      Adam Jones (Balt) - A really fun young player to watch this year.  He knocked on the door last year and may just bust it down this year.  Sadly, he may be the only reason to watch the Orioles this season.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got my fantasy notes in front of me, a cold beer freshly opened and 185 days of wheeling and dealing my way to the top.  Play ball!

Sunday Nights

Sunday nights are tough.  And not because I have to go to work the next day.  I generally like my job and appreciate the time with adults by the time Sunday roles around.  It's because they remind of what we're missing being here in DC.  This week, Jenn went back to Denver to celebrate the birth of Alice Ann Nelson, daughter of two of our favorite people, Ryan and Emelie Nelson.

When we lived in Denver, we started a tradition of Sunday night dinner.  It started out as a way to get our friends caught up on Firefly (call me!), one of Jenn and I's favorite series.  Every Sunday we would get together with our kids, Brynn, their wonderful daughter Maggie, and eventually Jonah joined the group.  We would have dinner, wrangle kids, swap stories, then put them to bed and start watching our show.  We did this for about eight weeks until we ran out of Firefly episodes.  No one wanted to say anything, because we didn't want them to end.  Thankfully Ryan casually said, "You know...I know another series that sounds really good."  We eagerly agreed and pretty soon we didn't even need an excuse.  Sunday nights became my favorite night of the week.

So why are Emelie and Ryan so awesome?  The easier questions would be, why aren't they?  But since you asked, I'll see if I can answer.  Ladies first; Emelie is a Wyoming grad, nuff said - Go Pokes.  When I first met her, she brought over ice cream after a meeting her and Jenn were having for the Arthritis Foundation, where Emelie worked.  She was in.  She's generally worked for non-profits, making the world a better place and all that garbage.  Those jobs are incredibly economy dependent, so opportunities come and go rather quickly.  Still, Emelie has always been able to land on her feet, grabbing an equal or usually better job than the one before.   She's awesome and did I mention that quality Wyoming education?

Now Ryan.  Ryan is a lot like me, only much taller, nicer and was a decathlete in college while I was tripping up the stairs in front of cheerleaders.  He's almost hard to like if he wasn't so effing nice, as mentioned earlier.  He introduced me to KET, a fantastic chess-like strategy game involving lazers.  That's right lazers, look it up.  He's a fellow science geek being a 6th grade science teacher in Jefferson County, again making the world a better place and all that garbage.  As a dad, he's second to none.  If every kid had a dad like Ryan there would be a) a female president, b) no strip clubs and c) potentially world peace.   It's been great to go through the experience of parent hood side-by-side with two such great parents.  If Brynn and Jonah are even slightly well-adjusted, it will be thanks to them and Jenn's influence.

So on this Sunday night when Jenn is in Denver spending time with Baby Alice and the Nelsons (band name?), I'm missing the nights we had and looking forward to the nights to come in 2013.  Congratulations Emelie and Ryan, I can't wait to meet Alice!