why is it that.....

... other members of my family get posts from random bloggers in their comments, but not me?
... when typing comments and doing the word verification, the "words" on my blog are way longer for me than when i'm posting on their sites?
... i have a ginormous baby who weighs 35 lbs and isn't even 2 yet?!

i've run out of silly things to question. i thought i had more...

thank god it's onlygetting rain up north here. i can't imagine what it's like for all the people down south who longer have homes and lost family b/c of mother nature. we take things for granted and don't realize it until it's gone.

mom sent me an email yesterday saying that everytime she watches the news and see new orleans she thinks of us b/c we went there for our honeymoon, and that we may have some pictures now considered lucky to have. i didn't think about that.. how the landscape on the coast is probably permantly altered by forces of nature. Neanderpaul on WAAF mentioned that on the radio yesterday, and it just blew me away. i remember mom and christine used to watch all those prohpecy shows back in the 90's that i could never watch b/c i would get too freaked out about it... i thought things like significant changes in the coast would never happen in my lifetime, i was wrong, but i was also a bunch younger. Neanderpaul was talking about when he used to live down there and worked at a station and how things were, and how they're never going to be the same. he's right... so much damage has been done, hundreds of years of history soaked and/or washed away. jason pointed out that the art museum is most likely severly waqter damaged with all the things in it.... and all i could think of in response was, i wonder what happened with all the animals at the zoo? the aquarium? not that there's anything wrong with being concerned for the well-being of the animals, but at a time of disaster there are more things to worry about.

i know this is terrible to say considering the situation down south, but frankly,new orleans was in need of a good rinse... when we were there it smelt like warm pee and warm beerall over the french quarter, a little disconcerning and such... however, it is safe to say the stench wasn't bad enough to warrant such a powerful rinse. perhaps a mere hose down would've have been all that was neccesary. no homes or lives taken.. it didn't need that. it was a beautiful city. i can only hope they can bring it back to it's former glory and then some. one photo in particular i remeber taking was of a balcony rail that resembled a phallic symbol. that was entertaining.. i think i may have accidently said a little too loud, "look honey, a penis fence!" i can't recall if anyone noticed, but i'm sure i did. none of our pictures from our trip are digital, b/c that was pre-digital era... atleast affordable digital era. thanks god we got a chance to visit when we did.

life goes on.

evan's asleep. it's naptime. let's see if he makes it to his normal 2 hour nap today... yesterday he had a marathon nap. it started at daycare. melly said he went to sleep b/w 1-1:30 we picked him up at 3-something... fell asleep in the car on the way home, and continued to sleep in the car until 5-something! he then went to bed at 9:30 and didn't fall asleep without a good fight... so probably about 9:45 before he calmed down enough to sleep.

last night tyler's mom and sister came up for dinner. that was good time. we made mammoth amounts of jambalaya and collard greens. almost enough to feed a small army, and there's a whole casserole dish of it in the freezer we're all eating for lunch. it definately came out better this time than the first time we made it. last time tyler and i misread the directions and put in about a cup of cajun spices instead of the 2 tsp we wre s'posed to! it was so peppery it was practically inedible. of course we didn't discover this until the following day when "Oops" was the word of the day. thanks to amanda for the cajun cookbook.. it has served us well.

i just lost the game. this will only make sense to those who play the game.

we have begun making our own wine. the first batch came out good.. it's still young and needs to age a few more months before it's s'posed to be ready... but of course we're drinking it. we're currently in the process of making apple wine, which apparantly has the potential to have 19% alcohol whe it's done fermenting... b/w the sugar in the juice and the sugar we added the yeast sure did go to work, and boy will we get tanked when we drink it. lol. it's still got a while to go before it's even ready to be bottled.

jason offically starts his job on monday, but he's been going in the past couple of days to get htings setup and do prep and stuff. he's very excited to be not working at umass anymore doing microbiology... the lab had a pizza party for him and we went down to join in... that was a good time.. i didn't even get a parking ticket! i only had 65 cents for the meter which amounted to 39 minutes... yeah meters are super expensive on campus, but i didn't feel like parking in my lot which is across campus from where the lab is.. it is however right next the building where i work in the engineering end of campus. speaking of which i need to call parking services... they haven't sent my my parking permit yet. just called them... they said it was mailed within the last 2 days. let's see how long it takes for it to get to me 1/2 hour away.

beach bums

i have posted new pictures in my online photo album... please check out the link on the right and visit it... blogger was being too slow on the upload to put them up here... but here's one from our first night there. Aunt Jane was trying to teach him wiffle ball... i have some video.. it was pretty entertaining.

beach

[chanting] beach beach beach beach, beach beach beach beach...

for someone who grew up at the beach and now lives in the "mountains", going to the beach is a VERY big deal.

thus we're going to the beach tomorrow.... it may not be onset (which is okay that water was yucky) but it'll do. it's ocean and there's waves

fantabulous news!

as of yesterday, jason is offically employed by hadley school district to teach 6 classes at hopkins academy (aka hadley high school)! he starts aug 29th. we're very excited!

taken this morning

in case you haven't seen him in a while...