Joy to go with the Drama

After the story in the park, we listened to some fun music.  She also brought a basket full of percussion instruments for the kids to play with.  Theo had a rather magical time!

We took our car in to get a headlight replaced, so our lovely new friend Kelly chauffeured us to and from the car place.  Playing in her truck was an extra special treat.

Kelly even stayed and played at our house.  If only we'd know that the car was going to crap out a couple days later, we would have waited.  But no worries, Corbin is taking it in tomorrow, and a few days of being stranded isn't so bad.

Theo has decided one of his favorite things to do whenever we go outside is to look at the water.  This grate is right in our yard, and there are similar ones all the way down the street.  Here we are looking at a fascinating drowned snake.  An unfortunate side effect of our explorations is being swarmed by bugs every time we go near them.  Our adventures may have to be put off until it gets cooler, because Mommy can't handle being attacked by flies.

On Monday we went to campus to eat with Corbin at a PAM welcome lunch. We took the bus onto campus, and had a great time.  Before we headed to the bus stop, Corbin wanted to show me a neat sight.

They decided to add a wing to one of the cool old buildings on campus, but they didn't want to have to tear down the wall that would be adjoining the new section.  So instead, they just built around it.  I think it looks pretty cool, and it makes me happy that they're trying to preserve the history of the school.

Our bus ride home was fraught with trials, however.  We accidentally got on an "outbound" bus, so we got taken downtown and kicked off.  I was near tears, but a delightful Russian woman kept us company while we waited the half hour for the next bus.  We finally made it home an hour or two after we were expecting, but we are wiser and more experienced now.  Maybe...

Puddles, Parties, and Publications

I can't remember if I'd posted this before, but here it is.  Theo decided stepping through this puddle would be awesome.  He was right!

 On Saturday, we went to our huge stake activity called The Big Event! Since the geography of our stake is so spread out, they decided one event every year would be better than several smaller ones throughout the year.  So they put all their funds and activities energy into one all day Event, and it was super fun!

Theo helped Corbin play volleyball, and they were a great team.  There was also cornholing, horse shoes, frisbee, kick ball, a bounce house, swimming, a fantastic lunch, and plenty of fun people to see.

Our friend Sarah took Theo for a few minutes at the end (which I was exceedingly grateful for.  Chasing a toddler for hours on end is a bit tiring). Theo coerced her into giving him a never-ending supply of watermelon. This lead to his first bath-pooping experience, but sorry, no pictures of that.

Today, Theo and I trecked up to Cornell to meet with some friends in the branch in the rare books library.  We got to see a first edition printing of the Book of Mormon, which was totally awesome.  

I thought it would be the kind of situation where he would bring it out wearing special gloves, and instruct us not to breath on it too much as we looked across the table at it.  To my surprise, he starts passing it around the table!

As we each got a chance to look at it, he told us some facts about the first edition.  There were no verse markings, no index, and numerous errors (in type setting or punctuation).  But it was fascinating to see it as if it were a novel, with only paragraph indents to break up a page.  

The curator found it very interesting that after translating this book, Joseph Smith imediately had it printed and started circulating copies.  He told us the first printed version of the Qur'an wasn't created until that same year, 1930 (or thereabout).  He thought it was great that Joseph Smith embraced technology in the aid of his religion in order to spread the word and convert people.  I'm glad that the Church still does that today, embracing new technologies and always keeping up with the times. 

As we walked past the bell tower afterwards, it struck twelve o'clock and we got to enjoy the bells ringing.  It is such a pleasure to be here in Ithaca, despite all the challenges that go along with it.  We have a years worth of wonderful memories, and I'm excited to make a few years worth more.

Nursery, Hippie Concert, and Smiles

Theo has had three Sundays in Nursery, and he loves it!  But probably not half as much as I love it.

Above and below are pictures from his nursery teacher of his first day in nursery.  What a happy boy!

We went to a concert in the park last week, which ended up being... not quite what we expected.  It was put on by various hippies in the community to protest fracking.  If you don't know what that is, look it up, because my explanation would not be very good.

There were supposed to be bands going up every hour or so, with talking and petitioning between. We got there right when a band was finishing, and endured about an hour of talking before we finally left.  Theo and I walked around the park, ditching Corbin to wait for the next band.

Theo is indeed NOT carrying a light saber, but a tube of bubbles. Later, those bubbles took a flying leap off this bridge into the water.  We watched them sadly float away, and I had to hold Theo with all my might so he wouldn't jump in after them.

The highlight for me was an older gentleman asking if he could touch Theo's soft hair.  Kinda weird, but sweet.

Last night Corbin let Theo take his duck whistle to bed.  He went down crying, but after a few minutes of sobbing, we heard his duck calls.  Unfortunately, it was right in the middle of family prayers, so there was a little chuckling.  I hope the Lord doesn't mind.

Daddy hadn't caught the memo that we're not allowed to climb on the kitchen, but this picture makes up for it.  Corbin asked him to smile, and we got this sweet face.

Later that morning, he asked Theo to smile again, and this is what he got.  I sure love my boys!

Tuesday: a big day

Yesterday Corbin and I went on a date to see Explosions in the Sky in concert.

 We drove up to Syracuse over the beautiful rolling green hills and the old-timey towns, while talking and eating chips.

The venue was a repurposed one-screen movie theater.  It worked well for the new purpose. It was a standing room only kind of place, which I've never done at a concert before.

I'm pretty sure Corbin had fun, and I sure love spending time with my man!

I didn't bring my ID, so we got cool X's like all the other under-aged kids.  I felt at least 4 years younger at this concert.

The actual music was interesting.  Explosions in the Sky is a post-rock group, and I'm sure they are fabulous... if you're into that sort of music.   For pictures and videos of the actual band, you can visit Corbin's facebook page. My favorite part was watching the drummer of the opening group, Black Throat Wind.  He had a bushy beard and a sweet twirly mustache.  He would sometimes do this move of crossing his sticks over his head, and crashing them down onto the cymbals.  I loved that!

After about two hours of standing and having my ears blown off, we decided to skip out a bit early.  We then went on a half hour goose chase lead by our GPS through the shadiest parts of Syracuse to find a Wendy's.  We eventually did find one, but was the frosty worth the trouble?  Always.

Theo's big news from yesterday is his brand new (to us) play kitchen!!!  We got it for free from a woman who is decluttering in preparations for moving.  Once again, I thank MOMs club for hooking us up with her.

She gave us all the pots and pans to go along with it, and he is having a ball!

The kitchen is covered in buttons that actually boop and beep!

Arguably the best part is the telephone.  They talks into it all day, to Daddy, I think.  He mostly only says dada and 'loooooo (hello).

The best way to close the doors is by slamming them.

The last bit of news: Theo can climb into his high chair.  I thought it was only when his tray was removed, but I was proven wrong.  When he did this, I was out of the room.  When I heard him screaming for help, I found this crazy man stuck.  I sure love him!  But I am not looking forward to the day when he falls off of something and cracks his skull.  That day is coming...

My Birthday!

Yesterday was my birthday, and so many of you made it special and wonderful.

I shall now tell a few things that happened, interspersed with cute pictures and anecdotes of the baby.

Theo has figured out his bed has wheels. 

 Yesterday morning Corbin gave me one of the most marvelous gifts: sleep.  He got up with the baby, and made me some breakfast in bed.

Theo got banished from the bathroom after flagrant misuse of the shower.  A minute later I started getting deposits. 

 The family watched the rest of the Redbox from the night before, then took a family nap for a while.

New sidewalk chalk on our new driveway pavement

 We stood at the window and watched the moving guys take all our new neighbor's stuff into the house.  Which means we have new neighbors!  More on them later.

Looking at the truck, literally outside our window

We took a stroll to the park, had lunch, and played Cribbage.

Our original plan of going to Corbin's softball game got rained out, so we went to dinner at Ithaca Bakery instead, which was a delicious idea.

In the nooks and crannys of the day, we got to video chat with most of my family.  I sure love them!  One weird outcome of this new video chatting ability is no extended birthday calls.  This in turn undermined our family's usual tradition of singing "happy birthday." I'm not complaining, but it was weird to hear it only once, from my sweet niece Lucy.  The upside to that was she called me Julie Junior.  I love her!

Anyways, the rest of the night was spent in Corbin restringing his banjo, and my playing a Wii game from the Redbox.  We sound like Redbox junkies, but we only get them when they're free.  So maybe we're just really cheap junkies.

All in all, I had a wonderful and relaxing day.  I don't think I made it clear, but Corbin even stayed home from school the whole day to tend to my every whim.  I sure love that man; he makes me feel loved.

A fuzzy feathery caterpillar climbed on our water bottle. And this boy was not photogenic during our whole park trip.  He's still cute, though.

I must give a shout out to those who sent me gifts, because I love them so much!  The people and the gifts.  In fact, I'm sporting a necklace in one of the pictures below that came from a jewelry spree in California in honor of my birthday.  

 One more thing.  Today my lovely friend Micquel and her cute son Hal dropped off a yummy looking  birthday cupcake.  They even stayed and played for almost an hour, which was my favorite part.  And another lovely friend Sarah made me some birthday cookies.  I'm so lucky to have wonderful friends!(especially ones who will shower me with treats  ;)

To die for birthday treats from Collegetown Bagels. I will dream of these until next we get them, which might have to be soon.