Me! Joe Mauer!

YouTubed video (thanks bat-girl) of a kid named evan getting his greatest present ever - a Joe Mauer #7 shirt. He even grabbed his glove to made sure that the shirt "worked"...

Winterguard

The first "un-Caroline" post in a loooonnnggg time. It's about Color Guard. Most people don't know anything about it. I used to be really, really involved, but chose school and work (and now my family) over the 30+ hours of rehersal time a week from October to April.

There will be more posts with pics soon - we just have to get some from this weekend of the super-duper, double-secret birthday party...

We are now three weeks into the 07 Winterguard season. Jim and Caroline were nice enough to indulge me and go to a show last weekend at Milton High School. It's funny - and I'm sure it's the same everywhere you go - but even 10 years after finishing marching, you go to these shows and you see the same faces and these people never change. They never grow old. Still teaching the same units. Still hanging out with the same people. It was very interesting. Now, especially, being on the outside looking in.

We were able to see some great shows, even if they were still being tweaked abit. Let me tell you this now: If Blessed Sacrament can pull off their show it has M-E-D-A-L written all over it. WOW. It has been a long time since I've seen a show this good. We're talking Blue Devils '96 good. The show is called "Remembrances" and it's two Johnny Cash songs. "Hurt" and "If You Could Read My Mind". You know that they mean business when they pull out the Gordon Lightfoot covers. Dolores definetly means it this year.

For those of you not familiar with Winterguard, Blessed Sacrament performed to two Gordon Lightfoot songs, "Circle of Steel" and "If You Could Read My Mind" in 1989. They won the silver medal that year (should have been gold) and totally revolutionized Winterguard with their performance. It has been considered Sac's high water mark (even though they ended up winning the gold medal a year later with "Mr Tanner's Song" and have made finals every single year since - something that no other guard has done) and people still talk about it. If the guard can keep the show together this year, they might even surpass that.

My first year marching, my Mom and I were able to see Sac perform and it was at that point that I decided that I was going to be in Sac someday. Unfortunately, the year that I marched we were less than spectacular (14th place is nothing to write home about for one of the most prestigious guards in WGI history), but I did it. I was a Sac Girl. And I'll always be proud of that. In St Ann's the next year, I fared a bit better (we came in 8th). But the best part was having the whole UD Arena on their feet at the end our our show (make sure you watch the video to the end and you'll see what I mean - you can also see just the very top of my head in the back).

Also - I just found this on YouTube of Gates Chili. Looking very good for January 20th. It will be interesting to see how they far in Open Class this year...

More Books...

These were taken tonight, just before bed. In case you're wondering, the title of the book is "Technology and the Limitation of International Conflict" from the Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute.

She picked it off the shelf all by herself.

Sheesh.

Friday Fix

My father called just after noontime requesting his fix.
Everyone is well.
Besides it being frigidly cold outdoors, Worcester is just as exotic and mysterious as ever...=-)
Caroline is chatting more and more every day. She is starting to put together phrases. We have no idea what she's saying when she's putting together these intricate phrases, but we'll figure it out eventually. This week the phrase was "Ta-da-poo". Emphasis on the da-poo part. It means something important. We just don't know what. Any ideas?

Caroline is also very into her books right now. It doesn't matter what the book is about. I caught her flipping through the Home Depot Home Improvement Guide! They keep her entertained for a while (up to 15 minutes at a time). Let's hope it lasts..




We also just got our hands on a swiss ball to do some exercises with. It took all of 12 hours for it to go from being a workout tool to a baby toy. We'll have to wrestle it away from her to do some ab work...



PS - Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad! Have fun at the Amerks game.

How Can You Resist...

A Face Like THIS?!?!?! (these are the last of the birthday pics, I promise)

The New Train

Caroline got an animal train set for her birthday.
It sings.
It makes animal sounds.
It propels itself.
The only thing it doesn't do is parallel park and put itself away (though I was able to get it to drive from the family room to the green room with toys that Caroline has been playing with stacked in the different cars so I didn't have to carry them ...Lazy? Probably. But I look at it as being efficient and making the toy fun for everyone).

Unfortunately, the train sings "Hop on board the Animal Train..."
And Caroline took that quite literally, which made for some interesting moments...


She's slowly learning how it's supposed to work...

A Fairlawn Update...

Channel 4 came to Fairlawn the other day and shot this video of Dr Tanenbaum for the 11pm news. Some interesting stuff...

Some More Birthday Pictures

Caroline's Grandparents from New Hampshire were able to come down this weekend to celebrate her birthday. We had a wonderful time. She wasn't nearly as messy with the cupcakes as she was the first time around, but bathies were definetly in order after she was finished...






(pictures courtesy of Caroline's Grampy)

Firefly Trailer...

Okay - I'm a geek. But I *had* to put this up. Anyways, I'm at peace with my geekyness (and certainly don't mind seeing more action shots of Nathan Fillian)...

What a Difference a Year Can Make...

Isn't it strange how you go from THESE....

To THESE...

In just 365 short days?!?! What a short, strange trip it's been...

Happy Birthday Caroline!!!

Verizon Wireless User's Forum

I found this while trying to find out if other people have had problems with the LG VX6100 phones that we have...if you dont have one, let's just say dont bother with them - we're actively looking for new phones due to their "junk" status with us.

Gigglemonster

Click To Play

CJ was a total gigglemoneter tonite at dinner, but we could only capture 10 seconds of video b/c our SD card was full!

More 2006 Bric-a-brac

These vids are from early December...#2 is a bit long, but it's still fun with CJ and the Junior (who rarely gets a starring role anymore!)...

Click To Play

One of 4 movies we took with the digi camera while playing with caroline...

Click To Play

Click To Play

Click To Play

This has the most giggles in it...

Questing to the Rock

An Insight

Apparently the quest of Leahy women for beer prior to their 21st (or 1st, even) birthdays did not start with with Caroline. This was given to me for Christmas by my Aunt Margie and is me, my father and my Nanny. We are drinking Schaefer Beer. Good times apparently were had by all.

Wednesday Night...

This will be quick - it's time for date night.

Today was an interesting day. I learned (after 51 weeks) how to put a hat on Caroline. The key is to put mittens on her first (the ones without the thumbs, preferably) and then to move in for the hat-ification process while the hands are out of commission.
Today Caroline also fed Junior for the first time. Indavertantly - but she fed him all the same. We were sitting on the floor, minding our own business and eating our crackers before dinner when he came over and started taking bites out of the cracker WHILE IT WAS STILL IN HER HAND!!! Much to Caroline's credit, she did not stand by and let this happen - it turns out that she is very protective of her Ritz's. She went after him with the intention (I think) of getting the cracker back. Luckily, I was able to redirect both of them before any crazyness ensued...

Here are some recent pictures...

Yuppers...that's our daughter using a barstool for a walker (insert redneck joke here)

After a nice. long walk (with the snowhat)...

She just can't wait to try out her new wagon... she's looking more and more like a little girl and less like a baby (sigh)...

Tired after a long day at Ria's house...