Weekend Update

We are gearing up for the weekend here in WL. No major plans, primarily since Connor is still very unpredictable and the weather has taken a nasty dive into sub freezing temperatures. The girls and myself will go swimming as normal, I try taking them swimming at least once a weekend which they love, there will be the shopping and other chores to attend to but we’ll get through it. I’ve been off today which has been great. I get 5 days paternity leave and have been taking them on Fridays. Next week, however, will be my last.

I took a few pictures yesterday of Connor in one of Granny Owens’s presents. As you can see they contribute to his cuteness.

We just booked a vacation home for our summer holidays, a cabin in the woods two miles from Saugatuck. I’ll post on that later. Have a nice weekend!

Update

It’s been a couple of days since my last post, trouble is that now that we are back to the normal drill of work etc, there’s not much to report. We are all doing well here. The girls are fine and Connor is growing. He was 11 lbs at his first check up almost two weeks ago (up from his 8lb 12oz birth weight). he is sleeping....well lets just say that he sleeps often for not very long each time and that we are looking forward to him being a little older :)

Lynne’s mother, Pat, has been here the last three weeks and has been an enormous help. All good things come to an end though and tomorrow she flies back to London. We’re then on our own with the proverbial three kids under 5. Yikes!!

I took a few pictures of Connor this afternoon (shown below). He’s about the only one changing significantly on a weekly basis. Anyhow, have a nice weekend everybody!

Keeping Ourselves Occupied!

Not really much to report from this weekend, with the weather quite cold out, we are taking it relatively easy. Pat and Lynne has been busy doing some baking and other stuff whilst also watching Connor, I’m trying to keep the girls occupied. We are doing some board games, a few quizzes, the odd DVD and Anja and I went sledding over on the Purdue golf course. We also had Lorraine and Randy for dinner last night. I didn't venture to play with the goo (shown in the pictures below), way to messy for Daddy to deal with, Brooke did that this week and they loved it!

Rugby Photos

This post is for a lot of old friends, specifically my old Rugby League friends. I maintain contact with a few of them through Facebook and recently Liam Horrigan asked whether I had any old RL photos in my newly discovered scanned folder. Well I didn’t but that’s only because I forgot that I had old rugby photos in a separate box. I have now scanned those in separately.

For those of you who do not know, I was a rugby player whilst I was at University. Specifically, I played Rugby League which is a little different than Rugby Union. I only started playing when I went to University at Staffordshire University but soon picked it up (I was a Gaelic Football player which really helped). Soon after starting I was selected to play for the Irish Student Rugby League team and I played several tournaments and games with them. I was captain for most of my games.

In 1995, Ireland decided to start its first ever Senior Rugby League team. They kicked it off with a fund raiser at Old Trafford Stadium in Manchester (home of Manchester United) and early the next  year (1995) we played Ireland’s first ever senior game against the USA on March 17th in Washington at RFK Stadium, home of the Washington Redskins. That game was shown live on ESPN2. I was the Captain of that first ever game and am very proud to say that we won, 22 to 24. I played eight additional games with the senior team before finishing.

I thoroughly enjoyed those days, the guys who I played with and the coaches, particularly Neil Wood who was instrumental in promoting Irish RL for many years. Today, RL is an active game in Ireland with a steady league and a very well respected senior team, the Irish Wolfhounds who are now an all professional group.

I have photos of my Student Ireland RL days posted here and my Senior Ireland RL days posted here.

Me in my rugby playing days!

Shown below in order is a flier for the game in Washington, signed by most of the travelling tour to the USA. The squad of players prior to the game, some celebrations after the game and specifically with Neil Wood who I mentioned above!

Steef and Ginette Visit

Right before the New Year, Steef, Ginette, Marissa and Aneka came to visit. Aneka is just about 6 weeks older than Connor so just like us they’re currently hunkered down for a while. We had a very enjoyable evening, Aneka was very well behaved and Marissa had a ball running around after our two girls. It was so funny to see Isabel desperately copying everything Anja did and then Marissa doing exactly the same. As always, dress-up was the favored activity! Great to see you guys again!

Let sleeping babies sleep right (or something like that). Aneka and Connor before dinner!

Aneka is a liitle older so she is already a pro at cute little smiles!

Isabel the perfect little Mommy, in their dress up regalia!

Weekly Update!

It has been a long week here since we returned to work. Nothing really like that first week back after an extended break. Nothing much to report really other than the weather has turned nasty. I realize I’m not going to get much sympathy since it’s lousy virtually over the entire northern hemisphere. For what it’s worth, it has been down to -15C on a few occasions and today we have had 6 inches of snow to deal with.

The girls are great, playing, reading and doing all sorts of arts and crafts as usual. Paying lots of attention to Connor. Connor is also OK, gaining weight, eating and sleeping (most of the time). We’re all bunkered in here and we’re not going
anywhere!

Back to the Grind!

That’s it folks, back to the grind tomorrow. I’ll be returning to work after having had one month off to the day, my last day in the office was 4th December. Since then we have had a new baby, had Christmas and New Year, had Pat (mother in-law) visit twice, have done numerous chores and odd jobs, blogged a lot as you know, relaxed a lot but at the same time we were quite busy! Tomorrow all that comes to an end and the commute, work, commute drill starts anew! I have so enjoyed this last month!

Shown are a few pictures that try to personify the month!

A new and pound Mummy and Daddy (Daddy is behind the camera which is appropriate since I have spent a lot of time there this last month!

Some bubbly on the day of Connor’s arrival with Pat who has been a tremendous help.

Two new sisters, who right now care a little more about how pretty their dresses are each day.

Finally, a picture from Lorraine and Randy’s house, we have been there a few times this month to periodically get out of the house and to have something for the girls to do. We were so glad to have somewhere so warm, comforting and simply so welcoming. Thanks to you both!

Lynne's Savannah - Jungle Project!

Santa brought Anja an animal variety set for Christmas, so today Lynne embarked on an arts and crafts project with her to construct a suitable habitat to allow her to  play with these animals. She launched into it with gusto and after a relatively short period of time, a very appropriate sun soaked savannah was produced with a suitable drinking river and mountain backdrop. Anja liked it a lot, played lions and tigers for a short time. Let’s just hope, however, that she plays with it  a little longer over the coming days than she did today….otherwise Mummy may be a little disappointed!

Scanned Photos

As you may have gathered, over the last week I have being bringing out some old photos. Last week I sorted through all our old photos (about 7000) and had about 2200 of them scanned by Scan My Photo. The quality is not great but considering they were scanned from prints they’re not that bad and now we have digital copies from all our trips.

Shown below are a few of these scanned photos from a six week tour through Indonesia in 1996. Lynne was actually on a six month tour of Asia and myself and Paul (Kate’s boyfriend, now husband), both flew out to meet them for the Indonesian leg. We had a great time together!