Busy!

What can you say....this log is about life, and after 4 great days in California for Joyce & Steve; and Parker having a nice time staying with Janice and partying with the Irish clan at Marissa's 8th birthday...we are all home. Safe and sound.....and Busy. More later...

(as we left the conference, they made sure we'd be available next year around the same time, so I guess we'll have to see if there's another "busy" post during the last week of February 2009.)

President's Day

Finally, a day without too many deadlines! We are hanging out this morning watching TV and doing a little work. Go figure it is 11:24 am and the shower has yet to be turned on. Soon that won't be the case as the hours rush by and our to do list makes an appearance.

Joyce's Dad is in the hospital. We went to visit yesterday and he is doing much better than Friday night. We have been to the hospital so much lately as everyone in Joyce's family seems to be having a bad start to 2008. Hopefully that will be done very soon! Joyce inparticular despises the place whether it is a happy or sad time!

We are finishing some projects early in the week to head off to California on Thursday. Steve is giving a speech to colleagues on Friday/Saturday, while Joyce is hanging out on the beach :)
Parker will be staying home with Janice and attending school. We don't think it has quite hit him that it is this week we leave.

We are all set finally for Parker's parties...just waiting on some RSVPs from his friends. Ridemakerz should be a blast. We stopped by yesterday to confirm the appointment while at the mall. Wow, was the mall packed with people and "crafty people" at that. Seems there was some sort of crocheting/knitting party at the Mall of America and not to mention the obvious President's Day sales. We just stopped by Limited Too (or L2- the hippist clothing store for little girls ever!!! or so we've been told) to get Marissa a birthday gift. She will be 8 on the 23rd. Seems like just yesterday she and Parker were born just a week apart.

Taxes are done, refund is coming (YES!)

We hope you all had a great Valentine's Day!

Steve, Joyce, Park, Scooter & Maggie Moo

A unique perspective

Dateline, February 8, 2008. While Parker, Mom, Scooter & Maggie are home manning the fort, and training the newcomer, Dad's working in the Big Apple. I thought this was a unique view, taken from the 9th floor of the future home of 1,000 employees of RBC. Across the "pit" as it is referred to--the former site of the World Trade Center--on the right side is a larger black building that is where I spend a good chunk of my time in NYC.

Problem with the financial district, though, is the cost of hotels. A good rate starts at $350 per night. I can stay in mid-town/times square for that unique environment under $300 a night; and now I'm starting to feel pretty comfortable on the subway system as well...Here's a quick shot of what I termed to be a NYC police car, and one of the "cleanest subway car on earth".

No Joke--this thing had to be brand new..the rest don't exactly look like this!

All Parker wanted for Christmas...

Was to lose his last front tooth! Now it is gone and the new tooth can hopeful straighten out and makes its way down. As many of you heard at the holidays, Park informed us that he knew about Santa Claus. He continued on with the Easter Bunny, but to our surprise never mentioned the Tooth Fairy. Well, when we aked him to put the tooth away for the Tooth Fairy...he got that famous know-it-all grin and asked "isn't the tooth fairy the same as Santa, you know what I mean". To which we promptly responded, if you don't believe, she will not stop by and give you money. Now we both know that the mere mention of cash and the boy is up for that!

What we didn't expect to find was the bed rigged with surveilance from his spy kits. Missils, alarms and all. What we can tell you; however, is that the alarms did indeed go off and the missils released, but the Tooth Fairy was not harmed and the sleeping child never woke up! :)

Aha, see you can't even catch the Tooth Fairy!

Another What?

Announcing:

Maggie "Moo"

our 11 week old Westie puppy. Yes, we bit the bullet after much begging from Parker and got him another dog.

Parker loves it so far. Maggie is very rabunctious and fun. She reminds us so much of Scooter when she sits up. She played with Dad all night until he got dressed for the flight to NYC. So we are all asleep right now and peace and quiet is had.

Maggie can't wait to meet you all sometime soon!