Halloween

Holidays are big time around our neighborhood.  It seems no matter what the occasion people go all out and Halloween is one of the bigger events.  This year was Yegi's favorite since we bought our house because she now has a reason to go to all the big events...River.  She and Laila dressed him up as a shark (from Finding Nemo because they always say to him "Shark Bait! Ooo Ahh Haa!" and he laughs hysterically) and they as a fish and lobster, respectively.  Yegi and I took him up to the neighborhood pre trick or treat party and then over to her parents neighborhood to meet up with Laila so they could trick or treat.  Before we headed out for candy Yegi wanted some "fall" pictures of River and that's what we start out with below.

 Kid on straw bales, what could be cuter.

Maybe in front of straw bales with watering pale?

Or perhaps the pop a squat and turn and look behind you pose?

This reminds me of those senior pictures where they make you lean on a "tree" that is in fact a fake 6-foot tall plastic log.

The entertainment behind that smiling face.

Swimming down the street.

Nemo & Shark Bait.

 Cousin J (Woody) and his friends.

Hanging out at the pre-game.

Festivities.

Cousin Addalee (Jessie), River (Shark Bait), J (Woody)

One of the guys in the neighborhood has a home built cotton candy spinner.  Cotton candy is Yegi's favorite food.

Someone else had an old fashioned popcorn maker set up.

Pure Happiness/sugar

I think they were pretending to be scared of the shark.

First batch of candy and pretty much the last because shortly after this River was over being carried around town dressed as a shark and was ready to go home.

Daddy River Weekend

The following pictures are labeled as "Daddy River Weekend" in our iPhoto library.  Yegi went to Charleston with her mom and sister to plan Laila's wedding and I stayed back with River.  Anytime Yegi asks me if I know what to do when she is leaving River with me I always roll my eyes and say something along the lines of "It's not my first Ro deo cowboy" (actually I have no clue what I'm doing).  Yegi is a HUGE planner and loves to write out very detailed instructions about what I am suppose to do while she is away.  I'm horrible at following plans and always forget something it seems.  This particular weekend I got up with River and began the loading up process to go back to White Pine to visit my family.  1 full wardrobe, 2 dogs, 3 hundred diapers, 4 boxes of toys, and 5 hrs later we made it to WP.  The one thing I did forget...Cowie (Cowie is River's little Cow/Blanket thing that he has clutched all night since day one and is very attached to).  I remembered him about the time I was pulling into Mom's driveway when the dogs got so excited they woke River from his sleep.  I called Yegi and she told me I needed to go back but that just was not an option.  Luckily because of my non-planning ways I have become quite the "winger" and can improvise in most situations.  I found something about the same size/shape and slipped it into his hands as his eyes got heavy during his final bottle of the night.  He slept from 7:30pm to 8:15am...victory.  We had a great weekend and got to visit my Mom, Grandmother, and Nana & Dee. 

Fall Y'all.

Enjoying one of the last few warm days of fall with G-mom.

Learning to feed himself.  We should of started this earlier but Yegi and I both love to hold and feed him.  This is on my Grandmother's back porch in Morristown.  A place where I have a million memories and not a single bad one.

Happy boy.

All tuckered out and ready to head home.

Santa's Lap

Yegi got a couple of free tickets to the Fantasy of Trees at the Knoxville Convention Center so she, her mom and sister took River to see the trees and then Santa.  He loved the trees but mostly the people walking around.  He's quite the social little man (gets that from his mom) and loves to talk and wave to people, at least until someone tries to pick him up or take him from us (gets that from me).

Hanging with Mom.

Thinking about it.

Warning cry.

Game Over.

Ohayou

Summer absolutely flew by for us.  I cannot believe it is October and River is nine months old.  This week Yegi called me at work to tell me how he stood up in the middle of the floor all by himself.  He has been up shuffling around all the furniture in our house and using anything that will slide as a walker.  I hate that I don't update this blog more often but it is hard enough to find time to sleep these days.  Below is a pictographical blog of recent events starting with my cousin Andrew's son Noah's 2 year birthday party.

Briarwood Ranch Safari Park...fort...reserve...cashe...compound...barnyard...  Neat place in the middle of nowhere with a funny name.

 Some of the exotic animals that can be seen at the "Ranch/Safari Park"

River and Mom enjoying the nice weather @ Noah's birthday party.

G-mom and Addalee in front of the Nickelodeon slime pond

Birthday boy and his Dad.

We were invited to Windy Gap as adult guests again this year by our friends Erin & Devan who run Anderson County's Young Life program.  Yegi and I both went to this camp when we were in high school and we still have as much fun as adult guests.  Last year Yegi was about 10 months pregnant and had trouble getting around so I would say this year was probably a little more enjoyable.  Below are some pics from our trip.

River's preferred mode of transport

Upper left:  Andrew & Wesley  Center: Garren in his car  Right: Garren's adopted dad Matt (explained below)

Matt & Sarah Beth have two of the most giving hearts, mostly due to Sarah's coaxing.  They brought  Garren, who is Andrew's extremely pregnant sister Rachel's son with them for the weekend so Rachel could relax and only have one kid (see husband Andy) to take care of...  sorry Andy, had to.

Anderson County went with my hometown Young Life group from the "Lakeway" area, so we also got to see our friends Scott & Brooke McMinn who run the Lakeway program.  Pictured above are Devan and Scott, aka Jean and Gene who provided the comedic relief.

Wes watching the field games and supporting the Vols in their crushing loss to Georgia.

The living room of our unbelievable accommodations for the weekend.

SB and Garren eating a late diner.  This kid can play all day and night.  Luckily Matt and Sarah were headed on vacation shortly after we finished this weekend.

Happy boy.

W in his Beatlejuice outfit.

Front porch that overlooks the lake where the zip line and blob are located.

Garren found the apple bowl and then proceeded to show us how far and hard he could throw them.

Front porch view.  Young Life owns many properties across the nation and in all the ones I've visited I have never seen a blade of grass out of place.  This is one of the most beautiful in my opinion.

Front porch at night.  Iso high, shutter speed 30sec, f2.8 <-- mostly for cousin Jewels.

Milky Way and a jet crossing the sky.

These pictures were just so cool to me I had to post them.  Its amazing just how many stars are in the sky (that we can see)!  The line is another jet crossing overhead, much faster than the one shown in the pic above.

Late night "visiting".

On the way home we stopped at my Mom's house to eat dinner and drop off River for a couple days while Yegi's parents (our normal babysitter on the days we both work) were in Japan.  I always want to show River as much as possible of the ole homestead because it is so much different from where we live in Knoxville.  I took him out riding around the fields and cow pastures where he was so relaxed he went right to sleep with his hands on the wheel.  Not wanting to wake him up I drove back to the house and laid the seat back where Yegi snapped this picture.

I love holding him while he falls asleep.  One thing that excites me about my size is that I'll be able to do this until he is at least 15...

So happy Grand-dad & Grand-Lad were back from Japan he decided to help them unpack.

That's it.  Good day, Konnichiwa, Oyasuminasa, or as my wife would say "Toyota".

Reality Television

I grew up in a family where television was not very important.  From the age of 8 until I was 19 and in my sophomore year of college I probably saw less than 2-3 hrs of programming a week.  The majority of that was David Letterman's monologue (we really only could "tune in" CBS) that I would sneak in late at night when everyone else had gone to bed.  Needless to say I missed out on a lot of "current events" of the time.  I definitely don't think this is a bad way to grow up and I almost wish it for River.  I really enjoyed my childhood playing OUTSIDE, riding my bike, playing with firecrackers, building barn loft "forts", hunting squirrels-blackbirds-mice or anything else my mother allowed.  Yegi really finds this funny and says we are "going back in time" every time we go back to White Pine.  She also loves to make fun of me because when I was in high school I was listening to popular music of the 70's & 80's and truly believed that it was cutting edge stuff (Def Leopard, anybody?).  We definitely came from two totally different worlds.

For Yegi's family, television was a major part of their life. Her mother learned English by watching music videos on MTV (back when they played music videos).  For her whole family it was a way to learn about American culture, or at least the way it was portrayed on sitcoms in the 80's & 90's. This love has continued as Yegi is firmly addicted to at least four shows at the present time (Dancing with the "Stars", Top Chef, Real Food Network Star, Bachelor).  These four shows all fall under the "reality" label and in each of them someone is eliminated weekly either by popular vote or a judges panel.  I get very annoyed with the way these shows are put together.  First you have the introduction of the "players", then the challenge, the putting together of their "plan", carrying out their plan, showing all that goes wrong, the twist, and then finally the dramatized expulsion of one contestant.  It is pretty much the same with all these shows.  I can stay interested for the introduction of players & challenge and then the final part of the revelation of who is going home.  Yegi has to watch it all and really gets involved in the final drama that plays out.  I knew it was getting bad when the other night I looked over and I think I saw a tear welling up as one of the hoe bags on Bachelor Pad was making their way to a departing limo.

A couple nights ago I woke up to Yegi screaming "NO!".  Usually I only hear that when I'm trying to get a little frisky with her and I knew that was not the case because it was past 10PM and she had been asleep for hours.  Yegi is a very hard sleeper so when I jumped up and asked "What?, What?" it did not phase her and she just kept yelling.  After about 20 seconds she was back in her normal silent sleep pattern and I chocked it up to a bad dream.

The next evening Yegi revealed to me that she believed she has been watching too much reality TV because she had dreamed that people she loves were being voted out of her life.  She told me that the night prior she had dreamed that River was being voted out and that it upset her.  Not having asked her about the screaming from that night yet I started laughing and told her the story.  Mystery solved.  Now I'm just wondering why I didn't hear any No's when I was being voted off the island.

August Pics

Cousin Jules took some pictures again.  Here they are.

7.5 months in and mouth is still wide open but the tongue is working its way back in.

Lady Killer.

Fly over there.

Bird over here.

Love being outside.

I also took some of these pictures.

Neigh.

Momma kisses.

Very short attention span.

Hands are made for chewing.

River just told a funny joke.  Look at that face.

Good representation of the bear hug hold to confine his squirminess.

Hanging with Chaco

Funny that my hands were once that small.

Fish bowl

Our abode.

Fun in the rocker.

Getting ready to chew on something I bet.

This picture makes me think of a comment our California friend Lila made...He's so ethnically ambiguous.

4/5 Family Photo.  We only left Daisy out because she would be running all over the neighborhood smelling things.

Listening.

Again with the lady killer eyes.

Game Over.

Here are a few from a cookout with friends, Accardi's welcome home party from a month working staffing a Young Life camp, and our visit with Mom & Grandmother last weekend.

Wes, Riv, & Jansen hanging out pre cookout.

Getting excited when Dad comes home from work in the florescent t-shirt.

Fully mastered the art of sitting up and playing.

7 months yo.  Party time!  Check out my moves.

Cousins.  Also a rare picture with Riv's mouth closed.

Amigos.

Found a chair just my size.

Dumbell curls.

Hanging with G-mom and my funny face.

Grandmother Bible.

Always so happy to be outside.

Hanging with aunt Anna.

Parting shot since the laptop is out of batteries.