Back from Chicago....and daycare was exhausting! Mommy tried waking me with lots of kisses, but it took some lotion on my face to do the trick.

Evan and Hugo watching "Say Yes to the Dress."

Happy Thanksgiving ...

(the shirt says: "who you calling a turkey?")

playing with toys at Babcia's - in Chicago

trouble with our chicken and carrots this morning

trying new things is HARD for Hugo!

"Airpuffs"

Hugo's first encounter with "solid" food.

Crib Walk

He's mobile...working on getting more mobile....

Meal Time 2

Meal Time 1

J.C. Penney Portraits

Here's just a few of the portraits of Hugo (taken on our visit to Chicago about a month ago).

And of course, we had to include the much-talked-about "pouty face."

Hugo's Current Obsession

Hugo recently joined the ranks of the mobile.  It may no longer be safe to be a dog in our house.  Time to hide the breakables.

Breaking news to report....

Today Hugo OFFICIALLY crawled, as in used hands and knees and got all the way across our family room rug. The dogs have started to warm to their new on-the-floor friend. Hugo still bumps his head as he rolls to his back and the THUD never fails to get a good gasp from his Dad.
Teeth update: Those top chompers are officially out. Hugo can now bite down on his spoon, which now has turkey meat on it!

As for Labor Day, we spent it poolside in an alley, off 24th Avenue, in Queens....

A Trip to Dartmouth

Last weekend we made our way to Hanover, NH for a retirement party for my former coach, Carl Wallin (40 years at Dartmouth). Unfortunately it was rainy, but it was great to see many of my former teammates.



Below, Hugo says hello to Carl's grandson.

Fun with a balloon

Colin and Hugo playing with a balloon....

Pre Road Trip Entertainment

fun with measuring spoons...

Roosevelt Hospital, NYC

Back to where it all began... I'm visiting friends my Mommy and Daddy met at the birthing class.

This is also the hospital where I was born. Daddy got a little choked up remembering the day I was born. As he left the hospital that night to go home, he could hear the New Year's Eve countdown in Times Square. BTW, the hospital made dads go home at 11:30, imagine trying to get on a subway on that particular night.... took Daddy two hours to get to Queens.

Evan and Hugo along with Ben and Hannah

Hugo is about to turn 8 months. He's just over 22 pounds and is 29 inches long (we visited Dr. Mike for shots). Our little CEO has little interest in sitting on his own because he is too busy rolling and rolling and rolling. He's also just started getting into position to crawl, on his hands and knees... but then oops, he rolls.

Frida doesn't know what to think of Hugo.

c h u n k y m o n k e y

I swear that when he moves you can see abs... I know he looks all chubby... but he is really SVELTE.

The $2 Family Portrait

Cooling off on a 90 degree day.

Surviving a hot day in NYC. Air conditioning humming!

we played skee-ball!

Babcia taking pictures in the living room

Happy Birthday Grandpa Dave :)

A brief chat

Tongue Action

On the menu today... green beans.

trying on turtle suits for halloween :)

out shopping.

New Job

Evan wrapped up with Trevor Day School today and, starting August 3, will be working for The Elisabeth Morrow School (Englewood, NJ) as their Director of Communications and Alumni.

Hugo - 7-months-old & a hit at Dr. Mike's office

We love that white dr's office paper. Hugo wrapped himself up just before Dr. Mike came in.

Dr. says my annoying little wet cough is okay because I'm teething with my two top teeth ready to come soon (to match my bottom two).

strolling the Brooklyn Bridge with Grandpa

I'm a big boy I am!

Brief visit to the doctor today: 20 lbs. & 9 oz.
Jennifer took a bunch of great pictures recently, including this one. We've been busy but we'll try to get some new stuff up soon.

Dancin', Dancin', Dancin' Machine...sort of.

Here I am, dancing with Hugo in the B-Bjorn...


As well, we recently attended a couple of parties with Hugo. Below, we stopped by to wish Zoe a happy first birthday. Here's me, Hugo, AJ and his daughter, Zoe, at this way-cool playground on the UES. Hugo's clearly got the gift of grab...watch those hands little man.

Also, we enjoyed Hugo's first 4th of July by hanging out with our neighbors. Charlie, outdoor cooking specialist that he is, had the barbecue, the smoker, and the clam/lobster bake going (that's the pile of smoking seaweed on broken concrete slabs on the ground--which to everyone's surprise, worked perfectly). Jennifer grilled and prepared a delicious flank steak salad. We had a good time and it was great to meet new people.

The Dr. says fruit n' veggies time cause I'm almost 6-months-old!

Mommy gave me 4 ounces of rice cereal and 1st stage carrots today and guess what, I didn't fight it! Nope. I opened wide and big like a hearty baby bird. My furry brother Diego and fuzzy sister Frida stood by faithfully and watched hoping for a lick. We also listened to "Kids Place Live!" on Sirius radio and sang silly songs. Life. Is. Good.

our first taste of carrots & cereal!

At the doctor - on the table - I was a brave boy.

I had to get some vaccinations today. A shot in each of my milky white chubby-bubby legs! Mommy placed me on the scale and I was 19 lbs 4oz! Mommy then looked at the big girl scale, and decided against it! The nurse also measured me and had me stretch out long, I'm 28 inches! Growing tall like Mommy and Daddy. You know that funny paper on the Dr. table? Turns out I love that stuff! I turned onto my belly and grabbed 2 fists full and wouldn't let go! When mommy picked me up, I took the whole roll with! It was a funny moment.

Other than walking the neighborhood and visiting important people I've been chewing on my fist A LOT because I got a tooth this week. It's a bottom one right up front and now when I jibber-jabber I can really say a string of, " Da da da da" loud and proud.

"Boo!" and Girlfriend Bear

Here's a video Jen took last week. It makes our day to hear Hugo laugh, he's got a great laugh, so we're starting to find a few things that get him going when he's in a good mood, and knock on wood, he's generally in a good mood. I do this "boo!" thing with him and that's usually good for a giggle. Hugo also loves this little toy, affectionately dubbed "girlfriend bear" by Jennifer. He seems to like to grab it with both hands and bring it to his mouth. Come to think of it, he does that with just about everything. Anyway, enjoy Hugo's laugh. [If you're wondering why I look like a million bucks, this was the day after the century ride].

When Hugo's in his crib, he's got two "musical" options. The monkeys, whom he loves and is usually fascinated by, play the standard Brahms Lullaby (90% of all mobiles play this--boring!), and the frog-prince in the corner, a gift from Jen's younger brothers, and that plays "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" which I find a bit more delightful. Honestly, I think there's a gold mind out there for whomever decides to develop 80's hair band ballads into musical baby mobiles. Say, if you have a girl, you could have a mobile that plays Warrant's "She's My Cherry Pie," or perhaps for all babies Quiet Riot's "Cum On Feel The Noize" or something along those lines. Or maybe 90's grunge ballad's: "Smells like Teen Spirit"? Whatever, as long as it was once popular, is now nostalgic, and maybe slightly ironic. "Sweetheart" as I just googled, was written in 1910 and perhaps that's a little too nostalgic. Incidentally, I may have those bands on cassette tape in a milk crate in the back of our closet.

Of things last week....

Hey, what's happenin'? Haven't posted in a while, but that's because we've been pretty busy this past week. First of all, we had a special visitor from Chicago. Hugo got to hang out with his Babcia! They walked around the neighborhood, visited the park, met other parents & babies, sang songs and chatted with each other. Thanks for all your help this past week Grandma.

With Babcia watching the baby, I was off to ride in my very first century. Actually, the North Fork Century--so named because it took place on the northern peninsula of the easternmost tip of Long Island. A century, for those who don't know, and I didn't before I started biking to work on a regular basis, is 100 miles of riding in a day. Now, my ride to work is 7 miles, 14 round-trip. I figured 100 miles would be a little more than 7 commutes in one day--monotonous to think about, but it sounds doable. Here's the group of us, in the pouring rain at the start, contemplating the doable:

From left to right: Dave, Me (in all my gray splendor), Ben (who decided to make a shiny torso-length bib of that emergency tinfoil/blanket and rode with it for over 20 miles..it was that chilly), and Todd. Colin, whom you will see below, took the picture. Just to place things, we're standing behind Greenport High School with roughly 1700 other riders who took part (well not all of them were there...some of those yahoos actually took off in the earlier downpour).

Jen, too, had a nice day with the ladies (here pictured with Barbara Lynn and Kim). Aside from dealing with the oddly rude locals, they had lunch together, visited a beach, toured around the North Fork, and then dropped off the two "bored" boys they had been tortuously dragging around all day, so that they could ride the last 23 miles with us. (Note: these boys belong to Todd and Ben/Kim, they are not some random boys they picked up on The Fork).

And here's us, on the side of the road, somewhere on the North Fork, on Mile 77. We are still contemplating the doable.

At the end of the ride, we all met up back at Greenport High for a barbecue, showers (for the cyclists), and eventually, pie! Really really good pie! For some reason pie is tradition on these rides. I don't know why yet. Here's a group of us enjoying blackberry pie--don't bother slicing it--we'll just dig right in. Or in Colin's case, below, just stuff our face right in it.

What comes after this photo is that he is cleaning raspberry pie out of his nose.
Jennifer and I send out our thanks to all; we had a wonderful day.
Special thanks to Colin for driving us and our bikes out there and back.

To Canada and Back Again

Well, we made it. We were mobile-blogging almost the entire time we were up there, but then we got tired and kind of tailed off towards the end. We were all tired of our car seats by the time we got home. Anyway, thought I would share some pictures of Hugo visiting family.

This was my father's first time meeting his grandson. It was touching for us to witness the introduction. And some resemblance, too. At the very least, they share eye-color....dark blue.

Mom, Jennifer, and Hugo. Hugo got to meet most of my immediate family, including Auntie Mary Ellen and Uncle Harold, Auntie Cindy, Auntie Nancy (below) and Uncle Peter, Auntie Leigh Anne and Uncle Dennis (whose son is working in the Arctic!), Auntie Linda and Uncle Larry (soon to be grandparents themselves), Cousins Scott, Sean and his wife, Jordan (expecting). I think that was everyone. We wanted to thank you all for visiting, it was great to see you.



We also had the pleasure of visiting/staying with my wife's brother, Jarek, sister-in-law, Isabella, and sons, Daniel and Julian (also Hugo's uncle, auntie, and cousins). While we were there, we attended Daniel's confirmation...Congratulations! (which is why Daniel is pictured in shirt, tie, and holy felt flames of God pinned to his chest). And Jarek's 41st birthday. Incidentally, it was also Jennifer's sister (and Jarek's twin sister), Joanna's birthday as well. We would have visited with her but, alas, she's half a globe away in Australia. At the moment we are hatching half-baked schemes to get these sisters together someday.

Hugo also got to meet his Auntie CarrieLynne and Uncle Cary. So great to see them. We hope to see more of them when we visit next

Got a chance to see my old friends Krista and Mark, and their family. They have two other kids, who are not pictured as we couldn't get them to sit still long enough for a 5 second picture. Just imagine that from this picture, to the right, your right, is a boy (5) and girl (3) tearing all over the driveway and neighborhood on bikes, scooters, wagons, feet (also, mud pies were made). It made Hugo tired just watching them go go go. Their youngest son is pictured, he's 1.

We'll post more pictures and video a bit later. 'Til then, cheers.