We had a great time visiting my grandparents in Cleveland this weekend and the trip went pretty well. Of course "pretty well" included me packing for all three of us, putting everything in front of the door and still having Carlos arrive home too late for us to make our flight. I rolled my eyes and paid a change fee to leave later which meant we had 4 extra hours in Baltimore. To take advantage of the time we visited the C&O train museum and ate at our favorite restaurant there. Charlie LOVED the train museum and tolerated the restaurant. The visit to the museum went like this: Charlie running around pointing and screaming "tren, tren, tren! TREN!!! otro tren! tren, tren..." Here he is:






Once we finally made it to Cleveland we had a great time. He called my grandparents "Franny and Popis" instead of Franny and Popsie. He especially liked the fact that they had a ramp in their house. He also got some court time throwing tennis balls everywhere - unfortunately I think it'll be awhile until he perfects his backhand.

Last week Charlie got to play with Isaac and this week with Isaac and Ian. They are so cute together but Charlie can't stand sharing. He doesn't even like sharing with Sandra's daughter Leslie. It's terrible.

We've had a fun and eventful few weeks. Charlie got to visit Grandma in Philly, I logged a lot miles (London, Brussels, Bruges, New York & Philadelphia) and Carlos took up construction on various parts of the house (upstairs deck, door frames, the big staircase wall). AND we found out that we are having another baby boy! There is not a chance that I would have been able to tell the sex from the sonogram -at one point I asked if we were looking at his head and was told that we were looking at his butt....Here is a profile picture after the baby started cooperating and brought his feet down from over his head.


As for Charlie he had a great time with Grandma. She lives near a train station so they took numerous daily trips to watch the trains. She also seems to have more and better toys than we have at home so he had no shortage of activities. One of his favorite was the slide which he would stand at the back door, point to and longingly say "play."

Charlie also had a lot of fun when he got to visit with his friend Salem. They both loved to run up and down the hallway. At 2.5 Salem is super fast and Charlie had a hard time keeping up, but he sure tried. It was great because the next morning he slept until 8:45! He loved following Salem - or Salmon as he called him - around and almost nagged him like a little brother.





In addition to running, Charlie loves to sweep - and for some reason he likes to where this hat while cleaning.


Here are some pictures of Bruges - which is not quite as mystical as the movie portrayed but it is certainly beautiful.

West Virginia

We had our first family getaway last weekend to take in the waters in West Virginia. We started out by meeting my mom and aunt in Farmville, VA to visit the Greenfront wharehouse for rugs. Our floors are getting battered by the baby and construction and our tenants probably don’t appreciate Charlie’s evening exercises (he does the indoor 40 in which he races up and down the hallway at night, usually screaming “ahhhhhhh” as loud as he can). Of course we PLANNED to take off Thursday night at 8pm, but Carlos showed up at 10pm and - need I say - hadn’t packed yet. So we go on the road at 11pm and found our way to Farmville around 2am. I had booked a bed and breakfast which is about the worst idea when traveling with an 19 month old. The house creaked like crazy and the walls were old and thin so any baby noise traveled widely. All of this meant that we ended up not-so-cozy all together in an old queen bed. On Friday we somehow managed to spend 6 HOURS(!) looking through rugs. Poor Charlie was exhausted - here he is on a pile of rugs.



From there we went to the Greenbriar which was hysterical. It is an over the top resort in West Virginia which was converted to an army hospital during WWII and then reverted back to a hotel under the design auspices of Dorothy Draper. Think big floral patterns, bright colors and stripes. But in the end we had a great time - Charlie loved being able to run around the hotel and it's seemingly endless network of hallways and staircases. Everyone was so nice about having a young child (except the casino staff...). His absolute favorite was listening to the live music. While he like the pianist at tea time, he really like the band on Saturday night. He clapped his hands and danced and at the end of each song he would scream "Bravo!" A group of older ladies were dancing to the music and their boring husbands wouldn't join them so they turned to invite Charlie to join. He stared at them and then ran over to put his head in my lap embarassed. His second favorite thing was drinking from the water fountain and then came the carpeted staircase. His least favorite thing was the gun club where Carlos and I shot skeet. It was my first time shooting and wow - I thought I had strong arms but that gun is really heavy. I didn't even get through my 25 shots. Of the 10 or so I took I only hit that target 2 times.

Here are some photos of Charlie enjoying the Greenbriar, our trip to the range and the official family portrait from our stay(!).

Truck

Charlie and Carlos had quality time together last week as I was traveling for work. Unfortunately I chickened out on telling work about baby #2. There was a conference one day and an all day meeting the next day so I didn't have a chance to talk to my boss and given how busy people were I don't think they even noticed. BUT I really need to have the conversation this week. I'm traveling again next week and I think it'll be painfully obvious by then. Here's a shot of the little one - any thoughts on the sex?


Charlie was excited to see aunt Mary who came over just in time for our pizza party on Sunday. She brought a truck for Charlie and he went nuts over it. Unfortunately his pronunciation, like his aim, needs some improvement. He replaces the "tr" in truck with "f". I think it's hysterical, but it definitely raised a few eyebrows. I also raised a few eyebrows when I almost burned my hair off taking out the first pizza. Luckily I'm pregnant so any hair I might have lost seems to already have been replenished....Here he is playing with his "f"ruck:



Finally we can start getting some labor out of Charlie! Here he is helping to put the groceries away. Carlos has been waiting to tap into the cheap child labor to get the house done, but I'm keeping him from heavy machinery for a few more years.