Tonight... we were just messing around with the camera.
Ethan loves suckers now.
We were playing with Play Doh the other day and I pretended to sneeze boogers of play doh out and Ethan wanted to as well
No idea... just liked the picture. 
I’ve been trying to come up with an intro but apparently I’m lacking inspiration tonight… so instead I picked a couple of stickers off the laptop, decided to tell you all about it and call it good enough.
Friday had very few memorable moments. Work, home, play with Ethan, hang out, bed. Though I did start a book at lunch and finished it at 12:30 Saturday morning. That’s the second time in 3 weeks I’ve done that on a Friday. I’m pretty sure that makes me officially lame. But, at least I was still conscious at 9:30 PM Friday night… that’s more than I can say for my significant other.
Saturday started out like any other day. Lately Ethan has been coming into our room when he wakes up and climbs into bed for a while before we all get up. No one gets anymore sleep after mister-mister arrives… but it’s a lot better waking up that way than it is to him screaming in the other room. Shortly after we got up Kari decided she needed to go into work cause apparently going to bed at 9:30 wasn’t lame enough she needed to actually top that the next day by going into work on a Saturday. So, she left and the plan was Ethan and I would kill time then meet her at the office and then go get lunch. Ethan and I did a lot of playing and then we went into his room to read and he actually ended up reading me a couple books. He decided to go the Cliffs Notes route and just give me overviews of each story… but on a couple pages he did actually describe what was on the page so that was fun. Then he decided to play with his matchbox car and truck… I always get to run the truck and he gets the car. After a short time I got bored just racing it back and forth and making noises so I started ramming his car with my truck trying to goad him into a battle. After the 4th of 5th time of me doing that and getting no reaction from him other than a blank stare I realized I was pretty much the bully of the house… but since I’m an adult and mature I decided to stop.
Anyway, after that we got dressed and headed out to meet Kari at the office. Everything went according to plan until a couple minutes after Ethan and I arrived on the 43rd floor. I turns out Kari isn’t the only lame one from IAS working on a Saturday… Chris was there too. Anyway, after just a couple minutes of being there the power in the building went out. No power = no lifts(elevators). No elevators = long walk down to the ground floor. So, instead of leaving right away we did out best to kill time and see if power would be restored. This included running around the floor, Ethan taking his pants off, Ethan and I playing with giant exercise balls, Kari scolding me for bouncing the giant exercise ball over and over while she tried to concentrate on some numbers, cookies, juice, coloring and rolling a golf ball around. Eventually Ethan grew tired of me and focused his energy on Chris and began bossing him around. They played some ‘catch’ with a tennis ball that now that I think about it was more of a game of for Ethan… but it kept him entertained. After about an hour and no ETA on when power was coming back we decided to begin our trek down using the stairs. I carried Ethan, Chris was kind enough to volunteer to carry Ethan’s stroller and that way Kari just had to worry about herself. 45 flights of stairs later(you have to go past ground floor to actually get out) we were back in the great outdoors with nothing to show but twitchy legs, sweaty brows and a desire to never walk down 45 flights of stairs again. Sam met up with us at that point and we decided to get lunch… but we had to find a place that had power first since the entire CBD had gone black. No more than 5 minutes into our journey for lunch the power came back on. Typical…
We settled on a Subway in the Rocks area and after lunch Ethan and I wandered around the food court and Chris was nice enough to point out a fountain to Ethan which he immediately ran over and started playing in and subsequently soaked his shorts. After lunch Kari decided to really try and shatter any ‘I’m Lame’ records for a 24 hour period and go back to work. Ethan and I went home and we both passed out for nap time. That night nothing real exciting happened but I was in bed early cause I had the triathlon Sunday.
I woke up at 5:00 am Sunday and the first thing I noticed was how sore my calves were from the walk down the stairs. That’s a confidence booster right there when you have a swim, bike and run ahead of you still that day. But, I dragged myself out of bed, made it up to the Botanic Gardens where the event was held and got ready to go. I should note… since I don’t have my bike here I had the pleasure or renting a gem of a bike from a tour company in town. As soon as she pulled my ‘prize’ off the truck I put my head down. It was a mountain bike… on a medium sized frame and it had definitely seen better days. Unless of course I’m missing something and rust actually somehow provides benefit to smooth riding. But, that was all I had so I smiled and told her thanks and pedaled off to put it in the transition area. Soon after pedaling I realized not all the gears worked and the frame actually shifted when I hit the breaks hard. So, as a pre-race recap… I have sore calves and a POS bike. Feeling good so far.
Anyway, there were 4500 people competing in the race so they broke it up into 30 heats of about 150 people each. My heat was 1 hour and 15 minutes after the first heat started so I got to watch for a while. Chris also did the race and his heat was 20 minutes after mine so he watched as well. Turns out we were the only two representatives from PGI… 9 signed up originally. 2 actually went but Chris was the only original entrant cause I filled in for someone else. When it was finally my turn I walked down the steps to jump into the harbour and it was cold to the point it took my breath away and since I took a quick breath as I jumped in I also got a mouthful of seawater in my stomach. So far, so good… I swam out and began treading water waiting for the guy to blow the horn for my heat to start. At that point I started to get some butterflies in my stomach cause at the triathlon last summer I’m pretty sure I was minutes from drowning in the swim. However, as I was just about to start panicking the starter yelled ‘Hold the line, men!’. He yelled this because the current was pushing us towards shore and we were drifting ahead of the start line. Some guy behind me yelled, ‘Hold the line white caps!(my heat had white swim caps) Are you with me?!’ like we were some sort of military unit holding a line at the battlefront. That got everyone laughing and I felt better after that. It was similar to the wedding when everyone looked super nervous and my loving brother Nick decided to take it upon himself to loosen everyone up and ripped an enormous fart. Different modus operandi but they led to the same results of me feeling better. I will never forget the look on Jim’s face when Nick did that… he may have had second thoughts about what kind of deal he’d gotten with this new set of in-laws.
Once the race started everything went really smooth. The swim went far better than I thought it would. No sharks and no sign of them… I heard they did have divers in the water on the lookout though. The bike went fine as well despite the fact I looked like a giant tool with my tri gear on and here I am pedaling some POS mountain bike. Even the run went well and I finished with a pretty respectable time that put me about 1490 out of 4500 people. I think had I had my own bike I could have easily cut another minute off my time but oh well. It was still a lot of fun and now I feel a lot better about trying the one in Iowa again this summer.
After that we had lunch with Chris and Sam and Ethan assaulted a group of strangers with the cap from his juice bottle. He had been playing with it for a while and then he tried to bite on it and it shot out of his mouth like a rocket into the table next to us. Thankfully it didn’t hit anyone in the face cause it was moving… they were kind enough to just laugh it off so it turned out to be a pretty amusing story for the blog.
After naps and a laid back afternoon we had dinner with Chris and Sam. Lucky them… two meals with Ethan in one day. We had Italian at AmoRoma’s. It was good… but I’m so over Italian food at this point its ridiculous. I think 75-80% of the meals I’ve had in the last week have either been some sort of pasta or pizza. Anyway, after we were done eating I did my normal job of entertain Ethan while Kari socializes. It works out better that way… I’m not much of a talker and I don’t mind chasing Ethan around. Anyway, we did some window shopping since the stores were all closed and he jumped off some steps and ran some hot laps around a pillar and announced ‘I’m fast!’ as he was running. He gets his superhuman speed from me. After that we headed home and that was pretty much it for the night.
This morning Ethan was kind enough to wake us up at 5:15 and yes my calves did still hurt. In fact they’re still sore now. Stairs are a real treat. Anyway, daylight savings ended here this weekend so I think that’s throwing his sleep off a little. At least I’m hoping so… I can’t go back to those early mornings. Today we informed the daycare that we’re leaving early. They’re sad he’s going. I got several comments today when I picked him up about how much they’re going to miss him, how fun he is to have around and how much he’s changed since he first got there. So, that was all nice to hear. When I got there Ethan was painting and was quick to show me his masterpiece as well as the bunny he had made earlier and an egg he had worked on yesterday. The teacher said he loves the arts and crafts stuff. So, Kari will have to get creative around here and do some of that with him. Me, being the man, only has to concentrate on manly stuff like showing him how to change oil(which I’ve never done), run a chainsaw(which I’ve never done), how to operate power tools(which I have just enough skill to cut of my own limbs) and ogle the ladies.
Anyway, I think that’s it. I’m not sure when my next update will be cause we’re going out of town Thursday and won’t be back until next Tuesday. In Australia you get the Friday before and the Monday after Easter off for a holiday so this is time we’re going up to the Gold Coast. If I don’t get a chance to post, hope everyone has a great Easter!
Regards,
Joel
Friday had very few memorable moments. Work, home, play with Ethan, hang out, bed. Though I did start a book at lunch and finished it at 12:30 Saturday morning. That’s the second time in 3 weeks I’ve done that on a Friday. I’m pretty sure that makes me officially lame. But, at least I was still conscious at 9:30 PM Friday night… that’s more than I can say for my significant other.
Saturday started out like any other day. Lately Ethan has been coming into our room when he wakes up and climbs into bed for a while before we all get up. No one gets anymore sleep after mister-mister arrives… but it’s a lot better waking up that way than it is to him screaming in the other room. Shortly after we got up Kari decided she needed to go into work cause apparently going to bed at 9:30 wasn’t lame enough she needed to actually top that the next day by going into work on a Saturday. So, she left and the plan was Ethan and I would kill time then meet her at the office and then go get lunch. Ethan and I did a lot of playing and then we went into his room to read and he actually ended up reading me a couple books. He decided to go the Cliffs Notes route and just give me overviews of each story… but on a couple pages he did actually describe what was on the page so that was fun. Then he decided to play with his matchbox car and truck… I always get to run the truck and he gets the car. After a short time I got bored just racing it back and forth and making noises so I started ramming his car with my truck trying to goad him into a battle. After the 4th of 5th time of me doing that and getting no reaction from him other than a blank stare I realized I was pretty much the bully of the house… but since I’m an adult and mature I decided to stop.
Anyway, after that we got dressed and headed out to meet Kari at the office. Everything went according to plan until a couple minutes after Ethan and I arrived on the 43rd floor. I turns out Kari isn’t the only lame one from IAS working on a Saturday… Chris was there too. Anyway, after just a couple minutes of being there the power in the building went out. No power = no lifts(elevators). No elevators = long walk down to the ground floor. So, instead of leaving right away we did out best to kill time and see if power would be restored. This included running around the floor, Ethan taking his pants off, Ethan and I playing with giant exercise balls, Kari scolding me for bouncing the giant exercise ball over and over while she tried to concentrate on some numbers, cookies, juice, coloring and rolling a golf ball around. Eventually Ethan grew tired of me and focused his energy on Chris and began bossing him around. They played some ‘catch’ with a tennis ball that now that I think about it was more of a game of for Ethan… but it kept him entertained. After about an hour and no ETA on when power was coming back we decided to begin our trek down using the stairs. I carried Ethan, Chris was kind enough to volunteer to carry Ethan’s stroller and that way Kari just had to worry about herself. 45 flights of stairs later(you have to go past ground floor to actually get out) we were back in the great outdoors with nothing to show but twitchy legs, sweaty brows and a desire to never walk down 45 flights of stairs again. Sam met up with us at that point and we decided to get lunch… but we had to find a place that had power first since the entire CBD had gone black. No more than 5 minutes into our journey for lunch the power came back on. Typical…
We settled on a Subway in the Rocks area and after lunch Ethan and I wandered around the food court and Chris was nice enough to point out a fountain to Ethan which he immediately ran over and started playing in and subsequently soaked his shorts. After lunch Kari decided to really try and shatter any ‘I’m Lame’ records for a 24 hour period and go back to work. Ethan and I went home and we both passed out for nap time. That night nothing real exciting happened but I was in bed early cause I had the triathlon Sunday.
I woke up at 5:00 am Sunday and the first thing I noticed was how sore my calves were from the walk down the stairs. That’s a confidence booster right there when you have a swim, bike and run ahead of you still that day. But, I dragged myself out of bed, made it up to the Botanic Gardens where the event was held and got ready to go. I should note… since I don’t have my bike here I had the pleasure or renting a gem of a bike from a tour company in town. As soon as she pulled my ‘prize’ off the truck I put my head down. It was a mountain bike… on a medium sized frame and it had definitely seen better days. Unless of course I’m missing something and rust actually somehow provides benefit to smooth riding. But, that was all I had so I smiled and told her thanks and pedaled off to put it in the transition area. Soon after pedaling I realized not all the gears worked and the frame actually shifted when I hit the breaks hard. So, as a pre-race recap… I have sore calves and a POS bike. Feeling good so far.
Anyway, there were 4500 people competing in the race so they broke it up into 30 heats of about 150 people each. My heat was 1 hour and 15 minutes after the first heat started so I got to watch for a while. Chris also did the race and his heat was 20 minutes after mine so he watched as well. Turns out we were the only two representatives from PGI… 9 signed up originally. 2 actually went but Chris was the only original entrant cause I filled in for someone else. When it was finally my turn I walked down the steps to jump into the harbour and it was cold to the point it took my breath away and since I took a quick breath as I jumped in I also got a mouthful of seawater in my stomach. So far, so good… I swam out and began treading water waiting for the guy to blow the horn for my heat to start. At that point I started to get some butterflies in my stomach cause at the triathlon last summer I’m pretty sure I was minutes from drowning in the swim. However, as I was just about to start panicking the starter yelled ‘Hold the line, men!’. He yelled this because the current was pushing us towards shore and we were drifting ahead of the start line. Some guy behind me yelled, ‘Hold the line white caps!(my heat had white swim caps) Are you with me?!’ like we were some sort of military unit holding a line at the battlefront. That got everyone laughing and I felt better after that. It was similar to the wedding when everyone looked super nervous and my loving brother Nick decided to take it upon himself to loosen everyone up and ripped an enormous fart. Different modus operandi but they led to the same results of me feeling better. I will never forget the look on Jim’s face when Nick did that… he may have had second thoughts about what kind of deal he’d gotten with this new set of in-laws.
Once the race started everything went really smooth. The swim went far better than I thought it would. No sharks and no sign of them… I heard they did have divers in the water on the lookout though. The bike went fine as well despite the fact I looked like a giant tool with my tri gear on and here I am pedaling some POS mountain bike. Even the run went well and I finished with a pretty respectable time that put me about 1490 out of 4500 people. I think had I had my own bike I could have easily cut another minute off my time but oh well. It was still a lot of fun and now I feel a lot better about trying the one in Iowa again this summer.
After that we had lunch with Chris and Sam and Ethan assaulted a group of strangers with the cap from his juice bottle. He had been playing with it for a while and then he tried to bite on it and it shot out of his mouth like a rocket into the table next to us. Thankfully it didn’t hit anyone in the face cause it was moving… they were kind enough to just laugh it off so it turned out to be a pretty amusing story for the blog.
After naps and a laid back afternoon we had dinner with Chris and Sam. Lucky them… two meals with Ethan in one day. We had Italian at AmoRoma’s. It was good… but I’m so over Italian food at this point its ridiculous. I think 75-80% of the meals I’ve had in the last week have either been some sort of pasta or pizza. Anyway, after we were done eating I did my normal job of entertain Ethan while Kari socializes. It works out better that way… I’m not much of a talker and I don’t mind chasing Ethan around. Anyway, we did some window shopping since the stores were all closed and he jumped off some steps and ran some hot laps around a pillar and announced ‘I’m fast!’ as he was running. He gets his superhuman speed from me. After that we headed home and that was pretty much it for the night.
This morning Ethan was kind enough to wake us up at 5:15 and yes my calves did still hurt. In fact they’re still sore now. Stairs are a real treat. Anyway, daylight savings ended here this weekend so I think that’s throwing his sleep off a little. At least I’m hoping so… I can’t go back to those early mornings. Today we informed the daycare that we’re leaving early. They’re sad he’s going. I got several comments today when I picked him up about how much they’re going to miss him, how fun he is to have around and how much he’s changed since he first got there. So, that was all nice to hear. When I got there Ethan was painting and was quick to show me his masterpiece as well as the bunny he had made earlier and an egg he had worked on yesterday. The teacher said he loves the arts and crafts stuff. So, Kari will have to get creative around here and do some of that with him. Me, being the man, only has to concentrate on manly stuff like showing him how to change oil(which I’ve never done), run a chainsaw(which I’ve never done), how to operate power tools(which I have just enough skill to cut of my own limbs) and ogle the ladies.
Anyway, I think that’s it. I’m not sure when my next update will be cause we’re going out of town Thursday and won’t be back until next Tuesday. In Australia you get the Friday before and the Monday after Easter off for a holiday so this is time we’re going up to the Gold Coast. If I don’t get a chance to post, hope everyone has a great Easter!
Regards,
Joel
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