The Riddles Family

Halloween 2011

2011-11-27T21:31:00.000-05:00

Figured I should get this one in before Christmas...

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to be home for Halloween this year as I was in Florida for work. Courtney took the boys to Pennsylvania so that they could go trick-or-treating with some of their cousins. Luke decided he wanted to be a frog, and Leo took on the Batman costume that Luke used a couple years ago. They had a great time!

Family Pictures

2011-11-13T17:23:00.000-05:00

A couple months ago, we got our family pictures taken. It had been a long time... in fact, we hadn't done it as a whole family since Leo was born! Here are some of the results...

The Summer 2011 Update, Continued...

2011-08-21T11:57:00.000-04:00

As promised, here are some more pictures from the past couple months.

Here's Leo just hanging out before church one day.

The boys have spent quite a bit of time in our backyard this summer. The trampoline came with the house we're renting, but when we eventually move, I think we'll have to buy one because the boys can't live without it now!

Luke also painted his very own bird house. He was very excited about it.

Here's a couple from when I came home from my trial in Florida.

And finally, here are some more of the boys just loving life.

We still need to pull our pictures off Courtney's iPhone, plus get the pictures from Kari's wedding, so more to come!

Another Overdue Post

2011-08-20T15:00:00.000-04:00

2011 has not been a good year for keeping up on the blog, but I'm now determined to get back on track. The summer has just flown by - I was down in Florida for almost 5 weeks for a trial, my sister, Kari, got married, and Courtney and the boys continued to explore Cleveland. I'll start with the picture updating here and put up another post tomorrow. Today's themes will be bath time and Father's Day weekend, a natural combination (right?).

The boys continue to love bath time, particularly since bubbles have become a regular feature.

We started out Father's Day weekend with a father-son trip to an Indians game. It was Luke's first baseball game! He loved the hanging out with Daddy, hot dogs, and ice cream part of it - but he didn't really like how loud everyone got when they cheered. All in all, we still had a good time even if Luke didn't get into the game that much.

We parked at my office, so Luke got to see where Daddy spends a lot of his time during the day.

The next day, we took an old-style train through the Cuyahoga Valley from Cleveland to Akron and back for the boys. Continuing our theme of "firsts," this was their first time on a train.

Then on Father's Day, Courtney and the boys treated me to a very nice day. Courtney dressed the boys in "Team Daddy" shirts that were, well, a little big, but it just made them even more cute.

Stay tuned for more tomorrow!

The iPhone Update

2011-06-05T20:50:00.000-04:00

As promised, here's a photo update from all the pictures Courtney has taken on her phone since she got it back in February/March or so.

A few weeks ago, we had to take Leo to the ER because he had aspirated a tiny piece of an apple and was wheezing a little bit. He was acting totally normal and it wasn't bothering him, but we didn't want to put him to bed with the wheezing sound he was making. Anyway, he ended up having a bronchoscopy, during which the docs found the little piece of apple in his lung. Other than it being a really tiring night for Mommy and Leo, though, everything was fine. He looked pretty cute in his little hospital gown, too.

Except for that bit of excitement, most of the rest of these pictures are just catching the boys in their element, doing their thing. You can tell these pictures go back a ways because they start in long sleeves and jackets, and by the end, they're showing off their shades.

The Last Three Months

2011-05-22T21:37:00.000-04:00

Yes, we're still here. Rather than try to totally catch up on everything, I'll just mention some highlights.

First of all, Go Tribe! I'd like to think the reason the Indians are all of a sudden good somehow is because of our arrival to Cleveland.

Courtney had her 30th birthday back in March - yes, the big 3-0. Unfortunately, since she's the one in charge around here, I'm not allowed to make fun of her age (she's almost 2 years older than me). So I'll just say she turned 30 and move on. I let Luke pick out a present at the store for Courtney without any help from me. I knew it would probably end up being something random that Courtney wouldn't want, but I figured it'd be the thought that counts. So what did he end up picking out...

...That's right, a rubber chicken chew toy for pets. Oh well. It's "the thought that counts," right? Luke also picked out a Thomas the Tank Engine card for her.

I had to go to Florida for a couple weeks on business in April for a trial. My mom came up to Cleveland to help out Courtney with the boys (we really had to twist her arm to come see the grandkids... yeah, not really!).

I was home in time for Easter, and the boys had a good time painting Easter eggs and going on a Easter candy hunt.

...They found the chocolate bunnies in the dryer with the aid of their "treasure map."

A few weeks ago we went to a park and got a few good pictures.

It was also a few weeks ago that I had to mow the lawn for the first time this year. Luke decided he wanted to help. Gotta start 'em young!

And finally, just a few other random pictures from the last three months. Leo wasn't very happy here, but he looked pretty cute anyway.

Here he is again with a dramatic gaze out the window.

And just a few more to finish things off (in case you haven't seen enough already).

Courtney has been taking a lot of pictures on her iphone lately, so I'll have to do another iphone picture post soon.

A January Photo Update

2011-02-27T19:54:00.000-05:00

Seeing as it's almost March, I thought it'd be a perfect time to post some pictures from... January. :) Life's been good. The big news around here is that Courtney was called as the Primary President at church (i.e., she's now responsible for the 2 hour Sunday School and other programs for all the kids age 18 months to 11 years old - about 75 kids on any given Sunday). It's quite the responsibility, and I know she'll be great. It definitely has made us that much more busy at home!

And now for the picture update (which is initially heavy on Leo content):

We spent a Saturday down in Columbus to go to the temple and the COSI science museum. Luke was having some issues with the sun in his eyes in the car. We took care of that:

Courtney took the boys to a nearby mall while I was at the temple. Yes, Luke is the one flying through the air in that second picture:

I then took the boys to the COSI museum. I didn't get many good pictures, but they had a great time as always. We could probably spend all day at that place:

Coming soon... February pics!

Luke is 3!

2011-02-06T20:30:00.000-05:00

Last week, we celebrated Luke's third birthday! He was pretty excited for his birthday this year. We waited until the weekend to have his party so that his Grammy and Pappy and a few cousins could be here. On his actual birthday, Luke and I went out to breakfast at IHOP before I went to work.

On Saturday, we all went to the Science Museum here in Cleveland. Unfortunately, our camera curse continued and for some reason our memory card didn't save our pictures from there (we returned the memory card for a new one this past week... gotta love Walmart's return policy). We also had fun hanging out around the house and getting things ready for Luke's party.

After church on Sunday, we had Luke's birthday supper of hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. Then it was time for his birthday cake... you'll never guess what kind of cake he wanted.

...That's right, a dinosaur cake!

I must say Luke got a pretty good haul from his birthday presents. He was actually a little scared at first of one of the dinosaurs he got from his cousins, but he's getting along pretty well with it now.

Oh, and Leo thoroughly enjoyed the festivities as well. He's become best buds with Lindsay, one of his cousins.

Christmas 2010

2011-01-23T20:21:00.000-05:00

Though we've been married for almost five years now, this was the first time we've actually hosted Christmas. My parents, Kari, and Mark came up to Cleveland for a few days and we all had a great time. What made it especially fun was Luke's excitement for anything and everything to do with Christmas, whether it was the Christmas tree, lights, Santa, presents... and even egg nog. Seriously, the kid couldn't get enough of the egg nog.

Pictures do a better job of telling the story than me, so here we go...

Shocking I know, but we had a White Christmas here in Cleveland. Here's Grandma getting nailed with a a snowball, courtesy of Luke...

He thought it was pretty funny...

On Christmas Eve, we had a little program where we sang some carols, read the story of Jesus' birth in the Bible, watched a short DVD about the Nativity, and then let the boys see their new stockings (made by their Grammy!) and open their Christmas Eve present (pj's!).

It's safe to say that Christmas day was a success with the boys, they thoroughly enjoyed opening all their presents.

Not surprisingly, Leo was content enough to just play with the wrapping and packaging!

And there we have it... the Christmas post only a month late!

November/December

2011-01-16T20:49:00.000-05:00

In a continuing effort to catch up on what was on our old camera, I'll post some pictures here from November and December. I'm way too behind to do much storytelling, but that will return next week when I do a Christmas post (sneak preview: we had a great Christmas!).

Here are the boys looking pretty sharp before church:

Leo makes one cool firefighter:

One of the things we were most bummed out about when we thought we lost our camera was losing pictures of Luke putting the ornaments up on our first real Christmas tree. Without further ado:

The boys also got to see Santa IN PERSON! ;)

...as you can see, they were thrilled. And finally, here's us boys just hanging out:

The Return of the Camera

2011-01-09T21:10:00.000-05:00

Yes, we're still here! And I come bearing good news... we found our old camera! Believe it or not, it was pretty much right under our noses. I was cleaning out our car in anticipation of packing up for our New Years' weekend trip to Pennsylvania and found it in the little compartment between the front seats. So anyway... obviously there is much to catch up on from the holidays, but I'll have to go back quite a ways to catch up now that we have our pictures from the old camera.

We'll start with Leo's birthday party with the Cross family. Yes, I know he's 14 months old now, but better late than never!

Our Camera

2010-12-12T14:40:00.000-05:00

I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that we sadly lost our camera this past week. We hadn't loaded pictures on our computer in about a month, so we lost some good ones, including of Leo's birthday party and putting up our Christmas tree. Fortunately, Courtney's parents were there at Leo's party and took some pictures, and so we'll be able to get theirs.

The good news is that we coincidentally had ordered a new camera for our Christmas present to each other. It arrived the day before we lost our old one!

Life has been busy, but good for us. Work is in full swing, as is the Cleveland winter! We got about a foot of snow last week over a few days and another big storm is coming in as we speak. We bought a snow blower a few weeks ago, and it's definitely come in handy already.

The last pictures we loaded had some snow pictures from the first little snow storm we got in early November, so enjoy!

Happy Belated Halloween!

2010-11-21T14:26:00.000-05:00

Sure, this week might be Thanksgiving, but here in Riddles Family Blog world, we're just getting around to celebrating Halloween. While Leo was still too young to have a clue, Luke displayed excellent trick-or-treating skills this year. He needed my help a little bit at the first house we went to, but by the end, I was standing back while he went up to the door by himself, said "trick-or-treat," and left with a "Thanks!"

To those who have spent any time with Luke recently, you will not be surprised to hear that he wanted to be a dinosaur for Halloween.

Leo also made a brief appearance as a frog:

Here's Luke in action:

Afterwards, the boys enjoyed the spoils:

Fall in Cleveland

2010-11-07T15:01:00.000-05:00

We actually got a couple inches of snow on Friday night, so even if it's still technically autumn, that makes it winter time in my book (I am from Texas after all). We've enjoyed the fall here, though.

I started work on October 25th, but so far it hasn't been intense, just a lot of training and orientation. Here I am on my first day:

I spent most of last week in Washington, D.C., for a big conference of all the new lawyers in my firm. I also found out on October 29th that I passed the bar exam! Tomorrow, I'll be going down to Columbus to be sworn in, and then I'll officially be an attorney.

Besides going to Arkansas, we enjoyed a lot of family time together before I started working. As always, I'll let the pictures tell the story.

We love hanging out in our backyard!

I still have a whole bunch of leaves to take care of, but Luke enjoyed playing in them. Leo was less crazy about it, but we managed to get at least one decent picture of him.

The week before Halloween, we went to a local farm that had pumpkins, a corn maze, a hay ride, and other fun things for the kids.

October 26th was, of course, Leo's birthday! We'll be having his party this coming weekend when Courtney's family comes to visit, but I continued my father-son breakfast tradition by taking Leo to IHOP. His favorite was the whipped cream on top of his pancake.

More updating to come!

Arkansas Trip

2010-11-06T14:50:00.000-04:00

And we're back... A lot has happened in the past month, it's been an exciting time!

One of the last big things we did before I started work was to take a road trip to Arkansas to visit family. I have to admit that we faced the travelling with a bit of trepidation, as this would be by far the longest trip in the car that the boys had taken. We broke it up over two days and it ended up taking about 16 hours one-way. To our pleasant surprise, Luke and Leo did great in the car, helped by the box of new toys we got from the dollar store and 17 DVDs from the public library (!).

We had a great time down there. The boys got to see Grandma, Grandpa, Great-Grandma, Aunt Kari, (soon-to-be) Uncle Mark, Great Aunt Lyn, Great Aunt Nancy, and Great Uncle Bob. Luke and Leo did a great job of entertaining everyone and providing some excuses to go shopping. I also got in a few rounds of golf.

My parents took a bunch of pictures. For whatever reason, we got a lot more good ones of Leo, probably because Luke was just constantly on the move, trying to impress people by jumping off the couch into a pile of pillows and doing other fun around the house games he invented there.

We had a Halloween/Birthday Party as well:

Leo had a cookie to celebrate his upcoming first birthday:

He also got a few presents:

But don't worry, Luke wasn't left out. He got some gifts as well, but the biggest hit of the evening was a Halloween stamp set. I think most of the ink ended up on his body by the end of the night!

The boys also enjoyed a trip to the beach along the lake:

I'm really glad we were able to make the trip. It was especially nice for Great-Grandma and the boys to spend that time together, they really took to her well:

First Day of Preschool

2010-10-22T09:27:00.000-04:00

Luke had his first day of preschool yesterday! It's nothing too intense, just 1.5 hours a week with a co-op of several other moms that Courtney knows. They all take turns hosting and teaching. In any event, it was certainly enough to justify taking "first day of school" pictures... so here he is!

And we're back!

2010-10-21T09:44:00.000-04:00

October has just flown by, perhaps as evidenced by the lack of blog posts. We were out of town for the past week and a half visiting family down in Arkansas. More on that later. Things are about to change quite a bit around here as I will be starting work this Monday. We also find out the bar exam results next Friday! For now, I'll try and catch up on some of what we've been doing...

At the end of September we went down to Columbus for the day to visit the temple and the COSI museum. With our natural history museum membership, we were able to get in free to COSI, which is a children's science center. We didn't have too much time, but of what we did see, the boys enjoyed the water play area the most.

The fall season is in full force up here in Cleveland. We've got tons of leaves on the ground in our backyard and it's getting quite a bit cooler. Here's Courtney and Luke putting some of those leaves and sticks to good use (with a special appearance by Leo).

There's more to catch up on, but I don't want to go into picture-overload mode. I'll end with a few more good ones of the boys. The last one catches them in the midst of playing Elefun.

More to come!

Roughhousing

2010-09-27T12:19:00.000-04:00

Courtney grabbed the camera and caught us boys doing some roughhousing. Leo's getting old enough now to be able to join in a little bit! Even though he couldn't seem to open his eyes for the camera, I'd say he was having a good time.

S'mores!

2010-09-23T13:24:00.000-04:00

Another new thing we tried out lately was building a fire and having s'mores in our backyard. Luke did a great job using his wagon to gather sticks.

Leo "helped" out a bit, too.

Courtney was our resident fire-building expert. Here she is hard at work... oh, and Luke also makes an appearance.

Luke had a go at roasting marshmallows...

...but for the most part, he was more interested in eating the finished product.

Leo also expressed more interest in the food than the fire.

In the end, we all had a great time.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

2010-09-17T15:10:00.002-04:00

Something most people probably don't know about Cleveland is that we have a national park in our midst. In fact, we can get to it within 15 minutes of where we live! A couple weeks ago, we went there to have a picnic. Warning: many pictures to follow...

Here are the boys at the entrance to the trail we went on.

Luke was pretty into it, running ahead of us as we tried to keep up with him.

We got someone to take a family picture of the four of us.

We didn't end up walking very far at all before we found a good spot for our picnic.

Besides eating, Luke spent most of his time throwing rocks into the water.

Leo came along, too, of course, and enjoyed trying to stick all kinds of things into his mouth.

When it was time to head home for naps, Luke predictably didn't want to leave. If you look closely, you can see him standing defiantly in the distance.

One Big Staycation

2010-09-09T15:36:00.000-04:00

Since moving here to Cleveland at the beginning of August, we've felt like we're on one big staycation. I don't start work until October, so we've been taking advantage of this time to spend a lot of time together as a family discovering our new city. A lot of people trash Cleveland, but it's been great so far with lots to do (of course, we'll just have to wait and see how the winter goes!).

Here is a bit of a sampling...

We've tried out a few parks and found one in particular close to home that we really like. Unlike Luke, Leo just loves the swing...

I think I mentioned this before, but my mom got us a zoo membership as a gift, and we've already paid it off by going four times this past month!

We also got a membership to the natural history museum, aka the "dinosaur museum." The fact that Luke threw a big tantrum when we had to leave settled it that he would love going back there.

Courtney went with a friend and took Luke raspberry picking at a place just 15 minutes or so from where we live...

We went and had lunch in Little Italy a few weeks ago. It was really good... and cheap! No pictures, but a good time was had by all.

We've also been on quite the garage sale rampage, too. I don't think a week has gone by where we haven't gone to a few.

The public library has been great, too, and is definitely an upgrade from what we had back in C'ville.

One of the coolest things we've done so far, though, is to visit the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which is only 15 minutes from where we live. We took a lot of pictures there today, so I'll save that for another post.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but we're certainly having a fun staycation!

Around the House

2010-09-02T15:16:00.000-04:00

I just loaded more pictures on the computer and realized that we have so many that I can just devote a whole post to what we've been doing around the house. I'll have to wait to get to our travels around Cleveland.

I've said it already, but we really like the house we're renting, particularly the big yard and the extra space we have inside compared to the apartment we came from.

We've spent many nights after dinner either going for a walk or hanging out in the backyard (chalk and the big trampoline left by the owners have been the main attractions).

Here's Luke and Leo riding together in the wagon, with Leo sporting his pre-haircut look:

Luke and Leo have started interacting more together, which has been a lot of fun. One thing Luke likes to do is push Leo's stroller on walks:

They're also playing more together inside, though this has often required Luke to exercise a bit more patience than he would sometimes like. For the most part, though, they get along well and Luke can be really sweet with Leo:

Leo does great at mealtime and pretty much eats anything we give him. Cheerios are a breakfast favorite:

We decided to subscribe to the local paper, and it's been great getting to know the city better in that way. We also introduced Luke to the "funnies":

And finally, we'll wrap this up with a couple random pictures, one of Leo on the day he turned 10 months and then Luke being Luke:

Grandma comes to town!

2010-08-25T20:30:00.000-04:00

Luke had the time of his life when Grandma Riddles came to visit us last week. He wanted to play with Grandma pretty much non-stop the whole time she was here! We were able to do quite a bit, showing off our new hometown. Plus we got some free babysitting while Courtney and I took care of all that fun car stuff, like getting our new driver's licenses, title, registration, inspection, etc., etc., etc.

One day we went to the zoo, and of course they happened to have a dinosaur exhibit (Luke is absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs!).

We played quite a bit at home, too. It's so nice having a big yard now, we don't even have to leave our house to get outside and have fun. Here are a couple pics of Leo inside, and then some of our house:

We also took a stroll downtown and saw some of the sights by the lake and the office where I'll be working. The first one shows Cleveland Browns stadium in the background. Go Browns!

Luke was sad to see Grandma go, but we're looking forward to seeing her again in October! Stay tuned for another post on what we've been up to so far here in Cleveland.

Cleveland!

2010-08-08T13:53:00.000-04:00

Well, we made it! We're officially Cleveland residents. Moving and the bar exam pretty much sum up the events of the last few weeks and explain the lack of blog posts. Both are now behind us and we're happy to finally be here in Ohio!

The bar exam was from July 27-29 and involved much fun (not really). I took Luke up to his Grammy and Pappy in Pennsylvania the Sunday before and then took off for Columbus, OH the next day. The exam itself was 2 1/2 days long (1 1/2 days of essays and a day of multiple choice). It was difficult, particularly the multiple choice, but I'm optimistic that I passed. I certainly never want to do that again! I'll find out at the end of October.

After picking up Luke and heading back down to C'ville, it was time to get ready for the move. Courtney had stayed behind and fortunately was able to take care of a lot of our preparations while I was off having "fun." We had professional movers, so that also cut down a whole lot on what we had to do. They even packed everything up for us. The movers came on Aug. 2, and stayed 11 hours to pack and load all of our stuff. The next day, we headed up to PA. I stayed long enough to drop off Courtney and the boys and then headed to our house in Cleveland to clean the carpets and get things ready for the movers to deliver our stuff the next day. Then, on Thursday, I headed back to PA to attend Courtney's grandmother's memorial service. She passed away two weeks ago. It wasn't unexpected, though, as she had been struggling for quite some time. It was a nice opportunity to celebrate her life and spend time with family from out west that we don't get to see as often.

Finally, we made it back here to Cleveland for good yesterday. It's so nice to be in an actual house with a yard! We're loving it so far.

Oh, and Leo says hi:

The Return of the Blog

2010-07-18T20:37:00.000-04:00

It's been busy around here... there's been this little thing called the bar exam that has been preoccupying us. Fortunately, we're almost there. The exam starts next Tuesday, the 27th. Then we'll be moving to Cleveland the first week of August! Anyway, because of all this, I've yet again gotten behind on updating the blog. So this will be just another general post, mostly just for the purpose of showing how cute our kids are (that never gets old to us!).

Leo still gets up way too early, usually around 6am. He gets so excited, though, when Luke wakes up (usually around 7:30 or 7:45) and it's time to go get his older brother in his room. Here's a couple pictures of the boys right when Luke woke up:

We're excited to see them start to play more together as Leo gets older. They already do this thing at the dinner table where they get each other laughing to the point they both can't stop. It's pretty hilarious to just sit back and watch them egg each other on.

Luke's been going swimming a lot this summer. Here he is on his way down to the pool in our apartment complex:

And in case anybody's been wondering what I've been up to all summer, this pretty much explains it all:

Life Lately

2010-06-27T20:09:00.000-04:00

June has been a busy month for us. We spent almost two weeks out of town dogsitting for Courtney's parents and doing some househunting in Cleveland. We survived taking care of six dogs and we found a house, so I'd consider all the travelling to have been a success!

Otherwise, I've been studying for the bar exam, which is one month from today. This next month is going to be pretty intense! The boys have been spending a lot of time out at the pool. Here's a couple pictures of Leo getting ready to go outside:

They've played quite a bit inside, too, to get away from the heat:

On Thursday, we had a crazy, but very brief, storm hit Charlottesville that knocked our power out from 5pm Thursday until 1am Saturday morning. Considering it was in the 90s, we missed the air conditioning! The internet was down and even our cell phones didn't work for almost 24 hours. A whole bunch of big trees fell over, it was quite the spectacle. The boys did just fine, though, we just stuck Luke in this tank top so he'd stay cool:

Leo turned 8 months old yesterday! After about 20 attempts to get a good pictures of him to mark the day, we ended up with a couple decent ones:

Since we were out of town the past couple weeks, we waited until today to celebrate Father's Day. Here's one of me and the boys after they gave me a card:

And finally, about an hour ago, Luke handed me the camera and asked me to take pictures of him. The result:

Catching up with Leo

2010-06-20T16:40:00.000-04:00

Leo's been doing great. All of a sudden, he's almost 8 months old! He's not too big of a fan of sleeping, with his one hour naps and waking up before 6am every morning, but we tell ourselves it's just because he loves spending time with us so much. Here are some pictures of Leo from the past couple months that I haven't put up on here yet:

Grandma and Grandpa!

2010-06-02T20:40:00.000-04:00

The best part of graduation for Luke was having his grandparents in town. They got in Thursday night and left Monday. We played with dinosaurs, watched the Elmo's World segment on dinosaurs several times, and read dinosaur books (any guesses as to what Luke is really into these days???). But we also got out and did some other fun things.

On Friday morning, we headed out to the Chiles Peach Orchard in Crozet to pick strawberries! Luke did his part to find some good ones:

Leo wasn't quite sure what we were doing, though:

But he still ended up having a good time:

...as did the rest of us. Luke even got to ride in a wagon:

We finished off the outing with some fresh strawberry milkshakes:

Besides strawberry picking, we also went to the park and did some walks around where we live. But like I said, Luke was content to just stick around the apartment, play dinosaurs... and read the paper:

Here are some other good pictures from the weekend:

Graduation!

2010-05-29T19:58:00.000-04:00

Now that the overdue Final Four post is out of the way, we can move on to more current events. Last Sunday I graduated from law school! Finishing school was admittedly a little bit anticlimatic with all the bar exam studying ahead of me this summer, but putting on the cap and gown certainly provided a bit of perspective on how much has gone into getting to where we are today as a family. It's been great, but we're also looking forward to transitioning to the next stage in our lives.

My parents came into town on Thursday evening and stayed until Monday. Luke just loved having them here. He had the time of his life. I'll put up a separate post about all the things we did when they were here and stick to the graduation pictures for this one.

Here's the big moment of receiving my diploma from the dean of the law school:

The graduate with the proud parents:

Kari and Mark came down for the ceremony as well:

We tried to get a good picture with the boys, but the ceremony fell right during naptime, so they had just about had it by the end:

Luke can be pretty cute, though, when he's tired:

Final Four!

2010-05-25T16:34:00.000-04:00

This post is long overdue, but it must be done. Sure, the Final Four might have been almost two months ago, but I still get pumped up about it when I think about how awesome it was. It would've been a fun time anyway, but the fact that Duke won the national championship made it all the more memorable.

It all started when Kari (my sister) got two tickets to the Final Four in Indianapolis via the NCAA lottery. The deal was that I would get to accompany her if Duke made it, and otherwise she would go with her fiance, Mark. Once Duke beat Baylor in the Elite Eight, it was time to get ready for a roadtrip! On that Friday, Courtney and I drove up to PA with the boys, where they'd spend the weekend. Kari then picked me up the next morning and we drove to Indy. That night was game night! Duke vs. West Virginia. And now for some pictures...

Here I am outside the stadium before the game:

And here's the view from our seats. We were up in the nosebleeds, but the view was still pretty good:

One really cool thing about the trip is that we were able to meet up with some good friends of mine from college, whom I hadn't seen since 2003, when I left for my mission. We went out to dinner Sunday night and celebrated together at the team hotel after Duke won the national championship:

Obviously, the Final Four game against West Virginia went quite well, and so it was on to the national championship game on Monday night! Kari and I had a pretty quiet day Sunday and then on Monday, we went to the Bracket Town expo and hung out downtown before the game. We stumbled upon the Duke hotel and spent some time there before the game. It was awesome.

Here I am posing in front of the team bus:

We saw Johnny Dawkins in the hotel lobby!

The best part about chilling at the team hotel before the game, though, was that we got to see all the coaches and players walk right by us as they got onto the bus to go to the game. We didn't get any pictures of that, but Kari did get some video of it on her camera.

But anyway, after all that, we headed over to the stadium. On the way, we ran into Crazy Towel Guy!

Here we are right before tip-off:

To say it was a good game would be an understatement. It was a classic! I couldn't belive it when Hayward missed that last shot, I was sure it was in. But we won! What a great experience it was to be there!

As I mentioned, after the game, we made our way over to the team hotel to celebrate! We had to wait quite a while for the team to show up, but it was worth it! It was crazy there, tons of fans were waiting along with us! We were on the first row of the rope line, though, and got to high five all the players and coaches as they walked into the hotel. We also saw some former players, including Gerald Henderson:

And we got our picture taken with Sean Dockery:

All in all, a great, great, night and a great weekend. Thanks for inviting me, Kari!

No more school!

2010-05-15T14:23:00.000-04:00

As of Thursday at about 11:30am, I am officially done with school! It's a bit odd to think my student days are behind me, but then again, studying for the bar exam this summer won't feel all that different.

In the meantime, the boys have continued to do a great job of being awesome. It's time to get the blog back up-to-date, and I'll start with a couple random pictures of Luke and Leo. First off is Leo with a particularly big smile:

Courtney bought Luke a new suit and tie, and I must say, he looked quite good in it. Unfortunately, he wouldn't stand still for any good pictures, but this one isn't bad:

And finally, here's one of the boys just hanging out, playing with dinosaurs:

That time of year...

2010-04-19T08:32:00.000-04:00

Finals are approaching... but fortunately this is the last time I will be saying that! It's hard to believe I'll be done with the "school" thing in less than a month! (Of course, then there's the whole bar exam thing, but anyway...) I definitely need to do a post about my Final Four trip with my sister, but for now, I'll catch up on a few pictures of the boys...

Leo got his first haircut a few weeks ago, it was getting a bit out of control around his ears and in the back. Here's a before picture:

And here's an after picture:

Courtney and the boys spent a good bit of time up in PA the past couple of weeks with all my traveling, and Luke had a great time as always. When we pulled back into our parking lot at home in C'ville, he yelled out, "Noooooo! I wanna go Grammy and Pappy's house!":

And finally, here's a picture of Luke with a couple of his friends back here at home:

Busy!

2010-04-13T16:33:00.000-04:00

No, this blog hasn't been abandoned. We've just been really busy lately and have spent quite a bit of time out of town (including a trip to the Final Four, hanging out in Altoona, house hunting in Cleveland, and a bar interview in Columbus). Updates coming soon!

Hanging Out

2010-03-19T11:23:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures of the boys just hanging out (this first one features quite the stare from Leo)...

And here's another classic "watching tv" picture, with Leo yet again striking quite the pose...

Leo's thinking, "Why don't I have any clothes on?!"...

A couple weeks ago, we went up to PA for a quick visit at the beginning of Spring Break. Here's one of Courtney and Leo reading magazines on the couch...

We also did a Chuck-E-Cheese trip while we were up there. I remember thinking the place was pretty awesome as a kid, but I was a bit underwhelmed to revisit it as an adult. The pizza was still good, though, and Luke had fun...

...but Leo decided to take the opportunity to snooze a bit...

Going for a Walk

2010-03-11T09:59:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago, we got some good pictures from a walk we went on. I already posted some pictures of Leo from this, but there are some more good ones.

Also, today is Courtney's birthday! I'll most likely have a post on that later. This morning, Luke was saying that he wanted it to be his birthday again, too... he really enjoyed turning 2! I asked him how old he was and he said... "I'm 13!" Fortunately, he's not 13 quite yet... :)

Learning to Crawl

2010-03-10T21:15:00.000-05:00

Ok, so Leo isn't actually learning to crawl yet. But these pictures of the boys from last month are pretty cute. Luke decided to imitate Leo and then show him how to crawl, but Leo wasn't going to budge!

Time to catch up again...

2010-03-09T20:36:00.000-05:00

I find myself quite behind again with the blogging, so I'll have to do some catching up again. We just got back today from a quick trip to PA. But for now, I thought I'd share some recent pictures of little Leo. He's 4 months old now! At his doctor's appointment a couple weeks ago, he weighed 16 lbs. 2 oz. Just like Luke, he's certainly not having any problems in the growth department!

May I help you?

2010-03-01T11:44:00.001-05:00

Here are Luke and Leo with some great "What do you want?" faces:

How dare we interrupt a riveting episode of Sesame Street to take pictures!

Luke is 2! (Party #3)

2010-02-15T13:56:00.001-05:00

And now for Luke's last birthday party to celebrate being 2 years old! The day after Kari left, Courtney's parents and Luke's cousins, Gina and Dane, came for a visit. Lots of pictures from this one, so I'll let them tell the story:

Courtney made an awesome fire truck cake...

...and Luke sure enjoyed eating it!

Our big present for Luke was a tricycle. If the snow ever decides to go away, we'll be able to get out more often with it!

So far, though, his favorite present has been the one from his Grammy and Pappy: a "Little People" barn with a bunch of animals. He plays with it ALL the time!

Luke is 2! (Party #2)

2010-02-08T16:38:00.000-05:00

The fun continued with a second "party" with his Aunt Kari. Kari came down the Friday night after Luke's birthday and stayed until the next night. As soon as she walked in the door, Luke was calling her to come play with him! Kari brought cupcakes and presents for Party #2. We all had a good time.

Surprise, surprise, Luke liked his cupcake...

Aunt Kari got him a Cleveland Browns shirt, a Sesame Street coloring book, and stickers. Luke wasted no time peeling off all the stickers and putting them on his new coloring book...

Luke is 2! (Party #1)

2010-02-05T16:29:00.000-05:00

On January 27th, Luke turned 2 years old! In some ways, it seems as if we've had Luke forever, and in other ways, it's hard to believe he's already 2! You'll note that the title of this post included a reference to "Party #1." Though the 27th was Luke's birthday, the celebrations really turned into more of a "birthday week." In addition to what we did on his actual birthday, his Aunt Kari visited the next Friday and Saturday and his Grammy and Pappy and cousins, Dane and Gina, came on Sunday and stayed until Monday night. So all in all, the lucky kid ended up with 3 parties! He sure enjoyed himself. More on those "parties" later.

Anyway, as for the big day itself... it began with me taking Luke out to breakfast at Waffle House for some quality father-son time. I'm thinking of turning that into a tradition, i.e., taking the kids out for breakfast on their birthday. Anyway, the birthday boy had no trouble eating his waffle and a side order of sausage. He loves his food!

Later in the morning, we had a bunch of Luke's friends over for cupcakes, snacks, and playtime. A good time was had by all.

Here's Luke blowing out the candle on his cupcake...

For some reason, a few of the boys thought it'd be fun to play in Luke's crib...

Then, in the evening before bedtime, Luke talked to his Aunt Kari and to his Grandma and Grandpa on the phone. He also got to open his Sesame Street card and present (a Duke shirt!) from Grandma and Grandpa while they were on the phone. He got a fun card from his Great-Grandma, too.

We decided to wait until Courtney's parents came to town to give him our presents. Stay tuned to see what he got! Also, for Christmas, Courtney and I decided to give ourselves a video camera. We just got it a couple days before Luke's birthday, so we got all of this on video!

Leo & Mommy

2010-01-24T19:41:00.000-05:00

We've started to get back into a routine around here as I started school this past Monday, so there isn't anything too exciting to report. On the other hand, the kids can always provide good blog post material. Here's some recent pictures of Courtney and Leo:

Duke game!

2010-01-15T10:08:00.000-05:00

I received quite a nice surprise Tuesday afternoon when an email appeared in my inbox saying that a very limited number of tickets were available for Wednesday's Duke game against Boston College at Cameron Indoor Stadium. They were courtside bleacher seats and were only $50. Now, normally that kind of thing would be outside of the budget, but Courtney didn't even hesitate in saying that I had to go! Unfortunately, with little Leo we couldn't all go together, but I did end up making the trip on Wednesday. It was awesome! It had been almost 3 years since I've gone to a Duke game in Cameron. There really is nothing quite like it. And of course, Duke won the game! Here are a couple pictures from my vantage point:

Caught Up

2010-01-12T14:46:00.000-05:00

Phew! I feel like I'm pretty much caught up on updating the blog with all that has been going on over the holiday break, so this will probably spell the end of the daily new posts. Not to fear, regular updating will continue, but with school starting up again next Monday, my prolific blogging was bound to slow down soon anyway.

Here's an obligatory picture of the little guy:

Twilight

2010-01-11T10:52:00.000-05:00

Courtney has officially become obsessed with the Twilight series. She borrowed the first book from a friend a couple weeks ago. The same night she finished that book, she went to Barnes & Noble with a gift card in hand from Christmas and bought the next two books. She's currently reading the third. Anyway, this has turned into a blog post because occasionally she has decided to kill two birds with one stone by reading Twilight to Leo (keeping Leo entertained while still getting her fix). The proof is in the pictures...

Luke still loves doing dishes

2010-01-10T19:38:00.000-05:00

I say still loves doing dishes because almost a year ago, I put up a post about Luke "helping" with the dishes. Here is a refresher:

Well anyway, lately he has taken to moving a chair over to the sink so that he can "help" wash things in the sink. Tonight, it at least kept him occupied while we got dinner ready.

Leo's lookin' good

2010-01-09T12:13:00.000-05:00

Here are some pictures we took at church a few weeks ago.

Leo's Latest Stats

2010-01-08T13:37:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Leo had his 2 month checkup at the doctor's. He's doing great and is certainly having no problem in the growth department. At 10 1/2 weeks old, he's 13 lbs. 13 oz. and 23 3/8 in. That puts him in the 90th percentile for weight and the 75th percentile for height. That sounds a whole lot like his older brother. But unlike Luke, Leo's head only measures in the 50th percentile (I think it was Luke's 18 month appointment that his head measured so big it was basically off the chart).

The Family

2010-01-07T11:29:00.001-05:00

Two Months Old!

2010-01-06T10:54:00.000-05:00

Ok, well Leo is about 2 1/2 months old now, but I'm still catching up... We took some pictures of the little guy the day he turned two months, a couple days after Christmas.

Luke & Leo

2010-01-05T11:26:00.000-05:00

During finals in December, Courtney went and visited a friend in Richmond for a couple days. Her friend took some great pictures of Luke and Leo!

Christmas 2009 - Part 2

2010-01-04T13:02:00.000-05:00

The good times continued once we got back home from PA. That same day my parents and sister arrived in C'ville. So Luke got to enjoy another round of opening presents! He was all too happy to participate. My parents were able to stay the whole week, including New Year's Day (a.k.a. my birthday). It was great to see them again after only a month. Luke and Leo both loved the extra attention they got.

Christmas 2009 - Part 1

2010-01-03T13:05:00.000-05:00

We spent Christmas up in PA at Courtney's parents' house. Leo, of course, didn't have a clue, but it was great to see Luke get more into Christmas this year. Back here at home, we put up some lights and ornaments, along with a mini 18 in. tree, and Luke often pointed to them and said "Christmas." The show, Rudolph and the Red Nosed Reindeer, also became a favorite. Anyway, Luke really enjoyed opening his presents... let's just say he definitely understood the concept. He was constantly saying "presents" and wanting to open more. In the pictures, Luke and Leo are showing off the new matching pj's they got on Christmas Eve.

Thanksgiving 2009

2010-01-02T11:48:00.000-05:00

I'm a couple holidays behind now, but as I said, I'm using this next week to get caught up a bit... This past Thanksgiving was the first one in 9 years that I got to spend with my immediate family. During that time, we were living on different continents and so I was either with other relatives, in France on my mission, or with Courtney's family. Anyway, we had a good time and it was my parents' first opportunity to meet little Leo!

Our Boys

2010-01-01T22:13:00.000-05:00

You gotta admit, they're pretty cute together...

We're back in Charlottesville now and so I'll be catching up on the blog over the next week . Stay tuned!

Luke's Dinner

2009-12-21T10:53:00.000-05:00

Luke enjoys his mealtimes and still manages to make it an extremely messy affair on occasion. Spaghetti night was no exception. He's gotten a lot better with a spoon and fork, but sometimes this is still the result...

Leo

2009-12-20T10:19:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've had a Leo update on here, so this post is mostly an excuse to put up a few pictures of the little guy. He's doing great! He's starting to do better on his naps and we've been able to get him down for bed at night earlier to have some free time to ourselves. And Luke is being such a good big brother, always wanting to give Leo kisses!

The first picture is of Leo and his Grandma. As you can see from all 3 pictures, the chubby cheeks are coming along quite well!

That's some serious snow...

2009-12-19T13:30:00.001-05:00

In the last 18 hours or so, we've basically been hit with about 2 feet of snow! This is by far the biggest storm we've had here in Charlottesville in the 2.5 years we've been here. And the snow is still falling! So we haven't done much of anything today, but Luke did get out to play in the snow a bit. In some places, the snow was as high as his chest!

Luke has style

2009-12-17T13:53:00.000-05:00

So one afternoon a few weeks ago, Courtney went in to get Luke out of his crib after a nap... and this is what she found....

Yeah... pants off on the floor and one arm out of his shirt... lookin' good, Luke.

Done!

2009-12-17T13:43:00.000-05:00

Phew! Done with finals! I don't know who is more relieved between Courtney and I... I'm of course happy to not have to study all day, but Courtney seems to get even more excited than me when exams are over. In any event, it's now time to catch up on some things on the blog...

Finals!

2009-12-03T14:19:00.000-05:00

We had a great Thanksgiving with my parents and sister in town! I'll update the blog later, but for now... the title of this post says it all...

It's that time of year...

2009-11-23T15:30:00.000-05:00

It's getting to be that time of year when I have to start picking up the studying as finals are approaching (less than 2 weeks!). Fortunately, this third year hasn't been as intense. My parents are coming this week for Thanksgiving, so that should be fun! I'm sure Luke and Leo will enjoy having their grandparents in town!

Good Pals

2009-11-11T18:23:00.007-05:00

Luke just loves Leo! He's always saying Leo's name and saying "hi" to Leo and wanting to give him kisses, even though Leo doesn't say much in return. He's been such a good big brother so far!

A Week in the Life of Leo

2009-11-02T19:31:00.005-05:00

Leo is one week old today! It's been a great week, though it'll take some getting used to saying that we're now a family of 4! Here are some pictures from Leo's first week:

Batman!

2009-11-01T20:41:00.004-05:00

Luke was Batman for Halloween yesterday. I must say he looked pretty cute. Courtney did a great job on his costume. We took him to the Downtown Mall for some trick-or-treating around the stores (this was also Leo's first outing!). Later last night, we took him around our apartment complex for some more trick-or-treating. My sister, Kari, came to stay with us for the weekend, and she took care of Leo while we were out.

Tomorrow, I'll try to get some more pics up of little Leo. He's doing great!

He's here!

2009-10-27T09:32:00.004-04:00

Leo Stratton Riddles, born October 26, 2009 (8 days early), 8 lbs. 2 oz.

Courtney and Leo are both doing great! More details to follow... :)

Plans for the Future

2009-10-17T22:11:00.002-04:00

A brief conversation that Luke and I had this evening...

Me: Hey Luke, are you going to go to Duke or to BYU?

Luke: Cougar!

Well, I guess we all know where he stands right now! And we'd be happy with either choice.

In all fairness to Duke, though, he finds it much easier to say Cougar than Blue Devil right now. In fact, whether I'm wearing a Duke shirt or a BYU shirt, he always points to the mascot and says "Cougar." Good times.

Getting Ready for Bed

2009-10-13T22:12:00.004-04:00

Just a couple quick pictures of Luke and Mommy right before bedtime...

Carter Mountain

2009-10-10T15:50:00.004-04:00

This morning, we went to the Carter Mountain Apple Orchard over by Monticello, which is about 15 minutes from where we live. We had a great time picking apples, though Luke got right down to business. We helped him pick an apple, which he grabbed and then immediately began to eat. It must have been a good apple, because he held on to it and munched at it for quite a while... until it was completely gone. And when I say completely gone, I mean it; he ate the core and everything! We also went on a hay ride and got some tasty apple donuts. Being able to do things like this is one of the many great things about living here in Charlottesville.

U2!

2009-10-05T12:17:00.006-04:00

Last Thursday, Courtney and I went to the U2 concert here in Charlottesville at UVA's football stadium. It was awesome! Neither of us had really been to a concert before, so it was quite the introduction. We enjoyed the music, the atmosphere, and overall, just had a great time. Unfortunately, though, we somehow managed to forget our camera. This is a friend's picture from a different vantage point, but you get the idea.

In other news, it's Fall Break now, meaning I get a few days off of school. Luke has had a bad cold the last few days, but I think he's starting to get over it now.

The Cable TV Saga

2009-09-30T14:17:00.004-04:00

About 3 weeks ago, we decided that we were going to upgrade our cable. Before, we were just getting the network channels on a basic cable plan. Some of the higher channels came through, but they were fuzzy. One of these fuzzy channels in question was ESPN (aka the Duke Basketball Channel during college basketball season). Last year, though the picture wasn't that great, it was good enough to tolerate watching. But when we came back from summer break, the picture was worse than before, seriously jeopardizing our Duke basketball viewing enjoyment! Comcast had a decent 6 month deal for a digital cable upgrade, so we decided to go with it. Then we found out DVR would only be another $6.95 a month... long story short we are now happily enjoying our DVR and getting a clear picture beyond just the network stations.

It has been a bit of a long story, though... the cable guy came by on September 8 and got us upgraded to digital cable, but he said that they were all out of DVR boxes. He said he'd schedule us in for an appointment two weeks later to install a DVR box. That was fine; besides our short stint in Cleveland this past summer, we've never had DVR anyway, so another two weeks wouldn't hurt. Fast forward two week later... we wait around at home "between 2-5pm" and no one ever shows up or calls. So that evening I call Comcast to find out what happened. The guy on the other end of the line wasn't very helpful, and to be honest, was bordering on being rude. He basically said, "we're still out of the DVR boxes... I don't know when we'll get any... if you don't hear from us in another two weeks or so, give us a call again..." Predictably, I wasn't too happy, particularly since no one bothered to tell us they weren't going to be showing up "between 2-5pm" that day. But if the story ended here, I would've gotten over it and accepted the fact that while the guy on the phone wasn't very "friendly" about it, if they didn't have any DVR boxes, there was nothing to be done.

Of course, the story doesn't end there. After I got off the phone, I decided to get on the Comcast website and try again to see what the deal was by using their "live chat" feature. It was like a total 180 from the phone experience. The guy on the chat was not only very personable and helpful, he gave us a $20 credit on our bill since no one showed up and set up an appointment for 2 days later for someone to come install our DVR box. That was a pleasant surprise. I was still a bit skeptical, since the guy on the phone flatly said they didn't have any DVR boxes, but sure enough, 2 days later, a technician showed up right at 2pm, installed our DVR box, and the rest is history!

I guess this became a pretty long post about something quite mundane, but it was just a really interesting experience to have been treated so differently by Comcast, with the only difference being the person I interacted with. Anyway, so all is well now. :)

Playin' in the Rain

2009-09-26T19:42:00.003-04:00

Courtney had some activities this afternoon and evening at church, leaving us boys at home. Luke and I had a good time, though it was a bit of a challenge considering it was pouring down rain the whole time and we didn't have a car. Luke insisted on wanting to go outside, though, so we got our rain gear on and headed out. Luke really wanted to be out in the rain, but only on the condition that I hold him. So we took a lap around the apartment complex in the rain, as he held out his hand to catch the rain... it was quality father/son time. :)

Luke is a cool dude

2009-09-12T19:53:00.003-04:00

Luke loves putting on our sunglasses, and he was pretty happy when he found this pair of baby sunglasses that one of his friends accidentally left at our apartment.

As a segue to talking about sports, we took this picture during the BYU-Tulane game today. It was supposed to be an easy game for BYU, and so it's good that it turned out to be easy, with a solid 54-3 win. Duke also got a win today against Army, so it was a great day of football! UVA lost, unfortunately, but they lost to TCU, one of the strongest teams BYU has left on its schedule, so it'll make a BYU win that much more impressive if TCU is also ranked high when they play. Anyway...

It's official...

2009-09-07T17:11:00.002-04:00

...we're going to Cleveland! I received an offer to return full-time to Jones Day in Cleveland a few weeks ago, and this past week we got the official offer letter in the mail. I called this morning to formally accept. Especially in this economic climate, we feel really happy to have this opportunity and to know where we'll be after I graduate from law school next May. As hard as it is to believe, one day I'll actually be done with school!

(And I realize this is yet another post without Luke pictures... I hope you don't mind too much.) ;)

BYU 14 Oklahoma 13

2009-09-05T22:48:00.002-04:00

Woohoo! Ok, this blog will get back to its regularly scheduled programming soon, but for now, we pause in celebration of BYU's big victory against Oklahoma. Go Cougars!

Football!

2009-09-04T20:31:00.003-04:00

College football season is upon us. Finally. We're pretty big sports fans around here, particularly when it comes to college football and of course, college basketball. If anyone was to doubt how big of a Duke fan I am, the fact that I'm pumped about Duke football should say it all. David Cutcliffe is turning that program around, but it'll still take some time. I'm thinking a record of 5-7 is possible and maybe we'll go bowling in the next 2-3 years. And of course, there's Courtney's alma mater, BYU... they're playing Oklahoma tomorrow night at the Dallas Cowboys' new stadium on ESPN. I'm hoping for the best, but fearing the worst. We'll see!

The Last First Day of School

2009-08-30T20:53:00.003-04:00

This past Wednesday was my last first day of school. The student life has been good, and we'll make the most out of this coming year, but we're also looking forward to getting out into the "real world." It'll certainly be an eventful year, as we await the arrival of Luke's little brother.

Luke likes bath time

2009-08-23T21:49:00.004-04:00

The picture says it all...

Luke the Musician

2009-08-20T08:27:00.004-04:00

Lately, Luke has really been into wanting to climb up on the piano bench so he can "play" the piano.

Gettysburg

2009-08-16T20:28:00.004-04:00

This past week was quite a momentous one. It was the first time Courtney and I left Luke with someone else overnight. Of course, I've been away from him when I had job interviews, etc., but this was the first time that Courtney has ever done this. We drove up to Altoona on Tuesday and then left Luke there with Courtney's parents on Wednesday and Thursday while we took a trip to Gettysburg. We had a great time, and we were happy to hear that Luke had a great time, too! So it was a win-win situation for everyone.

Gettysburg was quite the experience. Spending time there really gets you thinking about the sacrifices that so many made so this country could be united and strong as it is today. We got there after lunch on Wednesday and spent the afternoon at the new visitor center and museum, which included a film and a cyclorama, apparently the largest painting in America. On Thursday, we toured the battlefield park itself in our car. It was a 24 mile long route with periodic stops where we got out and could learn about what happened at that particular spot. We also went on two park ranger-guided talks, including one which was probably our favorite part of the trip. A ranger led a tour and talked about Pickett's Charge, showing us all the intricacies of what happened. We also saw where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address.

But anyway, we're now back in C'ville getting settled in before school starts up again in a week and a half. It's been a good summer.

...And since the main attraction of this family blog is Luke, here are a couple recent pictures of him. The first is with his cousins, and the second shows him in his daddy's hat (he loves putting on this hat).

"The boys..."

2009-08-07T22:14:00.002-04:00

...That's what we'll be calling our kids when the second one comes along, because we just found out yesterday that Luke is going to have a little brother! Since we were gone all summer, we put off having the detailed ultrasound until now, so there's actually less than 3 months to go. And the baby is measuring about 9 days ahead of his due date (Nov. 3), so who knows. After Luke came 4 weeks early, we don't know what to expect!

Heading Back Home

2009-08-02T17:39:00.004-04:00

Our (very short) time in Cleveland has come to an end. Courtney and Luke are leaving tomorrow to spend a couple days in Altoona before coming home. I'll be leaving in the rental car Tuesday morning for C'ville. It's been a fun summer and things went well with my internships, but we're ready to get home.

Yesterday, we went to the "Farm Park." It's basically a mini-zoo with a bunch of farm animals (sheep, goats, cows, pigs, chickens, etc.) all over the place. All in all, Luke liked it, though he was sometimes a bit wary of getting too close to the loud sheep.

Here is Luke with "Tonya" the turkey. They became pretty good friends:

And then here's a totally random picture of Luke enjoying a particularly messy dinner:

Happy Half-Birthday, Luke!

2009-07-27T19:26:00.003-04:00

Luke turned 18 months old today! As with much in life, the time has seemed to fly by, and yet, at the same time, it's as if Luke has always been a part of our family. He got to go to the zoo today, and then once I got home from work, we gave Luke a few presents. He got a huge fake food toy set, a big playdoh pack, and some animal figures. With him being such a big fan of eating, it came as no surprise that he really liked going through all the "food."

More From Cleveland

2009-07-19T10:58:00.006-04:00

A lot of my side of the family is in Houston now to celebrate some birthdays. I was talking to my mom yesterday and found out that it was almost 100 degrees there. I chimed in that it was sunny and about 70 degrees up here in Cleveland. That's been one great thing about the last two summers, we've been able to head north for the summer and then go back down south for the winter. I think we're still in denial that we're going to have to actually live through a Pittsburgh or Cleveland winter one of these days...

But anyway, we've been having a good time here, as we did in Pittsburgh. I've had a lot of work events, in addition to the actual work itself, but they've mostly been during the day, so it hasn't taken away from getting home on time. One of these events was a tour of the Cleveland Cavaliers' arena. I did this last year, and it was one of my favorite events. We got to see the locker room, and saw that Lebron James was there (his stuff was out around his lockers... yes, he gets 2 lockers, while everyone else on the team had one). We were broken up into two smaller groups for the tour, and of course... the other group actually ran into him and got to meet him, but my group didn't. We did see one of the other players at least.

Luke's doing great as usual, he doesn't seem to mind being in new places. We haven't really taken any pictures yet here, but here's some from a spray park back in Pittsburgh. Luke loves it! We have one close by here in Cleveland, too.

These pictures are from a trip Luke and Courtney took to Altoona back when we were in Pittsburgh for one of his cousin's birthday party.

Cleveland!

2009-07-18T14:27:00.003-04:00

...Ok, so we've actually been here for two weeks now. I'm a little behind on updating the blog, the weekends have been very busy lately! We moved here from Pittsbugh on the Fourth of July, so our holiday was a bit unconventional. In fact, we ended up having spaghetti for dinner that night (not exactly traditional July 4th food, but it was good!). Then, this past weekend, we went to Altoona for Courtney's mom's birthday. Amazingly enough, our time here in Cleveland is already halfway over, but we're enjoying it. We live on the same street where John Heisman (as in, the "Heisman" Trophy) was born... and speaking of our street, it is also apparently home to a skunk. I've now seen this skunk twice wandering around probably 50 feet or so from our place.

Tomorrow, I'll post more, including a Luke update and pictures (which is what you're more interested in anyway).

The Hotel Riddles

2009-06-28T12:54:00.004-04:00

Here in Pittsburgh we're staying in a three bedroom apartment. We obviously don't need that third bedroom for ourselves, but it's definitely come in handy this past month. Courtney's parents, with some nieces and nephews in tow, made a couple overnight visits. Luke just loves hanging out with his cousins! They went to the park, Chuck-E-Cheese, and the Strip District (a cool market where you can find just about any kind of food you'd ever want).

Then last weekend, my parents flew into town and my sister drove up from Washington DC. We went to the playground just up the street several times, went out to eat, and went to the Phipps Conservatory (a huge indoor botanical garden).

Amazingly enough, we have less than a week to go in Pittsburgh before we head to Cleveland for the month of July!

Trip to the Zoo

2009-06-14T19:36:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, we visited the Pittsburgh Zoo. The best part about it was that it was free! We even got dinner out of it! The firm gave us free passes to the zoo for the day, and then at night, there was a buffet dinner. Since Luke's best "outing time" is in the morning, we went then and saw the animals for a couple hours before coming home for his nap. None of the pictures we got are that great, but Luke really enjoyed it! He especially liked the polar bear and didn't want to leave it! We came back later in the day for the dinner, which was nice, because it gave Courtney the opportunity to meet a lot of the people I work with.

Exploring Pittsburgh

2009-05-31T13:21:00.010-04:00

Well, it's been a couple weeks since we've updated the blog. Not surprisingly, we're keeping pretty busy here in Pittsburgh. Work is going well for me. Law school and living in Charlottesville has been great, but its going to be really nice to be done with the "paying/taking out student loans to go to school" routine and start the "getting paid to work" thing.

Courtney and Luke have been out and about exploring Pittsburgh most days. As usual, Luke has been so excited about getting outside. And he knows what it takes to get out. We usually grab his shoes from a shelf, but he often goes and gets Mommy or Daddy's shoes so that we can go.

The other day Courtney got him out of bed in the morning, and Luke immediately pointed to go downstairs. Then he pointed at the door and insisted on going outside. So he was in his pj's, hadn't had his diaper changed, hadn't had breakfast or anything to drink, and he's wanting to go outside 30 seconds after he wakes up.

Yesterday, we all went to a park over in the Mt. Lebanon area. We're trying to get out and see different parts of the city to figure out if this is where we want to end up after law school.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, we went to Altoona to be with Courtney's family. One of her cousins was getting married, and Courtney was singing in the wedding. We dressed Luke up in a dress shirt, vest, and tie... he was looking pretty sharp! We didn't have our camera, but once we get the pictures from Courtney's parents, we'll put some up here. Luke had a great time playing with his cousins and his Grammy and Pappy.

Pittsburgh!

2009-05-16T07:00:00.004-04:00

Our next adventure begins... we arrived in Pittsburgh yesterday for my summer internship at a law firm here. We'll be here until the Fourth of July and then head to Cleveland for a month before returning to Charlottesville.

I finished up my last final a week ago. Since then, we stayed pretty busy getting packed up and cleaning our apartment for the subletters that are coming. Courtney even waxed our car. It looks good! She also had a doctor's appointment two days ago. Everything is good with the baby. We got to hear the heartbeat for the first time. The doctor said it had a "boy's heartrate" of 142. That's an old wives' tale, of course, but I hear that it's accurate about 50% of the time.

The drive up to Pittsburgh went pretty well. We made a couple stops, including a longer one at a park to eat lunch. Luke seemed to appreciate that. He has been just off the wall excited since we got here. I think it's because of all the stairs... we go up a flight of stairs to get to our apartment, and then our apartment itself is two stories.

Luke just loves being outdoors now. He goes over to the door wanting to go outside practically the minute he wakes up in the morning. To him, the only purpose of being inside seems to be to eat and sleep. Otherwise, he doesn't understand why we aren't just always outside.

Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-10T10:56:00.008-04:00

Luke and I just wanted to wish Courtney a Happy Mother's Day! Luke decided to pull together a bunch of his favorite pictures with Mommy...

Finals

2009-05-03T19:33:00.004-04:00

It's finals time. I took two exams this past week and have two more coming up this week. Over the last couple days, I've "enjoyed" spending a lot of quality time with the Internal Revenue Code. Good times.

In other news... I'll throw in a few recent pictures of Luke. He really likes imitating talking on the phone. When his Grandma or Grammy are actually on the phone, he never really wants to do it, but when it's fake, he loves it. In fact, lately he's been putting just about any toy he can fit into his hands up to his ear as if it were a phone...

Next, we've got Luke thoroughly enjoying bath time (as you can see, Mommy was also enjoying it, showing some creativity with Luke's hair)...

This last picture was right before going to church this morning. Luke was wearing one of the new shirts Grandma got for him when she and Grandpa were here in March. Luke says thank you!

Some news...

2009-04-26T22:08:00.004-04:00

...We're expecting! That's right, Luke is going to be a big brother. Courtney is about 12.5 weeks now and the baby is due November 3. The above ultrasound is of course the little guy (or gal) as of about 10 days ago when we had a doctor's appointment. Do you see him waving hello? Courtney hasn't been feeling very good. Hopefully in a couple weeks or so the morning sickness (or as Courtney would describe it "all day sickness") will go away. Other than that, everything seems to be going well so far.

Easter

2009-04-17T10:30:00.005-04:00

We all went up to Pennsylvania last weekend for Easter with Courtney's family. Luke had a great time exploring around Grammy and Pappy's house now that he can walk. (He took his first steps around 13 months and has been walking pretty well since about 14 months.) After church on Sunday, all of the kids came over for the traditional "candy hunt." Courtney's parents have quite a bit of land, and so the adults hid a whole bunch of candy and other treats all over the place for the kids to find. We simplified things for Luke a bit, putting some candy in some eggs and basically just placing them in plain sight in front of him to grab. As we've said before, he just loves being outside, so he enjoyed it.

Brackets

2009-04-05T19:21:00.002-04:00

Courtney and I have been married for nearly three years. In each of those years, we have dutifully filled out our brackets for the NCAA Tournament. Typically, this involves me doing a lot of thinking, reflecting, and even a bit of research, while Courtney will quickly jot down her picks on the spot. The first two years we did this, Courtney's bracket beat my bracket. So this year, I decided to not put too much thought into it and just fill it out in one five minute sitting. Were my results any better? Short answer: no. With UNC's win yesterday in the semifinals, Courtney has officially beaten me again for a third year in a row.

Luke also filled out a bracket... with a little help from his parents. He picked the top seed in each game, except for having Duke go all the way. And yes... he beat me, too.

(We will see if this ends up being the last college basketball post for a while or not... don't worry, before long, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming of Luke, Luke, and Luke.)

It's Over

2009-03-27T09:35:00.003-04:00

Too bad. Duke got blown out by Villanova last night and their season is over. It was a really fun season for us, getting to see almost all of their games now that we have a tv. And of course, every team but one ends their season with a loss once you make the NCAA Tournament. It's still rough, though, to see your team lose. It would have been better if both teams had played a good game and Duke still lost. I give Villanova's defense credit, but at the same time, we just played terribly. We only shot 27% from the field. Ouch.

But like I said, it was a fun year and this team did a lot of great things. We won 30 games and an ACC Championship. Duke has won more games this decade than any other college team ever has in a decade. Kyle Singler announced he'll be coming back next year. Hopefully Gerald Henderson will do the same. Perhaps the silver lining in last night's debacle is that G's horrible game (1 for 14 shooting) might encourage him to not want to end his college career on that note. If he comes back, we'll be really good next year.

So now, as is the case with every Duke fan, we now root for "whoever is playing UNC." That team now is Gonzaga. Go Zags!

March Madness!

2009-03-19T09:36:00.003-04:00

Today is the day. The NCAA Tournament begins. It's a great time of year for college basketball fans. You know, of course, who we're rooting for. This is probably Duke's best team since their last Final Four run in 2004. Courtney, Luke, and I all filled out our brackets (well, Luke might have had a little help). I tried to be a little more conservative this year, and I have Duke losing to Pitt in the Elite Eight, unfortunately. That would be playing up to the expectation of their 2 seed, and I'd be happy with that. Courtney has Duke all the way to the Final Four, and Luke... has Duke going all the way! We entitled Luke's bracket, "Luke Loves Duke." We're hoping Luke is right!

Grandma & Grandpa Come to Town

2009-03-17T08:42:00.007-04:00

My parents came from Houston for a long weekend to see me and Courtney... oh, and Luke of course. :) We had a great time, even if the weather didn't cooperate at all. After a weekend of 75 degrees and sunny, this last weekend featured rain, snow, and cold temperatures. Oh well. We still managed a visit to Ash Lawn, which was James Monroe's home, in addition to doing some shopping and watching a lot of basketball on tv. Go Duke! ACC Champions! Luke loved being the center of attention and putting on a show. He's a big fan of visits from grandparents.

Going for a Hike

2009-03-06T16:06:00.007-05:00

So remember how it was cold and snowing at the beginning of the week? Fast forward to Friday and it's now sunny and 70 degrees. It's supposed to be even warmer this weekend. Anyway, we took advantage of the great weather to go do a bit of walking/hiking at the Ragged Mountain Natural Area about 10 minutes from where we live.

Luke just loves being outdoors. He had a great time today.

Snow!

2009-03-02T13:57:00.005-05:00

We don't get snow around here very often, but last night we got about 3 inches. Interesting timing with it being "spring" break and all. But anyway, we took advantage of it by giving Luke his first opportunity to play in the snow! As with most new things, he wasn't too sure about it at first, but he was crawling around and enjoying himself before too long.

Luke Loves Doing Dishes

2009-02-23T14:27:00.003-05:00

Luke loves "helping" with the dishes. Whenever we open the dishwasher, he can hear it. Wherever he is in the apartment, he stops what he's doing and heads straight for the kitchen. The last time this happened, he handed me one piece of silverware at a time out of the dishwasher. This would've been great if the dishes were clean and I was putting things away. Unfortunately, they were dirty and I was trying to put dishes in the dishwasher. Oh well. Gotta give him credit for the effort.