Luke the Musician

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

Gettysburg

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..."

...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

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!

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

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!

...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).