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).

The Hotel Riddles

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

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

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!

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.