Grandma and Grandpa Crumrine

29 July 2008

Our trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa Crumrine began with Amelia's first airplane ride. Proving me totally wrong (I sort of wanted to drive) Amelia was super good on both legs of the flight. The only real problem was how tired Heidi and I were. We left our house at 4am but I was nervous about missing the flight so I was awake at 3am. This left me feeling a little brain dead and I almost lost our boarding passes 3 times just in the process of trying to get coffee and some fruit.

All of the flight attendants were really kind and interested in Amelia. And the passengers seated near us were very understanding that a baby might cry a little on a plane flight. She did fuss a little on both flights but I was able to rock her and she calmed and went right back to sleep.















When we arrived in Columbus we got the rental car and went straight to Chipotle. Chipotle has great burritos and tacos and there is not one near us in NH so we took this opportunity to get some of our favorite food. Then we were on the road to Tiffin.

My parents were puttering around in the front yard so they were right there to see Amelia the moment we drove in. This is the first picture of them with their second granddaughter.

Swimming in the Pool

Well we finally got out to Tiffin to show Amelia to her Grandpa and Grandma Crumrine. They of course were keeping up on the blog, but there is nothing like the real thing.

This little video is of Amelia in a small pool that my Dad got for Katelyn to swim in. Amelia likes it too but she can't quite sit up yet so it is a little back breaking to hold her in it. We were having a great time cooling off with Amelia when a strange look came over her face and she soon filled the pool with one of her special gifts. Let's just say it took longer to clean the pool than it did to fill it up. My dad and I scooped out the water with buckets and then used bleach wipes to do the final cleanup.

I guess we learned our lesson about letting her swim naked. We had this odd notion that for some reason she wouldn't go in the water. Thinking back I don't know where the idea came from--probably a really dumb part of my mind.

Slackers

We have been slacking on entries because we have been fully enjoying vacation. But I think this one will pique your interest.

And here is another one. We were so excited that she is moving towards a stage where she can entertain herself a little bit. Of course it only lasts for 10 minutes and she must be constantly monitored.

Here is a photo from our 2nd anniversary dinner.

Heidi's Victory

This will be short. But I wanted to share that I beat Tom in TWO games of cornhole about two weeks ago. Anyone who has ever played against Tom knows what a major victory this is. It doesn't matter that he was holding Amelia and playing left handed...I STILL WON.

All Fine in Barnstead

This week we were at a conference in NJ and yesterday started receiving calls and emails worried about how we had fared in the storm. We had calls from as far away as Ohio wondering how everything was for us. Needless to say we were pretty suprised and a little bit worried when we went to the local paper site and found:

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

After seeing pictures of our own road with power lines down we called our neighbor to find out the news. But, before calling we said to each other that it might be a good thing if the house was knocked down--then we could gather the insurance money and move to Concord :) When we called however we were very relieved to find that our house was fine and we didn't have to invoke Plan Glass Half Full.

We are travelling home today so if we find any interesting pictures we will put them here.

Thanks to all for your concern. It was really great to get so many calls and emails worrying about us.

Rhode Island with Rosie and Andrew

This weekend we said farewell to our great friends Rosie and Andrew who are going to teach abroad for the next 2 years.

Here are some pictures from their going away party in Rhode Island.

http://picasaweb.google.com/crumlives/RhodeIsland?authkey=AF-r_OxqP6k

Heath and David come to visit

July 2008

Sunday-Tuesday Heath and David came to visit. We went up to the Boulder's on Squam Lake.

We took a tour of Squam in our boat.

And we saw Matt and Heidi. I promise that I am holding Amelia securely in this picture--she really likes this type of head rocking thing.

We also saw Amelia's future godmother, Margie, but I forgot to bring the camera. We were super excited to have her see Amelia for the first time and wish her head well !

Rolling...

Here are some funny pictures of Amelia holding up her head and rolling -- and then getting herself into some funny spots. Hope this link works -- this is Heidi, the less tech savy one of the operation.

http://picasaweb.google.com/crumlives/MoreLakeGeorge/photo?authkey=1n9DevOK6vo#5221193338537648770

Uh Oh....

Amelia rolled over from her belly to her back today... we are really in for it... she now rolls in both directions!

Pictures are coming...

Vanya's Boat II

http://picasaweb.google.com/crumlives/VanyaSBoatII?authkey=9qoB1DQbtMw

Lake George and Vanya's boat.

In Baby news Amelia rolled over twice and managed to fall out of her swing. Yep--we are terrible parents. No permanent damage though :)

BIG NEWS!

Big Amelia news today -- she rolled over! She has been really close for a week or so but finally today she moved her arm out of the way and landed on her belly. And scared herself and started crying. We took a picture, but unfortunatley it is obsence. She was naked and the shot is from behind - so you can understand why we're not posting it. We'll try for another one next time! Here's another cute picture from Lake George

Vanya's Boat

http://picasaweb.google.com/crumlives/VanyaSBoat?authkey=wafQVHPTjiI

These are some pictures of a boat that I am building with Winter and Vanya. Winter is a wooden boat expert and afficionado who seems to me to be in his 60s but I am told he is older. Vanya is Heidi's cousin who I am pretty sure is 17 or maybe 16 and I of course am 35 so it is truly an intergenerational project.

Vanya, like all 16 year olds, has been pretty busy so I'm helping out with some of the not so fun for 16 year old parts of boat building. (Those parts are very fun for Winter and me though.) We are going to leave the painting of the boat to Vanya. I know that he is quite an artist so it may be a fantastically original paint job.

If you look at the pictures you can see that it has been an interesting job. The main problem, well there are many big problems, but I think the main one is that the directions are nearly indecipherable and the schematic drawings have been downsized to the point where you can no longer read the numbers. The guy who wrote the directions, Jim Shotwell, is a great and kind guy but clearly is not great at translating his great knowledge of boats to text. So I have basically been progressing to make it look boat like. The other problem with the decking of the boat is that they sent the plywood pieces in sections that were not the full length of the boat. This meant that there is a seam in the middle of the long axis, a seam that does not match up with any of the structure of the boat. Design grade = D-.

As with any project I have learned many things that I could do better the next time around. Things that I can't fix on the current project but could fix at some future point. Sorry about that Vanya :)

Oh-for anyone that is still reading--the picture of the Lake George House was my idea of a joke. It is the biggest house on Lake George and owned by one of the owners of the Red Sox. Our house is wonderful beyond belief--but slightly smaller.

Liz and Amelia

Katie, Amelia and Jim

Grandmother and Amelia.

Tom and Amelia

Our Lake George House--a view from the water.

Grandmother and Baby

Grandmother and Baby!

Swimming With Amelia

Swimming with Amelia! She loves to swim! Or at least she doesn't scream when she gets in the water - she looks around and enjoys being underwater (with her head out, obviously...)

Sunset at Lake George

Tonight I’m standing on the dock at Lake George, holding an old rope that is looped over one of the rafters and hangs down near the bow of the boat. I’m looking over Katskill Bay and there is a sailboat gliding along and a solitary motor boat putting along at a reserved pace. The sun is just beginning to dip below the western mountains and it is giving a purple pink glow to the scene.

As I continue to look now the sail boat is heading for home. Its sail is limp being pushed by barely a breeze—and now totally down as the captain starts the motor to take it into its dock. Now a ski boat loops through pulling a man with a way too bent over posture. The kind where one is bent at the waist trying to hold the butt back to ski. It looks uncomfortable and from experience I know that it is.

But now that skier has had his turn and the ace of their family is slaloming behind the boat. This guy is good. When you think water skiing (imagine a picture of rooster tails of water and exquisite form) you thing of this guy. And now they are off. The sun is low enough that marine patrol would have their necks so they have packed it in for the day. The water beckons but the light won’t allow more skiing.

A duck about 200 meters away moves incrementally toward shore. Maybe done fishing for the day? Gulls—about 10—swoop over the center of the bay…

Flaunting the rules the skiers are back! Man! He just did an awesome jump on the wakeboard. Clearly they don’t know that the marine patrol officer lives in this bay. At the same time I remember Buckeye Lake and awesome skies in total darkness—so I wish them well. And seriously you should have seen this jump.

The distant mountains are navy now. They have lost all of their features and are just a looming line on the horizon. When morning comes again their crags and tall trees and rocky outcroppings will be visible again, but not until morning…

Post 100 from Lake George

2 July 2008

100 posts about Amelia--wow! We all hope you have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy following the trials and travails of Amelia and her parents. We made this site to keep anyone who was interested in Amelia updated on her progress and have been very happy that so many have told us that they liked it.

We arrived at Lake George yesterday and are looking forward to a very fun stay for the fourth of July weekend. The highlight of today was when Heidi took Amelia swimming for the very first time. Amelia seemed to love it and floated in the water with Heidi for about 15 minutes. She had a smile on her face the whole time and she didn't even turn blue.

The big work of the day was the purchase by Grammy and Aunt Liz of some new deck furniture. Last night I sat down and crushed the old wooden bench. After that they calculated that the old furniture was 27 years old so they decided that was enough use and set off to Lowe's to buy some new stuff. I was very excited that the hardest part of the setup was cutting the zip ties off of the packaging. Everything else went together with minimal work. It is perfect timing for Amelia because the table came with a giant sun umbrella that will enable her to be out on the sunny deck with us all summer long.

OK--Heidi needs to shower--I'm off.