I see the last time I wrote a blog post was February 7.
I'll try to remember everything that has happened since then.
Both boys had birthdays. Evan is now 17, and Noah is 15!
Noah had a great track season. He learned how to pole vault and made it to the district meet.
Evan is doing very well in baseball. He's had some great hits including a home run and a left-handed hit.
Evan has been playing ultimate frisbee and was voted player of the week. Noah joined the team at one game when they didn't have enough players, and he played well.
Noah ran the Cap10K.
We've had two Golden Retriever stashes - Teddy and Echo. Both were very cute.
Rachel, Quin, and Lennon came to visit.
We had a Passover seder at Grandma and Papa's house and celebrated Easter with the Mantis.
I gave a presentation on search engine optimization for our neighborhood networking group.
Morry and I went out to dinner at Aba. He made the reservations months ago - probably around the time of the last blog post.
Here are some videos and pictures from the last few months.
It's been a long time since last posted. It looks like it has been 12 days. In that time, the family took a trip to Tucson, and the boys also went to Fredericksburg with Grandma and Papa.
We spent 5 days in Tucson seeing Aunt Fran and Uncle Scott, Uncle Ron and Aunt Kelly, as well as Aunt Rachel, Uncle Dax, Quin and Lennon. But the real reason we were in town was to celebrate Zayde's 85th birthday. We had a nice dinner on Saturday night. On Sunday night, our host family cooked paella for everyone and we ate out in the backyard. The boys enjoyed seeing everyone.
On Friday, Grandma and Papa took the boys to Fredericksburg, TX. It's a small town about an hour west of us. They have a Pacific World War II museum there that the boys wanted to see. They really enjoyed it. Apparently, they spent about 3 hours there and could have spent more. Some of the museum was being remodeled.
This morning, Rachel and I took Chewie to Emma Long Park which has a 3-mile leashless trail. Chewie had a great time. He was really good about staying with us and any time he got hot, he'd run into the creek that the trail followed. The hike was nice as it's in the woods and fully shaded, so the temperature was not uncomfortable.
Evan was home shortly before going to Reid's house where he'll stay the night. Rachel, Noah and I had dinner at Chuy's.
Both Evan and Noah had the day off today since it's Good Friday. Evan has off on Monday as well. They both got up around 8am this morning and played in the game room until Grandmom and Rachel woke up.
At 11am, there was a thing for Mom bloggers at a party store where they showed how you could have an Alice in Wonderland party. You could have a tea party for girls or a card party with knights and things for boys. They had little cupcakes and things and the boys got to play there. Rachel said there were some older boys that Evan played with.
Grandmom and I met Rachel and the boys at Bruegger's bagels. Noah got smoked salmon on a bagel. He really likes smoked salmon.
When we got home, Grandmom made a deal with the boys that she would drive them to Toys R Us and get them something if they cleaned up the game room. Noah got GeoTrax and Evan got more Star Wars Legos.
For dinner, we went to Red Lobster where Evan and Noah shared a pound of crab. They both ate well.
When we got home Evan did FaceTime with Quin, Lennon, Aunt Rachel and Uncle Dax.
This morning, apparently, Evan got up early and was in the game room watching TV. He didn't wake us up or anything.
I came downstairs around 9:15. Evan was drawing a heart on some construction paper and coloring it in for Rachel. He went up and delivered it to her. Grandma and Papa had cut up fruit for the boys.
At 10:30 we were about ready to go out to lunch. We were planning on going to Verde's Mexican Parilla. This is the place we went to a few weeks ago. They have a field where they put a bunch of balls (footballs, soccer balls, etc..) for the kids to play with. I had tried to make reservations a few days ago but they said they didn't take reservations, just call ahead seating. We said we'd be there at 11:15. Rachel's cousin's Lauren and Aaron, and Aaron's girlfriend Mandy met us there. Aunt Susan was at our house helping Bubbe get ready.
When we got out there Aaron, Lauren and Mandy were already there. They seated us right away outside. I'm guessing that people were having a later lunch and were still at church. It was a good lunch and everyone seemed to have a good time. Evan was tired by the end, and therefore in a cranky mood. When he crumpled up his menu and threw it, I took him out to the car and waited there until everyone was done.
At home, Rachel and Noah napped while I did some work. While I was doing work, Dax, Quin, Rachel and Lennon called us on Skype. Evan was very happy to see Quin and talk to him. Lennon was so funny. She didn't stop making noise the whole time.
For dinner, we just had leftovers.
The boys are in their rooms but not sleeping, of course.
We started a tradition when Evan turned 3 that we took him to Chuck E. Cheese's for his birthday. We have not gone any other day during the year. Just on his birthday. Since he was in school yesterday, we decided to push it back one day and celebrate Evan and Noah's birthday one last time. It's much nicer to go during the week for lunch because no one is there.
Before we went to Chuck E. Cheese's, Rachel took the boys down to the lake to go for a run. She was able to run some but the boys are getting heavy in the stroller and it was very very windy today. I think she was running into the wind.
Rachel and the boys picked me up from work and we drove to Chuck E. Cheese's. Noah complained on the way that he needed to go the bathroom. As soon as we got there, I took him to go. We got some tokens and played a bit. Then we ordered our pizza. Noah said he wanted pepperoni, but we didn't get any. He only eats one or two pieces and he's the only one who would eat pepperoni. Also, he always eats cheese pizza. When the pizza came, he threw a fit that he wanted pepperoni. He got himself worked up and was very annoying. He ended up not eating lunch.
We played for a bit longer and then left since Noah was not behaving that well. Rachel and the boys dropped me back off at work.
When Rachel got home, she put Noah in his room. He was angry and threw stuff. Then he needed to go to the bathroom. Rachel put him back into his room where he eventually fell asleep.
I got home and the boys and I watched Space Jam on TV while I made dinner.
After dinner, Evan talked to Quin a bit on the phone and then to Bubbe as they wanted to wish him a happy birthday.
We just spent the last 4 days in Tucson, AZ visiting my sister. We flew in on Friday night and flew back today (and boy, are our arms tired).
Our first day started off with a shock. That is when Gabrielle Giffords was shot at a "Congress on the Corner" event she was hosting. For those of you that don't know, my sister was featured in a commercial for Gabrielle Giffords during this last campaign. In fact, my sister supports Giffords so much she would have been at that event if we hadn't come in to visit, since it was fairly close to her house. Needless to say, my sister was distraught over the news.
My nephew Quin is Evan's age and they both like the same things. The boys played really well together the entire time. When the Giffords' news broke, we took Quin out for some lunch at a restaurant called Bobo's. It was very good.
We also got to meet my niece, Lennon. She was born in May but unfortunately we have not been able to see her. She is really cute.
On Sunday, we went to the Desert Musuem. The kids seemed to enjoy their time there as well. We saw a friend of mine who lives in Tucson. She met us there.
Monday, we decided to drive up to the Mt. Lemmon Ski Resort. It is about an hour to an hour an a half from Tucson. Our boys have never seen deep snow. Quin hadn't either. They all really loved it. Evan and Noah loved it so much they didn't want to get back in the car - especially Evan. Evan was busy making snowballs and throwing them. We ate lunch up there and got some fudge as well.
Today, we had lunch on the University of Arizona campus. The whole trip was really nice and Evan kept saying he was sad to not be with Quin. It was just nice seeing how much they enjoyed it.
Hello everyone, this is Morry. Rachel is talking to her parents so I have the job of recapping our trip to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Our flight from Austin to Philadelphia was fairly uneventful, thankfully. Noah was pretty antsy at the beginning but he ended up sleeping for the last 2/3 of the flight.
At my mom's house, Evan and Noah stayed in the same room as their cousin, Quin, who is also 3. We put Evan and Noah down first and we could hear Evan and Noah playing and laughing. My sister, Rachel, got Quin ready for bed and had him lay down in their bed to start. Then she read Quin the riot act about talking when she moved him to the bedroom with Evan and Noah. As soon as Quin was in bed, we heard Evan say "How old are you? How old are you?" and then we heard Quin say "shhhh!" It was funny. The boys didn't sleep for a long time.
The second day we went to Ruby's for lunch where they had trains going around the ceiling. Evan loved that and he and Quin had their played with their menus that turned into planes. They'd pretend to crash them into each other. Ruby's is a GREAT place for kids. That night my mom hosted a nice party for all of the guests for my dad's party (the reason we went to Philly). There was also an eventful time with a photographer who had zero clue about how to work with small children. He was sort of an embarrassment.
The next day was my dad's 75th birthday party. It was a very nice event and it was really nice to see all these people show up for my dad. My dad has made a very nice life for himself and that's great. The restaurant's food was good, but they were very slow to serve food. The party started at 6:30 but food did not start to be served until after 8pm. Luckily the room was fairly big and Evan and Quin ran around playing with each other. Also Aunt Fran and Uncle Scott were a BIG help playing with the boys. Uncle Ron got to meet the boys for the first time.
On the fourth day, we met downtown for brunch and then took a double decker bus tour of Philadelphia. Evan had seen a double decker bus tour in Garfield 2 and had really wanted to do it. Both boys loved it but eventually fell asleep on the ride. I found some of the things on the tour very interesting and I hadn't heard it before. That night Evan and Noah were playing with each other when they were supposed to be sleeping. I heard all this banging. I went up there and Evan told me he needed a diaper change. While I was changing his diaper, I asked him what the banging was. He said "nothing". I said it wasn't nothing, so he said he was clapping. I said he wasn't clapping because it was banging on the floor. His next excuse was that it was Lizzy. I can't believe he blamed the dog that was 1500 miles away. What a character!
The following day we took the boys to McDonald's as a sort of present for behaving so well. That night we put the boys down for bed and Rachel and I went to see Angels & Demons. The movie was very good.
Our last day in Philadelphia we went to see my mom's friend and my old boss and friend, Najib Nadi from the Villanova Computer Science department. It was really great geting to see him and I think the boys enjoyed being on a college campus. That night we went to see my friends Linda and Jeff, and their 3 little ones, Madison who is 5, and the twins, Luke and Ethan who are 15 months old. Evan and Noah loved playing with new toys and it was nice for me to be able to see my friends.
Thursday we rented a minivan, picked up my dad at the train station, and drove to Pittsburgh. The boys did very well on the trip. We only stopped once. We ate dinner at friends of mine, the Gordons. They have a little girl Rebecca who is now 8 and Dora who is 3. Again, I think the boys liked playing with new toys.
Friday saw us going to breakfast with my dad and my Aunt Eleanor. My Aunt Eleanor, who is 87, just looks wonderful. Noah played with her at breakfast. Then we went to the Carnegie Science Center. We saw a bunch of things that were great for kids including a massive miniature train set. Evan thought it was great. The Science Center is next to Heinz Field and Evan kept asking if that's where the Steelers and Roethlisberger played. Then we went to Rachel's cousin, Trent's house, for dinner. He has two boys that are 11 and a little girl who is 7. The boys, Taylor and Carter, play lacrosse. They had a little lacrosse stick that they showed Evan how to use. Evan thought he was one of the big kids. He loved playing with them. We couldn't get him away.
The next day, Saturday, we went to Aunt Eleanor's for lunch. My uncles Arnold and Dave and Uncle Dave's wife Estelle came over. Also my dad's cousin (my cousin too) Rita came over as well as Aunt Eleanor's daughter, Ann, and her husband Alan. Ann had dropped off toys for the boys to play with, plus Aunt Eleanor had bought some toys for Evan and Noah. Both boys were excellent. Later in the day we drove out to my friend from college, Katy's house. She and her husband, Rex, have two little boys - Aidan who is a month younger than Jamieson who will be 2 in August. They have a great house in a Pittsburgh suburb with a great basement and a nice pool. They cooked us dinner and then we went to Dairy Queen for dessert.
Our last day on the trip we met up with the Gordons again as well as my old bosses and friends Tom and Marianne Anderson. The restaurant was a great restaurant for the kids but it was a bit slow with service. Then we took Evan and Noah on the incline in Pittsburgh. Noah was so excited and kept yelling and pointing things as we went up and down. I think Evan thought it was really neat as well.
Today was my first day at my new job at TicketCity. I'm the new Development Director there. The first day went very well.
Rachel took the boys to the zoo and both boys fed the animals.
Not only is October tough because of all of the breast cancer awareness promotions, but it is also the anniversary of the beginning of my journey back in 2009.
Angelina says, "There is more than one way to deal with any health issue. The most important thing is to learn about the options and choose what is right for you personally." I appreciate Angelina Jolie and all of the others that have chosen to be open about their health and share personal details.
Shortly after I finished chemo, my feet started feeling like someone took a hammer to them. At first, I thought I had an injury or arthritis. I went to a podiatrist and a rheumatologist, but they couldn’t find anything noticeably wrong. My x-rays looked fine.
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