Leaving

Tomorrow will be our last day in Williamsburg. Wow. It's been a busy, and bittersweet, couple of weeks.

My birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and Dan was kind enough to sneakily arrange to have Elio go hang out with his buddy Charlie so that we could go see a movie. Here's Elio and Charlie riding in the stroller and plotting to escape to the great outdoors...

My Dad came to visit last weekend. He put some stuff in boxes for us, and we went to Jamestown to explore.


Charlie's dad, Danny, is an archaeologist at Jamestown (coolest job in the Williamsburg area!), and he showed us the nifty bag of stuff they'd dug up that morning. Looks like they were digging up babies that day.


In Elio news land, he's taken his first steps! He can only take two or three steps by himself before he falls down, but he's super close to really taking off. This picture captures one of those early steps. You can see he's busy moving a cable from one part of the room to another.


Better than walking, though, is going for a wheely bug ride.

Just as fun as a wheely bug ride is crawling through a box tunnel!



Or climbing over stuff to get into the forbidden, non-babyproofed zones...


So, next post will be from New Orleans. Wish us, the cats, and the kid luck on the drive.

NOLA

Whew. We just returned from a grueling weekend of house-hunting in New Orleans. We must have looked at over 25 places--the historic, the slanted, the crumbling, the too expensive, and the downright appalling. Luckily, we ended up landing a terrific little rental house that was head and shoulders above the rest. It'll have a guest room waiting for you all to come visit (subtle hint hint).

Elio was a trooper through it all. For the most part, he was a patient little guy as we drove up and down just about every street in Uptown New Orleans, looking for "for rent" signs.

The best part of the trip was staying with our friends Edie and Justin. Elio got to play with their son, Mose, who is super adorable and who was kind enough to share his toys.


After a long, sweaty day of apartment hunting, a drink by the pool is very refreshing.





The kitchen in the house we rented! So beautiful!


Elio in the New Orleans airport. The arty-80s sculpture only looks like it's going to topple on him.


One more thing: Pasta. How does this stuff work?

Pool party

The day after we got back from Minnesota, we ran into Larkin and Charlie at the grocery store and ended up going to their house for a dip in the pool.





After a swim, there's nothing better than a nice piece of zucchini bread.

Hello, Minnesota!

Elio spent his first birthday in Minnesota. He had a great time with his grandparents, and really got a kick out of opening and closing every kitchen cabinet and rearranging all the pots and pans.






Dan worked with Elio on some duets...


We took Elio to the Como Park Zoo, which was great. Particularly since they're constructing a new polar bear exhibit, so Elio could watch some construction equipment in action.


Check out the adorable monster t-shirt our friend Angi made!

Hanging with Zoe...