One more day!

Jack's excited!
Tomorrow, Jack not only gets to visit with his Grandma Nold, but he'll also get to see his Grammy and Grampy Jarvis and Uncle Paul. Thanksgiving was the last time we saw them. We won't get to visit with them for long, but we're looking forward to it!
Also happy birthday today to Uncle John!

Whatchyou Talkin About Willis?

Today we bid a sad farewell to the Sears Tower. For those of you that don't know, the Chicago icon is under new ownership and has been renamed the Willis Tower. However, I believe most Chicagoans will disregard the stupid new name and still call it the Sears Tower. This was my favorite quote from the newspaper: "The only way I will ever call it the Willis Tower is if they change the name of the Hancock Building to Arnold."

On different note, here's some video of Jack walking. This past week he's gotten a lot stronger and gained more confidence, so he can move around pretty well. His walk is still a little Frankenstein-esque, but at least he's moved past the orangutan phase and doesn't hold his arms over his head when he walks anymore.

Lake weekend

We just got back from the lake house about an hour ago. Jack was pooped from a full day of playing, so he went to sleep as quickly as we could get him changed, bathed, and in the bed. Jack had also literally pooped--apparently we're starting a new tradition in our travels. On both return trips from the lake the past couple weekends, Jack has entered dumping mode right after we've entered the city of Chicago. And they've been impressive dumps both times. It's such a treat to have that to look forward to when we're trying to get home and unload the car.

It was pretty hot on Saturday, so Jack spent the afternoon in just a t-shirt and diaper. He loves to play with the magnets on the fridge (at home he doesn't get to do this because magnets don't stick to our stainless steel fridge). He's only got 4 magnets to play with...looks like I need to get some more.


He was also drawn to the sunny areas on the porch. That little car continues to be one of his favorite toys.


Not to be outdone, Lou sneaked out the back door and also found a nice sun spot to curl up in (he's on the walkway by the garage).


On Saturday, Jack showed more interest in the water than he had previously, so this morning I blew up this floaty water toy for him to try out. He was a little hesitant at first, but after a while he really got into it.



Lou was so worn out that he passed out on the deck, still wearing his life jacket.


Finally, here's a couple videos of Jack. I took the first one right after he got in the water. The second one was taken later, so you can see how much more fun he was having. Jack also shows off his newly developed ear-piercing squeal. He mainly does it when he gets excited, but sometimes he'll squeal just to hear himself make noise. It was a little embarrassing when he kept doing it in the grocery store on Saturday.

Jack and Lou

Unfortunately for Lou, Jack loves his dog bed. Lou is often gets pushed to the floor, but at least he's a good sport about it.



Jack sometimes tries to lay on top of Lou, but he rolls off so quickly I never can get a good shot of him doing it.




Have a good weekend, everyone! We'll be at the lake house in Michigan.

4th of July weekend

We had a great holiday weekend at the lake house in Michigan! Here are some pictures of Andy and Jack sightseeing out by the water. The weather was a little colder than we would have liked most of the weekend, but at least the predicted thunderstorms bypassed us on the 4th so we could watch fireworks.

Several of the residents on the lake set off their own fireworks, and they put on a pretty good show. Amazingly, Jack slept through the whole thing. I had a fan running in his room to help drown out the noise, but I was sure some of the really loud fireworks would wake him him. Happily, he proved me wrong!

Jack actually slept great every night we were there. He slept until at least 8:00 every morning, which is unheard of for him. I'm not sure if he was really exhausted, or if it was the lack of early morning sunlight in his room. The room he slept in was much darker than his room at home--which is why I promptly went out today and bought some curtains in hopes that he'll continue his good sleeping here!


Lou also got to go out on the water, since we got him a spiffy new life jacket. (I know dogs can swim, but Staffordshire terriers can't swim very well with their thick bodies and relatively scrawny legs.) Lou put up with the life jacket surprisingly well, and it had the added benefit (for us, at least) of slowing him down since it forced his run into more of a waddle. Lou got in the water a couple times and seemed to enjoy himself.


Aunt Lisa, Jack, and Lou on the boat. Jack kept this ticked-off expression on his face pretty much the whole time we were on the boat.


Lou is such an anxious dog, we expected him to turn into a quivering mass of jelly once the boat started moving, but he surprised us. He was a bit nervous at first, but after a while he relaxed enough to lay with Jack and me.


I caught Lou out on the screen porch getting a good view of things.


Jack and I did some practice tubing inside the house.


And this was all the tubing Jack wound up doing. (He's standing up--the tube's hole doesn't go all the way through.) The water was just too cold for him.


Finally here's a shot of the front of the house--now I've learned after being corrected several times that the front of lake houses is the side that faces the lake. You can see Andy and Jack walking down the dock toward the house.

Our new lake house

Congratulations to my cousin Rachel and her husband Justin on the birth of their son, Sam!



I hadn't wanted to mention anything in the blog about this until things were final, but recently we purchased a vacation home on a lake in Michigan! We've officially owned it for a little over a week now, and Andy and I spent last weekend up there doing a bunch of work while Grandma and Grandpa Nold watched Jack. Our friends Don, Emma, Dave, Megan, and baby Leah also spent a night there and helped christen the house.

The house is on Fisher Lake in Three Rivers, Michigan, which is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Chicago. The house was built, and largely decorated, in the 1970's. So there's a ton of fabulous wood paneling and some awesome shag carpet. But decoration aside, it's a great space, and just what we were looking for in a lake house. It's also a very unique space and has a lot of interesting and quirky features.

The picture up top is the view from our back porch, and at the end of the dock is our boat! We don't have any waterskis or wakeboards yet, but we look forward to spending time just being out on the water and enjoying our weekends. All of us (Jack and Louie included) will be leaving tomorrow afternoon to go up there for a nice long holiday weekend.

Okay, now for a brief tour of the house. Here's the view when you walk in the front door. As you can see, the house is very long and narrow.


After going down the stairs at the end of the hallway, you enter the kitchen and living room area. Here's the living room (and Dave & Don).


Here's Emma, Megan, and the kitchen.


Another view of the kitchen.


The upstairs hallway.


One of the upstairs bedrooms.


The back porch, which is screened in.


I also wanted to include some pictures of the unique components and fixtures in the house. Here's what the sinks in the bathrooms look like. The sinks also have a hidden shelf for soap along the back of the basins, which you can't see unless you look in the mirror at the reflection.


The humongous fireplace. You can actually bake bread in the little cubby on the left. When the chimney sweep came, he told Andy an interesting story about the fireplace. The orginal owner, who had the house built, had seen a fireplace like this somewhere and liked it so much he decided he had to have it in his house. So he found the architect and flew him out from the East Coast just so he could make the fireplace.


You may have caught a glimpse in the hallway pictures of all the wall fixtures. None are exactly the same. Here's a close up of one of them.


The interesting chandelier in the dining room.


And finally, the lovely orangey shag carpet in one of the bedrooms.


I realized after we got home that I never took a picture of the outside of the house, so I'll try to do that this weekend. It's also very interesting-looking. All you can see from the road is the garage, which looks like a huge barn.

I probably won't be posting any more entries until we get back from Michigan, so happy early 4th of July to everyone!

First trip to the zoo

Jack had a great time with me and Grandma Nold at the zoo on Friday! He was very interested in watching the animals, and he behaved exceptionally well--especially considering he napped very little. We took him to the petting zoo, and at first he happily petted a goat. Unfortunately, one of the goats decided that the bottom of Jack's shoe was a great place to scratch his head. Jack got a little freaked out when the goat kept pushing its head against Jack's foot, so after that Jack wasn't willing to touch any more animals.



Jack still loves to do "so big."


Here's a polar bear getting some relief from the heat in his pool.


Jack loved the monkey house, where this picture was taken. Though I'm not sure what fascinated him more--the monkeys, or the big skylights and waterfalls.


An oranguatan


Some gorillas snuggled up together taking a nap.



And finally, this was Jack within about five minutes of leaving the zoo. As per his usual, the monkey blanket is in his mouth.

So, all in all, a very successful first trip to the zoo! Maybe on our next trip, Jack will have enough stamina to see all the animal exhibits. Between the heat and Jack's being tired, we only saw about half the park this time.