Minnesota is Heaven, But Virginia is Home

Rachel here, reporting from the midst of Tropical Storm Sandy. I just wanted to let my myriad readers now that we are still dry, as of 11:30 Monday morning.  It has been raining steadily and the winds are brisk, off and on, but it's nowhere near the end-of-world scenario that The Weather Channel was predicting. When they mentioned Virginia, of course...we're not exactly the national focus at the moment.  Understandably. We have a lot of ponding water along the curb on our street, but so far, it hasn't crept up into the driveway, so the cars are safe and sound (yes, of course I'm worried about the cars--I swear, this is absolutely the LAST house that I am inhabiting that doesn't have a garage).  If it does start to rise, we can move them into parking garages at the university around the corner. I don't think it's going to get that bad, but we'll just take each hour as it comes. I am very thankful that there are no large trees around this house ...

Leaving Baltimore  Maine     Our ship, Royal Caribbean's Enchantment of the Seas in Portland, ME Pulling into Bar Harbor, ME   Hans in Bar Harbor The famous reversing falls in St. John, New Brunswick (I have no idea how to explain this phenomenon, Google if interested) Hans, shopping in St. John - the book is called "My Love Affair With the Navy" (he did NOT buy it) The market in St. John Leaving St. John  Pulling into Halifax, Nova Scotia Noon cannon firing (blanks only--haha!)* My husband forced me to try on regimental dress and pose...Halifax Citadel Towel art onboard the ship         *  It's still a joke almost a decade after our honeymoon...staying in Edinburgh, we saw the noon cannon firing from the castle there and I was horrified that they were firing shells so close to the city.  UNTIL my husband explained to me that they used bla...

 Less than a week old, October 2009 First birthday, October 2010 Second birthday, October 2011 Third birthday!         Yesterday was my littlest man's third birthday...as you can see, we celebrated in style.  I didn't get any good shots of the decor, but we did more than just completely mummify Will's chair in crepe paper!  That was Josiah and Annika's job, and they used almost two entire rolls of paper to do it.  After we finished with the cake and opening of gifts, they tore all that paper off and had fun messing around in it (again, why do we spend money on toys?!).  At one point, they all three had red headbands and were pretending to be ninjas.  Good times.   Well, I can't believe that William is three.  I shouldn't be surprised, having gone through this two times prior, but I am still delighted at his growth.  In the last few weeks, he has matured so much:  his language ...