Balloons

This picture was taken in the middle of the night, although the flash makes it look like daytime.

I don't know if I'll ever really understand why balloons are the most exciting thing in the whole world. After our block party, Ellis would not let go of them for anything. Rather than saw off his hand, we let him sleep with them, thinking we would go in and pry them out of his hands when we went to bed at 11:00. Even then, when I tried, he wouldn't loosen his grip. He ended up waking up and throwing a huge tantrum.

Ammendment

 

Lest any of you think Ellis didn't get any decent presents from my parents, here he is in his cute Froggy rain gear that came from Grandma and Grandpa. Oh, and just for the record, he got great gifts from the other grandparents and several other wonderful people. I just didn't get pictures of all of them! Thanks, everybody!

Meet Ellis, Age 2

Okay, one more post about Ellis. I realize that most of you haven't seen this kid recently, and even if you have, you may not have had a chance to get to know Ellis' personality. He is such a funny boy. He definitely has his grumpy side, and he definitely has a shy side. But what I get to see most of the time these days is a happy, talkative, hilarious little guy. He brings smiles and laughs into our home all day long.

I am completely smitten by the way Ellis talks. I love his cute little way of saying words like "church" and "Monkey George" and "Henwy" and "Right there!" I love his funny phrases: "Mommy, I need come-meer" (for "I want you to carry me") and "Henwy do it" (for "Henry did something that bothers me"). I love how he says, "I need hug and kiss" when he first sees us in the morning, before he goes to bed, or before one of us leaves.

I could go on all day. Instead, I will show you a video. If you're a die-hard Ellis fan, or you just want to get to know the kid in 5 minutes or less, watch it! I should explain a couple of things first though:

1. "NO!!!!" He got in the habit of yelling "No!" to get people to laugh. This has gotten completely out of hand, especially in public places. When Brady and McCall were here, he got started in a restaurant. It was horrible.
2. "Be happy" is the opposite of sleeping. There are two choices in our house when you get grumpy: you can go take a nap, or you can be happy. Ellis brings this up every time I even come close to mentioning a nap: "No -- I be happy!"
3. "He needs a shirt!" Not sure where he got this phrase, but he started saying it EVERY single time he sees someone (or a picture of someone) without a shirt on. He is amazing at spotting these people. It has been pretty embarrassing in several situations when we were quite close to the people, and Ellis loudly, clearly, repeatedly remarked, "He needs a shirt!"
4. "Enjoy the show." If you have seen many Baby Einstein episodes, you know that they say this at the beginning of the videos. Sometimes this is Ellis' favorite part, as you will see in the video. Other times it's his least favorite part. He'll say, "No! I don't want enjoy the show!" until the segment is over. Picky, picky.
5. I will mention that on the piano song, I have no idea what he's singing about. I just love his loud, screechy voice, and the few words I can pick out: breakfast, choice, sisters, "when grandpa is coming . . ."

With that long intro, "Enjoy the show!"

Meet Ellis, Age 2 from Ben and Jenn on Vimeo.

Whale Watching

Jenn already shared the story of the lemonade stand a few days ago, but really there's a bigger story involved. To get the whole story, you've got to go back to last May, when Henry announced that he wanted to go whale watching. As it happens, Boston is near one of the premier whale watching locations in the world, the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. I was thrilled with the idea of going whale watching; it was something I had wanted to do since we moved here. So, I made a deal with Henry that if he saved up $25 of his own money to pay for his ticket, then we could go. This would be no easy task. We only give him a meager allowance of $8 per month, and we make him save half of that in addition to 10% for tithing, so he only ends up with $3.20 per month to spend. I wasn't sure he'd be able to do it, but I wanted him to try.

Being the kind of kid that Henry is, he came up with the brilliant idea of making a chart to help him remember not to spend his money. Jenn helped him make one (making charts is her department) with 25 bubbles that he could fill in as he saved his dollars. Slowly but surely, those bubbles filled up between his allowance and the occasional extra chore here and there. Finally, he got fed up with how long it was taking and decided to take matters in to his own hands by having a lemonade stand. As you know, he totally made bank selling lemonade and cookies, and this pushed him well over the $25 threshold. It was time to go whale watching.

After waiting for Hurricane Earl to pass by, the stars aligned on Tuesday for us to go. Henry was so excited on Monday night he couldn't contain himself. Here's a direct quote that we just had to write down: "I'm so excited that I'm excited as 20,000 sideways skyscrapers and then another and then another stacked on top...until it's as tall as a skyscraper! That's how excited I am!" I love that the skyscraper is one of Henry's main units of measurement.

Leaving from the New England Aquarium, we had to go about 38 miles out of Boston Harbor to get to the whales, so while we rode Henry worked on one of his dinosaur activity books:

Then, all of a sudden, the boat slowed down and right off the bow we could see some spouts blowing in the air! It really was incredible seeing these huge creatures out in the ocean. We had a very lucky trip, coming across 3 humpback whales and 3 minke whales that were all feeding in the same area. Here's a sampling of what we saw:

One whale beginning a dive, while another rises for air (see the spout on the right?)

This is why they're called "humpback" whales--they arch their backs when they begin a dive.

Humpbacks have several eating methods, and we saw most of them. In this picture, the whale is "kick feeding"--slapping the water with its tail in order to stun the fish, and then it will turn around and eat them. We also saw them blow a "bubble net" to trap the fish, as well as perform simple "open mouth" feeding, where they just open their mouths wide right on the surface and swallow as much water (and fish) as possible.

No, this isn't my picture, but we did see one breach like this! I wasn't anywhere close to being fast enough with the camera to catch it, but it was astounding to see that giant beast come clear out of the water! No one's really sure why they breach, but I was glad we got to see it!

Here are the happy sailors back on solid ground! We had a great time and I would totally go again (although I'd take some motion sickness medication beforehand--I got a little queasy for part of the trip!). I love going on these kinds of trips with Henry because he's just as interested as I am in learning all of the details, and I know about as much as he does about whales. We have a great time seeing, doing, and learning all of this stuff together. We're just two peas in a pod in some ways!

And, I'm super proud of Henry for saving up his money for so long in order to go on this trip! What a great skill to have. He's already started scheming up his next adventure: the Circus!

Birthday Boy

We just had a fun night with this birthday boy - presents, presents, presents, and more CUPCAKES! This time they weren't froggy cupcakes, but it was okay because they had blue "frinkles." In Ellis' mind, the perfect night! Here's the present roundup:

"Monkey George" - an instant hit! For some reason, the stuffed animals are big with both boys right now. George immediately made it to the top of the stuffed animal kingdom and got the honor of sleeping with Ellis tonight.

He immediately had to get Frankie, the other monkey, so there could be "TWO MONKEYS!"

Sumo wrestlers from Grandpa Dave - not a favorite.

Still disturbed by the sumo wrestler for several minutes afterward. For a while he didn't want to open any more presents (luckily, I'm pretty sure my dad got it for free, so he can't feel too bad :).

Mysterious orange thing from Henry - approved!

Vintage "Little People" and accompanying cars and bus were a definite hit with both boys (thanks, eBay!). They couldn't get enough of them for the rest of the night! I knew Ellis would love getting some people to play with because he has been obsessed with the "boys" that came with our train set. In my searching, I decided that the classic Little People are the best!

Rewind back to the Saturday night birthday party. Here is a great clip of Ellis' first view of the froggy cupcakes. Some people might say that a sugar problem runs in our family . . .

Froggy Cupcakes! from Ben and Jenn on Vimeo.

Froggy Birthday Party

Ellis is turning two tomorrow! On Saturday night, we had our babysitting group + a few extras over for a birthday party. Ellis' choice: a froggy party!

The froggy cupcakes (definitely Ellis' favorite part)!

Dinner: Cheesy froggy tongues and some "french flies" (credit to Grandpa Dave for that idea, of course)

The big kids eating human food while Ellis watches (he had his regular baby food in front of the computer while watching the Ellis show -- of course)

Lily pad leap

I think the reason Ellis was so excited about a froggy party is that he loves the "Froggy" books by Jonathan London. We got a few new ones to read at the party. Unfortunately, while all of the other kids were spellbound by Ben's reading . . .

. . . Ellis was busy moving a chair across the room to get a closer look at the FROGGY CUPCAKES!!!

leap frog

Froggy party blow-outs

All the kids hypnotized by Diego and the Red-eyed Tree Frog

And finally . . . CUPCAKE TIME!!!

I am in love with this picture.

Made a wish (probably for another cupcake every day this week)!

cupcake disaster

Isn't he adorable? Who wouldn't want to just gobble him up?

More on Ellis after the real birthday tomorrow!

Lemonade Stand

August weather in Massachusetts can be lovely. We often find ourselves in the middle of 75 degree breezy days. But then for some reason, last week decided to torture us with every day in the 90's or above (yes Dan, I know I have absolutely nothing to complain about. Somehow I manage anyway). But to show our grand optimism in spite of the weather, when life gives us lemons . . .

. . . we make a lemonade stand! This has been one of Henry's dreams for the past few months, so it was fun to have the perfect day to make it happen.

Henry's good friend Jonah joined in our hard work. Henry helped me make cookies the day before. The boys decorated the sign and mixed up the lemonade. They sampled quite a few cups, just to be sure.

Then once we found a slightly shady spot on the busier road across from our house, the boys were champions at chanting "Come get lemonade! Come get lemonade!" while jumping and waving their arms at every car that went by. Who wouldn't stop for this display?

Ellis helped by sampling several cookies and by being a really good sport.

The boys even had a few spare minutes to relax and talk about dinosaurs.

They probably spent about 2 hours outside total, and look at the loot! $37! Ridiculous, if you ask me. Lots of people stopped (it really was a perfectly scorching hot day), but instead of paying the 25 cents we asked, most of them would give $3-5 and then tell the boys to keep the change. Seriously, I'm thinking of quitting my day job and taking up a lemonade business. Too bad I'm not quite as cute as these little entrepreneurs.

Stay tuned to find out what Henry has been saving his money for . . .

Ben's Summer Project

I absolutely can't compete with Jenn's incredible bulletin board, so I'm not even going to try. But I have been working on my own summer project:

Amidst trips to Scotland and Anchorage and visits from family, I've been preparing for my "special field exam," which was looming over my head all summer. The special field exam consists of you reading a boatload of papers, and then you get to sit in a room with three professors for an hour and a half while they ask you questions about the papers. If you do well enough, you pass and you officially become a "Ph.D. Candidate," which means that the only thing left to do to get a degree is write a dissertation. If you don't pass, then a Ph.D. might not be right for you. As it turned out, my reading list was 240 papers long (covering behavioral, corporate, and consumer finance), with each paper averaging about 40 pages or so of pretty dense material. After slogging through all of that reading all summer, I took my test the last day that Brady and McCall were here and passed! Wahoo!

Since I didn't get an MBA before coming to Harvard, I still have to take 5 MBA classes in addition to writing a dissertation. I started getting those out of the way this semester, which began yesterday. I've got three classes this semester: Financial Intermediaries, Private Equity, and Entrepreneurial Finance. As I posted before, MBA classes are vastly different from Ph.D. classes, and I still feel like I'm getting the hang of them. I think if I switch to my snappy dress shirts and polish up my Excel skills I should be fine. Should be exciting!

Brady & McCall

So . . . check out the cool couple we enticed to Boston to come visit us this year . . .

Aren't they adorable? They are also probably two of the most fun people in the world and hilarious to be around! We had an awesome week with them.

Didn't get enough pictures, but I loved these:

Kite-flying on Cape Cod

Ellis carefully making sure his shirt was full of sticky sand

Brady and McCall heard a rumor that Boston has really good root beer. Wonder where that came from??? But they really wanted to be sure to have the best Boston root beer ever while they were here, so we had a root beer taste test with the 4 best ones we could find. The contestants: Virgils, John Buckman's, Mug, and Wild Willy's.

Some of us took the taste test very seriously.

Others took it very, very seriously.

Others just like a good excuse to drink more root beer!

BTW, the winner: Wild Willy's -- a mere 5 minute drive from our house! Of course, Ben, the root beer connoisseur, still insists that the sophisticated taste of Virgil's (available at your local Trader Joe's) is the best.

We did lots of fun Boston things that aren't pictured here. We also ate lots of really good food, which we were happy to introduce them to. I'm still dreaming about the night at Pizzeria Regina and the cannolis and red velvet whoopie pie from Mike's. Mostly I'm dreaming about the whoopie pie.

I also can't bypass the opportunity to document this story: On one of our many nights staying up late talking, we were sitting by the computer planning out where we would go for the best clam chowder. We were planning on going to Cape Cod the next day (specifically Chatham), so I turned to the computer and typed "Best clam chowder in Chatham" into the Google search bar. Well, our dear McCall was sitting off to an angle, and you know how sometimes the letters c and l put together can look like a lower-case d? Well, they did, so she thought I had typed "Best dam chowder in Chatham." With no hesitation whatsoever, she reached her finger up to point out my mistake: "You spelled the swear word wrong!" she said. It took me a minute to figure out what on earth she was talking about, but we all busted up laughing for like 5 minutes. Then we quoted McCall's eager spelling correction several times for the rest of their stay. I love how she had no trouble believing that I would type such a phrase into the Google search bar, and secondly that she thought I would really misspell one of my favorite curse words :) That girl is so funny and unabashed, in a very cute kind of way. We sure love her. Thanks for marrying my brother, McCall! And thanks to both of you for [submitting to our bribes and coercion and] coming to visit us!

Anchorage, Alaska

While Jenn's parents and Tanner stayed with the boys, Jenn and I spoiled ourselves and took off for another dream vacation by ourselves, this time to visit Shug and Paul in Anchorage, Alaska. The trip was exactly what we were looking for: incredible scenery, plenty of relaxing, some hiking, a little fishing, and most importantly, lots of time to catch up with some of our closest friends. Here's what it looked like:

Day 1: We drove up to Hatcher Pass (through famous Wasilla, AK!) and took a short hike to this incredible vista. I kept saying how it reminded me of backpacking with my dad, except that in Alaska you only have to drive for 45 minutes and hike for less than a mile to find this kind of pristine land.

On the way back down the canyon, we stopped to pick these fireweed blossoms to make jelly with.

Day 2: We drove to Girdwood (about 30-45 minutes away) and got some incredibly large and yummy sweet rolls to kick off the day. Then we took a short hike through a rain forest (really!) to get to this awesome hand tram:

It was a lot scarier than it looks! Imagine being suspended by a rope 200 feet above a rushing, icy river! Jenn was sure she was going to plummet to her death!

The view from the tram was incredible.

Shug and Paul thought it was incredible too.

This is the view looking straight down.

Shortly after the hand tram, we found the place where all fresh spring water commercials should be filmed.

After the hike, we tried salmon fishing on Bird Creek River. We saw a few swimming upstream, but didn't have any luck.

After fishing, it was time to make our fireweed blossom jelly! It turned out great, and Shug and Paul even let us take home three jars!

Day 3: We stayed home and slept a lot, played games, went to the beach and watched the airplanes take off right over our heads, and saw a bit of Anchorage. Sorry, no pictures!

Day 4: We drove down the Kenai Peninsula to the confluence of the Russian and Kenai Rivers to try fishing one more time. This is the only place where I've seen a reserved fishing spot for handicapped people! We also rode across on this crazy ferry, which is equipped with an air horn to warn fisherman if a bear is sighted. Unfortunately, we didn't see any bears. We did see some fish, but none happened to be attached to our hooks.

Some of us were fishing seriously...

And some were maybe not quite so serious.

After catching nothing at all, we took a short hike to Exit Glacier, which is part of the Harding Icefield near Seward. We could not get over four things: (1) How big glaciers are; (2) How blue the insides of glaciers are; (3) How far the glaciers have receded in recent years; (4) This ice has been there since the Ice Age!

Day 5: We had a great time at Shug and Paul's ward, and then in the afternoon we made buttons with Shug's button-maker. Well, mostly Jenn made buttons, while the rest of us slept. Here are the fruits of her labors:

Here's the spread of food we enjoyed on Sunday afternoon. Shug and Paul are AMAZING chefs, and we enjoyed all-the-stops-pulled-out meals every night. We didn't take nearly enough pictures of the great food we had, so this picture is going to have to be enough.

Day 6: We went up to Eklutna Lake to go kayaking. This was tons of fun! We had never used a serious kayak with a rudder and water skirts. We were glad to have the skirts because the waves were crashing over the bow and the water was freezing!

I have to put a picture of Settlers of Catan on here, because we played it every night. In the end, Paul won 3 games, Shug and Jenn each won 2, and Ben tried really hard.

A huge thanks to Shug and Paul for being the greatest hosts and best friends ever! We can't wait to go back for another visit someday, and really hope they'll come visit us soon (wink wink). In the meantime, Ben will be practicing his fishing and Catan skills...

For those of you still with me here at the end, I pestered Shug and Paul with questions about Alaska while we were there, so here are some bonus Alaska facts for you!

1. If you cut Alaska in half, it would make Texas the third largest state in the nation.

2. At its narrowest, Alaska is 50 miles from Russia across the Bering Strait, not counting some islands (which are closer).

3. The end of the Aleutian Islands is closer to Tokyo than Anchorage.

4. There are 300,000 people in Anchorage, and 600,000 total in Alaska.

5. You feel the pull of gravity more in Alaska (or anywhere far from the equator) due to a lack of centrifugal force.

6. 5% of Alaska is covered in glaciers.

7. At the solstices, Anchorage gets about 4 hours of daylight in the winter and 4 hours of night in the summer.

8. Edinburgh, Scotland is only 6 degrees latitude farther south than Anchorage, while it is 13 degrees farther north than Boston. In other words, Edinburgh isn't much farther south than Anchorage. No wonder my parents are so cold all the time!