Catching up!

We are enjoying being with our families in Utah for the summer! It was stressful getting our apartment sublet and getting out here, but all is going great now and Paul is enjoying his internship.

As an aside, if you ever are sitting around parents on a plane with a child who will NOT stop screaming, please be merciful. Darren screamed his little guts out for two whole hours straight on our flight to SLC, despite everything we tried to soothe him. After a while, everyone around us started giving us advice, like "Maybe his ears hurt - try massaging behind his ears." Believe me, we tried absolutely everything, to no avail. By the time we landed, all three of us were at our wit's end. I am trying not to think about how it will be flying back to Boston with Darren plus a newborn! nightmare! But no matter how bad it is, it is still better than driving!

Anyway, we took Darren to New York over part of Paul's spring break. This was over two months ago now, but better late than never, right? Paul's mom was nice enough to come with us, which was a total blast because she knows the city so well and could lead us around. I had never been to NYC, so didn't know what to expect, but I thought it was fantastic! Here are a few pictures.


These first few are at Central Park

Darren attempting to enjoy the Statue of Liberty ferry.

Good thing Grandma was around to help!

Times Square in the rain

He's Walking!

Belated Thanksgiving

We had a fun Thanksgiving this year - we had dinner with some friends and played games. Darren loved it because he got to share a plate with me - no baby food! Since I didn't take any pictures of Thanksgiving, I thought I'd post some pictures of our late October visit to Plymouth Rock. Very Thanksgiving-y, right? I thought so. Better late than never.

So, here's Darren (happily) hanging out at the rock. I...kind of expected it to be a little bigger, didn't you? There was a sign that I admit I didn't read, but I think it described how this is only a piece of the original Plymouth Rock.

Over the rock there's a structure with columns to give the whole thing a little more importance.

The bay at Plymouth was really pretty. Although not a whole-day's worth of things to do, it was a fun afternoon. We found a seafood shack for dinner - I tried some fried oysters, among lots of other yummy things.

Darren's First Halloween

Darren grudgingly allowed me to dress him up for Halloween. We went trick-or-treating to just a very few places on our street. Overall, I have to say that I enjoyed the whole experience way more than he did. I put his costume on and all was well for a few minutes...

Until things rapidly descended into this...

He was much happier once he could get out of the dratted costume.

Don't worry Darren! I promise you will enjoy future Halloweens much more than you did this one.

Here he comes!

Darren finally is scooting all over the place. It isn't exactly a crawl yet (well, maybe an army crawl) but we are very excited he is heading in the right direction. Check him out. All of us are enjoying the fact that he has his own little room now, too.

Christopher Cross's Biggest (and littlest) Fan

Paul used to work in a grocery store back in the day, so he is way too familiar with all of the soft hits that were played over the speakers. He put Christopher Cross's song "Sailing" on a CD that we were listening to while we drove all those miles across the country to move out here.

At some point, Paul began to notice that if Darren was crying, he would calm down if we played this song. I didn't believe him at first, but after trying it myself dozens of times, I can't deny it now, although it is so random. So after hours and hours of driving, if Darren started to cry we would put this song on every time. It was nothing short of miraculous the way the song would calm him down and help him go to sleep. No other songs work for him like this one.
We must have listened to it hundreds of times. Yes, I know all the words.

I had forgotten all about this until yesterday when Darren started getting fussy while we were driving home from the store on a crazy, rainy day. Sure enough, I put this song on, and he stopped crying within 5 seconds. Crazy, isn't it? Looks like he's going to be a 'continuous, soft hits' fan like his daddy.

our new home

I thought I'd post a few pictures of our new city. So far we are really enjoying being out east. Cambridge is just a few miles outside of downtown Boston, and it is a fun city to walk around in. In fact, since parking my car is usually a nightmare in Cambridge, I walk instead of drive whenever possible.

Here is our little lane in Cambridge.



Darren in front of our house, waiting for me to take him on a walk. Darren absolutely loves being outside, so I try to take him out every day. Our townhouse was built in 1920 - so it is almost 100 years old. i kind of like the oldness - it is definitely something new for us. But I do wish we had a dishwasher.
Our neighborhood is full of neat-looking old houses that have been really well preserved. Some of them are really big.
We live right by the Charles river. There is a walking trail on the side where I like to take Darren on walks.
I love the big trees of Cambridge. It will be beautiful when all of the leaves change colors.

We miss our families and friends, but are enjoying being somewhere new.