Will anyone of these guys win the 107 Open?

107 US Open vs. Ezekiel

This past winter my friend and I had full intensions to volunteer for the US Open which is being held only 20 miles from us in Oakmont. It was our plan to take a week long Old Testament course on Ezekiel and then do our PGA duty and help with the Open. Unfortunately when the June term was announced they scheduled our class during the same week as the Open, so we saw our excitement slowly fade away.
On Monday during our lunch break my friend and I were talking about going after class to check out the merchandise tent. During our conversation someone overheard us and offered us tickets for the following day. We were both overjoyed but realized that we could not leave until late in the day after class, but it was better than nothing. Thanks to our professor who graciously allowed us to leave early to catch more of the practice round. Hope you enjoy some of the pictures.

No School, No Work = Vacation

This past week Janelle, Ben, and I took a week to not do anything except hang out with one another as well as some friends and family. I have just finished my spring term and along with that, the Starbucks where I work was closed for the past week for remodeling therefore allowing us to take some vacation time. So we decided that we would travel to the local attractions and check them out, so we went to the zoo, children's museum, parks, petting zoo, and a baseball game.

Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

Snow days

Snow days are a funny thing. I can remember being a child, listening to the radio from under my covers, and praying our school would be one of those named for cancellations, or at the very least, a 2 hour delay. I remember the joy, the elation, of the handful of times when our school truly was listed. Yet some poor children across this nation and across this globe will never get to experience this joy, as we've realized in our travels. Sheffield had never heard of building snow days into a school calendar, and I remember the day Bev, Sue, and I walked to Fulwood from Walkley in the snow because the cars couldn't travel on the roads, yet still no snow days. Then there was Glendale, where snow had rarely, if ever been seen. There we had heat warnings, where the kids weren't allowed outside for recess if the heat index was too high. And...Charleston, by far, was the most comical. Half and inch of snow, which melted instantly when the sun rose, shut down the entire city and school district.

Now however, I realize I am moving into a new experience with snow days, or we will be over the next few years. Before we know it Ben will be in school and we will be on the flip side of snow days. This time we'll listen to the radio and be praying that his school will not be mentioned in the cancellations. But, there's still time before those days begin. Wednesday was a 2 hour delay for our local school district, while the school 4 miles down the road was cancelled. (How does that work???) Well, that meant our friends the McDonalds had girls at home in need of something to do. So, we bundled up Ben, loaded up Ben, and headed over to the local park, where we went sled riding. (Ben's first sled riding experience)

Ben wasn't too sure what to make of the whole snow deal at first, but once he got his hands into it and went down the hill a couple times, he decided he loved it. (I think he loved Hannah Grace and Ellie pulling him around on his sled the most.)

We loved the snowsuit and sled that he received for Christmas. After sledding, we did what typically seems to happen in households around here, we headed inside for some hot cocoa. Mmmm.

Today, we no longer have any snow, as it's in the 50s and it's all melted away, which I couldn't be happier about. I have spring fever worse than I've ever had it before, even though I'm born and bread in this area. Well, Ben's up now, so I better sign off, but not before I finish posting the photos. Enjoy!!!

Water, Water Everywhere

on Saturday mommy, daddy, and I went to the Y for my first swimming lesson. i had sooo much fun. there were lots of other kids my age, even another Ben, and we were all singing songs and playing games in the water. i like to put my face in the water, but i haven't figured out how to blow bubbles yet like mommy. maybe next time. my favorite part of the class was when we were given rubber duckies. my teacher said we were supposed to toss them and then swim after them. it was so much fun. i also really enjoyed jumping into the pool. the water was really warm and the pool area was so warm daddy's camera got all foggy when he tried to take photos of me and mommy. my teacher also let us go under her "waterfall" which was just a big watering can. some of the kids cried and didn't like it at all. then we had some free time to play with our parents. i'm looking forward to our next swim class. after class, mommy, daddy, and i went to Eat 'N Park for a family breakfast. i love to eat. they gave me sausages, eggs, toast, bananas, marmalade, and some hashbrowns. i also had my first taste of chocolate milk. yummmmmy. when we got home i took a long nap, then woke up and played some before mommy and i went to church. after church we went to see daddy at starbucks and have some dinner with him before i went to bed. it was a good day. i'll see if mommy will post some photos of us swimming.

...And then there were 3

...boys that is. Today we had our 20 week sonogram and discovered we are having another boy. Hurrah!!! I guess I will truly be outnumbered, and as the technician noted... I will NEVER get the remote control again. It's time to get out that baby name book. Hopefully someday we'll be able to use the girl's name we picked a while back. However, now we have 19 weeks to figure out what we'll call our new little one. Feel free to post your suggestions. All is well with our newest little guy.

Speaking of little guys, Ben is walking everywhere now. He's still cruising and crawling, but he LOVES to walk. Thankfully the weather is warming up, and we'll soon be able to take him out for a real walk, but for now the length of the room and the house keeps him satisfied.

Saturday Ben and I begin our first mommy & me swim class at our local Y. It runs for about 7 weeks, and I am really looking forward to it. Ben loves to be in the water, whether it's for a bath, a shower, or a swim. I'm hoping this will boost his confidence so he's ready for the pool this summer.

Dave continues to make coffee and write papers. I swear it's only one REALLY BIG paper that just never gets finished. He keeps telling me I'm wrong, but I think it's just a convenient way to get out of the house for a while.

Here's a photo of "Toad in the Hole," which I made one evening for Travis, Dave, and Ben, as we were craving a British meal. Thank you Naked Chef.

Benjamin's Makeover (Before & After)

What a difference!!!!

Birthday Boys

This past weekend we gathered our family for a celebration in honor of both my boys. It was quite the event as Ben experienced cake, on his own, and opened his presents. He's such a clean, tidy little boy that he never did dig right into his cake, but rather he ate the coconut trim for a while and then very carefully picked at the cake with just two fingers. At one point he even made sure he ate the crumbs out of his bib pocket before moving on to his next piece of cake. The messiest point came when he decided to squish all the crumbs and icing around on his tray with both hands. He seemed to enjoy himself, which was why the cake was made.

Now that he is a year old we were finally "allowed" to cut his hair. This was quite an event as Dave and I tried to be careful not to butcher our son's do. We did learn that giving him Cheerios, while cutting, makes the process go soooo much smoother, but Ben seems to roll with the punches and was very patient with us, thankfully.

Hope you enjoy the photos!!!

November to December 2006

It's hard to believe 2006 has come and gone already. It's also hard to believe that this time last year, we were settling into our new house, enjoying our first holidays in Pittsburgh, getting ready for Dave's first semester at Trinity, and expecting the arrival of Benjamin, as well as cheering on the Steelers to their 5th superbowl.

Since November we have again celebrated the holidays with family near home, with the added bonus of seeing life through Ben's eyes. Thanksgiving was a true feast for our little guy. He tried every food that was put before him, and enjoyed it all. He also fought through his first fever and saw his first snowfall of the season.

December meant the end of another semester for Dave, which was good because we started to forget what he looked like. However, after finals he was home a lot so we were able to go for more family outings. Our favorite outing was going out for Chinese and then to the children's museum with the McDonalds. Ben loves playing with Hannah Grace and Ellie. He also truly enjoyed playing in Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and the floor devoted solely to nursery children.

Ben's first Christmas was also quite fun. We spent a lot of time with all our family and Ben met and played with a lot of people. By our 5th Christmas celebration, Ben seemed to get the hang of tearing open presents, yet he seems to like tissue paper and gift bags more. I guess tissue just makes a lot more noise than paper. We were overwhelmed and blessed with the amount of presents we all received, for which we are very thankful. Ben did receive a sled for Christmas, and as of yet, we have not been able to use that present since the temps here have been in the high 50s for most of the month. Yeah global warming.

We are now getting geared up for the new semester at Trinity and for a couple birthdays here in a few weeks. I'll try to post some updated photos as well.

A bit of Nostalgia

This McDonald's commercial takes me back to when I was very little.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOOGvMSSMAE

Photos from a visit to Pittsburgh

Baby it’s cold outside

This week Pittsburgh saw its first snow flurries. For us, nothing accumulated, but it was exciting/surreal to see it this early on in October. Time to get out those hats and mittens that Ben will be able to fit into this year.

Currently Ben in sleeping, which frees up the time to type. Most of his days are spent cruising around our house. He has moved on from crawling, when near any piece of furniture. He now stands himself up and walks along our couch, fireplace, chairs, beds, rockers, you name it, he’s tried it, yes even the bin (garbage can). He loves people and especially other children, which is good since we are on campus a lot with all the other families. It also helps when we serve at Alpha. Our small group is helping out at St. Philip’s for a little while with their Alpha program and Ben seems to love all the attention from the older children there. They are all sooo good with him, and I’m sure he loves all the snuggles he gets from the adults. Yesterday it was precious to see the other toddlers “looking after him” and making sure he had some toys to share as well. Very sweet.

Reading Week has just ended here at Trinity and that allowed us a different routine than what we normally live. It also allowed Dave to get in his training for shift supervisor at Starbucks. His store has such a great group of people that work really well together. Saturday a lot of us went bowling together, and Dave and I enjoyed our time with them. I especially enjoyed getting to actually chat with his co-workers and bond with them more than my usual, which goes something like, “Grande vanilla latte, please.”

The whole atmosphere at this particular Starbucks is quite different to the others I’ve been accustomed to. I know Starbucks works towards having their stores be the “third place,” but the other stores I’ve frequented never had what this one has. Here everyone knows your name, and not just mine, since I’m a spouse of a co-worker. They know their regulars. They know their drinks. They even name some of the drinks after their regulars. Maybe this is common at a lot of other stores, but not the ones I’ve been to. Maybe it helps that this Starbucks has been in its community for over a decade. I don’t know. I do know that after spending time there, a lot of time there, and observing people that this truly is their 3rd place.

Autumn Arrives

Autumn has clearly arrived in full force here in western PA. However, due to the fact that we had a "dry" summer, the leaves seem to be turning from green straight to brown. Yet some trees are turning their golden yellows, oranges, and reds. I guess we better find/buy a rake.

Classes have been in full swing for about a month and today was a quiet day for all students. Dave's doing very well with his classes and manages to balance home life with work and school. Ben and I have been changing our routines around the house so often that I don't know if it's even worth trying to write a weekly schedule. He's growing and changing sooo much.

Ben now has 2 teeth, the 2nd one just broke thru this morning. He crawls with ease and was quite entertaining yesterday. He began to crawl in a circuit around our living room four times, making sure to stop at every station, everytime. Looking back, today has been quite full... 2nd tooth and he managed to climb all our stairs, with ease. (Being a new mom, I guess I assumed that the stairs would take at least 2 tries, but no, Ben managed to crawl over to them and figure it out on his first go.)

I have been keeping myself quite busy these days. Of course there's always home stuff that needs to be done. On top of that I go to chapel every Wednesday, while Ben enjoys playing with Ellie and others at the nursery. Then we go to coffee/doughnut hour on campus to meet up with the other seminarians and their families. Sometimes I get the privilege of attending Dean's hour as well, without Ben. Thursdays I meet up with some friends in the AM, then head off to a mom's group, followed by family lunch on campus. In the PM, I watch a friend's daughter (6mo.) while she attends class. Then Ben and I head off to the farmer's market. Fridays and Saturdays are generally family days and date nights, depending on when Sbucks needs Dave. Church is Saturday nite and that frees Sunday up for a lie in, finally. Then Monday/Tuesday is back to running errands, cooking batches of food for Ben, laundry, chores...and ends in the evening with TGIT. All in all it's a full week.

We did receive an email, with a fun and addictive game, from a neighbor. I'll put the link here so you can enjoy it as well. Hope it works. And hope I don't wait so long again to update this blog.

just curious

Thought I'd look up some local images and this is what I came across today. Interesting. Crazy to think they launched that on the Ohio River.

Going Mobile

August has been a great month. Weatherwise we left the hot, sticky July days and life began to cool off again. There's a distinct change in the sunshine these days that reminds me that September and fall are just around the corner. This year I love that feeling more than ever. Usually the joy of knowing my favorite season is on its way is tainted slightly by the fact that school is once again starting (as only teachers can understand, for it's a different feeling than starting a year as a student). This year however, no new class, no new school, no new staff, no bulletin boards, no inservice days...nothing...for me that is.

Dave starts round 2 of his time on Trinity's campus, and I think both of us are much better prepared for this semester than the last. This time things are a lot more familiar, and I for one am having a much easier time of getting around. Speaking of getting around...Ben has become mobile. Look out mom and dad!!! We love watching his newfound skill of crawling. I would call it more of a leapfrog inchworm kinda crawling, but it's still effective. The first thing he went for??? the remote control. Guess he's his father's son. He (Ben) also loves crawling towards shoelaces, food, momma, daddy, and cell phones currently. As if that weren't enough, he's also started pulling himself up to a standing position, going from sitting to crawling, rolling over into a sitting stance, and I'm sure a few other things. Life here is definitely changing, and I assume neither Dave or I truly understand just what we're in for now that our child can independently move, but just like with everything else, we seem to adapt with the season we're in.

Baby Ben

DSC00057 (2)
Originally uploaded by janelleanddave.

In honor of Steelers season 2006 beginning, here's a photo of Ben, only 3 days old, getting ready to watch the finish of the 2005 season.

GREEK is OVER!!!!

Monday was Dave's final in Greek, which took 3 1/2 hours, and now it's done. Although there were many tears(yeah right) we found time to celebrate the end of summer languages with Mike, Heather, and the girls. G&Ts were very nice and very cold on a very HOT day here in humidity city. However, with the rain we received, it has turned today into a gorgeous 85. Thank the Lord for breaks in the weather and breaks in terms. Now we have some time to catch up with friends and little "jobs" that we've been putting off for this week and next.

Benjamin continues to grow and change. He turned six months old last week and can sit very well on his own for good periods of time. Ben's still working on crawling, but is so close that we can tell he's frustrated. (He keeps reaching for toys and just about the time he nearly touches them, he flops back on his belly.) Ben continues to try new foods and loves everything so far.

Steeler fever has hit in Pittsburgh, which we started to notice at the Pirates game, when during the rain delay, everyone began chanting, "Here we go Steelers. Here we go." Training camp at St. Vincent's has been underway, and hopefully we'll get a chance to visit there as well, now that our schedule's more flexible. I guess they'll also be changing the Steeler's song this year. I mean we can no longer sing..."this is the year we'll get that one for the thumb."

It will be nice to see the Steelers playing in Glendale's new stadium, as we watched it being built from afar for so long. Once again Dave's will face off against various friends and family members with his NFL fantasy team, The Wanderers. And now we're both facing off against fellow seminarians and family with our fantasy football teams (soccer). It should be good fun.

The Rain in Pittsburgh falls mainly on PNC

This week hasn't been all that exciting, it's just been life as usual. However, this weekend, Dave's been able to spend a lot of time with us, which has been greatly needed since when we usually see him he's looking over his Greek grammar book or talking to us in between flashcard revising. So, this weekend has been fantastic. Ben's typically been going to bed at his usual times and sleeping for 12 hours each night, which we love because then Dave and I get to catch up.

Since we had today with "daddy" we decided to go, as a family, with friends to see our lovely Pirates take on the Giants. This was Ben's first ball game and my first game at PNC Park. I know it will not be one I forget. The boys decided to get seats under covering, since both families had little ones we didn't want to burn to a crisp. It proved to be a life saver in the 7th inning, when the sky opened up, in a matter of 2 minutes, over the park. It rained for 45 minutes. Most of which - it chucked it down. We could no longer see the city. We could barely make out the other side of the park. It was A LOT of water!!!! The outfield literally became one huge puddle. Lightning struck, and cracked loudly, several times around PNC. In fact one strike hit the rod on the Highmark building. (Truth) At this point the wives looked at our loving husbands and said, you get the cars. That never happened.

Mainly because we're such devoted fans... Dave, Ben, and I all stuck out the 2 hour 5 min rain delay and finished the rest of the game, which went into an extra inning, just so we could be sure that we got our money's worth.

There was something mesmerizing about watching all that rain fall. There were literally sheets of it falling at similar angles, but at differing quantities. There's something about seeing the sun hit buildings, trees, colors. It's a different color, quality of light. The air is clear and crisp, not hazy anymore. The American flag, though thoroughly soaked, still waved in the lights of the park. Then, as the rain cleared, it was educational to watch how the field crews got the field ready for play. We were watching people dance, in a sense.

Later the players came out to warm up, and the 25,000+ who stuck out the rain returned, with food, to wipe down their seats, and get comfortable again. I believe we had one out in the top of the 7th, when the rain took over. So we finished that inning and went onto the 8th, still scoreless until Todd Linden homered for SF. Which is when we all thought, great another loss. Yet, just as we thought we were a few outs from driving home to put Ben to sleep, Jose Castillo tied the game and we went into extra innings. Yea! (As if we hadn't been there long enough already.) Finally, Jose Hernandez got the Buccos their 2-1 victory in the bottom of the 10th. We didn't even stay to see him run. Once the winning run scored, we were up and on our way home.

Ben was such a blessing the entire day. He was so good other fans commented on him to us. Poor guy...every time he fell asleep for 5 minutes, the crowd would cheer and wake him up again. I figured he'd just sleep thru it, like he did with the fireworks on the 4th and worship at church, etc, but he didn't. He stayed awake the whole time basically. He loves to people watch though. His eyes were HUGE and he smiled and flirted with all the people around us. So, we left the game, fed him his last meal for the day, bathed him, and he played and babbled himself to sleep. I guess we'll see if he sleeps in, since he missed his nap. I doubt it.

It was a long day at the ballpark, but we wouldn't trade it for the world. We were together. We were with friends. We enjoyed some cool, refreshing rain. We saw a show on and off the field. We came home and relaxed together. These are the little treasures that help keep us going.

Sweet Taters

this week i had my first big boy meal. mommy and daddy made me some yummy sweet potatoes, and i loved it. i've been eating them a lot this week. mommy says next week we may try a different food, but this week it's sweet taters for me.

Congratulations!!!

To Aunt C and Uncle B - congratulations on your new addition!!! I'm so excited that i have a cousin.