Sneak Preview Pics

These are some of many pictures that Betsy took for us at the Walker a few weeks ago. I think Terri is planning on giving some out for Christmas so hopefully I don't ruin any of the surprise! But I wanted to share at least a few of them....

Back to Work

The dust has settled on the long holiday weekend and I'm back at work now. A really fun weekend, good to see all the Jackson family. Bill, Jenny, and Ainsley are still here for another week, and Jeannie got here on Friday and I think is here until the end of this week. Hank has been having lots of fun with Ainsley and they both get tons and tons of attention.

Yesterday the whole crew was at Carma and Lee's house for lunch and playing around...I didn't go because I wanted to stay in Richmond to get some things done (and watch the Vikings of course!). So Matt and I stayed here and went to the bar that has all the football games, then met up with everyone back at Rob and Julie's last night. Terri and Hank stayed over at their house so that Terri could spend time with Jeannie and Julie.

The other news from the weekend is that I bought a motorcycle off of ebay last night! Isn't it weird that every time I move to VA I buy a motorcycle? It's really nice, a Harley Davidson and it's up in Pennsylvania. Rob and I are going to pick it up this weekend, so I'm crossing my fingers that it is as described. The seller seems like a decent guy (as far as you can tell from an ebay listing, anyway). I know what you're thinking Mom, I promise I'll be careful!

Family arriving for T-giving

I thought I would post some pics of Hank and his cousin Ainsley getting acquainted....they are having a lot of fun together! It's fun to see two kids at nearly the same age...to see where they have developed similar habits, how they are different, etc. Ainsley has been kind of shy thus far, but probably because of a long day of travel and the newness of so many faces and places. Ainsley, Bill, and Jenny arrived late Sunday night after a 3-legged trip from Idaho that pretty much took all day long. Even when they got here, they flew into Dulles in D.C. so they still had another 2-hour car ride to get home to Lee and Carma's.

There will be 12 of us at Rob and Julie's for Thanksgiving tomorrow, it should be fun! Then Jeanie is coming for a visit on Friday because she was jealous that the rest of the family was going to be together! So for a while at least, we will have 4 of the 5 Jackson kids here together. Jeannie's not bringing Brad or any of her kids, just her. And I think she's staying for 5 days or a week.

I hope you guys are doing great and have a fun day tomorrow! We will call you at home in the morning....

Made it to VA

We made it to Richmond late Sunday night, around 8pm...we got some dinner and unloaded the car and it was after midnight. So I think we're both a little tired today! Hank was very happy to see us, he was really really excited. When we pulled in the parking lot he was on the balcony with Julie screaming "Ma-ma!! Ma-ma!!"

The trip was fine, fairly uneventful which is always good...car worked fine, no tickets. The weather was no good, it rained probably 75% of the way which was fine except for our bikes getting soaked on the back of the car. At one point in Pennsylvania it started to turn into really light snow flakes, but that went away pretty quickly. We stopped to stay in South Bend Indiana Saturday night....of course there had just been a Notre Dame football game in south bend so there were very few hotel rooms available...when we found one, it was no pets allowed, so we tried to sneak the cats in but of course got caught by a nosy employee. They were cool though, they said go ahead and just keep it quiet. The cats were fine during the trip, they pretty much hid in the car and slept. The car was so full, sometime we couldn't find where they had gone for hours at a time.

Terri's going to look at houses tomorrow, see if there is anything new or interesting. There is one house that I liked a lot but Terri wasn't so big on....the owners just dropped the price 46 thousand dollars because I think they are sick of sitting on it. But it's by some train tracks and may potentially be dangerous so I think we have to rule it out. That huge price drop gives you an idea of what the market is like, though.

I'll write more later and post some pictures soon....

On my way to Mpls

Well Terri is back in Mpls as of last night and I'm on my way this afternoon...get in at 8pm. I took some pictures of our apartment here in Richmond, thought I would post them on the site. It's a fine place, nothing spectacular but totally comfortable for a short-term stay. Add on that it's free and we can save a month of mortgage payments, it is a nice deal! Here are pics of the living room, kitchen, view from the balcony, bedrooms.....

See you soon!

Back from the Beach

Hi, we are back from the beach now, got here late last night. We ended up going to the beach after all....the house owners said we could switch out for another "off-season" weekend but in the end Matt would have been really bummed about missing the big race. So one group (Rob, Julie, Matt, Chris) went Friday night, and the three of us (Sam, Terri, Hank) went Saturday morning. Terri was having a relapse of the flu on Friday so we slept in Richmond and left Saturday morning.

On Saturday, we unfortunately spent a lot of time in bed and it was the nicest weather day....about 75 degrees and mostly sunny. We did go down to the beach for a little while, Hank walked right out into the (very cold) water and he loved it. He would stand on the beach, look out at the waves, and say "here they come!!" Then the water would splash over his feet and he would just look at it and laugh. He didn't even care about the cold water, he is a Minnesota boy! He got too daring once and a big wave knocked him on his butt in the water. Then he dug around in the sand with his shovel and pail for a while. It was fun. Rob missed all of that b/c he literally could not get out of bed all day.

Sunday was a much better day for our health....the race was at 7am (why so early???) and the only one who actually ran the whole thing was Matt. I joined in about half-way through and ran the last 6 miles with Matt and a friend of the family who was running. Matt did awesome, he has never run that far and he just barely missed 2 hours (2:04 I think?) and he wasn't even spent at the end. A little sore the next couple days but otherwise good. He's a good natural runner.

Not a lot of seafood eaten over the weekend...no one was really up for it quite yet. But we did have a lot of fun at the house, played some games, took naps, went to surf shops, etc.

We got a late checkout yesterday and left around 1pm. There was a big accident right at this huge tunnel that connects the mainland to the outer banks so traffic was absolutely stopped. So a 3-hour drive turned into more like 7 hours! But I guess that included a stop for a late lunch and another surf shop on the way.

The leaves really fell of the trees this weekend, it was one of those days where the leaves were blowing around like snow at some times. So the trees are pretty bare now though the weather is still great....70 today and a little warmer tomorrow.

Believe it or not Hank now seems like he is getting some kind of cold...he is congested, wheezing, and his nose is dripping that thick greenish stuff. Unbelievable! Terri is going to try to take him to the doctor today before she leaves because he'll be with Julie and Rob for the rest of the week.

Speaking of which....Terri gets in tonight at 8:59pm, US Air flight 1832 from Charlotte. I will be there tomorrow night at 804pm on NWA from Detroit. We're staying until Saturday morning, then driving the Mazda back down to VA.

I have a couple pictures from the beach, will post them soon....

The Sickness Spreads

good news is that T and H are feeling much better...bad news is that this weird flu bug has now bitten Rob, me, and Chris (in that order) over the past 36 hours. I slept all last night absolutely burning up in bed, woke up super hot, with stomach and kidney pain, and aches all over. Not sure what this is but it's pretty nasty....Rob's been in bed for about 20 hours straight and now Chris is right there with us. Sounds like we are cancelling our planned trip to the beach at Nags Head this weekend. We're supposed to leave today but there may be some of us who can't stomach the 3 hours car ride. Too bad b/c Matt and Chris have already spent $55 to sign up for a half-marathon in Nags Head on Sunday, which was the reason the trip was planned in the first place.....

On the mend

What's up with this picture? He looks like a thug rapper or something. That's a cool hat though. I think this was taken right on Garfield Ave.

The good news is everyone is getting healthy again....Hank pulled out of his flu yesterday around noon and has eaten everything in sight since then. Terri needed a full day of rest yesterday and another 8 hours of sleep last night, but she felt 100 times better this morning. She went out on a house-searching trip with Julie all day, saw some places that she liked but nothing that we need to put in a rush offer on.

Here is the summary of Hank and Terri's first day here (written yesterday):

Terri and Hank arrived right on time last night and it was great to see them. Unfortunately that is about where the good news ends! When they got off the plane, Hank was covered head to toe in his own vomit, it was just pathetic….poor guy had a white shirt on and it had been stained just about every color of the rainbow. Terri said it had happened on both the plane rides to Charlotte and to Richmond, so not only did he throw up all over himself and his seat, but then had to sit in his gross clothes the rest of the way. We thought maybe it was a strange motion sickness kind of thing. He threw up again in the car on the way to the apartment, so now his rented car seat is stained and stinky. We cleaned him up and headed over for dinner at Julie and Rob's, which was nice until Terri started feeling very sick around 8pm….within an hour she was in the bathroom throwing up too, and it basically went on like that all night. I would say that Terri and Hank (combined) threw up about 15 times over the past 24 hours. Poor Hank…we got him home, he was exhausted and went right to sleep at 930pm…at 1230 he started coughing and crying, I went in to his room and he had absolutely filled his crib with the macaroni and cheese he had eaten for dinner. He was covered in it, it was all in his hair, clothes, all over the bed, it was horrible. He was still a mess this morning when I came to work.

last one

Ok this is the last one....the infamous "red chair" pictures. This is his first little chair that he could call his own. At the time though I think Terri helped him up there for the pictures. He was really proud, but then after the pictures he fell out of the chair right on his face! He's strong though, he shook it off. Can't keep a good man down. Good night!

..just a couple more...

All right I lied I do have to put up a couple more pictures. These are too good....they are from the apple orchard in MN just a few weeks ago. The second one is one of my favorite pics of him ever, he looks like a tough guy. Just a rebel in an apple patch. With a stuffed bunny.

...pics....

How about these pictures?? These are from a really cool kid's pool in Minneapolis. It was last summer, I was working at home on a Thursday and we decided to go to the pool. I like the first one where he's smiling, he was having a lot of fun. He didn't want to go into the deep part of the pool but he loved walking around the outside, where it was shallow. The also have these cool shower things, he like to push the button and make the water spray out. It was a super nice day, probably June. You can always tell when it's just me and Hank because I always give him the pacifier whenever he wants it. We never knew what that little rashy looking thing on his chest was....it hung around for a while and then went away.

I have to go to Target to get ready for T & H tomorrow.

....pics....

When Hank and I came to VA in August, I was interviewing at Cap One and he was here vacationing. This is from when we went back to Mpls, we were in the airport and I think he wanted to stay on vacation. He got a sticker from someone, you can see it on his shirt.

Funny pics

I have to clean out the pictures on my old cell phone....look at this funny one of Hank eating fries at Famous Dave's one time. He and I went there a bunch of times, I don't know why but it was kind of our spot. Funny because it's a BBQ place and neither of us eat meat. But mmmm they have some good sauce and it goes nice with french fries.
This picture is probably from like a year ago. He looks really different now. But you can't see the changing as much when you see him every day.

Hank and T get here tomorrow

Well I've been here for 4 weeks as of tonight....got here October 9th. Tomorrow Terri and Hank (and Dallas the ghetto cat) are arriving for a house-hunting and vacation trip. The plan now is for Terri to stay one week and then head back to Mpls for the packing/moving from Nov 14-18. Hank is going to stay here in VA...that way we avoid two more plane trips for him and he probably wouldn't be really comfortable or happy being around the house while the packers and movers are there. So he will stay here and spend some time with Aunt Julie and Uncle Rob.

I am going to try to fly back on the night of Wed Nov 15th so I am also there during packing (Thurs) and moving (Fri). Then Terri and I will drive the car from Mpls to VA on Saturday/Sunday (with the other two cats!). So as of Sunday night Nov 19th, we should be here for good. The house in Mpls closes on Nov 21 but we don't need to be there for that, the relocation company handles it.

It's going to be great to see Hank and Terri tomorrow, it has been a long time! Even from the sound of his voice Hank sounds more grown up than when I left. The last morning I was in Mpls, I couldn't sleep so I went in to sit in Hank's room in the dark. I looked into the crib and he was staring up at me wide-eyed as could be, it was really weird. He didn't make a sound or try to get up, but he wanted to hold onto my finger, which he hadn't really done before. He would start to fall asleep, then I would move to leave, and he would grab on to my finger really tight again. It was like he knew something was going on. He finally fell asleep after 45 minutes and that was the last time I saw him.