Norah playing and our day trip to BBQ

I promise no replicates this time. ;)

Norah loves to play with her activity set, now that she has mastered most of the buttons, hoops, and levers.

Hey, Norah, do you want to go for a ride?

Oh no! Norah attack!

Oh, she got us! (I think that means, YES)

...so Norah, Justin and I traveled to Wilson, NC for Justin to get his fixin' of BBQ (Parkers is the restaurant and has been rated pretty high for good inexpensive BBQ). Norah seems really excited.

We drove past Parkers since it was packed by the after church crowd.

...so we decided to linger at a nearby park. Don't worry Norah, we'll go back!

Norah and Daddy spending some relaxing time in the warm weather.

Awww they're so cute!

(we don't have pics of the BBQ or Parkers, but Justin said it has his approval of Eastern NC style BBQ)

Back at home, Norah wanted her own food.

She sucks on this crab's legs all the time! (It's weird because she has a smaller different colored stuffed animal crab that she sucks on too). I guess she's just born to love seafood! Good thing!

All that work, now it's time for some play.

Oooh, wires are her favorite!

"Ooooh, a computer mouse is sooo coool!"

"I'm gonna get you."

"Ha!"

norah crawling

quick update

I just wanted to give you a quick update from previous days. Hopefully we will be somewhat current soon.

Please refer to the picture of Norah and Daddy in"Easter and Family trip" back in April.

This is a picture of the two of them about 5 months later at the same bench.


Here's Norah in her new room with all of her stuff plus some.


She doesn't mind though.

Here's her room after we fixed it up.

and just a usual occurrence of spillage.

...and of course this post wasn't quick for me (took 2 hours of my sleep time) because I forgot how to make animated .gifs. Well I figured it out and now you can see that Norah is really getting the hang of crawling!
...ok, well I didn't fully remember, but the video is posted above!

On the Government Dole

So this is what unemployment is like. Not to shabby!

Yesterday was the last day at the jet motor factory and for all I whine about work I was pretty bummed when I left. Lots of good people, a few smart ones and more than a couple characters.

So, what did I do with myself today? Well, I:

1. Unpacked boxes - the end is in sight; by next week we should be fully unpacked.
2. Made an iTunes account and downloaded the new Black Crowes album. Excellent.
3. Set up the "bonus" room. Its more like a Swiss army room as it is:
a. Our fitness center
b. Nisha's sewing station
c. A shared computer room
d. Our home office
4. Rowed on the rowing machine
5. Jogged on the trail behind the house; part of the Raleigh Greenway System
6. Went to the grocery
7. Stopped by Ace Hardware to buy a new grill burner and propane tank
8. Replaced grill burner and propane tank
9. Cooked dinner
10. Typed this post! <--- Well almost... sleeep won out over the satisfaction of accomplishment.

Can't wait for yankee visitors! Every time I hear someone say Fay-yutte-veeeel or Suhweet Tuheee I chuckle... Come on down, Pops!

Supposed to be 80deg and sunny today... better start planning the day's activities!

A few previously unreleased pics for the baby junkies:

Moving Sucks.

The title of this post pretty much sums it up. Moving sucks. But suck though it may, we have been having fun adapting to life down South.

The movers showed up Tuesday morning with what we believe to be all of our stuff. All 18,000 lbs of it! Nine tons! Good thing Nisha's new gig footed the bill!

The movers unpacked and set up some of the essentials, but we were essentially left with piles of boxes in several rooms and the garage reminded me of this:
(Geek trivia: what biblical treasure is hidden in this secret gov't warehouse?)

No telling what treasures, biblical or otherwise, are in here:

The movers found it prudent to unload our shelving units first and pile them in the back of the garage behind the 8'x 12'x 10' stack of boxes. Thanks.

Norah's room resembled a warzone but she didn't seem to mind:


We spent all day today (Saturday) unpacking and sorting stuff. Some boxes and packing material to get rid of, but floor space!:

After a long day, Nisha made a yummy pot of chili and started teaching Norah the Quadrophenia album by The Who.


Three days left working for the worlds largest manufacturer of jet engines, dishwashers and light bulbs. Bummer. At least I'll some time on my hands to get the house in order... and Nisha keeps mentioning needing a toy chest for Norah... and I haven't been able to play much Xbox lately... Hmm, maybe a few weeks off won't be that bad. :)

We're Heeeeerrree!

(Post typed Monday, 9/21/09)

Hey, ya'll.

After many days of purging (possessions, not deep dish pizza), packing, meeting with family and friends, chaos and 570 miles on the road, we're now living in Raleigh, NC. We left Cincinnati Saturday morning around 8:00am after a long night and early morning of cleaning our old house and stuffing junk into our cars. Five states, four stops and eleven hours later we arrived at our house at 7:00pm.

"Eleven hours?!", you say?

Yep, eleven hours; one and a half of which was spent waiting to bypass a bad accident on I-75 North of Lexington. I've never understood how one crashes when everyone is travelling the same direction at relatively similar speeds. Knuckleheads.

Anyway, we've essentially been camping the past few days as we won't get all our junk until Tuesday morning when the moving truck shows up. Our air matress has a pin hole leak some where and I, being the most portly of the family (thank goodness!), end up with my butt and back on the ground by morning. On the plus side, we devised a novel way to refill the leaky matress... a 3000 psig scuba tank! From flat to full in 3-5 seconds!


Nisha wasn't around when I selected the house to rent back in August but she says I did good. Whew. Its an ok house in a great location, close to stuff and access to a walking trail that connects to a nearby park. We're a bit worried, though, that our stuff won't fit when the moving truck gets here. This house is about 900 ft^2 smaller than our old place and has no basement, a one-car garage, and no storage shed. Drew Carey had an outdoor pool table; I wonder if Nisha would go for an outdoor laundry room.

Nisha, er, Doc, starts her new gig in a few days and is really excited. I, on the other hand, will go in to an office in Durham until the end of the month to wrap up and document stuff I've been working on and at that point it looks like I will be looking for a job. Bummer. Anybody need a good engineer? Hopefully the job search won't take too long!

Changing every day

...so this is about right...posting every 2 months? :o oops

Lots of things are happening and we'd like to update you with newer pictures.

Here's Charlie (Norah's cousin) and Norah playing together. Aww they're so cute!


Norah was going through a phase where she would scrunch up her face and breath in and out of her nose really fast...weird kid.


Oh doesn't Norah look so innocent.


I told you she is a weird one!


Our friends invited us to take pictures of fireflies with them at dusk. It was really neat to see, but incredibly hard to photograph.


Norah trying out her high chair.


Ok, so that was just a pretty high chair that wasn't too functional, so we switched her to a plastic one which she likes to get dirty. Pretty much every time she eats, she has a beard.


We though Norah would love an inflatable pool, but pretty much I used it inside to keep her temporarily occupied in the morning while I prepared the bottles and food for the day.


And this is why the pillows were in the back of the pool!


Finally, our morning routine had to change. If Norah woke up before I took a shower, I could set her in this bouncer and put toys all around and she would be fine...if you notice now I have to buckle her in...because she can CRAWL!! (We'll save that for another post. :p)