Fiesta Weekend

Despite the gloomy weather we had a rather festive weekend (with the exception of Friday night which we did nothing ). Saturday we shopped then took Charlotte to the babysitter where Jasmine was having "girls night". Movies, bon-bons, and gossip. Mom wanted to stay but we had plans to go the the Asia in Portsmouth to celebrate Kurt and Tracey's birthdays with some bad Karioke and scorpion bowls. So we dropped Charlotte off with the girls and drove out to the coast for some fun. Time flies by when you are having fun and before we knew it mom had already thrown back two Sour Apple Martinis and it was time to pick Charlotte up. We ended up back home at 1am. Charlotte did great, staying awake in the car ride from Jasmine to our house, then zonking out again as soon as she hit her crib.

Sunday we headed to Boston for a little family fun day. Dad bought some tickets to see Sesame Street Live Elmo's Coloringbook. We weren't sure how Charlotte would do at the show but she was spectacular. She had so much fun. Dancing and clapping at all of her favorite characters. Dad of course bought into the Sesame Street commercialization and broke down and bought Charlotte a stuffed cookie monster. She loves it. After the show we hit our favorite Burrito joint Anna's Taqueria in Brookline for a little on the go dinner. We had a great weekend and are in awe of our daughter. Every day she seems to do something that just makes us smile.

Is that really Elmo on the stage???


I can't believe I am here!!

Here's Elmo!!

I love Cookie!

Crayon Monster

Someone loves to eat crayons. She is indiscriminate when it comes to the colors. Blue, Red, Brown she doesn't care. Let's face it they all taste the same. We can't wait to change the mulitcolored diaper in the morning.

Done

Dad sort of had to laugh when he walked down into the basement this morning to find it under 3 inches of water. For some reason the sump pumps popped the circuit breaker causing the water to back up into the house again. Then dad pulled the wrong pump out of the water causing it to burn out, thus having to replace it. These mini fiascos are now just funny to him. He probably would have be pissed off it were some other time, but at this point there is nothing to do but laugh and try to stay positive. Everything is out of the basement so there was no harm done. Just an extra day of renting the drying equipment.

The nice thing about the flood is it forced us to throw out a lot that we just didnt need. The dumpster is now full. And the rest of our things from downstairs are either in the shed or in the attic. It makes you realize how much crap you can accumulate in such a short period of time. And it made us realize we need a fire/water proof safe for our important documents (which we didn't lose because they were place up high enough). It also made us realize that flood insurance was not such a bad deal. $300 for the year. Granted there is a lot it does not cover but without it all of the expenses would be out of our own pocket. Even if just our washer had a broken water line we still would have been able to use the flood insurance. From the outside our house looks normal with the exception of the dumpster in our front yard and piles of trash bags in our driveway. Oh and today we were welcomed by the sound of a helicopter just above the tree line, circling. It was the Red Cross in an Army helicopter. Unfortunately they are a little late in getting here but still a sight to see.

As always, dad realized that despite all of this stuff the only things that really matter in his life are his wife and his daughter. The highlight of his weekend was mom telling him what a great job he was doing. I know it sounds like something really simple, but it made his day and made all of the hard labor worth it.

Tonight we had dinner on the back deck. We grilled some chicken and brought Charlottes high chair out so she could eat with us.It was such a nice evening to sit outside and finally relax a little. Just a little.

PS. We would also like to give our sympathies to Mike and Hayley Hoppe. They are Virginia Tech Hokies through and through. Mike was an engineering student there years ago and unfortunately lost one of his professors in the massacre this week. Our hearts and thoughts are with you and the families and friends of everyone who was killed.

Drying out

Slowly but surely we are starting to dry out. Thank God for sunny and dry weather. The good news is the insurance adjusters have come and gone. Thankfully last year we decided to buy flood insurance "just in case". It's still not the best in the world since they only cover limited amounts of repairs in "basements". But it's better than coming up with the expenses alone. We will do what we can to rebuild it as it was and to have improvements to prevent this from happening again. Maybe a sump pump that runs on battery backup would help.

We finally saw some video of the river and how high it got. It flooded the whole town center, not just our house. They say it was the first time in 80 years that the river actually over flowed its banks. Figures we are the lucky ones who had to deal with the flooding.

We look like refugees with our yard strewn with items that we are trying to dry. Dad rented a giant dumpster. It didnt take long to fill it at all. The cleaning people have finished ripping out drywall, carpet, and insulation in our basement. As well as all the doors, molding, bathroom, etc. Oh and the pictures below...that is our basement after the sump pumps were able to work. Yes it is messy because all of the stuff floated around in the basement.

And a huge thank you to the Reeves family for opening up their home to us this week while we were flooded. We appreciate it more than you could ever imagine.

Flooded

We are back online. Although we are certainly not out of the water yet. As we type they are demolishing our finished basement. Soon it will be unfinished once again. Unfortunately we lost a lot under about 4 feet of water. Washer/Dryer gone. Treadmill gone. Couch, bed, chairs. Gone. Irreplaceable photographs. Gone. We didn't get power restored until late yesterday evening. We didn't have heat back until this afternoon. We still don't know if we should drink the water or even attempt to flush a toilet with the amount of water in our septic system. I guess the good news is that we are safe and while we lost a lot, there were others that were much more unfortunate than we were.

Thats about it for now. Sorry for the somber post but thats how we are feeling right now.

We are back in New England

There will be no posts or updates for a few days. We are literally under water. But we are doing fine. We had a wonderful vacation!

Beachcomber

Thursday April 12th: The day started at 3:50am with mom trying to wake Charlotte up from a restfull sleep so we could head to the airport in time to catch our early morning flight. You know that thing they say about "never wake a sleeping baby?". It's a good idea to follow it.

The first flight of three was pretty good. Dad was able to upgrade us to first class. Imagine the looks on peoples faces sitting near us when they saw in infant sitting in first class. They weren't too happy but we didn't care. Charlotte was happy and had plenty of room. That is all that mattered. Unfortunately the plane was late leaving because we had to wait for some more passengers. Flight number two was not so comfortable and of course by this time Charlotte was even more sick of being held on moms lap. Flight number two was also a little late because we had to wait for some passengers coming in on other flights. The whole flight dad was calculating in his head what time we needed to land and depart to catch our last flight from Charlotte to New Bern NC. It wasn't looking so good but we had a plan. When we landed, mom would RUN with Charlotte to the other terminal while dad waited for the stroller. Mom could hold the plane until dad got there. We landed. Mom ran. And ran like lightning. If you have ever flown into Charlotte the airport is big. She had to go from one end to the other and had less than 5 minutes to do so. She made it to the gate, dad right behind her pushing the stroller (after he literally knocked down two people on the moving walkway). The USAir person said, "Are you the Ronans"? YES! YES we are! "Im sorry the flight has left". WHAT?? The flight isn't suposed to leave for another 2 minutes? "Im sorry, we close the doors 10 minutes before the flight leaves.

We were pissed. Mom even swore at the guy. Charlotte was now crying. Both of us exhausted from running. We were late because two flights waited for people. But the last flight wouldn't wait for us. Thank you USAir. So nice to be your passengers.
It was probably a saving grace that we had to wait two hours for the next flight. It gave Charlotte some time to nap and gave mom a chance to have a glass of wine.

Friday April 13th: I wont bore everyone with every detail, but here are some hightlights. The day was beautiful. Charlotte, Grampa, and Michael walked with Charlotte while she picked dandelions for mom. Charlotte saw lots of birds and would point and try to say bird. We went to the beach. Charlotte didn't want anything to do with the sand. Didn't want to touch it with her hands and didn't want to even touch it with her feet. Much better than last year when all she wanted to do was EAT the sand by the handfulls. Eventually she got used to it and loved walking up and down the beach picking up rocks and shells (dads pocket was full). We fed the seagulls and she just laughed and screamed.

Later we had dinner at a Mongolian restaurant where they cook your food on a hot table like thing. Charlotte learned to eat rice with a fork on her own and seemed to be a bottomless pit for the food. She did so good at dinner.

We missed the ferry by minutes to come back Arrapahoe from Beaufort. So we went to Dairy Queen and drove around the long way. Charlotte loves DQ and got the icecream all over her face.

Saturday April 14th: No update yet this morning.

Little Miss Sunshine

Sometimes Charlotte thinks she is a super model. Today she strutted her stuff wearing her fancy schmancy Ralph Lauren dog sweater. There were a few things that no one told Charlotte about modeling. First there is no crying in modeling and no crying on the catwalk. Second, models have to be TALL. When we told her this she got upset, picked up the cell phone and tried to call Tyra Banks to find out if it was true. Luckily for us she couldnt get through.

SLOW DOWN

I have posted before about how fast time goes by when you have a child and how everyone tells you to enjoy every second. Of course no one listens to other people or at the time it just doesn't make sense. Right before our eyes Charlotte is getting bigger and older. Every day it's something new. Yesterday it was imitating all the farm animals. When we ask Charlotte what a cow says she holds her fingers to her forehead like horns and says moo. When we ask her what cookie monster says she makes her deepest voice possible and says something that doesn't even remotely resemble "cookie". All of this in the last couple of days. It just amazes us and makes us realize how fast they really do grow up. Sometimes I wish it would just slow down a little bit.

ATTACK OF THE BUCKET MONSTER!

Something has been causing lots of ruckus in the Ronan household lately. We thought a raccoon might have found its way into the house. We would hear banging on the walls in the other room. Then we thought maybe a hyena got loose because we kept hearing screeching that sounded like laughing. So we set up some hidden cameras and much to our surprise we have monsters in our house. It was very easy to see it was the rare pink bucket monster that managed to reek havoc on our household.

Don't worry, it was easy to catch the monster. They don't have eyes so they bump into a lot of walls. Stunned after hitting the walls they stand there laughing for a while...making themselves very easy to catch.

Easter Extravaganza

Easter is one of those holidays you sort of forget about until you have young children. For kids, it's the holiday you first dismiss. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure the Easter Bunny out. By the time kids are 10 years old they just want their overflowing basket of candy. But until then it is lots of fun. Hiding eggs by tossing them in the yard, pastel green pants on your son, and loads of tic tacs for the kids.

This year we packed the minivan up with the dogs and Charlotte and headed to Long Island to visit Tiffany, Ian, Liam, and their newest edition Chase. The drive wasn't bad thanks to the portable DVD player. The weather was cold but at least there wasn't snow. Charlotte was very excited to see everyone and had a blast running around. Even the dogs did a great job not biting any of the numerous kids pulling their tails and screaming at them.



Friday night Tiffany and Ian took us all to dinner. We had pizza at a nice little place where Charlotte was in reaching distance of a family at the table across from us. Pizza sauce, kids, and touching strangers don't go well together. Dad even saw her toss a meatball onto the table of people next to us but he pretended he didn't see it.
Dad was glad to escape before people sent us their dry cleaning bills. The pizza was great and we all left stuffed.

Charlotte slept like a rock Friday night. We were able to stay in bed until 7:30am. Saturday dad and Ian took Charlotte and Liam to a local park to play. It was cold out but "fresh air" is good for kids. Charlotte's little red nose ran constantly in the cold but she had a blast climbing on the jungle gyms. He favorite was the slide and swinging with dad.







We hit the library where dad immediately made friends. Charlotte ran into the children's section and to an area with toys everywhere. Dad being in a strange place let Charlotte play with them. Some guy comes up to dad and tells him they are his toys and that she cant play with them. OK buddy, Happy Easter to you too (of course what dad was really thinking he wont post). Soon after Charlotte found lots of books and played and ran and found more books. When she started just laying down on the floor we knew it was nap time. Time to go.

Saturday Tiffany made a spectacular Ham Dinner. Yes Tiffany I am being serious it was really good. On the car ride home I told Shelby I wish I would have made a ham plate to go. How Tiffany was able to make a huge meal with all the chaos in the house I do not know. Dog, kids, toys, tic tacs, more kids, adults, more kids. It was really good and now you can cook anytime you want at family functions. :)

Liam loves tic tacs. Orange are his favorite. Ian gave him one thinking he would hate it. It back fired. He loves them. We found out this weekend he wont let anyone near them without a fight. Charlotte tried getting one. Smack.
Charlotte learned to stay away from Liam and his tic tacs. Of course Ian gave some to Charlotte. She loves them to. Thanks Ian for introducing us to the crack tacs. She is now addicted too. (notice in the picture below Ian is trying to get Charlotte and Liam to sit together by bribing them with Tic Tacs)


Sunday the Easter Bunny came and brought loads of fun for all the kids. Toys, Balls, Easter Grass, even Tic Tacs for everyone. Ian's brother came over for breakfast with his family and all of the kids played. Needless to say Charlotte was exhausted by the time we hit the road to head home. She fell asleep in her car seat before we could even give her a bottle. She didnt sleep for long but was great the whole ride home. She had a great Easter. Thank you Tiffany, Ian, Liam, and Chase.

Eggs are not for tikes

Eggs and kids don't mix so well. A long time ago people used to color real eggs for Easter. Of course this posed a problem with the little kids. Joey the great would run around finding the Easter Eggs like any 3 year old would. By the end of the Easter egg hunt the eggs would be cracked, dripping all over the castle, and he would be covered in a mixture of egg whites and yolks, crying that all the eggs were broken.
Luckily he had a smart father who decided to hard boil the eggs the following year. Thus "childproofing" the art of Easter egg hunting for his over zealous son.

Unfortunately for the father of a 15 month old, hardboiling does little to "childproof" eggs at Easter. Dad decided to dye some eggs with Charlotte on Sunday. Nothing safer than permanent little pucks of food coloring in glass bowls with eggs in the hands of a child. Dad yelled at mom for buying the "generic easter egg coloring kit" since they always seem to use the most permanent dyes. She thinks he is crazy. Charlotte agreed.

With dad in a t-shirt and Charlotte in clothes that she has now outgrown, the coloring of the eggs started. Of course balancing the eggs on the stupid wire hoop is difficult enough for any adult. In the hands of a 15 month old it is just asking for a mess. A permanent mess at that.
In the end she used her hands which was ok by us.
We survived the coloring extravaganza. Although Charlottes fingers were stained blue and red and orange. She didn't like that. Those of you that are entrepeneurs out there please invent a replacement for the wire hoop thingy used to dip the eggs. Please.





Dad also started on Charlotte's back up plan in case she doesn't grow up to be a computer revolutionary and give Bill Gates a run for his money. Instead she will challenge Tiger Woods to a little game of golf.




If all else fails she also learned the art of stealing. We dont know where she learned this from. Frankly we aren't too worried because from the looks of it she is not very good at stealing. Whats that in your shirt Captain Obvious?