Something Fishy's Going On Here...aka Nathaniel's 3rd Birthday

Last Monday, Nathaniel turned three.  Because of work schedules, grandparent plane flights, etc.  We decided to celebrate the Saturday before.  The day definitely had a theme to it.

First, we went to the aquarium with Nathaniel wearing the new fish shirt created by his Grandma Howard.



Next, after lunch and his nap, we had Rainbow Fish cake (based on the book Aunt Jennifer gave Nathaniel for his birthday.



Then came presents, which included a fishing shirt, a musical fish card and a fishing game.





Needless to say, Nathaniel thoroughly enjoyed his day, and he still talks about it. Click here to see the rest of the photos. Here's a video highlighting the day.



Christopher

Mamas don't let their babies grow up to be cowboys (and especially not bull riders)

About two months ago, I was bouncing Nathaniel up and down like a "bull rider."  Since he wanted to know what a bull rider was, I went to youtube and found some bull riding videos.  He was fascinated.  When we were looking for a Halloween costume, I told him that the cowboy costume was a bull rider costume - well, he found what he wanted to be for Halloween.  He turned out to be one adorable bull rider. Yee-Haw!

Children's Farm

Since 85% of Nathaniel's play involves animals, it's not hard to imagine that he would like a farm.  There is a children's farm about 30 minutes from our house, and we like to go around this time of year because they sell pumpkins and have extra activities beyond petting the animals.  Nathaniel was very cautious around the animals and often would stand back and silently take it all in.



But, his energy and enthusiasm returned when he discovered the corn pit. First, he carefully tested his environment.



Then he made a lot of "star fish," which uses the same technique one would use to make snow angels.



Then he tried jumping off the side wall into the corn pit and thought that was the funnest thing ever. I won't go into how long he stayed in there (many kids came and went) or the bribery we had to do to get him out.





We finished off the day running through the corn maze a couple of times.



Of course, on the way home Nathaniel had a lot to say about the day.

Any Idiot Can Run, But It Takes a Special Kind Of Idiot To Run a Marathon!

At least that's what I saw on one of the shirts of someone running in the Chicago Marathon this year.  I guess I'm once again in that group of special idiots.  That makes three marathons completed in four years.  Although the year "off" was during Nathaniel's first year, which was a special kind of marathon.  It also makes three marathons run in unseasonably warm weather (albeit, this one was slightly cooler than the two previous years).  Interestingly, the year I didn't run, the temps were in the 50's.  Hmmm...some people are starting to suspect a pattern and will be checking my plans before signing up for any subsequent marathons in Chicago.

I had a really tough five weeks prior to the marathon with my health.  I fought something that kept traveling up and down my sinuses and throat.  Fortunately, it hasn't reached my lungs and had relatively little effect on breathing through my nose.  However, I still ended up on antibiotics three times, tried homeopathic treatments, and suffered through some horrible bouts of sore throat and sinuses.  It also meant I had to cut way back on my running.  I still did my Saturday long runs, but I skipped all of my Tuesday runs and a few of my Thursday runs to try to recover.  I didn't run one bit for 8 days before the marathon.  Psychologically, I wasn't in the best place. 

Unfortunately, Kristina's commitment to her yoga teacher training program (every Sunday except holidays for 6 months) prevented her from coming out to cheer me on.  She had to do all her support watching Nathaniel while I went on long runs every Saturday for 4 months.  Kristina confided to me a few days before the marathon that she was feeling sad that she wasn't going to be out there cheering for me.  I had to admit I was sad, too (but understanding).  However, we made plans for our Friday trip to the Expo and a night out of carbo-loading (i.e., eating yummy Indian food).

Fast forward to that Friday morning.  I received an email from my sister sent early that morning telling me she was told my present would arrive at school by 5pm.  She has made a habit of sending creative and useful gifts for my previous marathons.  Well, Jennifer truly outdid herself because in the middle of my Animal Behavior class, she walked in saying, "Sorry.  Am I late?"  Apparently I had a pretty shocked look on my face.

Needless to say, I was thrilled she came to watch me run, but I told her I wished I was going into this with a better physical and mental state.  However, I think her coming out gave me a bit of a boost!  She joined Kristina and me at the Expo and we all carbo-loaded as originally planned. :-)

When the day of the race came, I left at 5 am to drive to Stephanie's place (a friend who ran the marathon with me last year and this year).  We parked at her work and walked to the start.  Jennifer's morning started a bit later with a walk to the Metra train with a well thought out list of directions, a sign, phone, and some supplies for me (she planned to meet me at miles 9 and 18 and at the finish).  Perhaps I should mention this was her first time using the Metra and El by herself.

I'm going to cut out a bunch of stuff here, but let me just say that there was a little bit of drama/difficulty getting into our starting area...

The race started on time and we crossed the starting line 19 minutes after the gun went off.  Because of the aforementioned difficulties, we were caught in a group running slower than we would have liked.  So, we tried to sit back and relax and pass when we could.  However, it did kind of set the tone for how fast we'd be able to run this race.

Other than the pacing issues, things were going pretty well, and we were looking forward to seeing my sister around mile 9.  Unfortunately, we didn't see her.  So, we kept going, but I was worried for the next 9 miles.  Otherwise, this race was feeling better than my other previous marathons...probably because of the slower pace we had to do from the beginning.  I became worried again when we got to the 18th mile and I didn't see Jennifer.  We were just getting ready to stop so I could call when I saw her fluorescent green sign.  I was relieved to know she was okay and to refresh my supplies (and get my hat).  I would later learn what happened.

The last eight miles were as tough as one might expect, but they were better than my previous marathons.  I started lagging a bit around mile 23 through 25, but Stephanie kept pushing us on (but not too much).  Finally, during the last mile she started to push us harder, and we ran very fast the last 200 m.  In fact our last mile was around a 9:30 min/mile pace (faster than any other mile we ran during the race).  When it was all said and done we crossed the line 4 hours 53 minutes and 38 seconds after starting.  We beat our time last year by almost 7 minutes.  Given my state the last month before the race and the warm weather, I was pretty happy.  On top of that, I felt better physically than I had after my two previous marathons, another happy accomplishment.  In fact, I had no blisters or sore knees and feet.  I was amazed.  Later on, the only thing that ended up hurting were my thighs.

After the race, I got a call from my sister, and after a little coordinating, we found each other.  I learned that she had quite an adventure, including losing her directions (recovered by a good samaritan), being escorted by friendly Chicagoans to her train stops, and being trapped on the wrong side of the street at mile 9 because she used the bathroom at the McDonalds.  That's why I didn't see her.

After a long stretching, cooling and chatting session, Jennifer, Stephanie, Nancy (Stephanie's friend) and I headed back to the car.  Nancy drove us to Stephanie's where we cleaned up, and all of us enjoyed a nice meal at a nearby restaurant.  Jennifer had her own sort of marathon traveling all over the city and Grant Park.  So, she was as hungry as we were.  After dinner, Jennifer drove us back to our house where I dozed in my chair for a while before going to bed.  Overall, I'd say this idiot had a pretty good run.





































Stephanie and I are looking pretty chipper for two people who just ran 26.2 miles!


This is my surprise cheerleader and her awesome sign!

Christopher

Nathaniel's Labor Day Trip to the Aquarium

Just a quick post to show a movie that gives the highlights of Nathaniel's trip to the Shedd Aquarium last week.  Big surprise...He loved it!  Here's the video.  It's a little long, but we hope it gives you a smile.  We smile every time we watch it.



Christopher

He's Got Moves, and He Knows How to Use Them!

Today, Nathaniel had the opportunity to listen to two live bands at different events.  Both times he seemed to lose himself in the music.

The first one was at the ice cream social our church had this weekend. He headed off to his own space and just enjoy the moment.


The second one was at our neighbor's party across the street. The band was really good, and Nathaniel really got into the music. Unfortunately, the lighting isn't that good, but I think you get an idea what kind of sweet moves Nathaniel has. The kid's got rhythm and creativity, that's for sure. Kristina laughs every time she watches this one.


Christopher

I'm a Fish! I'm a Minnow!

Slowly but surely, I'll continue to share stuff from the recent past.  This time, I'm once again taking you to the Lake in Minnesota.  During most of our 11 days at the cottage, Nathaniel preferred to stay in the knee/thigh depth water wading and splashing.  Toward the end, however, we decided to push Nathaniel a bit past his comfort zone and were amazed to see how far he would go.

First we started by having him jump to us from the shore side of our side dock.  Slowly but surely, I continued to move around the side of the dock.  I got him to go a little further each time, until I had him jumping off the deeper side of the side dock (but he could still stand at that depth).

The next morning he started where we left off and he got more and more enthusiastic.


After we were done with that, he decided to lay down in the shallow water and pretend to swim.  I thought that was a pretty big step because he was insisting on keeping his feet on the bottom up to that point.

By that afternoon, Nathaniel started jumping again, but started walking deeper and deeper until he couldn't touch.  Then, he lifted his feet up and started kicking and paddling with his hands.


He continued swimming further and further. Eventually, he declared he was a fish. Then, he clarified his statement by declaring he was a minnow. He swam until he teeth were chattering and he was getting tired. In the video below he swam pretty far from his mommy to the dock declaring "the little fishy is coming out of the water."


Sadly, this was our second to last day, and the last day was filled with storms and heavy waves, so he never got to continue working on his mad swimming skills.

Check out more of his swimming/jumping photos here.

Christopher

Not Quite as Easy as One, Two, Pee

We've been taking a rather relaxed approach to potty training, but yesterday, Kristina read a bunch of material on potty training and declared that potty training will begin in earnest the next day.  She arrived home from work with a bunch of underwear and told Nathaniel he'd be wearing them the next day.  He was not thrilled.

This morning, Kristina popped out of bed at 6:45am when she started to hear Nathaniel make noise (just for the record, I was up at 4:50am and out of the house by 5:25am to run 16 miles).  For the rest of the day we tried to get him onto the toilet every 20 minutes or so (he would get a sticker or a piece of candy for his efforts).  Needless to say, we had a lot of ups and downs.

During his "nap" (he didn't really fall asleep).  I went to Sam's Club and bought a big bag of Dum Dum suckers (one of his favorite treats) to bribe...er...encourage him to go in the toilet.  After a few more failures, Kristina declared she was going to use the toilet and had earned herself a red sucker.  Well, not to be outdone, Nathaniel peed on the toilet to get his blue sucker. Not long after that, he returned to the toilet, pooped and got an orange sucker.  Unfortunately, we couldn't get him to pee before bed and put a diaper on him for overnight.

So, our efforts can be summarized by the following statistics: 3 pairs of wet undies, 2 pees in the potty, 2 poops in the potty, 2 rugs in the washing machine, 2 exhausted parents, 1 pair of shorts soaked and 1 long day.

We're hoping tomorrow will go smoother, but we made some headway today.

Christopher

Hello, this is Nathaniel Appelt

This morning while I was trying to get Nathaniel ready to head out for daycare, I noticed he only had five of his six precious fish.  I quickly realized he was missing yellow perch.  I asked him where yellow perch was, and he gave me several suggestions, but none of them panned out.  So, finally, I told him we'd have to look after we got back.

We headed upstairs to brush our teeth.  As soon as Nathaniel was done, he walked over to a shelf in his bedroom and grabbed the telephone his Aunt Stephanie gave him for Christmas.  He grabbed the handset and said, "Hello, this is Nathaniel Appelt."  After a brief pause he followed with, "we're looking for yellow perch."

Fortunately, just before we left, I grabbed my sandals and out popped yellow perch.  Problem solved!

Christopher

Father and Son Fishing Fun!

First of all, if you read the tag line for our blog, you'll note that this is a "haphazard account" of what's happening in our lives.  I'm hoping in the next few days to post several blogs to try to bring folks up to date on some things that have been going on since my last post...Kristina has been doing a much better job than I have.

So, when Kristina's family came to visit in June, Nathaniel's Aunt Laura bought him some realistic-looking freshwater fish toys (you can see him clutching them at the end of that blog post).  Well, he promptly learned their names, and they've been his constant companions ever since then.  You can imagine how excited he was to learn that we have five (yellow perch, largemouth bass, pumpkinseed, bluegill, and crappie) of the six fish in our lake in Minnesota (we don't have the same type of catfish, but we do have bullheads, which is fine with him).

Somehow (trust me, I didn't teach him this) he learned that we catch fish on a hook with a fishing rod.  So he started pretending sticks were fishing rods, and told me he was going to catch fish with his "blue" hook (not sure where that came from).  Needless to say, he was excited when we finally left for the lake last month.  He told me he was "going to catch all the fish in the lake."  He even brought the small fish/minnow net and fishing outfit his Grandma Cynthia gave him for his birthday (sadly the net didn't make it into the blog post showing the outfit).

Nathaniel was super excited to go fishing.  So the first chance we got, we headed down to the dock with one of the children's fishing rods his Grandpa Appelt got for the grandkids use.


After baiting up, we cast the line out and waited for the fish to bite.


We also had to learn how to reel in the line.


Fishing was quite slow that day, but our patience eventually paid off.  Nathaniel got to check one of the fish he wanted to see off his list, Largemouth Bass!


We also had a lesson on properly and carefully holding a largemouth bass.


I think that was the only fish we caught that day, but he was as patient as a 2.5 year old can be and generally stayed on task.  We eventually told him the fish were sleeping and told him we could fish again tomorrow.  So, he grudgingly agreed to go upstairs, but he held me to my word the next day.  While Kristina was in town, Nathaniel asked me to take him fishing again.  Unfortunately, because I didn't have a photographer handy, we didn't get photos of that experience.  However, since we fished for over an hour, we were still at it when Kristina came back, so she was able to get photographic evidence of our much more successful outing (consisting mostly of keepers).  As you can tell, Nathaniel was excited and proud.




Nathaniel got to add a couple more fish to his list.  He actually reeled in some yellow perch by himself while I did most of the heavy lifting with the keeper bluegills and the 1.5 lb bass that was WAY to strong for that rod and reel.  You might also note the net (from Grandma Cynthia) in the photo.  Nathaniel and I had a system down.  I'd take the fish off the hook and put it in his net.  Then, he would walk down the dock to the floating basket, which I would pull out and he'd (with help from me) dump the fish into the basket.   He LOVED it, and catching over a dozen fish in an hour kept us busy.  The next outing we learned more about the difference between "keepers" or "basket fish" and fish we throw back.

I don't think I can find words that adequately express how I felt to be out fishing on my favorite lake with my son, who was as enthusiastic about fishing as I was.  I'm guessing my dad might have some idea what that feels like.

You can find more photos of our fishing experiences together here.

Christopher

Portland

Christopher and I went to Portland for my friend's wedding.  Overall, we had fabulous trip and the wedding was awesome.  Like New Orleans (hope to post those pictures soon), we ate and drank too much, but the cities are polar opposites which meant very different experiences.  I like traveling with Christopher because he is open to new experiences, rolls with the punches, and like me, can make the most out of any place we find ourselves.  Which is why we can equally love places as different as New Orleans and Portland.

We packed our days full, but there was always time for a beer.





Or to smell the roses (or at least to point them out).





And, of course, being with friends. The day was beautiful and Kim looked stunning.






Check out all our Portland Trip pictures.

Where did Nathaniel go?

I love the age when kids think they are "hiding" and want you to find them.  Nathaniel will hide and say, "Where did Nathaniel go?" This means he wants me to wonder out loud,  "Where is Nathaniel?" and then find him.  His favorite place to do this is in the bathtub.  He will scrunch down in the water.  Of course I can see him, and his cute little bottom will be sticking up over the edge of the tub. I love it, and it always makes me laugh.

Yesterday, I was putting away laundry, and Nathaniel was playing on our bed.  I heard the familiar, "Where did Nathaniel go?"  I look over and he is sitting on the bed with the blanket over his head.  It was too cute, so I grabbed the camera and got a short video.  Check it out:

Howard Family Visit- June 2011

We love spending time with family, and summer is the perfect time to visit Chicago.  Laura (my sister), Sheri and Brian (aunt and uncle), and my Dad came to Chicago for a week.  I promised cooler weather than Texas, but I wasn't expecting such cool weather.  We were lucky to get highs in the upper 60s.  So my advice to only pack "one pair of jeans" was a big FAIL.  It was a fun filled week, but we often forgot to bring the camera to document all our enjoyment.

We did get a couple of good shots at the Blues Festival and Zoo.





And we had several cameras the day we went to the Indiana Dunes. It ended up being a gorgeous day (though still cool), and Nathaniel loved the sand, water, and throwing rocks into the water.





But it ended up being the big kids that didn't want to leave.




See all our pictures: Howard Family Visit


Y'all come back now. Ya hear?

Mother's Day 2011

I'll just say it- I love Mother's Day.  Even more than my birthday and Christmas.  I LOVE the craft project from Nathaniel's day care. I LOVE the cards/gifts, sleeping in, being served breakfast, and spending the day with the little boy I love the most (and Christopher deserves a big thank you for making it happen).  Nathaniel even let us get some pictures!

Nathaniel showing off his craft project from day care.



Nathaniel decided that he wanted to keep it and is actually trying to pull it out of my hand in this picture.



My favorite picture- I love his smile.



Hugs from my boy.

Your first love.

They say you never forget your first love, but since Nathaniel is only two...

Yes, that's right.  Nathaniel has his first crush.  Her name is Lizzie, and she goes to Nathaniel's day care.  Nathaniel talks about her all the time. According to Nathaniel, they are perfectly compatible.  "Lizzie likes PB&J toast!" "Lizzie likes Giraffey!" "Lizzie likes baths!" "Lizzie likes puzzles!" 

And it appears that Lizzie might like Nathaniel.  Today when Christopher dropped Nathaniel off at day care, Lizzie pushed her way through the crowd and almost gave Nathaniel a kiss!  Of course, who could resist kissing such a cutie...

Tonight when I was getting Nathaniel ready for bed he told me, "I like Mommy. I like Daddy. I like Giraffey.  I like Lizzie."  Yes, sweetie, you do. 

The Cowboy Rides Away

I can thank a college roommate for my love of George Strait.  I never really paid much attention to George until the summer she won two free tickets to his concert in Oklahoma City.  Somewhere between the mix tape she made me and the concert, I too fell in love with him.  Eventually I lost interest in his music (besides a few gems, most of his music is really just silly), but I always held on to my Strait Out of the Box [box set].   Every now and then I would pull it out- usually when I was feeling homesick or had my heart broken or both- and soothe my soul with some George Strait. 

Since Nathaniel was born, George has reemerged and once again plays a prominent role in my life.  I love singing to Nathaniel (and luckily he loves it back)- but singing only lullabies got old fast.  I realized that I knew a lot of lyrics to old George Strait songs and started rotating songs into my repertoire. My favorite song (and I like singing it at bed time) is The Cowboy Rides Away:



I also love Amarillo By Morning:



Nathaniel enjoys them both, but he really fell in love with George when I started singing Friday Night Fever. It's a lesser known (and very silly) song from 1981. If it were up to Nathaniel, he would just put this song on continuous repeat. I couldn't find a youtube video, but you can listen to a snipit of it on itunes. Check it out: Friday Night Fever

Frosty's Delight

If you know the punch line to the joke "Why was Frosty the Snowman smiling?", then the title of this blog post will make perfect sense by the time you're done reading it.  If not, well...cute title, huh?  Anyway, most of you might have heard about the recent weather disturbance that passed through this area (among many other places).  In fact, both our schools and Nathaniel's daycare were closed today in anticipation of the storm.  Well, as advertised, it dumped a LOT of snow on us in a very short time.  In fact, it was a "thunder snow" storm.  Last night we watched the lightning and were rocked by the thunder.

Fast forward to this morning.  We awoke to the aforementioned "LOT" of snow, but with no breeze and no more falling snow.  It seemed to be with a trace of disappointment that Kristina said, "I thought it was supposed to be snowing until the afternoon."  Within 30 minutes the wind was whipping around, and we got several more inches of snow within an hour or so.  So, everyone can blame Kristina for "calling out" the snow gods!

Now, rewind about 2 weeks when my parents called us up and said that they really felt we should have a snow blower (justifiably) and wanted to purchase or contribute money toward one (Thank you!!).  Being the dutiful son, I scoped out the best deals and bought one later that week.  Over the last 2 weeks we've had very minor snows...certainly nothing to put it to the test.  In fact, I felt assured that we had spared the rest of the region from significant snow by purchasing a snow blower.  Well, SURPRISE, Chicago!!!

So, here are some photos of the storm's aftermath and the work of Frosty's new friend. ;-)

This is the view out our kitchen window.  The bump in the lower left is the only sign of our bird bath, which is probably over 30 inches tall.


The snow was up to the windows of our sunporch


Getting ready to use the snow blower.  Note that the snow is deeper than the machine is tall.



The results! (please note that Kristina was out using a shovel and broom while I used the snow blower.)


Here's some of Kristina's handiwork.


This provides an excellent perspective of how deep the snow got.


Who let the drunk guy run the snow blower?! (Actually, it was hard to tell where the sidewalk was because I had no frame of reference. It was solid snow)


I don't think the car is going anywhere anytime soon.


There are a few more pictures here. Thanks again, Mom and Dad!

Christopher