Home Shots and a 5k Race with a Treat

These days I'm working to close out the year both in the office and on the blog. Which means the faithful readers that stop by here haven't had to wait as long for newness...unlike Mom, who is patiently waiting to share her cereal with Morgan while he is captivated by the television.




Thomas the Tank Engine came to Toys R Us one weekend and a Junior Conductor came home.

That same conductor also knows that you have to have your

shoes on to go outside...pants, optional.

In September, I ran in one of the largest 5k's in RI (hold your laughter).

Morgan is awaiting the start.

There's no chance he'll find me.

After the race, there was an inflatable obstacle course that we trudged through.

This was probably a 12 foot vertical, because I'm still at the bottom spotting Morgan.

The Big Finish!!

Summer Visitors

Come on out and see us, Morgan will take your picture! Or Ed...or whoever took this shot...should we get more cameras? Morgan's Buffalo Grandparents came out for Labor Day. Here comes September photos!




Ed was hitting some golf balls in the back yard, while Morgan and Nacho chased them. The ball is already in flight here, see the white streak about 3/4" to the left of Morgan's head.

Nacho won most of the races to fetch the balls, Nacho also got in the line of fire once and took one to the body. Sometimes winning is really losing...

We all went to Waterfire. Morgan and Ed got a picture with The Oracle,

but Morgan wasn't too sure about it.

Morgan and Lisa cuddling up along the river.

Waterplace Park





A strip of braziers on the river.

Morgan, contorting my neck...perhaps a future in chiropractics?

Lisa took another shot at The Oracle with Morgan, because he couldn't stop talking about her.

And...since we had free babysitting in town, we went to Boston for a show!

Kiddie Pool

Here we have some pics from mid to late August...

What can you do on a nice day rather than sitting on your chair in your underwear with a circle of pink playdoh??

Go outside and play in the pool!!

Jumps for everyone! Am I getting kicked in the sweetspot here? You be the judge...

Our little shark lover says "Do it again Daddy, again!"

After a good day outside, Morgan makes sure that Mom eats her dinner so that she gets more energy.

Post-bath, there's no warmer place to be than towel wrapped in Mommy's lap.

I'm on a roll!

Washington Co. Fair

Hey! Good news, Morgan is going to start writing his own blog...

so what if he does it in his underwear?

Morgan's first trip to the Washington County Fair was full of treasures...maybe not to some, but to a 2 year old, this stuff works. Here he gets up close with the horses before the pull.





Morgan got intimate with the cow milking process. Later he got a good look a T-bone by sticking his head up the bull's...well you know...there's no shots of that though out of respect for the bull.






Morgan wanted this rare carnivorous bunny to sample on his fingers. The bunny did not oblige.

So Morgan exacted his revenge on some rooster's by urinating on them. It's a thing of beauty when a man can go in public...er...I mean, Morgan stop that!

And where else but a fair do you come across deep fried oreos?

Unfortunately no one in our family craves oreos...(Missy).

Oh Yeah!

Morgan is soaking in his first tractor pull.

On our way out, we passed thru a freak bubble storm...barely made it out alive.

I had to scoop Morgan up to get him above the storm.

Check it out 3 blogs in a week! Don't get spoiled, no reasonable person can keep this pace up.

Part 7: The Finale

As you may imagine, there is a ton of wind atop the dunes (especially being along the water), so it was a fantastic place to fly kites...and you remember from a previous post how we flew kites a the beach, so of course we brought our kites to the dunes...er...wait...shoot! Fortunately, people are nice and overheard a 2.5 year old incessantly asking to fly a kite and obliged him to bail us out. You cannot tell from this shot, but Morgan is holding the reel and is flying the kite on the left.

Obviously one of us took this, I'm just kidding, it was a really friendly passerby.

Dune snuggling

Dodging a dune snuggle with Mom leads to dune capture!

...and the eventual submission to a dune snuggle :)

The aforementioned dune sunset!

Oh, and I finished that puzzle in 2 days - a nice panoramic view of our nation's capitol.




Well, that's it! A 7 day trip turned into a 7 part post. Thanks for sticking it out. I know what you're really thinking though...these 7 days happened in July, it's the end of November...get with the times!! Relax, to tell you the truth, we haven't synced our camera since uploading these pictures, so I'll do that tomorrow and we'll see what happened in August :)

Part 6: Off to the Dunes

As you might recall from a previous post, my back got sunburned on day 4 of 7...so I didn't want to wear a shirt, nor did I want to go outside much during peak sun hours, though I did find something to do indoors. Morgan enjoyed working on the puzzle with me.

In the late afternoon we went to the dunes to see the sunset.

The shoes stayed in the car and we went on our way.

Grandma, Grandpa and Morgan started up path, while Missy and I gathered this view from the bottom...stay tuned.

Grandma and Grandpa stalled out on the way up, giving Miss and I the opportunity to cruise past them and acheive this view from the top. Morgan had to drag them up to the top, but that was only the beginning...

Once at the top, an endless expansion of dunes lay in front of us and Morgan was off to conquer it all!

Seriously...all of it.

Part 5: Trip to the Aquarium

The trouble with writing posts 3+ months after the photos were taken is that it becomes less about what happened and more about what it looks like...

At any rate, one of our day trips was to the aquarium. Now you'd think (or at least I would) that an aquarium in the Outer Banks could have some great stuff, I mean we saw dolphins in the ocean, so the aquarium is going to be amazing right? slow down...


Morgan wrangled this alligator for a ride. There is another photo with him holding the gator's mouth open and sticking his head inside, but I'm not looking to terrorize anyone, so I won't post it. (Plus Morgan's hands became bloodied from the gator's teeth - I should have seen that coming)

We're peering into this tank as I give Morgan a pep talk on why turtles aren't to be feared.

He buys into it and decides he's going to get in there and mix it up to help give the people their money's worth. (I failed to mention to him that they were snapping turtles.)

Sidenote: I may not get parent of the year

Still riding the high from the conquering the snapping turtle exhibit, Morgan headed outside and convinced Emma to assault an innocent turtle as she tried to lay her eggs.

Thereafter, Morgan's adrenaline crashed and he needed to be carted around by Emma as we went thru the trails looking for a red wolf.

As we came upon the wolf, I helped Morgan seek higher ground. Emma! Look out! Whoops...

After the all the bodily harm the kids endured (thankfully no adults were injured), they spent the afternoon at the beach, because the best thing for an open wound is salt water!

It was a rough day at the aquarium and a rough day in the ocean. Nobody was out swimming on this day...Morgan! Get back here!

Oh, and despite what I said in my opening to this post, everything occurred exactly as I described it here.