Long day!

We had a long day today, but it was (almost entirely) a good one. We had two birthday parties to go to - one in the late morning for Elijah, a friend of Gus' from MOPS, and then one on the afternoon / evening for Chelsea. Both were fun, and included good food, but that meant we were out of the house from 10am to 10pm!

Given the circumstances, both kids did great. Ruby slept through the whole first party (the hour we were there, anyways) and the trip to Olympia for the second. She also napped a bit at Jason and Chelsea's house. Gus only slept for a short time on the way down, so he didn't get his normal 2-hourish nap. He was actually a ball of energy at both parties - and I had a hard time keeping up; lets face it, I didn't fully keep up... and it was a good thing there were others there to help out!

They did both finally give up on the way home: Ruby cried most of the way while Gus took off his shoes and socks, wiggled half-way out of his carseat straps, and then knocked our leftover dinner all over the floor of the car. We took a quick break in Tacoma to deal with those things, and that was a little stressful, but all things considered it was a lot better than it could have been with those two.

Anyhow, I wanted to give everyone who reads this a little insight into how things go these days. I didn't take any pictures to link to today, but Rose and I will keep posting photos as we have chances to - so check in from time to time on our Picasa account as well as Facebook.

Gus' Second Birthday Party

We celebrated Gus' second birthday today - a couple of days late, but weekends are much more conducive to getting folks together apparently ;). It was a little stressful getting ready for it, but a lot of fun. Thank you to everyone who came; to those who weren't able to make it: we missed you!

The party was held at West Fenwick Park, a nice mid-sized park a couple miles south of our apartment. I've posted pictures I took there on our Picasa account in case anyone is curious. Thanks go out to my mom for providing the cake and sandwiches fixings, and my lovely wife Rose for planning it all and not killing me when I went into overdrive trying to get ready for it this morning :)

Gus' First Birthday

Gus' first birthday is tomorrow, the 26th. We had a party last weekend with a bunch of friends and family, and the ~200 pictures I took have been posted to our Picasa account (link on the side). For those of you who weren't there it was a lot of fun, and Rose did a great job of setting things up and making the snacks :) For those who did make it, I hope you had a good time!

Birthdays and Dedications

This week had two special events for our family: Gus' dedication at church last Sunday, and my (William's) birthday on Friday. Pastor Rob did a very nice job at the dedication, and gave us some big goals to live up to as Gus' parents; it was also nice to have my parents and brother there. We've got a few pictures from it up on our Picasa account, though it wasn't anything really flashy.

For my 25th birthday Rose and I went on our first date night since Gus was born. We had dinner at a nice, romantic little Italian diner in Southcenter, Grazie, and the saw Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. It was pretty good, though some of the things the kids in the film (they were high school and college age) were up to would definitely not be things I'd want Gus to emulate.

I'd also like to give a "shout-out" to my Aunt Kathy, who is having her b-day on Sunday the 12th - happy birthday! :)

On the subject of birthdays

As many of you know, I am a numbers guy. Not as crazy as some accountants and engineers I know, but I like to find patterns to things that help me remember them. This is especially true with birthdays, as I have a horrible time remembering them (I'd like to say 'sorry' to all of my friends that I've forgotten b-days for over the years).

In my immediate family there is a trend that really helps with this. Check it out:

My birthday: October 10th
My mom: November 9th
My brother: December 8th

See? Each adds up to 20, and they go in order! By this logic, I was really hoping that baby Gus would wait till September 11th (yeah, I know, not the best date in history). Needless to say that my wife was not excited about that - it would have been 2 weeks past the due date, and she was getting sick of being pregnant.

When he was born on August 26th, I was trying to figure out how the heck I would remember that of all things - but I came up with two ideas. One is that each section of his birth date adds up to 8: 08-26-08. That works pretty well, but even cooler is the similarity to my wife's date. See if you see the pattern:

Gus: 08-26-08
Rose: 06-08-82

See that? The six digits are all the same - just in a different order! How cool is that?