April in Washington

I have created a flickr account to store photos, I'll attempt to link them here to get a more solid "blog" thing going on.

We were a little worried about the trip down to DC, since I finally got the orthopedic surgeon to take a look at my knee. I didn't know how bad it would be, but I figured my knee was bothering me anyway, and the operation should be pretty trivial, able to walk out of there. It did wind up OK, but man was my knee tired at the end of every day! I got the pictures of the inside of my knee, in case anyone is interested.

We took a train ride out from Boston, got a neighbor to drive us into the city bright and early. We got a brief surprise visit by Allison's sister Michelle in Boston, one of the resaurants she manages is just a block away from the train station, so she saw us onto the train... and didn't get off in time! She wound up riding with us towards Providence, where she was able to get a ride back into Boston. It was pretty funny. The train ride went well, took longer than flying, but so much easier, and less stressful than driving. Archer got a nice long nap in on the way down, fell asleep watching McGuire play on the DS.

We were met in DC by Mary Ellen, Allison's long-time DC resident sister. She had just announced to us that she was engaged, everyone else had met him, except for me. We went to his place for a picnic later on. First thing we needed to do was meet up with Carrie and her family, who were vacationing in DC for Sean's birthday. It was raining, and they were not having the best vacation time, but it was nice to see them anyway, they are such a photogenic family.

It's getting late, so for now I'm just dumping a bunch of pictures and I'll maybe toss in a bit here or there to describe them.

I can't get enough of Abraham Lincoln's writing. There is something so simple and so eloquent about it. McGuire probably thought I was weird because I felt like I just had to read the Gettysburg Address and this out loud when we were at the Lincoln Memorial.









This statue is in the Capitol building, I can just imagine Senator Clinton pausing in front of it for inspiration when times get rough. The uncarved block in the back is saved for the first woman President. I hope it is not still uncarved when I die.





McGuire and his aunt and soon-to-be uncle at his house in DC. He's a software guy, with a big strong dog and both of them like my kids. Three good marks for him in my book.

Catching up

It's been since March that I put anything of value on the blog, so I really want to try to fill in the gaps.


In late March, we went to Mom's for Easter. We were 4 of the maybe 60 people there, but it went well. The kid situation at these gatherings is crazy! There were so many little boys and girls running around, it was really great to see McGuire be able to play with kids. Fortunately he is much more adept at socialization than I ever was.




We went to Washington DC April 18th! It was a long, but nice, train ride. More details and pictures will follow here.

McGuire's Karate school closed with only one class after we got back from vacation. To say that he is devastated would be a huge understatement. For now we are looking at the same franchise in a different town, but it is a half hour away, when the old school was 5 minutes. We are also looking at a different place, another one in town. That is still all up in the air.

Also on the McGuire front, he had his Spring Concert. Dad came up to see it, and McGuire had a solo that turned into a duet. He had been practicing "Aura Lee" ("Love Me Tender") but one other kid was also doing it, so they got their two solos turned into a duet. I have uploaded the video to YouTube.

Look at me, less than 2 months apart!

So much for the idea that I would actually post frequently, or even regularly. I had this grand scheme, on Sundays, when Allison is at church, Archer and I could think of things to post for family to read. That plan almost made it one time. I'm so pathetic. Basically, Allison got paranoid about the amount of information some people put on the web. Beyond just the provocative MySpace pictures of teenage (and preteen!) girls, things like where people live and their routine could make it easy for a sick (evil) person to track a person down from their web profile and hurt them. With respect to her, especially given her good intentions, I had refrained from putting anything up. I have come to the point, now, where I feel like having this token communication with people I care about is well worth the risk of the Internet Sickos, who I am not sure actually exist (at least not trolling blogger.com).