Greetings from Happy Valley

Over the river (Susquehanna) and through the woods (Poe Valley)

to Happy Valley we went.

Of course we hit up the Chili Cook Off! I was disappointed to see that the Nittany Lions don't take their chili as seriously as I do (there were only 4 competitors). However, the chili was VERY yummy!

Jack
learned
to crawl. This was something that I knew he could do because he can army crawl faster that I ever thought possible but he hadn't taken more that one or two 'crawl steps' at a time until today!

We saw a hot air balloon.

And we learned that the best toy ever is an aluminum to-go pan! We went to dinner at a earth-friendly brewery and pub and instead of styrofoam we took home our leftovers home in aluminum. It's shiny, malleable and it makes a lot of noise when you hit it!

Fun and Food

Someome is having fun working on his new walking skills. The only problem is he seems to want to practice ALL the time. Oy! My aching back!

The recipe here from right to left is: dunk, dunk, dunk, fry.
Stack. (In total there are 6-7 layers.)

Cabbage stew.
Sooooo goooood.

Shopping and a Playdate

After a quick stop at the grocery store...

We went to Lindsey and Cady's for an impromptu playdate.

Cady played dress-up.

Jack enjoyed a scalp massage.

Brooks gave me some constructive criticism about my camera operation.

Then Jack went for a ride!

Happy Feet

After an 11am trip to play partners at the local library...
We stopped at the mall to buy Jack's first pair of shoes. He's been pulling up a lot and when we're hanging out down the street with the neighbors he wants to stand. I can't let him stand on cold pavement in socks, now can I? I looked at Robeez after recomendations and discussion about them with some mommies, but I really like ones that look like sneakers. Those are of course the most expensive ones so on the way to the store I was walking through Sears towards the elevator... well who was having a shoe sale? Sears! These beauties were just what I had in mind and they were $15.
I would say something about hoping that he doesn't grow out of them too soon, but realistically I know better. But aren't they just too cute?! They also had chucks there... I can't wait till his feet are big enough for those!

OCD?

Why is it that I get a sick satisfaction from turning this:

Into this:

Weekend Adventures

First we had an adventure in food. We made spring rolls (for the second time). We 'double bagged' the rolls by using two pieces of rice paper instead of one. They held up much better this time! Yummy!

The next morning we went on another walking adventure at Lake Elkhorn. During the walk I said to Matt "Isn't it nice that Jack doesn't seem interested in taking off his socks. It will be easy to keep him warm this winter."
Oops!
This was what happened on the way home from the walk.

Matt fought the law

and the law won!

Well actually it was a draw, but that doesn't really go with the words of the song. For the last month a constant topic in our house has been Matt's speeding ticket, which if you know Matt its just laughable that he got a ticket for speeding. Getting a ticket for driving dangerously slow on a road is something I would believe, but speeding... well Matt's just not wired that way. So, basically the ticket was based on a bogus radar reading and Matt went to court today to fight it and got the speed reduced and the points reduced.

We are pleased! And not-so-secretly I am most pleased that we can just move on.

This is my attempt to channel a more relaxed Matt, the Matt of yester year... the Matt of our Honeymoon.