Winter Fun

Zach - Of Note

• Indoor playgrounds galore

• Three visits to Clemyjontry. Two with just me and Zach in the later afternoon were good fun.

• Zach's arabesque move on his scooter!
• An excursion to Dogfish for dinner. Zach made friends with Katherine, 18 months, and the woman in the booth behind us blew him a kiss. 
• Zach is obsessed with opening and closing the sliding glass door.
• He had fun playing with grandad's beard. 

Zach mesmerized
by the tree work

• Talking, talking, talking
• Zach is asking how are you and saying he had a good day. He carries on quite the phone conversation!
• I asked if I could have some privacy, and he said, "yes," and closed the bathroom door. 
• Books: 
• He's wild about so many of his new ones. He's been loving Corduroy, and we got to ride escalators for the first time at the Dulles Town Center! We also spent some time snuggling like Lisa and Corduroy do at the end of the book.
• He also has a new found love for the vintage book, Trucks, The Busy Squirrel, and Vroom Zoom. He loves finding "Peter's mommy" in The Snowy Day. 
• He loves his pony book, The Noisy Book, and wants to go camping after reading "Just Me and My Dad" with Frank.

Zach's Words

• "I'm okay," when he coughs.
• We had Trader Joe's croissants that are older than he is, and he had a lot of trouble saying “croissant,” but we had fun trying!
• Zach loves to say, "dashing," at just the right time in Corduroy. The nightwatchman "comes dashing" down the escalator!
• Singing: ABC’s, No More Monkeys, Wheels on the Bus, and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star with hand motions! 
• Zach and his, “No, no, no,” when he doesn’t want you sing with him. He wants to solo!

Frank & Zach by the Potomac

Susan & Frank

• Date night! Favorite Crooked Run beer: rush light, a collaboration with Charm City Mead Works. The Star Wars movie was good!
• Frank's foot is healed. Skiing in our future? We hope!
• Dinner out at Fire Works and Robbie's musical, Lightyears! It's autobiographical, so we learned a lot!

at El Segundo Beach

Good Food

• Soups: chili, pumpkin tomato bisque
• Williams and Sonoma Coq au Vin with roasted cauliflower and potatoes. Thank you, Charlotte! Had leftovers over bread. Yum, yum!
• Terry’s lamb dish with curry spice, cherries, mushrooms, onions, and yogurt. We added roasted sweet potatoes and kale. 
• Made croutons out of my bread
• Banana bread

Visits with

• Leah, Bennie, and SiSi. They had us over for a playdate on MLK Day
• Restaurant Week dinner at Passion Fish with Emily
• Dinner dates with Aliana and Emily
• Mom, Dad, and Emily all came over, and we enjoyed a feast from Lake Anne Market & Deli
• Calls with Sofia and Mary Kay
• Sam came for the Super Bowl
• Jeff came for dinner after his two weeks in Mexico

Fun Stuff (Personal & Professional)

• Diversity & Inclusion Work
• A lot of work came to a really good end as the first three trainings in the field have gone very well. 
• SCORE got “kudos from the Hill” for our inclusion work. That's me! Morgan told me the perspective taking cards were "awesome."
• Call with Krystal went well. Looking forward to joining that Diversity/Equity/Inclusion CoP.
• Thanks to Mike for giving me feedback on my "Debunking Diversity Myths" presentation
• Trip to LA for the "Culture of Inclusion" training. I made a save by noticing Sally was using the wrong deck. So glad I was there! 
• I stayed within walking distance of the airport, but got out to a coffee shop in El Segundo Beach and had Maki at a Japanese place with Sally. 
• Great professional calls that are crystalizing my desires, next steps, strengths, elevator pitch, etc. 
• Presented StrengthsFinder to the DRIVE group
• Good reading: The Mighty Queens of Freeville, Behold the Dreamers - thank you, Yvette - and Secret Daughter
• Watched Suite Francaise and Little Miss Sunshine on the way to LA
• Enjoyed The Five on Netflix
• Zumba class and Mi Gente, where I get to really jump
• Tried the Sensazao class. It kicked my butt.

The Holidays & Ringing in 2018!

Burke Lake Park View
from Winter Wonderland Train

Zach - Of Note

• Potty Training Update: Not really going anywhere. He was a HUGE fan of the books, Potty and "P" is for Potty, for a while, but now, six weeks in there is VERY LITTLE interest. I think we can count on one hand the number of times he's used the potty. :( 
• Zach is now loving going to the gym with me. We went again out of necessity after Frank's ankle/foot injury, and Zach has LOVED it, asking repeatedly to go "Zumba gym."
• See us below riding on Burke Lake Park's Winter Wonderland train with a stop for lunch at Dogfish Head.
  
• We're saying: "Pacis are for babies," and Zach says he's not a baby, but the paci is still critical at home. He has given it up at daycare. Colleen will have none of that!
• Zach's scooter! Frank said, "I thought he'd be good at it, but I didn't think he'd be THAT good."
• Our neighbor gave Zach a birthday/Christmas gift (apple sauce, book, and snowman). It took a while for us to realize that the snowman turned on and turned different colors! Super fun. We say, "Night, night, Snowman."
• Receiving Christmas cards was a lot of fun. Zach loved to look at the ones with pictures. He became obsessed with certain families. We asked Lucy to send more pictures of Owen as "more Owen" was the refrain for a number of days.

  

  Zach adores this
  Christmas card!

• Google made a movie of Zach photos from birth to 25 months. Creepy, but a sweet end product. 
• On Christmas Day, we peeked into a manger scene at one house, and the family came home while we were looking inside. Busted. In another neighbor’s manger scene, the wind had blown Mary over, and Zach was very distressed; we told him she was sleeping. 

  

  Zach, the artist

• The week between Christmas and New Year's, despite the cold, Zach insisted that I take him to daycare in the running stroller, so I got some extra exercise!
• We went down on the Mall to the Botanic Gardens, and Zach enjoyed the trains.
  
• His crib is now a zoo! Lots of books and stuffed animals for his birthday and Christmas. There's barely room for him to sleep!
• Crib ball, and, yes, he can climb out of his crib.
• With all the cold, cold weather, we took him to a new indoor playground, Chibis.
  

Zach's Words

• Zach has recently started saying, “okay,” a lot. It’s funny, and he says it in such an interesting, emphatic way.
• Christmas Tree, pronounced more like "Chemistry" (Draw out the "e.")
• "Snowman fell over."
• "Happy Holidays"

  

  Grandad, Dad, Zach, and the goat

• "I want beer" (not appropriate); "I want coffee"; "I want tea"; "I want to go Tacos and More." 

Susan & Frank

• Frank's ankle! He went to the doctor and found he'd broken a bone in his foot. He's had a boot for about six weeks. His doctor's appointment to get it off is next week. During the boot period, I've had to drive everywhere. Never my favorite thing, but Frank's gotten a turn as Zach's back seat companion!
• So productive the week between Christmas and New Year's! Frank went through all the mail, and I cleaned out drawers, cabinets, closets, and the fridge!
• We watched Rogue One and The Force Awakens to prep for going to see the new Star Wars movie, but in the end, we just went to Senor Ramon's and Crooked Run for yummy tacos and the best beers I've had at Crooked Run.

Good Food

• Made some old classics: spinach Brownies, granola, and TV soup with cheeeball
• Cooking afternoon with Auntie Em to prepare for the Christmas Eve Nosh. Emily's peanut butter bars are awesome!
• Family excursion to Tacos and More. We tried everything on their menu, and they brought us churros! They have GREAT chips and salsa and homemade hot sauce!

Visits with

• Out to the Valley, and Mom and Dad really took care of us with Mom's spaghetti and Dad's breakfast casserole!
• Ethiopian with Emily. She got Zach the best squirrel stuffed animal and squirrel book! He loves them. 

  

  Zach loves Paint!

• Christmas with everyone! In particular, Christmas Eve Day was a nice time. We took Zach to a new park, all got in naps, and then we celebrated at Auntie Em's before coming home for some wrapping time and the annual Love Actually viewing!
  
• Family lunch at Dog Money in Leesburg on 12/26
• I went to Baltimore for brunch at Golden West with Kathleen. Very fun. I also took my favorite Druid Hill Park walk and stopped in a the Wine Source where I got some local mead and beer to try. 

  

  Druid Hill Park view

• Thanks to Penni and Tommy for hosting us at their house on Jan 1.
• Frank, Zach, and I went to Baltimore and spent the night with Kate. We got to see all the Ubers (Anthony by phone) and Mary Kay and family!

Fun or Not So Fun, but Notable Stuff (Personal & Professional)

• Lots of bonding with colleagues. Always a good idea to minimize distance. More firings under bizarre and unsettling circumstances. 
• Connecting with Sofia, Jeanne, and Pam
• Working on my DRIVE group StrengthsFinder presentation
• Focusing on Diversity Equity Inclusion work and connecting with DRIVE colleagues, Angeline, Amy and pulling together a Degreed Learning Pathway....
• Finished Serial Season 2
• Lots of good YA books since Thanksgiving and getting back into the Kate Burkholder series
• With all the cold, cold weather, I've gone to the gym a few times. Nice to get back to the elliptical!
• EFO show with Emily and Jeff. They played a lot of my favorites: Candido; Jerusalem; Independence, Indiana. Robbie's written a musical, Light Years, that opens in February!

  

  Adorable!

2nd Birthday & More

Zach - Of Note

• I love mornings and breakfast with Zach.
  
• He started potty training! Gamma has been in charge of finding fun underwear for him when he's ready. Puffs as incentives, and he has some books coming as well. We'll see. 
• 2nd Birthday!
  
• Visitors, presents, apple cake, and adventures at Keswick: Riding on the Gator, visiting the cows in pasture, and feeding the chickens!
• He loves his construction toys, hot wheels, and truck books. He got an amazing singing card. See video.
• We got a Christmas Tree, and Zach has been pretty responsible about making sure it gets watered. He and I also did some decorating and for the first time, put on some of his ornaments that he's collected over two Christmases
• We're taking him up about 7:15pm now, and we read from his HUGE selection of books. Thanks to all for his birthday books! He also enjoys climbing on my back and over me!
• We explored Lake Anne in the snow! Zach got boots and ski pants for the winter. He's all set. 

Zach's Words & Singing

• “Mommy cooking.”
• “My Mommy” when Tristan (at daycare) got too chummy with me
• "Mommy's coffee" - when I arrived to pick him up one afternoon he was "drinking coffee." Pretty funny. 
• One morning he named all the things in his play room: blocks, box, phone, monkey, tractor, seat, etc. Pretty amazing. 
• Zach is loving looking at pictures of himself. He'll say, "More Zach." He loves photos of Sisi too, and so we asked Leah to text us a new and recent picture since all that we have are kind of old. 
  
• Zach sings: 
• Itsy, Bitsy Spider
• Wheels on the Bus, he says “all through the town” and does hand motions too
• Thank you, thank you, he always comes in on “big and strong” 
• All of the Raindrops, he’s really good at the “Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ahhhh."
• Peanut Butter and Jelly, he sings "jelly" after, "peanut, peanut butter...."
• We are singing The 12 Days of Christmas nightly now. Fun ritual. 

Before we leave daycare,
Zach MUST play in the gym!
Other kids ask awkward
questions about why he
doesn't want to go home...

Susan & Frank

• Basically, Frank and I did not see much of each other on our own. We had visitors and visited galore this month. 
• Then, I finally succumbed to the family cold, which turned into a nasty sinus infection. Frank rolled his ankle. Lots of recovery, rest, and TLC were necessary this month.
• Date night of drinks at Ocelot (though their two dark, malty beers were over the top sweet and frankly bad) and dinner Liberty Tavern was a Lot of fun!

Good Food

• Lunch at Enyate after a fun day down on the Mall at the Natural History museum, though he was obsessed with the museum store...
• Chili, pumpkin soup, and the roasted carrot salad
• For Zach's birthday and Thanksgiving: apple cake, chocolate pecan pies, and Brussel sprouts
• Homemade bread again
• Garam masala chicken "chili" - Yum, yum!
• Fritata with roasted broccoli and cauliflower
• Braised chicken with beets and olives, mashed potatoes, and broccoli with the Pet Nat from 868

Visits with and to

• Alison from Seattle
• Cooking day at Emily's before T'giving with Mom and Dad. Just like old times. 
• Sara Lee was a tremendous house for Frank, Zach, Jeff, and I over Thanksgiving. We had her homemade pumpkin muffins and eggs from her chickens. Yummy!

• Sam, Julia, and Zahra at Blenheim Winery!
• Kathleen and Brian at 868 Winery 
• Coopers Hawk with Auntie Em

Fun Stuff (Personal & Professional)

• Walking around DC and meeting LeaderFit folks
• Finished Stranger Things
• Cook Ross RISD session on SCORE's Culture of Inclusion training. Lots of good energy in the morning. It had really waned by end of day. We'll see.
• Participated in the HSN Academy, and it's always good to get out of the office and see SCORE at work in communities!  
• Trip to the zoo!
  
• Thanksgiving was fun - both of them! We had a sing-a-long on Friday with Leah and Bennie playing the piano and Sisi and the rest of us singing! See the "cousins"!

  

  Nolan, Gabriel, Zach

• I love Kate's stretch song Setting the World on Fire, by Kenny Chesney with Pink.

Summer to Winter

Zach - Of Note

Zach on the train
at Burke Lake Park

• We took Zach to Burke Lake Park and  met up with Aliana, Nathan, and Evera with specific plans to ride the train, and he had a blast. We rode the carousel too, which he liked this time around, but he obviously enjoyed the train the most. We rode twice!
• Zach's sleeping has been a little disrupted. He's solidly going to bed at 7:45pm now. Daylight Savings left him going to bed later and getting up later. Go figure!
• He's been doing a little more drawing; we bought him some crayons. 
• On walks home, he always stops and says goodbye to his friends, and we started gazing down at the W&OD trail from above. It became a ritual, and one evening, we counted 19 bikes. 

  

  Walking home

• Zach and Mommy had a great time while Daddy went down to West Virginia with his high school friends!
• On Saturday, we went down to Jammin Java to see Grandsons Junior. Zach enjoyed it for about 45 minutes and then announced that he was "all done."
  
• We visited Katie and Suji on Saturday night, and Katie played guitar for Zach, which he LOVED. Suji said he was mesmerized!
• Great Country Farms was a blast, and we only visited a fraction of their space. Zach loved the wagon ride to the "pumpkin patch," the antique tractors, and the cow train!
  
• Zach saw Frank's new mountain bike and wanted to go out to "ride" on it for several weeks. That required both me and Frank - one of us to hold him up on the seat and the other to walk the bike. 
• Images of buses became the rage this month
• Potty training on the brain this month. We've bought him a potty, and he'll move up to the 2's after Thanksgiving, so it will officially begin. 
• We ran into Mo on his last night as a UPS driver. He's retired!
• Leading up to Halloween, we went for some night strolls, and he enjoyed Halloween lights.
• Halloween was a lot of fun. We dressed him up for the second time (first time at Harvest festival), and visited all the neighbors he's met. Barbara said how much she was hoping we'd stop by!

  

  A monkey!

• With the time change (darker earlier, so less time to spend outside after daycare) and Zach's illness, he's been enjoying more music. Concert DVDs, Youtube videos of Great Big Sea, etc. 
• We picked berries and green beans at Rick's garden plot!
• What a fun time going down on the Mall to the American History Museum with Zach. He loved the transportation exhibit and the Good Humor ice cream truck outside. 
  
• His first cold and a fever that kept him home!

Zach's Words

• Visiting Katie and Suji, Zach quickly picked up on Suji's name. A few weekend's later, he met Lucy, Ralph and Chuckie's dog, again. We went to play outside, and he wanted to go "back up the hill to see Lucy." He parroted me over and over again, and "see Lucy" became "Suji."
• He loves to sing, “Thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you, for our food. For our food. Helps the body grow. Helps the body grow. Big and strong. Big and strong!” 
• He is talking to Alexa all the time now. 
• One morning we talked about how “independent” he is, and he turned that into “mundo, mundo” and just laughed!

Susan & Frank

• Date night for Frank's birthday. We tried out Heritage Brewing Co. and went to Four Sisters for Vietnamese. 

Good Food

• A great Ethiopian meal at Enyate. The family was so happy to see Zach, and he won them over again!
• Lots of pumpkin bread - thanks to Brian for his recipe!
• Fish Tacos!

Visits with

IX Art Park in
Charlottesville

• Aliana, Evera, and Nathan. We saw them two weekends in a row, and they're expecting a baby boy in April!
• Katie and Suji - dinner and time outside by their firepit!
• Met up with Emily R. for dinner, and we had such a good time. 
• Emily, Grandad, Gamma, and Daddy Bob all visited.
• Dinner with Auntie Em after her trip to Italy was a blast!
• Visit to Charlottesville. A great dinner with Ralph, Chuckie, Christopher, & Mia and Jim and Susan. A nice visit with Sam and Zahra. 
• Mary Kay via phone. Monthly check-ins are good!
• Emmy came to babysit!

Professional Fun Stuff (or just Fun Stuff)

Foggy Gainesville

• Mentoring advice and calls with Patti and Jeanne
• DRIVE group coaching and kickoff
• Learning about Green Dot and creating a community in support of non-violence
• Definitely not fun stuff, but Anna left SCORE, and I'm so sad to see her go. 
• Advisory Council meeting...good bonding with Hugh, Eileen, Ann, and Julie
• Trip to Gainesville, FL for a district meeting. Drove from Jacksonville to Gainesville on two different routes. A good meeting, a walk around Gainesville, dinner at a local restaurant...all interesting
• Listening to Serial's Season 2! Got in four episodes in early November

Mr. Chatty & More

Family selfie on the ridge in WV

Zach - Of Note

• A rougher month for sleeping. He's had 3 nights of waking. It used to be once/month and then it was once/3 months. Not sure what's going on!
• Lots of loveys. It started out as sheep, and then Bunny, so I bought a back-up, but now it is Bunny, Tiger, and Paint the Pony (from Auntie Em and Uncle Jeff)

• Claude Moore park in Sterling. A nice place! Zach liked the dining car of the train in the playground, and he continued to ask us to join him. There was a Fall festival, and he checked out the sheep, chickens, rabbits, and goat.

• He had two final late summer pool trips on HOT days, so it was good!
• We got a video of his laugh over bubble wrap here. 
• A couple of Mondays, Zach has waited for me to get home from Zumba. He and Zach are strolling, and he's watching bats. He know "bats, Zumba, and NYC"!
• I took Zach to the farmer's market one morning, and he loved watching the blue grass band. He took his lovey, Bunny.

• We listened to Tom Petty’s greatest hits over Zach's dinner/happy hour/dinner several nights
• We had a couple of low key nights reading in our room
• Zach LOVED "appee cake," aka apple cake this month!
• Because he has so many stuffed animals in his bed, he's doing a lot of chatting with them at night and in the morning. One morning, I heard him make the "Bbbbbbbbbbbbb" and then say, "OUTSIDE!"
• Starting to read and think about potty training. What? I will say goodbye to his footed onesies soon.... Zach seems into it too. He's saying it all. “bathroom,” “potty,” “pee,” and “poop.”

Zach's Words and Words - Words - Words

• He's amazing us daily. He'll say something out of the blue, like "wash cloth," and I think, "Where did he learn that? We don't even say that word too much." Still loving "back hoe," which also sounds like "big hoe." He also told us that was the magic word!
• He says everything: bread, broccoli, bathroom, Auntie Em, birthday, labyrinth, Emmy, Buster/Teddy (Debbie), Rachel, and Erik

He LOVES his cars!

• He says, "Thank you, Mommy!" and another favorite, "Mommy, are you?" for Mommy, where are you. He says this when he can see you!
• He learned about shaking hands, and so I went with it and taught him, “Nice to meet you.”
• We've been trying to teach him that Daddy is Frank and Mommy is Susan. Over several days, he calls us both Frank. On 10/14, he seemed to get it right and call me Susan!
• “Steep,” "yucky” and “stinky.”
• He says "Moona" a lot, but he now talks about all his care givers. Moona gets "Moona, diaper," and "Moona, cracker."

Susan and Susan & Frank

• Sick again. Just a little cold right after vacation, but still!
• Enjoying South of Superior
• Date night: rollerblading and Red's Table. I got a local Wild Hare cider.

Good Food

• Variations of summer checca pasta: spring onions, tomatoes, basil, eggplant (already roasted), corn, and parm and mozzarella with angel hair pasta. Yum! Yum!
• Yum! Zach loved it too!
• Chicken and grape pasta salad
• Smashed potatoes!
• Turkey zucchini meatballs with the yogurt dipping sauce and sweet potato/kale salad
• We made really great chili in West Virginia. Thank you, Kathleen.
• I made my Indian-inspired chicken dish with chick peas on a 60 degree day...not many of those cool days lately

Visits with

• Sofia!

• A really nice birthday celebration with Mom and Dad and Emily

• Greer and walking nearly 10 miles in NYC. We took the Highline to Chelsea Market and ate at Dizengoff’s (hummus bowls and frozen lemonade). Back on the Highline Trail to the end and then on the river walk along the Hudson. At the World Trade Center area, we hopped on the subway up to Greenwich Village and Big Gay Ice Cream. After a stop at Murray’s Cheese Shop, we walked back up to Penn Station. A sunny, beautiful fall day, and I was so dehydrated!
• Gib and Deb and Jeff
• Zach stayed overnight with Gamma and Bob on our West Virginia weekend, and they had a great time!

• The Ubers! WV! West Virginia 2017 Album. 
• Frank and I got to try a new hike in a beautiful area that we've never explored! We met Kathleen and Brian for dinner at the Hellbender.
• On Saturday, we met my parents and picked up Zach. He loved the car/cart at the grocery! K & B got out for a good hike in Dolly Sods, and we took Zach up on the ridge near sunset. (See the sunny hiking pics in the album.)

• The weather turned rainy on Sunday, and we went out to eat at the Purple Fiddle in Thomas (and heard live music) and to Sirianni's on Monday. Frank and I took Zach to playgrounds at parks, Blackwater Falls on the sunny day and Canaan Valley on the rainy day w/ swings.
• The house had a great porch and grounds that we all enjoyed. There was a great fire pit, and we had good weather for it on Saturday night. We hot tubbed in the rain on Sunday night.
• Emily's birthday dinner at Clyde's was so much fun!

Professional Fun Stuff (or just Fun Stuff)

• Walking meeting with Mary Kay
• Top Golf with the Field Ops Team
• Inclusion work is really taking off. I'm the staff point person, and it's just where I want to be! Met Krystal, working on modules, training, calls, measures of success, communication plans, etc.
• Raju left. On his last day he shared delicious Nepalese food he made, and I gave him a food token
• My awesome mentors continue!

Late Summer and Vacation!

Family Vacation to Northern Michigan

• For the album, click here. 
• We left on a Friday night and put Zach to bed in the car. Frank drove us to Youngstown, OH, and we did okay getting Zach in the hotel room. He was not as cooperative as our March trip to Vermont, but he got to sleep fairly quickly, and we all slept until about 8am. 
• We stopped in Ann Arbor and visited around Zingerman's. Frank and Zach quickly found a park, and I brought a picnic. Zach loved the pesto pasta. 
• Back in the car, we made it Interlochen for a grocery store stop and then headed the rest of the way to Glen Lake. 
  
• On Sunday, we discovered the Old Settler's Park near our house. Zach really loved their swings and encountered the merry-go-round for the first time. On the dock, Zach swerved and wobbled such that he nearly fell off the dock. Frank fell in righting him, and cut his hand. It was a great save! We headed in to Traverse City for lunch and had to improvise when Spanglish was closed. Luckily, there was an awesome pizza and bakery on the quad, so we carried out pizza to Left Foot Charley's and sampled their wine and cider. The winery/cidery had a sand box with truck, so Zach had a blast. Other kids and families filtered in and out. 
  
• Monday - Friday we settled into a routine. We mostly got started a little late and had breakfast together. We'd get Zach to Julie's, and on MWF, he played with three older boys and one 14-month old girl.  On T and Th, there was a fourth older boy. He loved Julie's set-up. She has bikes, cars, and tractors galore to ride. Her basement was enticing, and she had them outside a lot with her pool and water table. Some days Zach didn't want to leave. She remarked at how much he drank and at how after the first day, he would go to the room where he napped and tell her when he was ready for his nap. We'd pick him up with plenty of time for playing at Glen Lake at either the park or in the water, and on Friday night, we took him to the Hop Lot Brewery. 
  
• Frank and I took off for different adventures: hiking in nature preserves, roller blading two days, canoeing one day, and spending a relaxing morning by the fire on Friday. The weather was fairly chilly. After a leisurely morning, we explored Sleeping Bear Dues near Port Oneida. We visited a lot of our favorite places: Black Star Farms, Spanglish and tried out new ones: Pleasanton Bakery, Left Hand Charley's, and Hop Lot. We ate out on the deck at our house a couple of days too and read. We took naps!
  
• On Saturday, it took forever, as usual, to pack up and hit the road. We stopped at Shorts Brewery, and, oh, how it has changed! When we last went two or three years ago, there was no table service. They've expanded, and there was a long wait, so we got food to go and ate on the outside grounds of a local grill. Before heading out, we filled our growler at Shorts. 
• At Polecat, we had a lovely time with Nancy and Sara Gay, and Edguardo joined us on Sunday. (He and Zach did not have as much time to speak Spanish together as I would have hoped.) We all handled dinners with Sara Gay delivering two delicious meals. Zach was a hit, and our flexibility was tested feeding him in several different locations!
  
• Frank, Zach, and I toured around mostly together, visiting Petoskey's and Boyne City's waterside parks. Frank watched Zach while I rollerbladed two mornings, and I watched Zach in the afternoon while Frank sailed on two days. We got in the water two nights and visited Rudbeckia Winery and Burnt Marshmallow Brewery for lunch one day. Their kids car track was a hit. Zach befriended "slow man" on a visit to Camp Seagull. We also went into Charlevoix and uncovered their splash pad and purchased the signature vacation milkshake (now $9) from Kilwin's. 
  
• Nancy, Sara Gay, Edguardo, Frank, Zach and I had really nice evenings together. Zach would eat, and we would snack while the chef cooked. We all "cheers"ed Zach, enjoyed a couple fires, and had delicious dinners after he went to bed. 
• On Wednesday, we took forever to pack up again, and hit the road at 11am. We stopped again in Ann Arbor at the park and made it home around 1am after standstill traffic on the Ohio Turnpike for 30-45 minutes. 

Zach - Of Note

Tumbling this month!

• At Julie's, Zach learned the fist bump, jumping, and got tickled. Now, he says, "tickle, tickle."
• He continues to LOVE playing in the car. It's a good rainy day activity. 
• Loveys. This month he decided he must have his sheep blanket in his crib, and we sent it with him to Julie's every day. At home, he doesn't take it to daycare. Now Bunny is his first stuffed animal lovey. 
• Every UPS driver on our trip was Mo!
• Teething returned with a vengeance! A rough night for Mr. Zacharoo. 
• Zach was very taken by steam from boiling water on the stove. I tried to show him it was hot, and he remembered when he saw the same dish later that evening and wondered if it was hot. 

Zach's Words

• Zach is really good at singing “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!”
• "Cheers" continues to be a fun and routine activity in the evenings.
• At our house in Michigan there were stuffed deer (2) and duck memorabilia. He impressed us by knowing both words and pointing them out!
  
• Apple sauce is "apee sauce."
• It's hard to tell the difference, but he says, "Alexa," which also sounds a little like "outside."
• At Polecat, in Michigan, it's fairly steep, and Zach learned the word while we were there. 
• "Food" and "hungry"
• First sentence: "I did it!"

Susan & Frank

• We got out to see the movie, Wind River, which we enjoyed. 
• The latest season of Hinterland
• And tons of vacation fun

Good Food

• Lasagna and modified turkey vegetable soup (with in season veggies) on vacation and dinner on the screened porch overlooking the lake
• Breakfasts in Michigan. We brought everything in to the table and ate together with a view of the lake
• Lemon raspberry tart, peach brown butter tart, ham croissant with dijon mustard, cheddar bacon scone, and bars/cookies (great for the trail) from Pleaston Bakery
• Best vacation lunch was the afternoon at Blackstar Farms. Yummy pizzas, cider, and wine. They use the grape skins in their pizza crust, which is thin and crispy. Very tasty!

Excursions & Visits

• Two brunches at the Shaheepskys. At the first one, Sisi took Zach for a ride, and he melted down on the eve of our second brunch date when we reminded him of the fun he had via a photo, and he became obsessed with the photo on the phone. In September, our turn around the block in one of the toy cars led him to meet another "slow man." This one with a dog! Zach gave him a high five. 
  
• Visits with Sara Gay, Nancy, and Edguardo in Charlevoix
• Gamma and Daddy Bob ("Bob" to Zach) and Jeff visited too!

Professional Fun Stuff (or just Fun Stuff)

• A bit of professional bonding with an eclipse viewing at work
• Finished two books: Rosa Parks: My Story and Midnight Blue
• LeaderAMP continues to provide some great coaching
• Renegade, unsanctioned stars!
• Connections: Avizia and Tiara and Artisan E-Learning and Diane. She gave Zach a book she wrote. Very cool. 
• SCORE Awards were great!