19 months

Orion on his 19-month-old birthday, coming outside to get some chalk action. This kid gets cuter all the time.


He makes "O" and "Z". (He can recognize his name now, but he only actually says the vowels.) He's generally a happy guy, especially out of doors.
Although he loves a good book. (This one's "Jacques et l'haricot magique.")

A pic of him "fake-complaining". (Imagine he's saying 1 in french over and over. He's not.)
"Basta with the pictures Mama!"
But I just had to capture his jaunty pose in pajamas. Tres adorable.

August

Dan, Orion and I have been away or hosting (one week) eight weeks in a row! We've been to NY twice, for research and a friend's birthday party; to Missouri to visit Dan's grandmother for her 90th birthday; to Boston area twice, to visit my NEW NIECE! and visiting friend from England; and to a wedding of a college friend in Rochester, NY. We've: visited a truck stop on the highway, and the Strong children's museum, gone to the beach, picked blueberries twice, visited the Peabody--aka Dizazazz!--with both Grandma Susie and Grandpa Joe and Grandma Karen. Lots of fun, sadly unrecorded photographically. Oh, and I made a positively blue-ribbon peach pie with local orchard peaches, which was out-of-this-world ambrosial...if I do say so myself (I have witnesses). The blueberry cobbler was just averagely good. (a few pictures, not complete, of a handful of these occurrences, including Orion admiring my earrings.)



Best Wishes, Erin and Matt!
Finally, Orion chasing around one of the flower dogs.

The Story of Orion and Pinocchio

On Dan's recent trip to Rome he bought a wooden Pinocchio toy for Orion, which was an instant hit.

His investigation of the toy let to a complete disregard for patient Calamity's personal space. (Orion likes to treat furry animals as armchairs.)Calamity eventually tired of this breach of protocol.

Orion really loved this toy. I say loved, because Pinocchio turned into a real, albeit miniature, boy with long nose, pointy hat, and kneeless limbs that walked off during our quick trip to Manhattan. We miss him, but hope that he enjoys his big city adventure, where he may not lead a gentler life than the one we gave him.

Orion drives the truck

Orion got to sit in the driver's seat of a repairman's truck today. It inspired his longest intelligible phrase to date: gih, gih, gih, gih GUCK! (Big, big, big, big truck!).

Strawberry Picking (mid-June)

As promised--cute pictures of Orion at Echo Lake Beach

...and from our hike later that day

Acadia Pictures!!

found it.misty, cloudy, silvery
lupines were in full bloom everywhere
Dan holding a horseshoe crab under the supervision of a young marine biologist
On a hike, Aaron, Joni and "shrimpy"

Us
see above
A group of us at the top of Cadillac "mountain" engulfed in thick fog and wind.
bad visibility in the fog--but we did it!
On Sand Beach, rainy and beautiful

more from the Flying Mountain hike
see ya later