Eric, Laurie, and Piper came and stayed with us this weekend.  It was a rainy week but we managed to find some time to get outside.  We went to Festival In The Park on Sunday before they headed back home.  Here are the girls on a helicopter ride. 


Claire and Piper were like "peas & carrots".  Mainly because Claire wouldn't let her out of her sight.  I think Piper was glad to have her personal space back after the weekend was over.


1. Claire following Piper around; 2. Finding acorns; 3. Shaking the gate; 4. Front porch sitting.


It's time that we taught Claire how to share.  It seemed that she wanted (and took) everything that Piper had in her posession.  1. Piper has the cooler; 2. Claire wants the cooler; 3. Claire secures the cooler; 4. History is written by the victor.


Claire's favorite past time lately has been finding acorns in our front yard and storing them in her wagon.  I suggested that she might want to secure the parimeter of her wagon to discourage squirrels from raiding her stash but she thought she had enough to go around.


Claire is miss independent.  On our walks lately she has decided to cut out the middle man (daddy) and instead of having me pull her in the wagon she instead likes to pull the wagon herself.  She still likes "Finding Nemo" so we drink some milk and sit together while watching the Turtle chapter of the movie (ch 16).  I know kids under 2 years old aren't supposed to watch TV but I explain the different animals and what's going on so it's an opportunity for learning and we don't watch for very long.


Some more funny faces.  She was thoroughly excited to have Piper spend the weekend.  It was also nice to have Eric and Laurie in town.  After they left on Sunday we stopped over to visit Ryan and Julie since we hadn't seen baby Anna yet.

We headed up to Steve & Farrell's mountain house this weekend to unwind a bit.  Claire likes to sit in chairs these days....just for 30 seconds and then wants to get down.  This weekend was just what we needed.  Some time to unplug and enjoy simplicity.


We went for walks and did quite a bit of exploring.


We made roaring camp fires each night.


Claire was really excited to see the fire.  She kept saying "hot" and when we put her to bed she wanted to look outside to see the fire.


Spent some time in the hammock.


It was pretty chilly this weekend but it's tough to pass up an opportunity to take a shower outdoors.  I had a baby salamander run over my feet while in there.


Playing with torches never gets old.


Exploring the outdoors.


Some photos of their place.


1. Outdoor fire place, shower, wet bar, and grill; 2. Screened porch with day bed & hot tub; 3. Grassy area for playing games; 4. River down below for tubing and fly fishing.

About six months ago (March 2011) I started down a path of searching for some answers to questions that I never really put too much thought into in the past.  It started with religion and in order to dig into that I had to look at the history of the Earth and eventually started digging into the history of civilizations, countries in power and their uses (mis-uses) of that power, global economics, capitalism, politics, etc.  This journey took a toll on my mental state and some people around me (including Jen) were worried about me.  To me, it was like in the movie The Matrix where Neo had to make the decision to take the blue pill (blissful ignorance of illusion) or the red pill (painful truth of reality).  Once you take the red pill there really is no turning back.  The reality of the world that we live in was kind of a shock to me.  I don't know why I didn't give these questions more thought earlier in life.  Maybe it was because it's easier to coast along without questioning things.  Or maybe I was just too busy.  I'm happy to say that after six months of riding a roller coaster of emotions I've come out the other end with some clarity and a positive outlook.

I'm not going to go into detail here because I don't want to ruin anyone's day but I will lay out some topics for what I looked into just in case others want to see for themselves.  At the end of my journey I did realize though that I am very lucky to have been born in the US at the time of great abundance.  There are so many other people out there that are being held down to keep us held up high.  It's very saddening to see how others are barely surviving while we continue to consume way more than we need.  I also realized that we need to enjoy life while we are here and focus on spending our time wisely.  On top of that we have to realize that things can change suddenly so we have to be prepared for the unexpected and accept whatever comes our way.

SUMMARY OF TOPICS:
* Study of various religions, their beliefs, timelines, and origins
* History of the Earth (Timeline of Earth vs. Timeline of Humans)
* Extinction Events on Earth
* History of world powers and civilizations and their eventual collapse
* Timeline of US power (relatively very short) and how history repeats itself
* Large Corporations and their use of power
* US economic outlook & global economy
* True unemployment numbers, true GDP numbers, true inflation numbers
* Spending habits of US population...addiction to credit, materialistic goods, excess...
* The connection between the investment banks, government, and the Federal Reserve
* Depletion of our natural resources including clean fresh water ... pollution of our water sources
* US dependence on OIL for vehicles, manufacturing, growing food, everything actually
* Naturally occuring or manmade...doesn't matter....effects of a warming climate
* US Food & Drug Administration, Big Pharma, and healthcare
* Genetically altered food (Monsanto) & patents
* Practices of poultry (Tyson) & beef industry ... antibiotics, waste runoff into fresh water sources, arsenic, growth hormones, etc.
* Power of the Media (controlled by handful of corporations)
* Real reasons for wars in middle east and the true cost to US population and the civilians in opposing countries
* Rising global population and limited food and water resources
* Potential global ecomomic crisis
* Exploitation of third world countries by first world countries and consequences to third world population

I know that when added together these subjects seem pretty grim.  I started with one thing and then it pointed me to another thing and after a while it just kept on branching out.  Needless to say, there is a lot of interesting stuff going on out there and if you don't look for it you won't notice it because it's filtered away from our viewing eyes.  Once I cracked the surface the floodgates opened and from that point on there was really no turning back.  Reality is bit different than what I used to believe it to be.  As a whole, we as a population definitely have some room for improvement.

Claire was happy to come home from the hospital on Monday.  She seemed like she was back to normal by Wednesday.  She got to play with her friends at school which she thoroughly enjoys.  She's not eating many solids at the moment and mostly just drinking milk because the antibiotics are most likely affecting her stomach.


Claire has figured out what trash is and where it belongs.  Whenever she sees something that needs to go in the trash she says "garbage" and walks to the garbage and throws it away.  On top of that she loves watching the garbage truck pick up the cans.


Claire's BBF (best boy friend), Elliot, had a birthday last weekend that we missed so we had them over to celebrate.  We had dinner at the Greekfest festival and came back home for cake and gifts.  Here's Jen lighting the cake that she made.....it was muy tasty.  I ended up eating 6 pieces of cake on Sunday and then declared that I'm not eating dessert for two months.


Dr. E sharing a cab ride with Claire. 


Kerry, Elliot, and Sara getting ready to blow out some candles.


Claire is pretty funny about taking her antibiotics.  Every time we give it to her she first needs a little taste on her lips, shakes her head, and then sucks it down.  It's funny to watch the hesitation and then the realization that she likes it.


Here Claire is playing the role of the bully.  She already has one tiara in her hand but notices that Elliot has one within his grasp so she boxes him out, grabs it, and then does a spin move leaving Elliot empty handed.  Notice the two tiaras in Claire's posession in the 4th photo.  It may be time to start hinting about the importance of sharing.

Mixed photos of Claire & Elliot.

The only other notable from this week is that I took a class on Securities Operations from Wednesday through Friday for work.  I really enjoy learning about the various aspects of the trading lifecycle.  It also helps me to better understand all of the underlying data that I am working with while creating applications at work.

One other thing to note is Claire's love for the movie Finding Nemo.  We started letting her watch it while drinking milk and the only part that she wants to watch is the Turtles.  When she wants milk she says "Monu" for "Nemo" and then says "Turta" for the turtles.  It's our time to cuddle a bit and I explain what's going on in the scenes as well as the different animals.  I know they say that kids shouldn't watch any TV until they are 2 years old but it's kind of a bonding time and a learning time so we don't think there is any harm.  She gets bored with it after about 10-15 minutes and starts running around again anyway.

Claire got her cast off on Friday and when they took the X-ray they saw that her bone was eroding.  They suggested that we take her to the hospital because it seemed like an infection in the bone.


Claire didn't feel like eating much after getting blood drawn but she found a place for some chocolate pudding.  It's hard to see her getting poked with needles and I know it's painful for her because she doesn't usually cry unless something really hurts.


Baby Bear snoozing with Cowie after getting blood drawn and an IV line put in the top of her foot.


Hanging out waiting for the MRI in the morning.  She wasn't able to eat or drink anything after midnight so she didn't really understand when we said we couldn't feed her or give her anything to drink in the morning.  We got to the MRI at around 11am so she was a bit hungry and thirsty.


She's got her cast off and still smiling even though this hospital visit wasn't all smiles.


After the MRI they told us that they wanted to take her to surgery to clean up the area of infection.  More time without food and water.  Here she is out cold after her surgery.  Everything went well.


Claire had an IV line in her foot for the duration of our stay so we couldn't let her walk around much.  On Sunday we snagged a wagon.  She really got excited to see the stars on the wall by the elevators.  It was tough keeping her contained since she doesn't usually sit well.  She likes to be on the go.  We got to go home on Monday and Claire will be on antibiotics for the next 3-4 weeks.  We're still waiting on some lab results to get back to see if they can narrow things down further.  They also don't think that her bone was ever fractured in the first place.  They think it was the infection all along. 

This weekend was pretty rough on all of us.  It was tough to see Claire go through all of that, keeping her contained and keeping her from pulling out her IV, sleeping on small couches with nurses coming in throughout the night, and thinking about what could be wrong.  The worst case definitely came into our minds at points.  It makes it worse since she can't fully communicate everything to us.  All of that being said, Claire is one tough little girl.  She cried at times but snapped back quickly and put a smile on her face when she was definitely not feeling it.  She did a better job than me!!