A new life; same as the old life?

We started 2007 with one of the warmest winters on record, not much snow and very mild. The plus to this was playing winter golf in Chicagoland, the downside being that we were looking forward to experiencing some "hard winters". Like the previous year, one of our sporting team were playing at the top of their sport. The Bears made the Superbowl, only to lose, but hey they made it right. We didn't know it at the time, but we were also on the way to our first child, conceived on or around Christmas day! In February the weather got colder, still not much snow, but the temperature was dropping so much sand was freezing! Oswego county in NY state was getting feet upon feet of snow, and we got a new car. The HHR, always intended to be Lorraine's car, in preparation for our baby producing efforts was an excellent find and an excellent deal. We knew we were expecting our baby, but hadn't told anyone yet, except the future grandparents. Late in March we went public, and ...

I don't know how one gets to the top of such lists, when there are soooo many sites out there on that world wide web thingy, but recently I have been seeing a lot of hits for three specific items.. 1. The Hippo Christmas Song 2. A Soldier's Silent Night 3. Slainte Mhath (Slancha Va) Nobody comes to see me anymore, it seems either AJ, or one of these top three items are the most popular!

The weather has been pretty wild over the last few weeks with some pretty big storms rolling through. One have had two ice storms, the first of which had all melted before I could get the camera out next day, it was crazy with my whole truck coated with ice, really wish I had some pictures! We had around 9" of snow in one storm, that was excellent and a lot of it is still around. The last week or so has been lots of freezing rain, sleet and snow, not much fun. This picture is from an ice storm we had at the weekend. Every branch, leave, bud and stick of every tree was coated in ice, it looks really cool. Not sure what else the season has in store for us, but hopefully more of the same, it's fun for us truck drivers. Lorraine's family will be in town for Christmas, so hopefully there will be a white Christmas.

Most of my UK friends will think this corny and most of my US friends will have either done it before, or will in their future. I am talking about the family Christmas card. In future, ours will be way more professional. I refuse to pay someone to do it, but I might try the old "green screen" approach, and get some compilation pictures going, but we will see. Anyways for now, here are some pictures from this year's shoot. Sorry they are a bit split up, but I filed them differently, so there are two links below. AJ & Reggie , Just Reggie

My friends who know me well, will also know that I love Christmas and specifically Christmas films and music (Charlie - remember A Country Christmas!) So when Lorraine got an email from a township an hour away to come and see their Christmas light show, set to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, I was there with bells on! Some of you may remember the guy who did this with his house a few years ago. Well they asked him to do this for their tree. I have a couple of videos below, that we shot in the freezing cold watching the results of his endeavours.

If you have been reading for a while you will know that AJ and bathtime didn't mix in the early days. Being my first, I still don't know if that was normal, or she was just fussy. It doesn't really matter now, because quite honestly she now loves the bath, and doesn't even mind water in her face..too much! As you can see, I have been playing with the Camcorder and shot some videos of her last night. AJ In The Bath : AJ& The Duck : AJ's Bathtime

As you know the US has just celebrated Thanksgiving; that annual ritual of eating a lot, shopping a lot and putting out the Christmas decorations. As you can see from this picture, I am but a mere blot on the landscape when compared to some of the other efforts around the US, but it is a process of building up. Talk of shopping though, and I fall even more short of the traditional American Thanksgiving shopper. Some stores open at midnight on Thanksgiving, most waiting until around 4 or 5am the following morning, with people waiting in line for literally hours to grab a "door buster" bargain. Usually some limited stock electronics item, a laptop, flat screen TV, etc that can be 50-80% lower than the regular retail. We sauntered out around 10am, when most people had already put in a full day. The traffic was OK, the parking lots full but not bursting, and the bargains not quite so cheap, but still good value. We picked up a video camera, hence the title of this post, for a me...

and the goose is getting fat, etc, etc. Christmas lights are starting to appear all over the neighbourhood, and in fact I put some of ours up this weekend. I will post some pictures of ours next week, when they are all up and switched on. Of course most of the stores have theirs up already and both Libertyville and Chicago have theirs up on the streets. There was a big parade & celebration yesterday in the city, with Mickey in attendance. I had reported previously that AJ wasn't keen on bath time. She has however come around to the idea, and, whilst not exactly smiling and playing yet, she is at least not screaming anymore. She copes fine with water in her face too, which is great. She is smiling a lot and starting to settle into a routine too. Some nights she even sleeps for 5-6 hours, which doesn't make any difference to me, cos Lorraine was doing that anyways, but it certainly makes her life much easier! Click here for a few more pictures .

For the last few weeks we have been having trouble getting any wind out of AJ. She was uncomfortable a lot but wouldn't burp. We did get quite a lot of dribbling and projectile though! She went to the doc this week for her first shot, general check up and some advice on the milk/wind issue. First things first, the little glutton has put on over two pounds in as many weeks, and she is now 11lb 5oz. She is 22" long, which, when correlated with her age and weight, puts her in the 95th percentile. Bizarrely though, her head is only in the 75th percentile. The doc said she was developing well, starting to support her own head a little already, and all of those skin blemishes you can see in the pictures are apparently normal. The long and short of the milk issue, is that we have changed to a new product especially for fussy and gassy babies, I wonder if Lorraine needed this when she was a child, or maybe now, although she has no problem passing gas. it seems to run in her family, as...

Those of yo who have known me more than five minutes will know that I have a love for old cars. MGs in particular in the UK, but they don't have too many of those here. What they do have are lots of muscles cars though, old Mustangs, GTOs, Camaros, Corvettes, etc. Last year we went to the classic car show at Cuneo, a local attraction. The turn out was OK, but this year it was excellent. I took lots and lots of pictures, and even managed to find a couple of MGs, pictured here, and this old Ford, perhaps the first ever people carrier/mini van? Click this link to check out the rest of the fabulous cars.

Just uploaded a few pictures from October. Most of them are from a harvest festival thing at the hospital she was born at, or en route to there. She is almost 6 weeks old, and we are REALLY hoping that the grizzly period will end on schedule at 8 weeks!!!! Anyways here are the pictures ..

I know, shock and horror right, how dare I write a post that is not about AJ. Well of course, no post in my new life will be complete without at least a little AJ. This past weekend, we decided to take a little road trip, if you call 1000 miles in 4 days, with MIL, dog, baby and wife, little! We were hoping to take Jan (MIL) away, for her last weekend in the country until Christmas, on a trip to see the fall colours, although most common sense was telling us that they had already passed their best, and like common sense mostly is, it was true. Although that didn't stop us having fun. We took off early on Friday morning, well early by our new standards, around 8am, bound for Grand Haven, approximately a 4-5 hour drive according to the Tom Tom. Of course that doesn't factor in stopping for feeding every three hours, and that taking 30-45 minutes between, feeding, changing and burping, but enough about my personal habits! We stopped en-route at an outlet mall that had been recomme...

Almost a month old already, and thankfully we won't be much longer until we are through that first two months of yelling for no apparent reason, although some days she is great, eats, sleeps and sh**s on schedule. It has been a month of firsts.. Saw her Cubbies unceremoniously dumped out of the play offs by the Diamond Backs, who were treated with the same disdain by the Rockies..go Rockies! Hopefully she will see a few World Series with her dad over the next few years, especially with all the Cubs stuff she got, including an awesome hand made blanket by my friend Annie. She had her first public engagement, out to a party at her US godparents house, check out the pictures ; that's Jody feeding AJ. She was quite the picture in her little Osh Kosh hoodie. Daddy got very drunk (a whole bottle of Soco Charlie) and fortunately mummy was past the day for being able to drive again. She had her first sponge bath and yelled throughout, I hope she comes to like the bath time stuff, else...

No she isn't two yet, if she was we would have gotten a bit more sleep. The terrible twos I talk about is the start of her second week, where she went from a regular three hour feed/sleep regime, to hours of sleeping and eating followed by hours of screaming the house down for hours on end. Feeding her more, changing her, stripping her naked and redressing her (learnt that at class) rocking her, walking around, you name it, we did it. 3am until 6:30am one morning, and then midnight to 4am the next. No pattern, no rhyme, no reason. As you can see, Reggie is very impressed! There are a few more pictures here, keep checking them out. We went to the pediatrician this week for her second check up, and she has put on over a pound in a week, the little porker. She is already up to 9lb 1.5oz, and has grown to 20.5" Oh yeah, apparently the doctor says that she will "be fussy" for the next 6 weeks! Lorraine has gone into much more detail in her posts, over at her blog , hea...

The Cubs have gotta win today. Yes folks, it's crunch time. The Cubs have to win the next three games to keep our hopes alive. AJ, the Cubs youngest fan at only 7 days old by game time is supporting her team in style. I have also posted a few more pictures in her first week old folder. Click here to see some new ones. All together now, "Go Cubs Go, Go Cubs Go; Hey Chicago Whaddayasay Cubs Are Gonna Win Today!"

Now, you all be sure to tell me when you get bored of me talking about my beautiful new baby daughter! The first few days of life were pretty relaxed, some feeding, a lot of sleeping, recovering from the trauma of birth..we thought, this is a piece of cake, isn't she great! Condell even brought us a special celebratory dinner for two, steak, champagne, etc, on the evening before we checked out. We had lots of visitors, AJ's US god parents, friends and of course Nanny Jan. Towards the end of the second night, Addison still hadn't peed, a big no-no in new baby land. Apparently they are supposed to have one pee per day old, although I am not sure how long that rule applies, cos adults would spend all day on the toilet if it kept going! The doctor advised us to feed her formula on the 2nd night, to be sure she was getting enough food, and sure enough, about 3 hours later she wet her nappy. Great, I thought, not too much. So I started to change her, and forgot the cardinal rule....

It is 12 hours into our new baby's life. She sleeps very, very well. Those who have children of their own will know that they are supposed to feed every 2-4 hours, but we have to keep waking her up to feed her, and even then she doesn't seem hungry. I have already changed my first nappy (diaper for the Americans). Steve it was easy, a piece of cake. I am home posting this and a bunch more pictures. I know everyone says so, and it is probably obvious with it being your own little girl, but she is gorgeous. Check her out in technicolour glory. Be warned though, Steve esepcially, there are some fairly graphic pictures, including one of the cord itself and one of me cutting it....so don't look if you are squeamish. Also they are not all in order, but they are all from yesterday and today.

has arrived. Born at 4:19pm Central Daylight Time. She weighed in at a whopping 8lb 7oz, and measured 19.5" She kept her mother waiting for over 30 hours, but she is very, very cute! Lorraine is exhausted and needs her sleep. Addison is asleep in the nursery, and we are settling down for the night. I will write more and post more pictures, but there are a few here for you to check out. In the meantime, here are a couple of choice quotes from the experience. "Where the he** is that doctor?", "Can't you just reach in there and pull it out" were heard loud and often..other expletives have been removed to protect the guilty.

Lorraine & Jan came into hospital on Friday 28th, around noon, for a check up and suspected waters broken. Sure enough that was the diagnosis, and around 2pm she came into her new home for the next 30 hours where she eventually delivered the baby. Contractions had been going on all afternoon, but started in earnest around 9:30pm. We went for an hour, only one centimetre dilated, when she decided that she needed the epidural for the pain. It was administered around 10:30pm last night (28th). Just about the same time the Cubs were clinching the pennant for the National League Central Division. Lorraine had a much easier night once she got used to not having any legs and we all managed to get some sleep for most of the night off and on between rotations and checks. We woke up around 6am proper and the dilation was almost complete. As I write this however we still have no further motion. So we are about to turn down the epidural, and see if that moves things along. In the meantime, her...

Please see new posts below. No that doesn't mean it's raining babies, although with a lot of our friends right now either delivering, recently delivered or being pregnant it could well mean that! I guess we are at that age. In the UK we don't do baby showers, or at least no-one I know of does. However they are all the rage here in the US. At home we still give baby gifts, but usually after the baby is born and I don't know that we would normally even register. Having said all of that, when in Rome and all....so we have registered at two places. One of them only has three or four items, the other has a huge assortment. If you would like to buy us a gift, please feel free but not obliged. Babies 'R' Us or Galt Baby

Time is marching on with only 3 weeks to go to the "official" due date. We are on weekly visits with the OB/GYNE. I have managed to miss only two or three appointments throughout the pregnancy, so I feel pretty confident that I know as much as Lorraine does about the technical side. I have been to the classes for "Preparing For Childbirth", and for "Caring For Your Newborn". Still to come are "Infant CPR" and "Boot Camp For New Dads". Of course I have no idea what is going on inside Lorraine other than what the books tell me. Every time we go to the doc we get to hear the heart rate on portable monitors, and lately on the full on fetal monitor, which prints out a chart like that to the above. The top line is the heart rate, the little notation in the middle means that the baby moved right at that moment, cos Lorraine pressed a special button, and the bottom line is the contractions, which, fortunately at this point, are non existent. Lo...

I had been to the Shedd Aquarium many years ago on my very first corporate trip to the city. It hasn't changed much! We had decided this past weekend, having spent a lot of time getting the baby stuff sorted, the house a bit more in order and the with the baby on the way, that we would take some time out on Monday to chill out together. We threw around some options, cinema, mini golf, real golf, trip to the city, etc, before finally settling on the Lincoln Park Zoo. We got a lazy start, and headed down there in the truck around 11. It was a gorgeous day, in the high 70s, sunny and clear. When we arrived down there, the traffic and parking were horrible..it seems everyone decided that the Lincoln Park Zoo would be a great idea. We drove around for a while but gave up after about half an hour and no parking becoming free, deciding instead to head to the Shedd. As you can see from the pictures, I was snap happy, lot of fish, penguins, and lizards (they have a special exhibit right now...

Well actually it is mostly receding water now. A couple of weeks ago we and many other areas of the US were hit with significant storms. The rivers rose, plains flooded, basements leaked, and some people worse off that us, lost power for days at a time. The golf course across the street from us tends to flood, as it is right on the river and has little or no bank to stop it. As you can see from these pictures, the rise was at least a good four feet, if not more. The last time it was like this was in the spring as all of the snow melted, but it wasn't this high even then. Most of the 4th fairway and all of the 4th tee, including the bench, sign and ball washer were completely under for about a week! There's a couple more pictures here .

When we first adopted Reggie, she was overweight by some 20lbs. She didn't get much exercise, lived most of life in her crate (cage), and had a reputation for being bad with children. She also seemed to be scared of men a little bit, often shying away from me. With much loving care and attention and copious walking (4 times daily) mostly with Lorraine, she had slimmed down to just over 90lbs, recovered from her general fear of men and showed no signs of any issues with children, babies, or pretty much anyone. She is not the most sociable with other dogs admittedly, despite her frequent trips to the doggie park. One of her favourite things when I get home is to stand up on her hind legs, with her front legs on my lap getting some attention and hugs, something she was not strong enough to do when we first had her. All in all she is a happy dog, her coat much improved, weight is better, fitness too, although stamina continues to be a stretch for her. We are looking forward to raising...

Some of you may know that we applied for our Green Cards this year. Our visas will run out in February 2008, and it was a choice as to renewing them, or going further to the full green card status. The green card, which, as you can see, is not green, although it does have a green stripe on the back, is not a citizenship document, it doesn't mean we will be Americans, or have to give up our UK citizenship, and in fact, I don't even think we can vote! It basically is like a super visa. It means that if at any time, my employment with my current firm ends, I don't have to get back on the first plane, which as I understand it, is the case with the visa I have. I will be able to seek employment elsewhere, come and go from the US at will, etc. It is valid for 10 years. For Lorraine, it will mean that she will at last be able to get a social security number, driving licence, basically her own US identity. Well the good news is that mine has come through already. You hear all these...

Those of you who know me, know that I have become a huge fan of the "first place" Chicago Cubs. I have been to many ball games, know a lot of their history and follow them pretty religiously, much to Lorraine's chagrin, who thought she married a non-sports fan. Still, being the fabulous wife that she is, arranged for us to take an organised tour of the hallowed stadium that is Wrigley Field. A tour I might add that many long time Cubs fans, including GI Joe have never taken. This picture is of me in the entry way to the Cubs home clubhouse, and as usual there are plenty more here . Wrigley Field was constructed in 1914, on the grounds of a disused seminary, for the Chicago Federals. The story goes that a guy by the name of Weeghman wanted to own part of a Chicago MLB franchise, however through several aborted attempts was unable to get anywhere with the Cubs or White Sox. So he and some other folks decided to create a 3rd League, the Federal League, and build a new stad...

I have been interviewed about my blog.Nothing special, but this guy interviews people I guess he finds interesting. Pay him a visit if you have a mind to. Click here to read my interview.

A short post, just to show off a couple of pictures. Lorraine and I have been meaning to post these for a while, but everything just gets on top of you! All is well with the baby, we have been working on our registry, reading like crazy and this weekend we attend our first baby class "Caring For Your Newborn" So with no further delay, here are a couple of pics of the the tummy.

I know I have been neglecting you, my readers, for a while now, as can be seen from my background still being a winter scene. I really need to get out and take some more pictures. This year started at a heck of a clip; new responsibilities at work and baby on the way, to name but two. I have been watching the Cubbies try to be more consistent, and failing! Although I still believe they can do it this year. More consistency in winning the one run and extra innings games will help, and the bullpen seems to be coming together better of late. One thing we have been focusing on recently was the need for a second vehicle. Having bought the HHR for Lorraine really, earlier this year, and with the baby on the way, we felt after two years that we probably needed a second car. For the last several weeks, I have been trying to decide if I wanted a fun, two seater , or two plus sports car or another truck. As a result, I have been across the board looking at all sorts, including the Corvette abo...