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Des shares his thoughts on insect biology and imaginary informants.


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Under the Influence of DPJ

Summer Wrap Up

September dawns and I'm feeling so full and content with our first time ever, fully local, summer -- read: we didn't go ANYWHERE. Well, except to Ohio.

M a r o o n e d.

But lotsa lifesavers. Here's a recap (in pics):

FAMILY

Mom and Dad's blissful visit sans Nate&I (Ohio). Babes& Grandparents had a lot of fun. Thank you!

My sisters ALL came to brighten our days – WE LOVE THEM SO MUCH!! Holly started off the summer – she is the epitome of sunshine. This girl lights everyone up! We love you so much sister/auntie! (ok, so we went to CT too)

Heidi – Des cannot get enough of her. CT is too far away for him and Zoe now calls any lovely lady who befriends her, “Heidi”.

Hailey came for a blessed 4-5 hours on a Sunday in August and we loved having her and Randy. THEY ARE SO COOL!! We love you guys!!

Grandma&Grandpa Jones hung out with us for two weeks and we were so spoiled! Most relaxing and rewarding! Grandma Jones (a committed Anglophile, an indifferent cook) and I had little YouTube sessions every night watching Posh Nosh (crazy stuff!) and we were able to escape once for some girltime shopping. ahhhh. . . nicenicenice. Nate and Grandpa Jones went to Phila for a few days to do something about that, er, house that we own . . . what house?

Vanessa stayed with us for about 4-days in August. She is so much like family to me and I thank my Father in Heaven for her every day. We’ve grown so much together. It’s great to grow with someone.

RANDOM

Zoe turned into a super walker this summer -- she'll walk 10 city blocks without complaint.

I made an attempt this summer to actually do some girlie-cutie things with Zoe's hair :::gasp::: (I've been pretty hands off) She's great about letting me put all the elastics in and do all the styling but within 2minutes she has it all undone/removed and I can't figure out what to do about it. Any advice?

Des started posing in this very interesting, statue-esque way. Curious kid.

Then there was the emergence of the awful-freaky-scary-face. Argh!

Where did he come from mom?

PICNICS & FOOD

Lower Manhattan is a fabulous community with lotsa $$$ to sponsor some reallyreallyreally great events. The Fugals used to be Lower Manhattanites so we joined them and the Briens one gorgeous evening, on the waterfront, with some Lombardi’s pizza for a picnic, and drum circle with the locals! What fun! Some silly footage to come postpost.

Cute pic of Nate, Zoe and Emilia.

Drummer Dudes

Lotsa spontaneous family picnics in Isham Park -- so spontaneous I frequently forgot the picnic blanket (curses!) Nevertheless, I got to lounge while Nate did all the rough stuff. Zoe's crazy about the Greek yogurt too.

Zoe's quite the expert now at putting on her own shoes -- yeah for velcro!

This summer’s vegetable was Broccoli Rabe and I declared Saturdays to be

“Broccoli Rabe Saturday Night”

We’ve had BR nearly every Saturday night. SO YUMMY! Email me if you want some recipes. Mmmmm. . . [Kendra C. I credit you with the BR re-introduction. Remember?]

Des also went camping for the first time with Nate at the Father & Son Campout. He was pretty excited about the hotdogs, tent, and rocks.

Le babes took a twirl on Le Carrousel in Bryant Park -- cute french childrens music plays as you spin! Off to the side was a little spot with tables and chairs and a rolling BOOK rack -- with childrens BOOKS! HOW AWESOME IS THAT IN A PARK!?! I loved it.

FRIENDS

Girls Night Out with May -- she builds tofu structures for fun. She's really good at it. But nothing beats her flair for writing -- this girls can weild a pen, er, keyboard!

Ahhh. . . this is funny -- Zoe has on maybe 6 seperate occasions caught the eye of some random young boy at the neighborhood playgrounds. Ages averaging between 8 to 11 or so. Each of these little guys approached me saying something like, “You have a cute baby”. Then most of them would take it upon themselves to be her little helper in climbing the ladders, going down the slides, pushing her in the swings (she’s quite a good climber/slider on her own), etc. Some of these boys she didn’t put up with and expertly dismissed in her little 18-month old way. But there were a couple whom she liked and had a really great time playing with.

This little boy was my favorite, we met him at the Indian Road playground, I think his name is Joelle, a reallyreallyreally nice kid! Hope we run into him again.

And this was Michael we met him at Payson Playground during LunchBunch.

We love Loretta!! She puts up with a lot from DPJ. This is a good example of her sweet coping mechanism -- plug it up and tune him out!

And, of course, there was sadness at the beginning of this summer (well Spring actually) when Thomas Poulsen left NYC&DPJ for NJ. This picture was taken a coupla days after they left as we found ourselves walking by his apartment.