Who IS that masked man?

It's DANGER BOY, the superhero.

Family Update

No pictures, but an update.

Josh is in the midst of his ER rotation, interview season, and the Clinical Skills board exam. He spent the past few days in Atlanta to take the exam. I'd say the highlight of his trip was flying out of the new Indianapolis Airport. It was a smooth transition from the old airport except for the empty ATM machines. He's pretty sure he passed the exam, and that's the most important piece here. He met up with another IU student and they were able to eat dinner together at the airport in Atlanta, so Josh wasn't completely alone. He has several interviews coming up next month at Cincinnati, Vanderbilt, Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and Florida, and St. Vincent in Indianapolis. It's prudent to interview at other places just in case something were to happen and to see what other programs have to offer. It's fun to look at other places and imagine our lives there. Minnesota would be a great opportunity for Josh, but very cold for the family. Of course, we would miss our wonderful, helpful families.

I am settled into my new role as an IT team leader for the sales and distribution team. I really like my team, and they make my job much easier. It's the end of the year, so we are ramping up into end of year performance reviews. Now begins the tedious job of remembering everything we did all year and putting it down on paper. I also have eleven vacation days to use before the end of the year. This means that I only have ten working days until 2009. So much to do, so little time!

Jacob is enjoying being four. His favorite time of day is after Tyler goes to bed. That means we can get out the toys and games with little pieces that Tyler would find and swallow. With Josh being gone in the evening, Jacob and I have enjoyed countless games of Hi Ho Cherrio and Candyland. He's also enjoyed making crafts with Josh. There's nothing like art with crepe paper, mountains of glue, clothespins, and felt angel wings. Jacob has graduated to only using his pacifier in his bedroom. The transition was rough at first, but didn't take long. He has informed us that when he's five, he'll give it up forever.

Tyler is so much fun right now. He loves to sing songs with hand motions. We sing the songs, and he does the motions. Most of the time, he is using sign language, and he's built quite a vocabulary. Because he doesn't talk much, it's very handy and eases all of our frustration. We're up to food, drink, book, banana, more, please, all done, and various signals for his favorite songs. Last night, I figured out that he can race. He backs up across the room, I say "ready, set, go" and he runs to me for a big hug...over and over and over.

We are all doing well, and we can't wait for Christmas vacation when nobody has plans to travel or work.

Brown County

On Sunday, we packed up lunch and car entertainment and headed down to Brown County. I figured the leaves would be mostly down by now, but the weather was nice, and I was in the mood to hike around.We got to the north entrance which has a covered bridge, and Jacob was very excited. He could hardly talk. Once we got into the park, he said "This is so awesome I don't even know what words to say." He really wanted to go hiking, but we needed to drive around and get our bearings a bit.

First we found a vista with a great view. Then, we drove to the Nature Center which has the "Friends Trail", a paved path. It has an orignal gate house which you can go into, an observation deck, and some benches. I think Jacob lapped us a few times, but it was a nice easy walk that Tyler could enjoy.After the Nature Center, we went to the Discovery Train. It has 27 markers on the trail pointing out various tidbits of nature trivia. Surprisingly, Jacob was very interested. He was great at finding the next number on the trail, and wanted to know what the next question or task was. Since Tyler took ownership of the map early on, we had to make up a few. One of the first ones on the list was "What made this hole?" The answer was a man made well. After Tyler took the map, the questions became, "Count five leaves falling before moving to the next number." or "Feel the beech tree. Doesn't it feel like sand? Feel more trees and count three more beech trees." We impressed ourselves with this one. Jacob ran around to five different trees and was able to identify which ones were and weren't beech based on the texture of the bark.

After the Discovery Trail, we found a picnic table for lunch. We were swarmed by ladybugs, which was surprisingly okay until the boys went to the outdoor potty which was even worse. They came out covered in over twenty ladybugs. The bugs even got in our car.

Then, we went to the campground playground to play on the swings, four person bouncy thing, the sandbox, and the wooden house. The boys both enjoyed climbing to the top of the house. By then, we were all dirty and exhausted, so we got back in the car and came home. It was a great day had by all on one of the last warm days of the year.