World of Weird-z

scheduling agenda 2012 v1

2012-02-11T21:30:00.000-05:00

pssst, don't forget to scroll up & down for new & previous posts about travis
i haven't posted anything sooner, because my travel plans have been pretty much the same for a long time. but, the end of the project is in sight - only 7 more weeks until the week of go live!

february 11-12 weekend; no plans
february 13 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
february 13-16 working @ client site in denver, co
february 16 in the pm travel back home
february 17 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
february 18 weekend; pepper's birthday party & sleepover (potentially)
february 19 weekend; no plans
february 20 presidents' day - no plans
february 21 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
february 21-23 working @ client site in denver, co
february 23 in the pm travel back home
february 24 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
february 25-26 weekend; no plans
february 27 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
february 26-march 1 working @ client site in denver, co
march 1 in the pm travel back home
march 2 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
march 3-4 weekend; no plans
march 5 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
march 5-8 working @ client site in denver, co
march 8 in the pm travel back home
march 9 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
march 10-11 weekend; no plans
march 12 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
march 12-15 working @ client site in denver, co
march 15 in the pm travel back home
march 16 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
march 17 weekend; in the evening see ralphie mae at the cobb energy center
march 18 weekend; no plans
march 19 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
march 19-22 working @ client site in denver, co
march 22 in the pm travel back home
march 23 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
march 24-25 weekend; no plans
march 26 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
march 26-29 working @ client site in denver, co
march 29 in the pm travel back home
march 30 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
march 31-april 1 weekend; no plans
april 2 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
april 2 GO LIVE!!!!
april 2-5 working @ client site in denver, co
april 5 in the pm travel back home
april 6 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
april 7-8 weekend; no plans
april 9 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
april 9-12 working @ client site in denver, co
april 12 in the pm travel back home
april 13 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
april 14-15 weekend; no plans
april 16 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
april 16-19 working @ client site in denver, co
april 19 in the pm travel back home
april 20 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
april 21-22 weekend; no plans

i have no idea how long i will have to stay on after the planned and forced go live date, but after more than a year, i think it's been more than enough. at least once i'm done in denver we, as the weird-z family, have something to look forward to: at last, our european vacation, dubbed eurotrip2012!

may 26 travel to boston, ma
may 26 3.5 hr layover @ bos
may 26 travel to london
may 27 arrival @ lhr
may 27-may 31 staying @ unknown
may 31 travel to london, staying @ hilton london euston hotel
june 1 travel to amsterdam airport by eurostar/thalys (yes, through the chunnel)!
june 1 pick up rental car @ hertz
june 1 drive to biddinghuizen, staying @ landal waterparc veluwemeer for 14 days
june 2 birthday party travis?!?
june 9 birthday party denise & rené?!?
june 15 drop off rental car @ hertz
june 15 travel to paris by thalys
june 15-june 17 staying @ hilton paris la défense
june 17 change hotels, staying @ hilton paris charles de gaulle airport
june 18 travel to cincinnati, oh
june 18 5.5 hr layover @ cvg
june 18 travel to atlanta, ga

if there's people that want to meet us, be it in england, holland or france, you are more than welcome to come see us while we are there. we will have traveled a lot of miles (with a 3 year old!) and we want a little bit of relaxation while we're on vacation if you don't mind :P
anyway, i will update the agenda with hotels as i am able to make the arrangements.

the tj chronicles 78

2012-01-07T16:43:00.000-05:00

first edition of 2012, happy new year!

now that the holidays are behind us we can focus on daily routines again after overeating and overdrinking. not that it made a difference to travis, because he didn't really grasp the concept of christmas just yet, although he didn't mind getting presents.
this is travis playing with one of his gifts (outside of the frame) on the desk:

he finally got the hang of his pop-goes-the-weasel sock monkey:

i call this the brad pitt, a look designed to make him look a lot dumber than he is:

bathtime:

you have seen a variation of this particular picture numerous times before, but travis still loves taking a bath and playing in the water:

he goes crazy if pours the water out of his cup:

i think i will "blow up" this picture because it is just full of win:

travis typically concentrates very much when he is in the process of filling his cup and pouring it out again:

getting a little upset, because he can't seem to grab and hold on to the water coming out of the faucet:

but happy as a clam making splashes in the bathwater:

these next pictures i have already shared on my facebook wall, because it was just *too* cute when he asked for a nutella sandwich, so here they are again, without any commentary:

suffice to say, travis likes bwead ateela!

travis still also likes going and being outside. here he is playing with a ball:

anatomy of a travis throw. first he counts one, too, fwee:

then he lets go:

and then he looks at the ball intently, as if to will it higher:

throwing the ball into the sun:

and still the sun shines in his eyes:

this picture is taken against all basic principles of photography, but i turned out quite alright:

and another one in black & white:

this is travis getting a little angry at me for taking pictures:

the travis death glare:

once his big sister came home from school and played with him and his ball he was OK again:

personally, i love this shot of our two youngest:

and this concludes another two weeks in the life of travis :-)

saturday, january 7, 2012

the tj chronicles 77

2011-12-25T23:05:00.002-05:00

the xmas edition!

and what a christmas it was, hoo boy!
it started, on friday, with prepping gifts, or, getting rid of a ton of bananas that were doing an #occupyourfreezer:

yes, you are seeing 20 small and 2 large loaves of banana bread, and how they looked after baking, a nice golden brown:

it almost looked too good to give away, but we are not about the #occupythegrinch:

on friday night, after travis went to bed we also set up the tree. typically we would set it up the day after thanksgiving, but since the cats are into the bottom branches of the tree, even though it is a fake, plastic tree, and the skirt we thought we'd wait a little longer. and of course, there's travis who has a difficult time understanding the word "no" and its meaning.
this is the top of the tree:

the tree has a pretty white bow:

lookit, it is i:

you knew i had to do it, an abstraction of the lights in our christmas tree:

this is the entire tree, minus one ball ... yes, travis got to it; he took one off of a tree branch, held it up and then tested to see if it would bounce when dropped onto the hardwood floor ... guess what, it didn't:

a couple of packages of banana bread and a small jar of christmas spices:

the foil wrap with the red ribbon looked pretty nice:

travis does not understand the concept of christmas, yet, so he was oblivious to all that was going on around him. here he is playing with a tonka toy train, which he calls thomas:

here he is banging thomas on the desk:

and playing quietly on the floor, finally giving me one of his great smiles after me goading him for hours:

after christmas eve's dinner we and our guests, chris and sam from carrolton, spent some time in the kitchen talking about all sorts of stuff:

another abstraction of the christmas tree lights:

one of our prized christmas tree balls, a clear ball with a rainbow ribbon inside of it:

travis woke up at 8.30 on christmas day and instead of taking him down, i made pepper make his bottle and took him in our bathroom after i got him up and changed/cleaned him. denise was still sleeping after staying up into the wee hours of the morning and i knew that if travis would see the presents under the tree he would be unstoppable.
after about an hour we had to take travis downstairs and as soon as he saw the boxes he was over it like white on rice.
the first thing he saw was a cars puzzle of lightning mcqueen:

this is the rest of the christmas packages:

denise, pepper and travis opening their gifts:

for travis there was the cars puzzle, a curious george game set and a cars board game:

this is the cars puzzle completed (travis helped pepper complete it):

travis leafing through the curious george numbers book:

denise seeing santa's present, a dvd collection box of all of christopher titus' 4 stand-up routines, signed by the man himself:

travis also got a cars/lightning mcqueen tent:

pepper got books and a new nintendo ds with a game, a hello kitty nail kit and some other stuff. denise also got house slippers, which are photobombing this shot:

the tent set up:

travis coming out of the tent, after chasing his big sister through it:

but as far as travis goes, the big winner of this year's christmas was the train set:

it sings the alphabet, it has an elephant up front, you can shoot blocks into the carriage on which you can sit, clearly this thing is the awesomesauce:

driving his train past the cars tent:

saying "train":

and back on the train again:

and riding around on it:

breakfast was on request, because it's christmas:

travis kept on playing with his train:

it really is a nice piece of work, very intricate, even though it's probably made in china ... don't mention it to #ows or the 99% ;-)

travis showing me the block with the double-u/worm on it:

and like with all of his toys, he gets close to the surface on which it sits to observe how it works:

dinner preparation started around 11am with the bird (duck? duck? goose!) being prepped for the oven, after more than a day brining in a cooler in the garage. below is the stuffing for the goose:

sweet potatoes boiling in the foreground:

braising red cabbage in the background:

steaming brussel sprouts off to the side:

and this is the goose cooking in the oven:

(i should have cleaned the inside of the oven window, i guess ...)
watching titus episodes in anticipation of dinner:

travis still/again playing with his train, as he has been pretty much all day:

dinner table, set:

the goose (and i know it looks like it is charred, but that's how goose cooks) and underneath the skin it was pretty tender:

the dinner table with the plates loaded with sprouts on red cabbage (green on red, get it?!), a bowl of mashed & creamed sweet potatoes and sliced goose breast and some wings:

here we are digging in, even travis helped himself eat:

although everything tasted very nice, everyone's favorite, i think, were the mashed taters:

most of us cleaned up our plates:

after dinner we watched some more titus before our guests, chris and sam (remember?) headed back home.
my christmas was complete by knowing that travis, denise, pepper and in their own way, campion and ellen, had a nice christmas at our weird place. naturally, i got presents too, but for me the biggest present was to see travis completely geeking out over his train.
and now i am geeking out over this blog, since i am actually publishing it before i said i would ... because i am *that* much of a geek :P

sunday, december 25, 2011

the tj chronicles 76

2011-12-23T12:54:00.001-05:00

the post-halloween and pre-xmas edition!

this will be a weird (LOL) blog entry, because there are not many pictures that i haven't shared yet in facebook, but i wanted to do another blog before christmas, since i have a feeling i will be taking some pictures over the holiday weekend.

this is from the first time denise spoke at #ows #occupyatlanta about #blankettheearth and you can clearly see how interested travis is in what is going on right around him:

a beautiful fall day in our backyard, where pepper and travis are playing with the large blue ball:

just see how he is keeping an eye on the ball's trajectory:

a shot from up close while he was telling me about something:

during thanksgiving dinner, being a goofball:

eating something delicious, and wanting to share with the rest of the world all of this deliciousness:

at the #blankettheearth event for #ows #occupyatlanta, holding down the blanket with his sister and their goldfish:

checking out the trees in woodruff park:

at the #familiesforpeace event in piedmont park, personifying the 99%, the oppressed:

the event was right next to the playground, and he loved the small slide:

and he loved the swing:

and he loved the big slide:

couldn't get enough of it, we had to literally drag him out of the park when it was time to go home.

drinking appelsap, eating microwaved crackers with cheese and a side of marshmellows:

geek in training:

travis likes sitting in my lap at the desk watching youtube videos and it depends from day to day what he likes to see; sometimes it's sesame street videos with number counting, other times it's thomas the tank engine:

happy holidays everyone and check back soon for christmas pictures!

friday, december 23, 2011

the tj chronicles 75

2011-10-31T22:57:00.001-04:00

the halloween edition!
travis after dressing up and make-up, mini-me:

there definitely is a resemblance ... intentional or not *halo*:

although it took a whole lot to get him to smile AND look at the camera:

stepping off our driveway for his third halloween, although he probably doesn't remember the first two ... and likely he will not remember this one either:

returning after one of the first trick-or-treats:

travis would ring the door bell, twice, and then start knocking on the door, followed by just turning the knob:

when the door would open he wouldn't say "trick or treat" but just a very well-meant "hi!":

denise had to stay behind, so she "manned" our trick-or-treat food stand:

pepper dressed up as juliet:

this was our jack o'lantern, still in style, so i guess you can see we did #occupyhalloween :P

travis d(r)owning his milk after bringing home the loot:

monday, october 31, 2011

the tj chronicles 74

2011-10-30T19:21:00.001-04:00

it pains me to say, but i have been guilty of neglecting this blog. my work schedule and other household duties has been the lead cause for this neglect. also, as opposed to take pictures of travis i have actually been spending a lot of time playing with travis on the days i am home. so i guess, i personally have no lack of pictures, because there's tons of footage in my mind's eye.

but, to assuage those of you who look to my blog to keep track of travis' growth, here's a load of pictures from the last 4 (four) months!
(of course, some of these you may have already seen on facebook.)

travis "dressed up" as a rock star, complete with angry young man-look:

these blocks are to shout for:

a failed close-up turned pretty awesome, because you can clearly see travis' awesome smile:

one-two-threes, one-two-threes, one-two-threes:

(and this is what he is watching.)

travis has discovered discovering and he likes to take any toy, any object and watch it closely while dragging it in front of his eyes:

and while discovering he may sometimes pause and watch tv with intensity:

if it is super why or curious george or sesame (specifically elmo's world) he can completely lose himself:

travis still loves bathtime:

and he can still look like a rock star when his hair is shampooed:

this is how much he likes taking a bath:

playing with the water coming out of the bath faucet:

a quiet moment in the tub:

this is the look one would get if one would take away his lightning mcqueen shampoo bottle car:

but his radiant smile typically returns very fast:

followed by another pensive moment:

watching cars (by far his favorite movie):

two close-ups of travis' milk mouth:

... because sometimes Y ...:

playing with lightning mcqueen in the bath tub:

us lazy and dirty hippies prior to going to the #ows #occupyatlanta event in woodruff park:

travis on marta:

travis looking at the protesters during the general assembly:

more pictures

travis comfortably asleep:

no, this is not a cut on his face, just a line from a fold in his mattress cover:

when we went to the #ows #occupyatlanta #globalchange event travis attracted quite some attraction:

travis eating a turkey sandwich:

checking out a picture someone took of him:

playing and coloring with a few other kids:

more pictures of #oct15

travis all dressed up in kahkis and a plaid shirt:

travis playing with a toy thomas the tank engine:

it even comes with a track and the engine is batter operated. this is travis watching with glee how thomas passes him by:

FAO My Schwartz:

Travis cracking up at a singing giraffe:

hope you enjoyed these :-)
coming to an internet near you, soon, pictures of halloween!

sunday, october 30, 2011

scheduling agenda 2011 v5

2011-09-04T15:22:00.001-04:00

pssst, don't forget to scroll up & down for new & previous posts about travis
apologies for the lack of updates, but here's a new one for the next of the year .... no, really ...

september 3-4 weekend; no plans
september 5 labor day ... so i'm not working and/or traveling ... :P
september 6 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ the curtis)
september 6-8 working @ client site in denver, co
september 8 in the late pm travel back home
september 9 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
september 9 in the evening see kevin pollak @ the punchline
september 10-11 weekend; no plans
september 12 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
september 12-15 working @ client site in denver, co
september 15 in the late pm travel back home
september 16 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
september 17-18 weekend; no plans
september 19 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
september 19-22 working @ client site in denver, co
september 22 in the late pm travel back home
september 23 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
september 23 in the evening see earth, wind & fire (with symphony) @ chastain park, atlanta, ga
september 24-25 weekend; no plans
september 26 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
september 26-29 working @ client site in denver, co
september 29 in the late pm travel back home
september 30 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
october 1-2 weekend; no plans
october 3 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
october 3-6 working @ client site in denver, co
october 6 in the late pm travel back home
october 7 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
october 8-9 weekend; no plans
october 10 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
october 10-13 working @ client site in denver, co
october 13 in the late pm travel back home
october 14 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
october 15 weekend; possibly go to the punchline to see the charlie sheen roast by anthony jeselnik
october 16 weekend; no plans
october 17 in the really early am travel to santa barbara (staying @ hotel santa barbara)
october 17-20 working @ corporate headquarters in santa barbara, ca
october 21 in the am travel back home
october 22-23 weekend; no plans
october 24 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
october 24-27 working @ client site in denver, co
october 27 in the late pm travel back home
october 28 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
october 29-30 weekend; no plans
october 31 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
october 31-november 3 working @ client site in denver, co
november 3 in the late pm travel back home
november 4 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
november 5-6 weekend; no plans
november 7 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
november 7-10 working @ client site in denver, co
november 10 in the late pm travel back home
november 11 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
november 12-13 weekend; no plans
november 14 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
november 14-17 working @ client site in denver, co
november 17 in the late pm travel back home
november 18 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
november 19-20 weekend; no plans
november 21-23 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
november 24 turkey day - *gobblegobble*!
november 25 black friday shopping @ north georgia premium outlets
november 26-27 weekend; no plans
november 28 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
november 28-december 1 working @ client site in denver, co
december 1 in the late pm travel back home
december 2 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
december 3-4 weekend; no plans
december 5 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
december 5-8 working @ client site in denver, co
december 8 in the late pm travel back home
december 9 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
december 10-11 weekend; no plans
december 12 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
december 12-15 working @ client site in denver, co
december 15 in the late pm travel back home
december 16 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
december 17-18 weekend; no plans
december 19 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
december 19-22 working @ client site in denver, co
december 22 in the late pm travel back home
december 23 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
december 24 weekend; xmas eve
december 25 weekend; xmas
december 26-30 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
december 31 weekend; new year's eve
january 1 new year

since the denver client has effectively postponed their go live date from 01/01/2012 to 04/01/2012 (really, april fools, no joke) the likelihood is that the travel in the first 3-4 months of 2012 will look exactly the same as the last 3-4 months of 2011 ... the upside of this travel is that i get to reach platinum status with delta and collect a whole lot of frequent flyer miles to go towards our 2012 summer vacation to europe. small victories ...

the tj chronicles 73

2011-07-31T17:04:00.000-04:00

since it took me 2 months to put a blog post up, you get to have a 2-for-1 special :-)
lucky you :P

in the last month we went on 2 roadtrips (totaling 5000+ miles!) and following is the downpour of that.

at the beginning of july we drove up to vermont to spend independence day with aunt laurie and uncle kevin.
drinking at the kitchen table:

in the backyard, enjoying a fire:

during the pre-independence day fireworks at corey's in new hampshire:

looking at the fireworks:

running around all "fired up":

climbing the stairs:

eating a bagel with cream cheese ...

... even there may be more around his mouth than in his mouth:

eating barbecued bratwurst in kevin's father's backyard on the 4th of july:

swinging in a swing for the very first time:

(travis likey!)
pepper and travis in the pool:

since my lovely wife bought me a waterproof (video) camera now there's also moving pictures of travis and the rest of the family :-)
the first one is recorded by pepper so don't blame me if you pass out watching it:

now if you survived the first video you may also try the second one, also filmed by pepper, where travis recites his 123s and ABCs:

two weeks after the vermont trip, we went on another cross-country trip, this time to denver, colorado.
just like going up to vermont, getting to denver was a 2-day trip.
this is travis drinking his morning bottle in our hotel room in columbia, misery:

we stopped in topeka, ks, to meet with auntie kat in her cool refurbished place of business. travis was having a blast running through the long hallway ... not sure what these expressions are, though:

after arriving saturday evening, on sunday we went for a drive through the rockies, more specifically the ridge trail road. in granby we stopped the tank up the (new) car and get provisions and we found a playground to let travis roam free for a bit.
this is his second time on a swing:

travis in his car seat on top of the ridge trail road at a height of 12,183 feet (3,713 m) - hence travis' facebook status "i got high!":

on our way out of the rockies we were surprised by a thunder hailstorm. when we started our trip it was about a 100F (35C) but when we drove into the storm it got as cold as 40F (5C)!
denise shot a video of us driving through it and this is the picture you see me taking:

the homewood suites in denver also have a pool, so one night we all went down to it, because we all know how much travis loves the water.
he doesn't really swim yet, but he will kick his feet if you ask him to do so:

even denise went into the water and clearly that pleased travis greatly:

travis following me around with his eyes while i took pictures of our hotel room:

on friday we went to ft. collins to see our friend cami and while waiting for her outside her house travis walked around in the grass:

the friday after our return from denver we attended connor's 5th birthday pool party.
travis walking and drinking through the fountains in the kiddie pool:

a close up of travis drinking and walking:

happily posing in front of the fountains:

trying to stop the water from coming out of the fountain shoots:

and since it didn't work with his hands he'd thought to try it with his foot:

travis in the big people pool:

this is The Undertoes!

the birthday boy, connor:

being taught the fist bump:

making friends:

last but not least, another video featuring travis and the birthday boy and a whole host of other kids and people:

it's been a pretty busy period for travis and i'm sure he's gonna be thrilled to just be at home for a while.

sunday, july 31, 2011

the tj chronicles 72

2011-07-31T12:42:00.000-04:00

the birthday edition, even though it's a little late ...

... and it was published before, but i want it in my blog as well :-)

the dork likes dry bread:

even better is dry bread sitting ON the dining table.

the "birthday" banner as made by auntie patty:

birthday ballons:

food:

the birthday cake as made by orna, the cake lady:

chaunte and dylan at/on the slide in our backyard:

having a good time out in the sun:

inside where it was a little more comfortable:

(we sang kumbaya ;-))
drinking something, probably water:

dylan posing on the couch:

connor explaining the universe, or his birthday hizzle ...:

off in a corner:

"hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil:"

everybody playing around the yard castle:

all serious and bizniz:

practicing for the bleachers:

more fun in the sun:

we're behaving ...

inside again, playing with a doorstop:

what time is it? cake time!

(i think he's alright ...)

(seriously ...)

and so is lorelai:

and connor:

and pepper:

eating cake all by yourself is not as easy it some people make it look:

sneezing and eating at the same time is quite a challenge:

but once the sneeze is gone it's business as usual:

the help was appreciated:

chaunte and dylan:

after dinner it's time for reflection:

opening presents:

excited onlookers:

his favorite gift:

showing his elmo camera to daddy:

handsome dylan with his handsome smile:

mesmerized by bubbles:

awesome:

so that's where the bubbles come from!

they were not supposed to do that:

travis' big ABC blocks:

chasing bubbles again:

opa explaining the bubbles:

travis had a great birthday and the pictures show exactly that.

sunday, july 31, 2011

scheduling agenda 2011 v4

2011-06-25T18:25:00.002-04:00

pssst, don't forget to scroll up & down for new & previous posts about travis
apologies for the lack of updates, but here's a new one for the next two months.

june 25-26 weekend; no plans
june 27 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
june 27-30 working @ client site in denver, co
june 30 in the late pm travel back home
july 1 in the early early am travel to dickson city, pa (staying @ fairfield inn scranton)
july 2 travel to newfane, vt (staying @ kevin & laurie's)
july 3-4 visit with kevin & laurie
july 5 travel to hagerstown, md (staying @ springhill suites hagerstown)
july 6 travel back home
july 7-8 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
july 9-10 weekend; no plans
july 10 in the late am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
july 11-12 working @ client site in denver, co
july 13 travel back home; in the evening go to sade+john legend concert (@ philips arena)
july 14 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
july 14 pepper goes on vegetation in pittsburgh, pa
july 15 travel to columbia, mo (staying @ hilton garden inn columbia)
july 16 travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
july 17 weekend; no definitive plans
july 18-21 working @ client site in denver, co
july 20 meet cami somewhere in the denver area
july 21 meet jeff & paul for dinner at their fab house in denver, co
july 22 no plans
july 23 travel to columbia, mo (staying @ hilton garden inn columbia) with a possible stop in topeka, ks
july 24 travel back home
july 25 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
july 25-28 working @ client site in denver, co
july 28 in the late pm travel back home
july 29 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
july 30-31 weekend; no plans
august 1 in the early pm appointment to have my biometrics taken by INS/DHS; in the evening travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
august 2-4 working @ client site in denver, co
august 3 pepper returns from vegetation
august 4 in the late pm travel back home
august 5 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
august 6-7 weekend; no plans
august 8 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
august 8-11 working @ client site in denver, co
august 11 in the late pm travel back home
august 12 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
august 13-14 weekend; no plans
august 15 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
august 15-18 working @ client site in denver, co
august 18 in the late pm travel back home
august 19 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
august 20-21 weekend; no plans
august 22 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
august 22-25 working @ client site in denver, co
august 25 in the late pm travel back home
august 26 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
august 27-28 weekend; no plans

the ones in italics have not been confirmed, but since nothing much has changed in regards to my denver client, i am going to be in denver until january 13, 2012 ... or something like that. the upside of all this travel is that i get to reach platinum status with delta

the tj chronicles 71

2011-05-08T17:53:00.000-04:00

happy mother's day!

and because it of this momentous day there will be no banter, just pictures.

travis running in the back yard (for some reason he enjoys just running up and down the garden):

being "tackled" by his big sister makes him laugh almost uncontrallably:

and yes, he's got a cold again, but that doesn't stop him from climbing on everything:

travis doing his best george costanza pose:

he likes using both lily and sadie as pillows and both cats actually let him get away with it:

playing by the front door:

in the back yard again:

he loves his big sister:

he loves the sun, too:

a moment, by himself, pondering life's big questions:

in just a little over 2 weeks, grandpa and grandma will be here and i'm hoping that travis will have an absolute terrific time. next blog will probably be around the first week they're visiting, so stick around :-)

sunday, may 8, 2011

the tj chronicles 70

2011-04-23T21:00:00.000-04:00

and another month just flew by again ... you can see from the schedule i posted below what the last few weeks have looked like and what the rest of the year will look like. this means that only on the weekend i will have a chance to spend time with travis and contrary to what i have been doing i really should take more pictures of him.

he is still changing on a daily basis, growing up all healthy and stuff, eating all he can, with pasta being his absolute favorite. right now he is coming down with a cold again, so he is sneezing his little nose off, but despite his running nose he still wants to play and laugh.

he is learning every day as well, he knows his alphabet backwards and forwards and now i am working on teaching him the dutch alphabet, which confuses him, because he thinks that after 'e' (NL) comes 'b' and after 'i' (NL) comes 'f' ... but i'm sure he will get there. he also knows the names of both our cats and he recognizes clocks and trucks when he sees them.

last weekend we did a road trip to attend the wedding of our very good friends eric and julie. on thursday evening, at travis' bedtime we started driving and around 9.30am we were at our hotel in dekalb, il, but since our room wasn't ready yet we had to hang out in the metropolis that is dekalb ... while being mesmerized by the endless possibilities dekalb had to offer denise bought hair dye for pepper. after this we hung out at the local starbucks and as a surprise eric dropped by to welcome us.

after settling into our room and taking a nap all together, we went out for a dinner and after getting back denise washed, and highlighted pepper's hair.
the next morning, after doing her hair and face this was the result:

the wedding and reception was from 12.30pm to 9pm and we were at the wedding location a little after noon and that's when we met up with our other good friend, sterling, who made looking cool cool:

travis slept through the wedding ceremony (luckily, considering the alternative: crying and screaming) and this is a shot of the wedding party after vows, rings and kisses were exchanged:

this is my absolute favorite shot of the day! not long after the wedding ceremony it actually started to snow and because the wind was directly on the windows of the town clubhouse, it left nice long streaks on them and when the wedding party went out on the balcony for official wedding photos, i took one from the inside:

travis actually got to play with kids his age (one 2 months older and one 1 year older than him) and he had no problem going over to introduce himself:

this is a picture of the official wedding photographer, donna, who flew in all the way from liverp...i mean manchester, england, and she tried and tried and tried taking a picture of travis (i hope she got one!):

travis and his new friends for the afternoon:

travis doing his wave and "hiiii":

by the looks of it this showing donna get a good & clear shot of travis:

the boys hamming it up:

the wedding cake, but the top tier only (there were 3 tiers):

and this is my second favorite shot of the day, the newlyweds out of focus behind the tables' centerpieces:

travis playing with a half empty water bottle:

this is where travis has his (wedding) cake and eats it:

it was so good, the wedding cake was literally all over him:

and another shot of pepper, noticing i was taking pictures of her, while she was checking out pictures she took:

the next 2 shots are showing what a happy and content little boy travis can be:

another one of pepper, where she is unsuspecting *grin*:

for some reason, travis found it hysterically funny when we drove his toy car from the table into his stroller:

travis comfortably asleep in his stroller:

after two sleepless nights, because travis refused to sleep in his hotel crib and pretty much also refused to sleep, period, we drove back home on sunday arriving home early early monday morning.
travis went to sleep around his normal time in his car seat and he did not fuss when we transferred him to his own bed. we actually managed to get him back into his regular schedule within the day.

since sunday is easter, we colored eggs on saturday evening after dinner.
here's the coffee mugs filled with dye and travis in the background shredding paper:

travis right after sneezing:

travis shouting at the egg demanding the chick to come out:

the colored easter eggs:

travis completely engaged watching super why:

travis is just 5 weeks away from being 2 years old, but already people think he is at least 3 years old, based on his size and him knowing the alphabet.
next month opa and oma are visiting and we'll celebrate travis' birthday when they are here, which will be tons of fun.

saturday, april 23, 2011

scheduling agenda 2011 v3

2011-04-23T14:33:00.000-04:00

pssst, don't forget to scroll up & down for new & previous posts about travis
it is now safe to say that my schedule is not going to show any kind of slowing down from the schedule i've had the last 8 months, but hopefully, the forthcoming schedule will have me at home at least every weekend and it's preceding friday, so it's not all bad.

april 23-24 weekend; no plans
april 25 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
april 25-28 working @ client site in denver, co
april 28 in the late pm travel back home
april 29 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
april 30-may 1 weekend; no plans
may 2 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
may 2-5 working @ client site in denver, co
may 5 in the late pm travel back home
may 6 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
may 7-8 weekend; no plans
may 9 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
may 9-12 working @ client site in denver, co
may 12 in the late pm travel back home
may 13 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
may 14-15 weekend; no plans
may 16 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
may 16-19 working @ client site in denver, co
may 19 in the late pm travel back home
may 20 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
may 21-22 weekend; no plans
may 23-24 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
may 24 approx 9pm mom&dad (oma&opa) are coming to cumming! :-)
may 25 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
may 25 @7.30pm see incognito @ cobb energy performance art centre for the 37th anniversary of wclk 91.9fm
may 26-27 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
may 28-29 weekend; no plans
may 30-june 1 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
june 2 pto
june 3-6 pto - staying @ big bear retreat somewhere in the smokey mountains near pigeon forge, tn
june 7-10 pto
june 11-12 weekend; no plans
june 13 in the early am travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
june 13-16 working @ client site in denver, co
june 14 approx 5pm mom&dad (oma&opa) are leaving cumming! :-(
june 16 in the late pm travel back home
june 17 working @ home office and/or working @ norcross office
june 18-19 weekend; no plans

and yes, i am going to be in denver until january 13, 2012 ... or something like that. not much of change of venue, but there won't be a whole lot of time to frolic ...

the tj chronicles 69

2011-03-26T21:51:00.001-04:00

and yet another month has passed ... y'all have to forgive me for not updating my blog more regularly, but i have been away from home a lot lately and the time i have been home i have spent with travis. without a camera. of course, this is not entirely true, because otherwise i'd have a hard time explaining the pictures in this blog :P

travis, for the most part, has been doing pretty good. still some issues with eczema but with the various ointments, and benadryl (and does travis loves him some benadryl!) we seem to be getting a handle on it. it helps that spring has started and temperatures are rising and dry air is slowly being replaced with humid air. he is still growing like a weed, moving around pretty agile and therefore getting into trouble more and more.

he knows almost the entire alphabet, while his favorite letters are c, i, q and y. he can even recognize letters on sight as well as knowing what a clock is. he still loves curious george, dinosaur train, super why, sesame street (in particular elmo's world) but now he has also developed an interest in fetch, which is really something for kids in the age range between 10 and 14. travis still likes music and he will stop whatever he is doing if there is music on tv. and of course, he tries to sing along with the theme music of his favorite shows.

since i know y'all have been pining for more photos of "little" travis, here goes ...

travis in denise's lap eating crackers:

here you can see the crackers with travis in the background:

travis having a great time getting water poured out on him:

he still loves getting a bath, but because of the eczema it can't be too long, much to his disliking.
after bath enjoying his last bottle of milk for the day:

travis asleep on the floor, as i recall after a relatively short night:

after his nap, in the back yard playing with the spiked green ball:

our two youngest in the same shot. travis likes playing with pepper and she likes playing with him:

travis in a rare moment of tranquility:

not sure what pepper is doing with travis here:

you can see the naughty in his expression:

even though travis now has his own leaptop, he still prefers ours:

i guess pepper is showing travis around on the internet:

and travis can't believe what he is seeing:

you can see the escher in the reflection with travis monkeying with my laptop:

last weekend we got a little bit of a scare, when travis started fussing and crying and screaming (at around 11am) and didn't stop, not even when he went for his afternoon nap. this is something that is very atypical for him. when denise noticed he did not want his binkie (which he actually is forgetting about for days on end) and kept pulling his ear, we thought it best to take him to the er, because we thought it could be an ear infection and waiting to have his pediatrician look at it may have been too long.
of course, as soon as we strapped him in the car seat he stopped crying and he was almost back to normal throughout the er visit. he was very good, didn't complain or "fight" the doctors and it was determined that in at least one ear there was an inflammation (the other ear had too much earwax to see), so we got a prescription for a 10-day cycle of antibiotics.
weird as he is, he likes the flavor of that too!
so, this is travis after coming home from the hospital, still wearing his hospital bracelet:

and a close up of the bracelet, his first after his birth (and hopefully (we can hope, right?) his last):

the next few weeks will be quite hard, because after this week's trip to puerto rico i will have to spend a weekend in denver so i'm gonna be not seeing travis for 11 whole days. but when i come back from denver we're gonna have a couple of days of downtime, although it's also going to be somewhat hectic since we're gonna drive to dekalb, illinois, to attend the wedding of good friends of ours, eric and julie.
since pepper now has my old digital camera, i'm sure there will be tons of pictures of travis and the wedding and the wedding party, but probably not before another 4 weeks or so ...

saturday, march 26, 2011

scheduling agenda 2011 v2

2011-03-06T12:59:00.003-05:00

pssst, don't forget to scroll up & down for new & previous posts about travis
you may think that my schedule in the last 5 months has been hectic ... well, nothing is changing yet in the month to come. after that it's a little fuzzy still.

march 5-6 weekend; no plans
march 7 in the am work @ home office; in the late pm travel to albuquerque, nm (staying @ holiday inn express albuquerque midtown)
march 8-10 working @ client site in albuquerque, nm
march 11 travel back home
march 12-13 weekend; no plans
march 13 in the late afternoon travel to boston area (staying @ holday inn express boston-waltham)
march 14-16 work @ client site in needham, ma
march 17 travel back home
march 18 working @ norcross office and/or working @ home office
march 19-20 weekend; no plans
march 21 in the am work @ home office; in the late pm travel to albuquerque, nm (staying @ holiday inn express albuquerque midtown)
march 22-24 working @ client site in albuquerque, nm
march 25 travel back home
march 26-27 weekend; no plans
march 28 travel to san juan, puerto rico (staying @ holiday inn express san juan)
march 29-31 working @ client site in san juan, pr
april 1 travel back home
april 2-3 weekend; no plans
april 3 in the late pm travel to denver, co (staying @ homewood suites by hilton denver international airport)
april 4-8 working @ client site in denver, co
april 9-10 weekend; no plans while staying in denver, co
april 11-13 working @ client site in denver, co
april 13 in the late pm travel back home
april 14 working @ the home office; in the late evening start travel to dekalb, il
april 15 travel to dekalb, il (staying @ holiday inn express sycamore)
april 16 attend wedding julie & eric
april 17-18 travel back home

then:
may 24 approx 9pm-june 14 approx 5pm mom&dad are coming to cumming!
may 25 @7.30pm see incognito @ cobb energy performance art centre for the 37th anniversary of wclk 91.9fm
june 3-6 staying @ big bear retreat somewhere in the smokey mountains near pigeon forge, tn

after all this, who knows, but be assured, i will update my schedule as i hear more.

the tj chronicles 68

2011-02-25T22:23:00.000-05:00

february is a short month, but still there's almost 3 weeks between this and the last post. that's mostly because i have been on travel for at least 4 days out of every 5 working days. in the next few days i will be posting my new schedule as well, and you will notice that nothing much is changing in that regard, at least not for the coming 4 weeks.

during the weekends i spent a lot of time playing with travis, one to catch up on lost time and two, more importantly, to give denise a chance to work on her dissertation, since she doesn't get much opportunity to do so when it's just her and travis.

travis is a snugglebum. he will (quietly) play by himself, but he'll come by every so often to give hugs or climb in your lap. he loves cuddling and he gives kisses freely. i hope he will never lose his giving nature!

since we went to the pedi-dermatologist who prescribed travis stronger stuff for his eczema, it seems to be clearing up. of course, it helps that the weather is changing again, because spring is almost here. so no more freezing cold and dry air.

now the weather is getting better again, we have started taking travis out in the backyard and he loves it. he loves it almost as much as the swimming pool or the bath. you will see examples of this toward the bottom of this post.

but, first things first. travis had his first real cold at the end of january and beginning of february. he never got the flu, but his little nose was running off his face. it goes without saying that it didn't bother him much, because he let the snot freely flow into his mouth through his binkie ... i think he just likes salt, a lot ;-)

in this shot you can clearly see the snot running down his face:

snot in soft focus actually looks kinda nice:

even though he wasn't feeling well, he never became apathetic or lethergic, he kept on playing and smiling and running and laughing ... and climbing on the coffee table:

he still likes the cheap "toys" the best:

drool and a white cat hair hanging from his lips:

what is difficult to see is the bottle travis placed in the bookcase and for whatever reason he is making faces at it:

then, when he is done with the bottle, he just throws it on the floor, to watch it bounce:

he hasn't figured out how to use his scooter, yet, so he uses it to get a higher view of things. and he uses it to transport toys from room to room:

travis has also found his cabinet in the kitchen island, where he sometimes crawls into to play peek-a-boo:

laughing and drooling and slobbering:

when he is told "no" he has taken to throwing temper tantrums: crying, running into doors and/or walls, falling dramatically to the floor and more crying:

but usually those tantrums only last for a few minutes and then he is all right again:

travis also sometimes doesn't want to drink his bottle in his playpen anymore. as soon as we put him in he starts flopping around, kicking and screaming, but he is perfectly content taking his milk on the couch:

"don't push the button":

travis' first steps out on the back porch:

sitting in one of the haul-away lawn chairs:

i think travis is making his O-face:

at least, judging by this coy smile:

since he didn't wear shoes he had some trouble adjusting to the feel of the (still) hard grass and you can see him curling his fingers and toes at the end of the concrete slab:

i took him out back earlier this afternoon, for almost two hours, and after a short adjustment period (maybe 2 minutes) he was walking back and forth through the yard:

he chased after the ball i was throwing and kicking around:

(not sure what this facial expression is, but it is hilarious and i didn't know i captured it until i looked through all the pictures i took.)
...

(doing a mick jagger imitation maybe?)
throwing the ball, against the wind, which had him puzzled:

but in spite of the wind he had a "ball":

as you can see from his smile. although his smile is a little distorted because he has a piece of grass in/near his mouth:

at one point travis and me coaxed sadie out:

(love travis' shadow on the wall!)
love travis' shadow on the wall here too:

to celebrate pepper's birthday week, we went out to dinner @ fuddruckers and this time we sat in the rolling stones booth (sigh) and travis seemed to like mick jagger:

and also seemed to enjoy keef richards:

travis also enjoyed the macaroni & cheese and onion rings and wedge cut fries and cookies & cream milkshake and sprite. i think he also enjoyed the rest of the scenery and the (not too) noise.

as you can see, travis is doing pretty good, he is still growing like cabbage, which has its downsides, because he can reach a long way now to get his grabbity hands on anything he is not supposed to touch.
but, he is eating well and he is sleeping well. all we have to do is say "travis go night-night" and he drops whatever he is holding or doing and come running with his arms in the air. it's adorable as hell.

more awesomeness soon!

friday, february 25, 2011

the tj chronicles 67

2011-02-05T21:18:00.000-05:00

wow, a month just flew by ... guess time really flies if you're flying a lot ...

apart from one week in january, where atlanta got snowed in (yes, seriously, atlanta got snowed in!) i traveled every week so far this year and the next 3 weeks i am traveling as well. after that, who knows, supposedly i have a long engagement coming with just one client, but no-one has been in touch with me about particulars and i don't even know who the project manager is, otherwise i would reach out. hopefully it means i don't have to travel each week, something i think is not too hard to believe, knowing who the client is :P

since i have been gone so much i have been missing travis and he has been missing me too, i'm sure, although he doesn't really have a way of showing. in the time i've been gone, his eczema has started to be bothering him more, but denise has taken him to the dermatologist, who prescribed a stronger ointment/lotion (to which travis seems to be responding quite well), but he didn't see anything outrageous. it's good to have the confirmation it is eczema, which is no surprise, because both travis' dad and grandpa have (had) issues with eczema.
from time to time, the dermatologist warned, travis will be kicking up a shit storm, because he'd be itching so bad he wants to jump out of his skin and today i witnessed one of those moments. patience is a virtue ... as well as good medication. still, knowing how horrible a bad itch is, i know it must be doubly bad for travis, since he can't let us know what is wrong with him or where it hurts and/or itches.
but, through it all, he still tries to be the friendly and loving travis we've come to know and that is a character trait we will be sure to keep strong in him! :-)

now, back to snowpocalypse 2011.
on sunday night january 9 it started snowing and it snowed all evening. then it started lightly raining. all the while it was freezing, so what happened was that there was anywhere between 3 and 8 inches of snow covered with a layer of ice. this actually closed down the three major highways that intersect in atlanta. and if it closed three major highways, you can guess how side streets were?! i learnt that atlanta metro has a grand total of 10 plow trucks and the georgia department of transportation spent $10 million to keep the highways clear, which in the end took them three whole days, from monday to wednesday.
i was slated to go to ohio on monday afternoon, but after postponing the trip with a day, on tuesday i actually decided to completely cancel the trip, because there was not even a way to get to the atlanta airport at that time. next to that, in the middle of the week, the detroit would get hit with a snow storm as well and i would be flying to detroit and driving to toledo/maumee, which didn't sound like a great idea.
so i stayed home.

travis got his first experience with snow, and you have seen these pictures before, but they are just too cute.
i know denise doesn't like these pictures because she is wearing her bathrobe, but so what, i was in my pajamas (even though you can't see that :P).
travis sitting in the kitchen doorway feeling the snow:

after feeling the snow and going into a sort of cold shock, we took him out front where he at least he had the cover of the porch. of course, he still was a little apprehensive:

denise got him to hold a "snow ball":

he enjoyed throwing the snowballs on the concrete porch to see it splatter:

for some reason, the next two pictures remind me of the cover of maxwell's embrya album:

extreme bed head:

playing with an empty water bottle, throwing it against the wall and floor to see it bounce. it's always the simplest thing that gives kids the most joy:

travis has also mastered climbing onto the coffee table and this is him looking thriumphantly at me after doing so:

the cool glass most feel good against his itchy skin:

travis reaching for the empty water bottle on the kitchen island:

the last one for this blog, travis' great smile as seen from the side:

in spite of his eczema, travis is still progressing nicely, although he still is not really talking, yet. he says words here and there and he has taken to reciting his version of the alphabet, but apart from a handful of words that's it.
i think it is because i am speaking dutch to him (mostly, it's near impossible to always speak dutch, simply because it's hard for me to switch back to my native tongue) while denise, obviously, speaks english to him, so he is having to learn two languages which will slow him down a bit.
but, we have time :-)

saturday, february 5, 2011

the tj chronicles 66

2011-01-08T15:04:00.000-05:00

merry new year!

i am a little late with the new year's wish, but i originally planned to do a blog on 1/1/11 but figured that it could wait until i had some more pictures of tj.
and of course, most of last weekend i was not feeling well (flu) and right after the weekend i had to go visit a client in cold and snowy weatogue, connecticut.
those two days at the client went well, although i clocked almost 24 hours of work in little over 2 days leaving me kinda weary and tired, because i was still recovering, for the rest of the working week, which was still quite busy.
now i think i am pretty much fully recovered, although i still have a little bit of the sniffles.

now that the holidays are behind us things here at the weirdz residence will settle down into our "normal" routine:
- denise is in class again and working on her dissertation
- campion is back into the fold (though we still don't see him a lot)
- pepper is back in school, thank dog, because her boredom drives us bananas
- for travis it is business as usual (and he likes saying "nananas")
- i am back to work, even though i never really had a break, and it is going to be busy the first 2 months of the year (as you can see from my previous blog post)

now back to the actual topic of this blog, travis :-)
after seeing the pediatrician and setting an appointment with a dermatologist for the 19th of this month (the first available date!) we are keeping his eczema spots covered and well-lubricated and it slowly is starting to look a little less bad, so here's to hoping that it is mostly a reaction to the cold weather.
otherwise he is doing really well, getting more active by the day, reaching into more places every day too and he is (finally) starting to "talk". it is in quotes, because most of the time we still have no idea what he is babbling about ...

travis drinking from a sippy cup, something he still hasn't quite mastered. he likes to hold the sippy cup, shake it, turn it upside down, but the mechanics of drinking out of it still escape him:

but he doesn't care that he can't:

here's a new year's smile:

even a little more up close and personal:

y'all remember this from my new year's post, but it is so darned cute that i had to repost it:

travis in the background waiting for a taste of "his girlfriend's mother's" marble brownies:

travis standing up in his playpen after finishing a bottle of milk:

he has a tendency to pull off a sock or both of them:

pepper feeding him pieces of a bread, but obviously not fast enough, so he will do anything in his power to get it into his mouth and belleh faster:

since he has been growing steadily and is also getting stronger, travis can now actually climb in his tripp trapp himself:

he is such a lounge lizard:

denise sharing videos of puppies with travis:

a little blurry, but i love his smile:

yes, travis still loveslovesloves taking baths and getting water poured down his face:

my name is earl:

piggyback riding with his sister:

he holds on, but he is not really *holding* on:

and in this blurry shot you can clearly see he likes the piggyback ride:

and that concludes this blog ... more news later, i'm sure :-)

saturday, january 8, 2011

scheduling agenda 2011 v1

2011-01-01T23:10:00.005-05:00

pssst, don't forget to scroll up & down for new & previous posts about travis
you may think that my schedule in the last months of last year was hectic ... well, better brace yourself, because the first months of 20eleven are looking pretty similar.

january 1-2 weekend; no plans
january 3 holiday (in observance of new year's day) but in the pm travel to hartford, ct (staying @ la quinta inn hartford bradley airport)
january 4-5 working @ client site in weatogue, ct
january 5 travel back home
january 6-7 working @ norcross office, doing gtm sessions with client
january 8-9 weekend; no plans
january 10 in the am working @ norcross office (gtm with client), in the pm traveling to toledo, oh (@ staybridge suites toledo-maumee)
january 11-12 working @ client site in whitehouse, oh
january 13 travel back home
january 11-14 working @ norcross office and/or working @ home office
january 15-16 weekend; no plans
january 17 travel to sturtevant, wi (staying @ holiday inn express racine area)
january 18-21 working @ client site in sturtevant, wi
january 21 travel back home
january 22 weekend; no plans
january 23 weekend; in the pm travel to toledo, oh (staying @ staybridge suites toledo-maumee)
january 24-27 working @ client site in whitehouse, oh
january 28 travel back home
january 29 weekend; no plans
january 30 weekend; in the pm travel to brentwood, tn (staying @ holiday inn express brentwood)
january 31-february 2 working @ client site in brentwood, tn
february 3 travel to greenville, sc (staying @ hampton inn greenville-haywood)
february 4 working @ client site in greenville, sc
february 5 travel back home
february 5-6 weekend; no plans
february 7 in the am working @ home office; in the pm travel to bethlehem, pa (staying @ undetermind)
february 8-10 working @ client site in bethlehem, pa
february 11 travel back home
february 12-13 weekend; no plans
february 14 valentine's day; surprise dinner
february 15 in the am working @ home office; in the pm travel to houston (staying @ holiday inn express - houston memorial park)
february 16-18 working @ client site in houston, tx
february 18 travel back home
february 19-20 weekend; no plans
february 21 in the early am travel to houston (staying @ holiday inn express - houston memorial park)
february 21-24 working @ client site in houston, tx
february 24 travel back home
february 25 "weekend"; no plans
february 26 pepper's birthday party
february 27 weekend; no plans

may 24 approx 9pm-june 14 approx 5pm mom&dad are coming to cumming!
june 3-6 staying @ big bear retreat somewhere in the smokey mountains near pigeon forge, tn

as you can see there's not many open spots anymore and there's more requests so i'm pretty sure march and april will fill up fast.

happy 2011

2011-01-01T00:00:00.003-05:00

the title says it all: may it be a happy, healthy and prosperous new year for all of you!
(also, new scheduling agenda coming soon, it is going to be a busy first quarter)

the tj chronicles 65 the xmas 2010 edition

2010-12-25T16:55:00.005-05:00

merry christmas, happy holidays!
sorry everyone, it has been a while since the last chronicles, but i have been busy the last month, mostly with travel only being home in the weekends. and because i was working long weeks i wanted to actually spend time with travis rather than taking pictures of him.
all in all travis is doing really well, he's growing and he's only gaining a little bit of weight, but because he is much more active he has also starting to tone, so his big buddha belly is slowly disappearing.

but he still likes his binkie:

and he still self-soothes by turning his hair into circles:

a couple of weeks ago, our former neighbor came over with her little one, so travis and tristan could have a play date:

and they get along really well, despite the age difference:

and sadie is such a good cat for putting up with this double decker hug:

tristan giving travis a kiss:

aunt lauri sent us christmas gifts and the present for travis had to be opened right after we received it and it is an indoor tent. at first he was a little apprehensive, but once pepper showed him the way he went in as well:

playing with his roller phone in the tent:

the other thing that hasn't changed is that he likes to move furniture around; he pushes his tripp trapp throughout the kitchen and hallway:

somehow that brings him enormous amounts of joy as you can see by the smile:

only last thursday evening we set up our (fake) christmas tree, mainly because we weren't sure how travis was going to deal with it, since he has a knack for taking the books off the shelves, but much to our surprise he really didn't give it any attention. the cats however ...
we moved the tent from the dining room into the living room and here you can see travis playing inside of it:

and then today is christmas day. on christmas eve we put the presents santa dropped off underneath the tree after travis had gone to bed:

travis was the first one to open his present and it was a car, one that when you roll it backwards it propels itself into the opposite direction. after i showed him how that worked he tried it himself of course, but he kept rolling it the wrong way so it kept bumping into him, much to his frustration.
so he just carried it around:

and played with it on the carpet, where of course, it wouldn't roll at all:

this is pepper hiding behind one of her presents, a board game called mexican train:

and this is campion, almost disappearing behind one of his presents, gnome chomsky:

travis trying to steal the limelight, just because he's awesome:

campion enjoying one of the CDs he received:

and pepper being intrigued by something, i think it is the usb charger for the nook her dad so generously sent her as a christmas present, and for which it took us hours of urging her to call him to thank him for it (she still is very angry with her dad and her grandfather).

the oldest two kids and denise in one shot:

one of my christmas presents was a plastic flask of 100 proof (50% alcohol) southern comfort, something travis immediately took a shine to once he got his hands on it:

and he did not let go willingly, we had to wrestle it away from him ... wonder what that is a sign of ... :P
it goes without saying that i had to take a bokeh shot of our christmas tree, because a little (or a lot) bokeh makes everything look really pretty:

these are two other gifts that i got, an advance reading copy of shampoo planet by douglas coupland and a coffee mug with a picture of travis on one side and this on the other side:

and what do you know, much to everyone's surprise it started snowing in the middle of the morning, so we are actually having a white christmas here in the deep south:

and, like bokeh, snow also makes everything look very pretty:

after the presents we watched a movie, everything is illuminated, during which travis took a short nap. after travis woke up, he seemed to be quite bothered by the eczema, something we will definitely have a pediatrician-dermatologist take a look at as soon as possible; he was crying and scratching, which only makes matters worse. nothing we did could stop him, but after a dose of benadryl, slathering the eczema spots with hydrocortisone and wrapping his feet in gauze he finally calmed down and stopped rolling around on the carpet trying to scratch.

at this moment we are waiting for christmas dinner to be ready and i will take some pictures of that as well, so this blog will be updated ...
... which is now, after dinner and after little butt has gone to bed.

there were a few more episodes of crying and scratching, but denise slathered him in ointment and then dressed him in long pants and a long-sleeved shirt and for a long time he was actually ok. we watched an entire episode of thomas and friends (on gpb) sitting next to each other on the couch, while denise was readying christmas dinner. this year, the feast consisted of stoved potatoes and lambchops with green bean casserole and pumpkin pie with whipped cream for dessert.
this is the entire spread, with travis in the background anxiously awaiting his share:

leaning in to somehow make it clear that he is ready for some food:

travis' expressions when eating things he hasn't tasted before are priceless:

but so far, he has taken to eating pretty much anything he gets fed, as witnessed here by his wide open mouth:

tonight, the winner, in his estimation, was the pumpkin pie with whipped cream:

he could not get enough of it:

after his last bite, a sense of sadness showed on his face:

not long after dinner, travis got his evening bottle, got his diaper changed and made ready for bed. at first he didn't want to go down, but i think he was still pretty worn out from feeling itchy. plus the excitement of having the entire family together, if only for a couple of hours.

christmas 2010 is the first white christmas in atlanta since 1882, so that deserves some more shots:

in the next one you can see pepper peeking through the window above the garage:

christmas was good ... let's see how travis is doing on boxing day ...

saturday, december 25, 2010

the tj chronicles 64 the thanksgiving 2010 edition

2010-11-25T22:12:00.003-05:00

*gobble gobble*

first a couple of shots of travis finally enjoying his rocking chair:

above pictures are from yesterday (wednesday), the day before thanksgiving ...

... and the night when denise started prepping thanksgiving dinner: steak & kidney pie, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and sweet potato pie with whipped cream.
when i was taking a shower denise broke out the fine china and also set travis' official flat wear:

this tin set used to belong to me, and now we have handed this down to the next generation of weird.

i can't remember if my parents bought this for me, or if it was a gift or was it something that was handed down as well?
this is the table with all the food set and the glasses filled (wine for denise and me, pomegranate italian soda for the kids):

the food, clockwise from bottom: whipped cream, sweet potato pie, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, steak & kidney pie, cranberry sauce:

travis staring his plate down:

denise "carving the turkey":

travis applauding in anticipation:

a close-up of travis'plate:

travis taking a bite of mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce:

he didn't take all that much to the steak & kidney pie, but neither did denise, because she insisted the pie stank like a barn. me and the kids did not smell that, but i guess that's what happens when you slave over the stove for almost a day, you start resenting the food you're preparing ...
a close-up of the sweet potato pie and whipped cream:

travis getting ready to kiss his spoon ... yes, he's a goofball like that:

pepper getting ready to take a swig off her "wine":

and a cropped panorama shot of our two youngest kids:

campion came home for the occasion as well, but i didn't capture him, but then again, neither did i manage to get denise :P
after dinner was the clean-up, which took quite a long time, because our fine china is made of porcelain and cannot go in the dishwasher, unfortunately.
but it got done, as well as the coffee that was made ready for tomorrow morning and travis' bottles.
speaking of tomorrow, tomorrow is black friday!!!!
this means i may get up at 4am to be at the north georgia outlet mall to get my annual shopping on, because daddy needs new shirts, shirts, socks and shoes.
so with this, i bid you good night ... and happy thanksgiving :-)

thursday, november 25, 2010

the tj chronicles 63

2010-11-22T17:44:00.000-05:00

it's been a while since the last tj chronicles, because i've been pretty busy with being a "single" dad and travel for work, but now things are back to normal ... well, as normal as normal can be :P

denise is headlong into her next class after finishing her year 3 residency and she's heavy into getting the xmas cards & gifts together.

campion ... well, you can read more about that "train wreck" on facebook :P ;-)

pepper has "lost" her braces, after having them for 2 years and 2 weeks. now all she has is a temporary retainer for her upper teeth (pretty much for the rest of her life, though, although at some point she will only have to wear it at night) and a permanent, hardly visible retainer for her bottom teeth.

me, i am doing good, like i said at the beginning, i have been travelling a lot and i will be travelling a lot in the coming weeks, maybe even months, because it finally looks like things are looking up economy-wise, which means that there is more demand for my services. see my schedule for more details.

and travis, well, he is doing great, as he has been :-)
pepper got pink eye (dutch = bindvliesontsteking) and then strep infection (dutch = tonsillitis), but travis skated through. the only problem he seems to be having is a case of eczema, and that doesn't surprise me. at least he does not seem to be bothered much by it. he scratches his eczema spots from time to time, but whenever we touch these spots he doesn't recoil or scream or cry, so that's a plus. we treat it with ointment after he gets his bath (in running water only) and before he goes to bed.
other than that, he eats good (he likes pretty much everything, but of course he has his favorites), he sleeps good (he loveslovesloves his bed) and he seems to be developing well.

but now, without further ado, the picture y'all have been waiting for ;-)
travis, happily laughing after he finished his morning bottle (and they go down fast ...):

travis in bath playing with his soap car:

travis looking for the meaning of life on the bottom of this cup:

travis is able to climb onto the couches now. sometimes he manages by himself, sometimes he needs a little help. and whenever he can't get up and no-one is there to help him he gets very frustrated:

the other thing he has started to do is walk in his tippy toes (even though it is hard to tell from this picture):

and here's another thing travis finds enjoyment in; pushing stuff around the house ... it can be his rocking chair, a box or, in this case, his tripp trapp:

i think we need to get a vacuum cleaner that is low enough so he can push it through the house, you know, killing two birds with one stone:

travis fooling around with the drawers in our bathroom before his bath. He likes making things "disappear" and then "discovering" them again ... yes, he is a dork that way ...

travis with a shampoo faux-hawk:

and a better view of his messy faux-hawk:

and still looking for the meaning of life in this cup:

travis pointing out the statuette and the clock:

(i am learning him different items around the house, in dutch, and he points them out when i tell him an item, so he is recognizing things and associating them with what i tell him what they are called ... not always, though, because sometimes he wants to point things out in his order)
pepper and travis playing on the floor:

travis lounging in the couch:

travis pointing out the ceiling fan/lamp:

and travis sliding off the couch, showing off his best "ass"et *grin*:

since travis is getting more and more mobile, we pretty much constantly must have a pair of eyes on him, because he is fast and he can reach. items he likes to grab are: (cell) phones, pens, remote controls and books.
every day, he still spends time in baby jail for taking books off the book shelves or for taking out items from our office drawers, like calculators or camera lenses. for some reason he is attracted to all the things he is not allowed to get/do, even though he clearly understands the meaning of the word "NO", but he is choosing to ignore us in those instances. i wonder whom he got his stubborness from ;-)

monday, november 22, 2010

scheduling agenda 2010 v6

2010-11-11T17:29:00.005-05:00

pssst, don't forget to scroll up & down for new & previous posts about travis
as you may or may not now, my schedule has been kinda hectic these last few months and they are going to continue to be hectic and it has begun to stretch into next year already ...

november 8-11 working @ norcross office and/or working @ home office
november 12 pto; merger lindsey & jason @ supreme court of georgia
november 13-14 weekend; no plans
november 15 working @ norcross office and/or working @ home office
november 16 in the am working @ home office, in the pm travel to houston, tx (staying @ holiday inn express - houston memorial park)
november 17-19 working @ client site in houston, tx
november 19 travel back home
november 20-21 weekend; no plans
~~november 22~~ ~~in the early am travel to houston, tx (staying @~~ ~~holiday inn express - houston memorial park~~)
november 22-23 working @ client site in houston, tx
november 24 travel back homenovember 22-23 working @ norcross office and/or working @ home office
november 24-26 thanksgiving holiday
november 25 thanksgiving *gobblegobble*
november 26 black friday shopping @ north georgia premium outlets
november 27-28 weekend; no plans
november 28 in the pm travel to birmingham, al (staying @ hampton inn birmingham/mountainbrook)
november 29-30 working @ client site in birmingham, al
november 30 travel to houston, tx (staying @ holiday inn express - houston memorial park)
december 1-3 working @ client site in houston, tx
december 3 travel back home
december 4 weekend; no plans
december 5 weekend; in the late pm travel to hartford, ct (staying @ holiday inn express hartford downtown)
december 6-7 working @ client site in weatogue, ct
december 8 travel to detroit, mi (staying @ courtyard detroit southfield)
december 9-10 working @ client site in detroit, mi
december 10 in the late pm travel back home
december 11-12 weekend; no plans
december 13 working @ norcross office and/or working @ home office
december 14-15 client training @ norcross office
december 16-17 undetermined
december 18-19 weekend; no plans
december 20-23 undetermined
december 24 xmas holiday
december 25-26 weekend; xmas
december 27-31 undetermined
merry new year!
january 1-2 weekend; no plans
january 3 in the late pm travel to weatogue, ct (staying @ undetermined)
january 4-5 working @ client site in weatogue, ct
january 6 travel back home
january 7 undetermined
january 8-9 weekend; no plans

may 24 approx 9pm-june 14 approx 5pm mon&dad are coming to cumming!

there's still a few "undetermineds" in the agenda, but the demand on consultants is high, so even though there is not enough room for travel anymore, i'm sure there will be a couple of (much dreaded) gotomeetings crammed in.

topsy turvy pt. 9

2010-11-05T21:30:00.002-04:00

last day of topsy turviness, woohoo!
got up a little after 7am, pepper was already at my computer, lunch already made. i woke up because travis was fussing, so i made him his bottle, turned on the tv to channel 240 - gbp and got him out of bed. i changed his diaper and then brought him downstairs.
pepper left for school and i let travis roam around and he didn't get in too much trouble, but of course he is still most attracted to the things he's not allowed.

around 9.45am i fed travis his cereal, which he ate in no time and not long after 11am he started to look and act tired again. i kept him up and about a little longer and waited till 11.45am to take him to his room for a nap.
after i put him down i took a shower and started a couple of cycles of laundry and then headed back to work.
i let travis sleep till after 2pm and this is how i found him when i went to his room to wake him up:

he was already awake, but he was just lying there, perfectly comfortable. when he noticed i was in the room, he got up and wobbled into a corner of the bed to rub his eyes:

even though he at first didn't even want to get up, after not picking him for longer than a minute kinda upset him, so this is his "why-don't-you-pick-me-up-already" face:

i changed his diaper and i changed him into another onesie to make a little more presentable for his mommy coming home. he had his bottle and then i let him out of the playpen to roam freely again, while i did some work.
from there time went pretty quickly and a little before 4pm denise texted me to let me know she was on her way home. i fed travis his afternoon banana and waited for denise to pass toll, so i could order our dinner for denise to pick up. since friday is pizza day i decided to order from papa john's because they have a zesty jalapeno pizza!
little after 5.30pm denise drove into our neighborhood and i went out with travis on my arm to wave her in to the garage. before doing anything else i dropped travis in mommy's arms and then got the pizzas out the car and made everything ready for dinner (not a whole lot to do).
after dinner, denise cuddled some more with travis and by the first looks of it, he doesn't seem to hold a grudge:

he was actually very huggy and kissy:

after dinner we unpacked the car, and i started another laundry cycle, which i have to remember to rotate from the washing machine to the dryer. around 7.15pm pepper made travis his last bottle for the day and when it was being very quiet after that i checked on him 15 or 20 minutes later and he was laying down in his play pen ready to fall asleep, so i took him out and proceeded to change his diaper. denise helped with putting cream on his eczema spots and she agrees that we should take him to the pediatrician to have his spots checked out again, because it is getting worse, although he still is not too bothered by them.
a little before 8pm denise brought him upstairs to his room and then it was time to relax ...

topsy turvy pt. 8

2010-11-04T22:50:00.000-04:00

another not so interesting day.
pepper woke up first and actually did what i asked her to, but then she forgot to make herself a proper lunch, because as it turned out she was smuggling halloween candy in her purse, so that was taken away from her. at 8am i woke up travis, who was still comfortably asleep, with his little but in the air.
pepper left for school at 8.15am and i started work as best as i can. campion got up a little after that, but he had to be at work at 10am for his first day of training (and as it turns out he doesn't even know if he's getting paid for that, so he should ask tomorrow, just to be sure).

somewhere in the middle of the morning, after travis had been dragging his box of toys throughout the house i happened to stumble upon this scene, lily sitting in the box with most of the toys still in it:

yes, our cat is a bit of a retard ;-)
before noon travis started to be sleepy again, so i took him to his room for his afternoon nap at 11.45am, which was better for me as well, because i had a web training scheduled from 2pm to 3.30pm, so by putting him down earlier for his nap i could wake him up before 2pm and have him changed and fed before my call.

the call went fine and even though i couldn't spend a lot of attention to travis he behaved pretty good, sometimes climbing in my lap, staring at the laptop screen in amazement, because the screen was changing without me doing anything.
the rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful, i worked and chased travis around the house and then at 5pm pepper came home from school. she sat travis in denise's desk chair and then sat down next to him, so i was able to get this shot of both of them:

i know, pepper didn't want to smile or look "normal", but some day she's gonna have to get used to being photographed *grin*

campion came home for a little while as well during his 2-2.5 hour break, but he left before i started dinner and tonight dinner was leftovers from the previous evenings. quick and delicious. pepper opted for the flank steak, i gave travis the mac & cheese and i ate most of the lasagna.
even though travis probably ate more than usual, at 7.15pm he still drank down an 8oz bottle of milk like it was his first meal of the day. unfortunately, after that i got distracted by something and he fell asleep in his playpen, so i had to wake him up to change his diaper and put ointment on his eczema spots. but he didn't seem to mind terribly, and he didn't resist being taken to bed either. haven't heard from him since ... he's such a good sleeper.

pepper took her shower and got ready for bed as well and this time i told her to make breakfast and lunch before doing anything else tomorrow morning, so we'll see how that goes.
i flipped channels for a bit and then talked with denise on the phone for about an hour. after hanging up i pretty much started typing up this blog and getting the photos downloaded to my computer and such and after i post this i am going to wash travis' bottles and go to bed.

last night without denise, because she's coming home tomorrow, yay!

topsy turvy pt. 7

2010-11-03T21:11:00.001-04:00

today was nothing special. got up at 7.30am thinking that pepper was still in bed, but she wasn't and she had already had her breakfast (or so she says) and made her lunch (i saw the sammiches in her purse). travis didn't wake up till i got him up a little after 8am and he looked like he could have easily slept another few hours :-)

campion helped me off and on throughout the day with travis so i was actually able to do some work as well, but i still got to play quite a lot with my little monkey. his latest thing is that he wants to climb onto the couch, sit up by himself and then slide off again. sometimes without a prop, sometimes with a prop, in this case, a cell phone:

of course he is having a lot of fun being a mountain goat:

campion also had an impromptu job interview this afternoon, at the tin drum closeby and he starts his training tomorrow, so our big boy finally may have a job again :-)

after dinner (lasagna), which was another slice of heaven for our little garbage disposal, i gave travis a bath. just hearing the running water makes him giddy and excited. if i would let him, he would spend the entire day in the water, he loves it that much.

but the second i turn off the water he starts stomping his feet and as soon as i take him out of the bathtub he starts fussing and crying. not for long, though, because he knows what's next: his bottle. tonight he got his bottle a little early, so after he was done (quick, again) he was free to roam around some more, but mostly he just spent his energy climbing on and off the couch. at 8pm it was off to bed without a problem (i also changed the mattress cover) and he is sound asleep now.

i am done for the night as well, coffee for the morning is made, bottles are washed and the trash can is emptied. tomorrow morning, before school, pepper will change the litterbox, so all the trash can be taken out tomorrow, since it is trash pick-up day.
now i am waiting for denise to give me a call and until then i will be chillaxin' in front of the tv ...

topsy turvy pt. 6

2010-11-02T22:36:00.001-04:00

travis tossed and turned pretty much all night, but he never really woke up, which was good for him, but a little less good for me, because i heard him every single time. but, i had gone to bed early so when i got up at 7.30 i had had a good night regardless.
of course, i woke up to chaos & mayhem in the dining room, because the cats knocked down the vase with the wooden tulips in the middle of the dining room table, breaking the vase, so i spent my first waking hour cleaning up teenie tiny particles of glass. thanks lily and sadie!

pepper had an orthodontist appointment this morning and i had let campion know that i needed him to babysit travis from 9.10am until we got back, but when i went into his room to wake him up, he wasn't there. so i packed things and loaded travis in the car when campion pulled up in front of the house exclaiming he was 1-2 minutes early at 9.08am. but travis was already in the car, so he hopped in and went along for the ride.
the appointment lasted a little longer as well, because in 2 weeks pepper's braces come off (yay! congratulations pepper!) and then she will get a retainer, something she had to make an imprint for today.
since she also was scheduled for a dentist appointment on friday i asked the orthodontist whether she should go or postpone and she said it would make more sense to let the dentist see her after her braces had come off, so once back home is rescheduled her appointment to the monday before thanksgiving.

after coming back i settled in to work, pepper did (part of) her homework, travis traipsied around and campion turned into a preening teen.
at around 3.30pm i rallied all kids into the car and started our trek to denise's hotel for dinner, but on the way stopping at the costco in dunwoody for mexican coke (coke with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, therefore not deadly) and ikea for 2 new floor protectors (since i "broke" denise's floor protector yesterday).
naturally around the time we would be getting on the 78/85 corridor, traffic was reduced to a parking lot, so it took 45 minutes to get to the renaissance concourse hotel.
parked the car and went up to denise's room, where she showed me the presentations she and the team she's in have produced so far and they are serious pieces of work. she, and all the other students, is being grilled and instead of having 12 hour days as per the residency syllabus, they practically have 16-18 hour days.
i am sure she is doing good, though, and only 3 more days and it is over :-)

around 6.30pm we went down to the hotel restaurant and occupied a booth with travis at the head of the table. he is still in a "mad-at-mommy" mode, so he was fidgeting and fussing and talking loud all through dinner.
since he was at the head of the table, naturally he had to be heard, and if he wasn't heard he'd raise his hand and demanded attention:

other times he was distracted by the waitresses, or a light, or a noise ... or, perhaps he just wanted a moment away from his family:

i took two pictures of the entire family, without me of course, but neither of them turned out as i hoped, because everyone decided to move when i pressed the shutter, aaarrrgggghhhhh!

at about 7.45pm we left for home again, and even though the road was once again filled people can't and shouldn't be driving, we were back home a few minutes before 8.30pm.
campion brought travis inside while pepper prepped his bottle and he finished that with a quickness, after which i changed his diaper and put some ointment on his eczema spots. then it was off to bed, on the heels of pepper who was tired and therefore headed to bed early.

i balanced my "check books" and uploaded the handful of pictures and then went upstairs for a shower and a shave, because i was in dire need of both.
it is a little past 10.30pm and i am typing up this blog, thinking that i will be going to bed very shortly ...

topsy turvy pt. 5

2010-11-01T22:08:00.000-04:00

today wasn't really exciting. except for campion we were all up by 8am, i went to work, pepper mostly baby sat travis, apart from when she was doing her homework.
travis didn't need a whole lot of managing today, because he's been pretty good and was sent to baby jail only twice, both times by pepper for, i think.

in the afternoon, our previous neighbor, lindsey came by, because she missed out on seeing pepper and travis on sunday.
it took travis a few moments to get his barings with her, but soon enough he was babbling away, showing off his pitching and running skills.
in return, lindsey showed him magic tricks and funny faces:

and you can see that travis is totally comfortable around her:

(if you're friends with her on facebook, make sure to congratulate her and jason on their upcoming wedding!)
i had to jump onto a conference call, so i couldn't spend as much time talking with lindsey as i wanted to, but i'm sure that pepper had a great time seeing her.
and so did travis, for that matter.

dinner was an easy win: macaroni & cheese. both kids finished before me. that is something that almost never happens.
travis' evening was quiet and uneventful as well and he went to bed at 8pm after a diaper change and some ointment. i did notice that the eczema or whatever it is (allergies, diaper rash) is moving, even during the day. next time he goes to the pediatrician it will need to be addressed. but, he doesn't seem to mind it too much, even though he scratches at the patches of dry skin, because if i ran my fingers across those spots he doesn't react, other than being ticklish.

i'm watching the giants vs rangers game (go giants!) and i have already had my evening call with denise, who is doing really well, which is something i am not in the least surprised by.
tomorrow, i'm packing everyone in the car and go over to the hotel she is staying for dinner, while on the way over stopping at ikea (and maybe even costco, for some mexican coke).

topsy turvy pt. 4

2010-10-31T22:06:00.001-04:00

happy halloween!

today's blog is dedicated to my beautiful, smart and funny wife, denise, who, for the first time in 18 years, had to miss trick or treating.

today started out pretty good. pepper got up at 8am and travis also woke up around that time, so i got a chance to "sleep in".
watched some gpb, played with the bouncy balls and generally did pretty much what we usually do. he drank his entire bottle and he also gobbled up his cereal.
something new he did today was take his rocking chair for a walk:

and i dragged out his afternoon nap till 12.30pm, and he happily went to bed.

travis slept till 3pm at which point i brought him downstairs and gave him his bottle. he then played some more while pepper got impatient, really impatient, about eating dinner, putting the treats outside, changing herself and travis into their costume and going trick or treating. i started dinner at 4.30 and it was ready a little after 5pm. travis loved the escalloped chicken (pasta and cheese) and pepper carefully pushed all the mushrooms aside.

after dinner, i changed travis' diaper and got him into his monkey costume, which wasn't easy, because he really didn't want to and he most certainly didn't want to wear the hat, so that's why he is not wearing it in below portrait:

pepper, of course, did not want to smile.
not even when we went to the other part of the neighborhood to go trick or treating, but at least here travis is wearing his monkey hat:

travis waiting for his sister to retrieve bounty:

at time he was hamming it up, mostly because he had me picking up his binkie every single time i stopped walking the walker. yeah, that was fun, travis, real fun :P

i guess his sister the witch did scare travis a little bit, but not too much:

travis leaning forward to reach for his binkie he just threw away, but i had already picked it up:

brother and sister, trick or treating:

pepper returning with more bounty:

and yes, we started out at 6pm in full daylight, but by the time we went around the entire neighborhood it was already dark, so here you can see the outline of pepper, and especially her witch's hat:

after driving back to our part of the neighborhood, i carried travis and went trick or treating (t)here. our part is a lot smaller, but it still took 30 minutes, so you can imagine i was pretty tired when we finally made it back home.

i relieved travis of his costume and had pepper make him his bottle. he finished the bottle pretty damn quick and then it was time for hugs and kisses. naturally, he went to sleep without a problem, especially not tonight since he had quite the evening.

our night is not over, yet, because i need to leave at around 11.15pm to pick up campion from the airport. he should have arrived around 9pm, but he missed his flight in seattle (not his fault ... of course), but he was lucky enough to be rescheduled, which had him come in just before midnight.
we would have had our former neighbor, lindsey, over to watch over pepper and travis, but i can't do it to her to have her babysit an empty house in the middle of the night, so now our plan is to have pepper stay up late and/or sleep on the couch, so she can hear travis if he wakes. IF he wakes up, which i don't see happening, because he never wakes up in the middle of the night ... but seeing how today has turned out, it wouldn't surprise me if he would ... guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there ...

anyway, this is it for now.
and again, this is for denise, who is "stuck" at her year 3 residency, so she couldn't be home for halloween.

topsy turvy pt. 3

2010-10-30T21:15:00.000-04:00

today turned out to be a strange day. not bad, just not what i expected.
travis woke up around 7.30am and while i was awake in bed, listening to him babbling to himself, giggling and cooing and laughing, pepper got up and got him up. she changed his diaper on the changing table and then brought him downstairs and made him his morning milk bottle.
i got up as well and had some cereal. then denise called to ask if i felt like a trip to the airport for lunch. turned out she forgot a few items that she needed while on her residency. i thought it wouldn't hurt much, although it would cut into travis' afternoon nap, but that was easily remedied.
while on the phone i gathered the items she needed: her APA manual, a tub of ibuprofen and tweezers, and set them on the desk, in plain sight.
at around 10am, travis had his cereal, which he gobbled up and after that i started preparing for the short trip. got the diaper bag ready, got travis in some "street clothes" (short and socks), packed the camera, put some music on and at 11am i drove the mazda out the garage, put travis in the car seat and the diaper bag on the floor underneat him and i was ready to leave. it was pepper who remembered to take the 3 items we were supposed to bring, but my mind was on lunch and having travis see his momma *blush*

the ride was painless (although the road was filled with people who can't and shouldn't drive), travis slept and snored most of the way and we arrived a little before noon at the hotel, so we sat down in the lobby and waited till denise was done with her class.
when she came down, travis actually reacted kinda cold, like he was mad at her for leaving home.

but then he did the funniest thing ever; he proceeded to walk towards the lobby entrance, a wall of glass panels and glass doors only to be stopped by bumping into one of the glass panels. i know i shouldn't laugh, but that was a hysterical moment and he didn't hurt himself, he didn't even cry. we all laughed, though :D
this is travis looking down onto the first floor of the renaissance concourse hotel:

before we had lunch we went up to denise's room to put down her three items and while she took a bio break, i went onto the balcony and took some pictures of atlanta airport (she is overlooking and overhearing the north 2 runways).
we then went down to the 3rd floor to the restaurant and sat down for lunch. we all ordered something to eat and we got travis a bottle of milk (i brought one of his bottles), but after a few tries drinking like a baby goat, we gave up, because we thought he'd be more interested in the grown-up food we ordered.

of course he did!
since denise only had 1 hour for lunch she had to leave for class again before we finished, so we said our goodbyes and while she went up to the 4th floor conference rooms, we ate all our food ... well at least some of us did ...

sometime after 1pm we hit the road again and once more it was relatively painless (just more people who can't and shouldn't be driving) and when we got home we fed travis his bottle. after he finished i took him to his room for a (short) nap, because his cheeks were flush.

at 4pm i got him out of bed again and started feeding him a banana. approximately at 4.30pm my dad started chatting with me and i could kinda gather that he and my mom would like to do a video chat, so we started a logitech vid call. after 30 minutes, while travis was sitting in my lap, eating his banana, smiling and laughing and babbling into the camera vid gave out, on both ends. since yesterday's skype video chat with my sister went so good, my dad quickly installed skype and after maybe a 15 minute break we continued our video chat using skype.
my dad said the image and sound quality were both a lot better, which means i will probably be dropping logitech vid althogether (also because it wants to use 100% of my laptop's resources, which is a little ridiculous).
alas, that video chat ended sorta abruptly as well, because the sound from my end didn't come through to my parents anymore, but they had about an hour's worth of seeing and hearing travis.

after we hung up, i started dinner. this time i remembered not to use the oven glove with hole in it. by the way, my thumb has started blistering.
we had dinner (flank steak with rice and vegetables) and travis didn't eat all that much, but maybe with the cereal and the lunch and the banana he already had enough to eat.
after dinner i gave travis a bath and like the previous times i was there for bath time he enjoyed the hell out of it. pouring a big plastic cup of water on his head doesn't faze him. quite the contrary: he loves it, he laughs and he giggles, almost uncontrollably. getting him out of bath, dried off and lathered in ointment was a little bit more difficult, but i managed. in the meantime, pepper cleaned up the strewn about toys in the living room and prepped his bottle, so i put him in his playpen and he finished his bottle in about 7 minutes.

even though i wanted him to stay up a little longer than 8pm he was clearly tired, so after giving hugs and kisses i took him to his room and laid him to sleep, which he did without a hitch.
then it was my time for a shower and before i jumped in i started a wash (which i know should rotate to the dryer). this time, the shower actually felt kinda good and now i am finally relaxing. gonna go in the living room as soon as i post this and join pepper for a movie or something.

i will probably also go to bed at a decent time, because tomorrow is going to be a long day with many things on the agenda.

topsy turvy pt. 2

2010-10-29T23:20:00.000-04:00

i slept very well last night, but when i heard travis waking up around 7.30am i wish i could have slept, oh, 12 hours more.
but, i got up, got dressed and went into his bedroom to find him standing up in his crib happily self-soothing:

pepper was already up and dressed so i reminded her to make breakfast and lunch for herself, which she did, after hemming and hawing.
she left for school at 8.15am, which left me all alone with travis. and travis is still recovering from a cold he picked up from the other two kids, so he is all cuddly and huggy and kissy. he still wants to play and he does play, but i can tell from his behavior he is not quite himself yet.
he didn't finish his morning bottle, but he did eat his cereal and at around 11am he was ready for a nap, but i kept him awake a little longer. i took him upstairs close to noon and he napped till a little past 2pm after which he again didn't finish his bottle. his mid-afternoon snack, though, a banana was gobbled up quite nicely.
at around 4.30pm my sister skype video called and we spent about an hour and a half videochatting, which was nice since it has been a while since we last spoke. she got to see travis in rare form: talking, walking, laughing, smiling, giggling, climbing and fussing of course.
she took a couple of screen captures and this is one of them, where travis is hugging me with all his might:

a little after 5pm pepper came home from school and at first she was a little shy around the webcam, but after hiding/avoiding it for 30 minutes she caved and took travis and sat down in denise's desk chair and started spinning him around, giving me the opportunity to snap a picture of them:

we had dinner around 6.30pm, pizza as usual for a friday and travis ate pretty much all of quite a large slice. this boy likes his italian food!
after dinner we played with travis and at 7.30pm he had his third and last bottle for the day and this time he pretty much finished it. i changed his diaper, put some ointment on his eczema spots and took him to his bed after (virtual) hugs and kisses from all of us. save for one moment where he seemed to choke coughing i haven't heard a thing. let's hope he will find it in his heart to sleep in a little tomorrow. i am not asking for much, but 8am would be heaven ...

after travis went to sleep i (tried to) reconcile our bank accounts and so far i am a little underwhelmed with wells fargo (our wachovia accounts were converted to wells fargo last weekend) and the way they display transactions and balances on accounts (a combination of transactions and balances is not possible, which is the only thing i really *need* to see, but i managed to get everything sorted out.

after that mess i talked to denise at around 9.30 for about an hour and she is doing good at her residency now that she is past the initial nerves and i am sure she will excel in this class. she misses travis as well as the rest of us, but she will be so busy the next 7 days that she will not have much time to be reminded of that fact, which is a good thing.
i think i can keep everything in control here at home ... that is, if i don't give myself a first degree burn by touching an oven rack at a temperature of 425F (218C). my concern now is that if i leave the country i may not be admitted back in, because i burnt off part of my right thumb's skin, so my fingerprints will no longer match the tsa database ... i guess we will cross that bridge when we get there ... ;-)

anyways, it's getting close to 11.30pm and i need to tell pepper to go brush her teeth and get ready for bed, and i will do the same, because i am tired.

topsy turvy pt. 1

2010-10-28T23:22:00.000-04:00

it's strange, being home and denise not being here either. now i get to experience what denise goes through every time i travel for work and i thought it wouldn't make a difference, but it does. and you'd think that it would be easier being home, because now i get to spend time with travis and while that is all fantastic (really!) there still is something missing. when i am on the road i miss travis, and denise, and pepper, and even campion, but for some reason the distance soothes it. now i am home, 2 out of 3 kids are now comfortably asleep in their beds, the third is out of state trying to stay out of trouble, and yet i feel a void ...

after denise left for her year 3 residency in a hotel near the atlanta airport, travis fussed for a while. this will be the first time that mommy has not been there and will not be there for more than a week. last year her residency was not as long and she drove to and from the hotel every day. for travis this was the first time he saw denise leave with a suitcase and i'm sure he was perplexed by it and upset from it. but, after about 15 minutes he figured out that pepper and i were still there, so all was good again. i wonder what he will be like in the morning, when he can't find his mommy ...

dinner was good, both kids ate their plate and after dinner it was playtime for a while and then travis got his bottle, his last diaper change (and i put some ointment on spots where eczema is returning) and off to bed he went, without a problem. little after that pepper took her shower, brushed her teeth, replaced her bands and talked with her mom on the phone, before she went to her bed.

denise will be doing good these coming days and i am proud of her that she has come this far and that she is doing really well in her studies (don't you hate those people who get A's all the damn time?!?) and i am confident that she will do great in this year's residency, even though she is all nervous and shy about it.

well, i'm off to bed as well and i hope that denise is in bed as well, because the next 8 days will be a lot harder on her that they will be on me.

the tj chronicles 62

2010-10-24T10:23:00.002-04:00

before i am off to sandusky, ohio ("that's gonna leave a mark!")(see my schedule below somewhere) i wanted to leave y'all with some pictures of our little boy demon.

travis in the bath tub with his hair in a faux-hawk made out of shampoo:

he is always playing with either the shampoo bottle or the big cup:

a sideways glance and it took a while to get him distracted enough for him to look at me/my camera:

smiling big with a shampoo beard:

denise carefully rinsed out his hair to have his faux-hawk intact for as long as possible:

but then she poured water all over his hair and he loved it:

travis looks like a dork, but you can see how much he enjoyed the water running down his face:

it's like he is rubbed down in vaseline, or like he's wearing a full body condom, but regardless of how it looked he didn't mind and he wouldn't stop laughing at the water being poured out over his head:

after his bath on our bed trying to eat a tube of medication while looking at either the light overhead or at pepper, whose hand you can see in left frame:

a classic shot of his gorgeous eyelashes:

travis walking around the house with a bed head:

playing with his phone on wheels, but i don't think he realizes he's doing it wrong:

earlier this wee he discovered bouncy balls, those things keep him busy running around the house:

sitting in the study trying to downplay him getting in trouble for trying to get into books and drawers he isn't supposed to be in:

like here:

of course, there's other places to get into trouble, like the dining room, where travis overturned a chair and triumphantly claims his victory:

speaking of triumphantly, look at the smile behind his binkie:

the quality of this shot is not too good, but look, he is ambidextrous! he uses both his left and right arm to pick up and throw the bouncy balls around. he also uses both hands to take books off the book shelves. i will be definitely working with him to keep him ambidextrous and i will certainly try to also have him able to kick a ball with both his left and right foot :-)

since a couple of days, travis is not feeling too good, he's got a cold or something stuck in his chest and he coughs and wheezes. here he stands in his playpen (or baby prison) after making farting noises by blowing on his arm:

and this is him blowing, not on his arm, and you can see the spit fly everywhere:

travis cleaning his chin after blowing spit and drool everywhere:

only to be calm and quiet and pensive for a moment:

only to continue blowing raspberries, showering his surroundings with his saliva:

last night we heard breathe through the monitor, and tossing & turning and coughing every few minutes. he never really woke up, but he probably didn't rest very well. but this morning he seems active and happy enough. he sometimes coughs like an old man who's been smoking cigars all his life. denise picked him up some otc (over the counter) cough meds, so hopefully that will be all that is needed to make him all better again. so far he has not been running a fever, so fingers crossed that he won't.

i'm gonna be gone for 4 whole days and i will be missing travis and i hope he doesn't get really sick. but when i get back on thursday afternoon i will be spending a lot of time with travis since denise is going away for more than a week to attend her year 3 residency. yes, her final residency. add another year and she may be done with her doctorate degree! i am so proud of her!

anyways, this was it for this time around ... there will be more, i'm sure :-)

sunday, october 24, 2010

the tj chronicles 61

2010-10-10T17:29:00.004-04:00

since today is 10/10/10, which is 42 in binary, is the outcome of this equasion that travis is the answer to everything?
not sure if he knows everything, but he is definitely trying to figure out everything (like sid the science kid).
this is travis' first experience with ice cubes:

and as you can see, sadie is just as interested in ice cubes as travis is:

travis walking, which is a rare sight these days, because he likes "running" more than just walking; everything he does is with purpose and determination and that includes walking:

travis being teased by his big sister:

when denise goes outside to smoke and/or to read, travis looks out the windows next to the front door, but she is usually just out of sight, which makes him contort himself into different positions to be able to see her. what i did miss when taking this particular picture is that he is standing on his tippy toes:

travis looking all growed up and business like with two computers ...

... and a cell phone:

travis quietly watching thomas and friends:

travis being a goofball:

and he was actually being shy and coy at the same time:

he is such a happy camper:

and this is the reason he was such a coy, shy happy camper:

travis really really REALLY likes claire and it is safe to say the feeling's mutual:

travis has taken to be somewhat of a "spoiled brat", because whenever he is told no, he will fuss, cry, stomp his feet, throw his arms in the air:

now it is getting colder, travis is going to be wearing socks and since the hardwood floors are a little slippery denise got him socks with rubber patches on the soles:

travis in the spotlight:

travis twirling his hair:

he does this for self-soothing and self-comforting:

and yes, he needs a haircut, we all need haircuts:

travis with his "football":

travis is not playing with this toy much anymore, probably because the batteries in it are empty:

travis and his favorite pastime: taking books off the shelves. and he is lightning fast at it:

travis by the back door:

all in all, travis is doing great, save for some skin sensitivities: ring worm, diaper rash, dry skin, but nothing really serious. he is eating everything that we put on his plate, although he does have favorite foods. for instance, he loves his bottle and he loves loves LOVES bananas. hmmm, maybe he is a monkey ... *giggle*

sunday, october 10, 2010

101010 = 42

2010-10-10T10:10:00.002-04:00

i don't know binary, i have not read the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy (nor do i intend to), but something about 101010 = 42 tickles my funny bone ...

scheduling agenda 2010 v5 - updated

2010-09-26T18:48:00.012-04:00

pssst, don't forget to scroll up & down for new & previous posts about travis
since the last update a few weeks ago, my calender has been filling up quite fast, which i am kinda pleased about.

september 27 working @ client site in atlanta, ga
september 28 in the am working @ home office, in the pm travel to charleston, sc (staying @ hampton inn charleston historic district)
september 29-30 working @ client site in charleston, sc
september 30 travel back home
october 1 working @ client site in atlanta, ga
october 2-3 weekend; no plans
october 4 in the am working @ home office, in the pm travel to ft. lauderdale, fl (staying @ courtyard fort lauderdale east)
octover 5-7 working @ client site in ft. lauderdale, fl
october 7 travel back home
october 8 working @ norcross and/or working @ home office
october 9-10 weekend; no plans
october 11 in the am working @ home office, in the pm travel to houston, tx (staying @ holiday inn express - houston memorial park)
october 12-15 working @ client site in houston, tx
october 15 travel back home
october 16-17 weekend; no plans
october 18-21 traveling to houston, tx (staying @ holiday inn express - houston memorial park) & working @ client site in houston, tx
october 22 working @ home office
october 23 weekend; ~~seeing~~ ~~incognito~~ ~~live (FINALLY!) @ the~~ ~~variety playhouse~~ - nope, gig is cancelled :-(
october 24 weekend; no plans
october 24 travel to sandusky, oh (staying @ fairfield inn & suites sandusky)
october 25-27 working @ client site in sandusky, oh
october 28 travel back home
october 29 start of denise's year 3 residency in atlanta, ga (she's staying @ renaissance concourse atlanta airport hotel)
october 30-31 weekend; no plans
november 1-5 working @ home office
november 6-7 weekend; no plans
november 8-12 working @ norcross office and/or working @ home office
november 13-14 weekend; no plans
november 15 working @ norcross office and/or working @ home office
november 16 in the am working @ home office, in the pm travel to houston, tx (staying @ holiday inn express - houston memorial park)
november 17-19 working @ client site in houston, tx
november 19 travel back home
november 20-21 weekend; no plans
november 22 in the early am travel to houston, tx (staying @ holiday inn express - houston memorial park)
november 22-23 working @ client site in houston, tx
november 24 travel back home
november 25-26 thanksgiving holiday
november 25 thanksgiving
november 26 black friday shopping @ north georgia premium outlets
november 27-28 weekend; no plans
november 28 in the pm travel to birmingham, al (staying @ hampton inn birmingham/mountainbrook)
november 29-november 30 working @ client site in birmingham, al
november 30 travel to houston, tx (staying @ holiday inn express - houston memorial park)
december 1-3 working at client site in houston, tx
december 3 travel back home
december 4-5 weekend; no plans
december 6-10 undetermined
december 11-12 weekend; no plans
december 13-17 client training @ norcross office
december 18-19 weekend; no plans
december 20-23 undetermined
december 24 xmas holiday
december 25-26 weekend; xmas
december 27-31 undetermined
merry new year!

there's still a few "undetermineds" in the agenda, but there's 3 clients assigned to me that have not yet decided when to have me on-site for training. and , the company's pipeline is finally purging, so there's a lot of requests for consultants and so far my cloning try-outs have not been too successful ... i may have to get travis up to speed, since kids these days pick up on new technologies really fast :P

the tj chronicles 60

2010-09-25T23:59:00.003-04:00

technically it has not been two weeks since my last blog, but truth be told that i started the previous blog exactly two weeks ago, but couldn't finish because of google's update to blogger, which pretty much rendered it useless.
but, it looks like they made improvements, so perhaps this time i can actually finish what i started in the customary 20 (or so) minutes :-)

now back to the purpose of this blog, tj and pictures of tj!

travis with bed hair:

and i think it is adorable he has bed hair ...
... although this looks like a very bad mug shot, hugh grant style:

travis has discovered the joy of throwing his soft cube, and this is the anatomy of his pitch, first he raises the cube over his head:

then he moves his arm down and forward, letting go of the cube at head height:

with a nice follow through of his pitching arm, pointing in the direction of the cube:

maybe this technique will help get him on the mound of yankee stadium!
not really sure what this expression is:

travis in the bath tub, getting his hairs washed:

all shampooed:

after his bath his hair is all kinds of fuzzy:

travis in a pensive moment:

(this is currently my desktop picture!)
travis approaching sadie, who has become his second mother:

travis in his playpen drinking his milk:

and laughing while he does so:

travis goofing off while trying to drink his milk:

sadie watching over travis:

mommy watching over travis ... denise was actually trying to get travis to smile/laugh for me to take a picture of:

denise took a picture of me while travis was sitting in my lap:

this is travis crying real tears, because i just punished him for messing with the books:

and this is his big brother consoling him:

of course, travis was inconsolable:

spinning around is fun ...:

... and a little dizzying and nauseating :P
the next weeks and months i am going to be traveling a lot, so i will be missing travis a lot too. in the meantime, i will try to spend as much time as i can with the little monster, because no matter how "bad" he gets he still is a very easygoing little man :-)

saturday, september 25, 2010

the tj chronicles 59

2010-09-14T23:59:00.001-04:00

right before i go on travel again, here is an updated blog with pictures of our own little dennis the menace.

travis eating breakfast while sitting in mama's lap:

travis' smile of approval:

smiling with his mouth full:

he has no class:

he has no social grace, but he looks so darn cute:

travis eating lunch, possible a banana:

travis impersonating roman emperor nero:

travis with a somewhat sullen look on his face, which is something that happens only very rarely:

travis eating his breakfast cereal, while giving me the *side-eye*:

he likes his cereal and therefore he opens his mouth wide, very wide:

sitting on the floor, making fun of someone:

travis' best side (*wink*):

travis pensively looking out the kitchen door while it is raining outside:

travis musing on how rain works:

travis playing amongst his many toys, but actively playing with cake forms:

travis reading one of his books:

travis basking in the golden glow of a late summer georgia sunset falling through the kitchen doors:

the few times i am going to be home in the next 4 weeks i will have to remember to take lots and lots of pictures. i love spending time with travis and he is still very responsive and attentive, so something beautiful will come out :-)

of course, now he is fully mobile (he rarely crawls anymore) he is also becoming quite the menace. he likes pulling books out of the bookcases and in some cases he even takes the sleeve off the book. telling him "no" and/or slapping his hand(s) (no matter how hard) doesn't seem to have any effect on this behavior. so, now he is learning all about time-outs: whenever he does something that he is not allowed, he gets to spend quality time in his playpen. sometimes he doesn't care, other times he'll scream and cry.

as far as eating goes, he eats pretty much what we eat and so far he has eaten pretty much anything. yes, he is a true garbage disposal. the one thing he still has not mastered is to drink his bottle or sippy cup when sitting or standing up. for some reason it hasn't clicked yet in his mind to hold the bottle up when he sits or stands. instead he'll throw a hissy fit and he only calms down when he is laid on his back. it could be, of course, that he just is lazy ... i wonder who he got that from *halo*

by the by, the recent enhancements royally suck, worst move by google ever in a long series of pretty good moves! i will have to rethink my loyalty to blogger, because getting this post up took almost two hours and three spearate tries, while previous instalments never took more than 15-30 minutes depending on the number of photos.
shame on you google!

tuesday, september 14, 2010

scheduling agenda 2010 v4

2010-09-13T22:44:00.001-04:00

pssst, don't forget to scroll up & down for new & previous posts about travis
it has been quite slow at work, had some engagements here and there, but things are finally picking up again.

september 13 working @ norcross office
september 14 in the am working @ home office, in the pm travel to dallas, tx (staying @ sheraton suites market center)
september 15 working @ client site in dallas, tx
september 15 travel back home
september 16-17 working @ client in atlanta, ga
september 18-19 weekend; no plans
september 20 in the am working @ home office, in the pm travel to houston, tx (staying @ holiday inn express)
september 21-23 working @ client site in houston, tx
september 23 travel back home
september 24 working @ norcross and/or working @ home office
september 25-26 weekend; no plans
september 27 working @ client site in atlanta, ga
september 28 in the am working @ home office, in the pm travel to charleston, sc (staying @ hampton inn charleston historic district)
september 29-30 working @ client site in charleston, sc
september 30 travel back home
october 1 working @ norcross and/or working @ home office
october 2-3 weekend; no plans
october 4 in the am working @ home office, in the pm travel to houston, tx (staying @ undetermined)
octover 5-7 working @ client site in houston, tx
october 7 travel back home
october 8 working @ norcross and/or working @ home office
october 9-10 weekend; no plans

the client in houston is one that is a large project that will run through the end of the year, so it's not gonna be just 2 visits. and apparently there are more large projects (still stuck) in the pipeline that my directors have me in mind for. next to that i have been assigned to a few small clients, so currently i am juggling 8 different clients ... not without success though ;-)

the tj chronicles 58

2010-08-28T19:42:00.001-04:00

happy (belated) birthday henri (opa) and ronald (uncle) what? a blog? again? well, what can i say, i got a few pictures of travis and i wanted to share them. so sue me :P travis walking around with pepper's water bottle:travis walking towards me:travis sitting in my lap on the kitchen floor:travis being mesmerized by me "hypnotizing" him with one of denise's slippers:travis giving me a hug:travis laughing ... at something: travis playing with lily, who has finally come around the not being completely freaked out and scared out of her mind of this crawling, walking, diaper monster:travis in denise's lap: travis in the bathtub, with his cup, that no-one can take away from him:travis being adorable:travis making waves:and he is loving it:clearly:i wish my camera could record sound as well: travis eating a cheerio, his afternoon snack:travis looking for a cheerio that escaped and is hiding under the couch:travis watching as if in a trance while denise is cooking dinner:travis practicing his curve ball (and yes, he is ambidextrous!): that's it for now :-) saturday, august 28, 2010

the tj chronicles 57

2010-08-22T11:56:00.000-04:00

so, we are finally completely unpacked and we're loving the new home :-) travis really likes it, too. he likes his room, he likes the space he has to walk all over, he likes his own kitchen cabinet where he "hides and seeks" his toys, he likes to play with the cats and especially sadie is very interested in playing with him and she lets him get away with abuse. lily comes out to play with travis, too, but the second he "pets" her too hard, she's gone (she's always been a bit of a pussy *grin*). anyways, here's a series of photos of the last few weeks. travis' mischievous smirk:using sadie as his pillow. for some reason he likes just putting his head on her body and granted, it is very soft, but there must be another sort of appeal to it as well ...travis walking:travis cuddling my leg:travis holding on to my PJs:travis sulking, a little:this is the face of someone who tastes a dill pickle for the very first time:and yes, travis had a few bites of a firehouse sub, too: travis eating cheerios:he grabs a cheerio with his whole hand, but he manages to get it from the table into his mouth:and then he questions my quizzing look:followed by laughing at me:his (monkey) feet, which are still grabbing into the carpet for a solid stance:travis playing with his cell phone, which now he likes, because the batteries are near dead, so the sounds sound funny: travis being shampooed:travis hamming it up, he loves getting a bath and he could just play in the tub for hours and hours: travis laying on top of sadie again:petting her gently, but you can see sadie's claws digging in the carpet: and this is the one reason why we don't like travis being mobile all that much; he opens every drawer or cabinet he can get to. and he not only puts things in the drawers and cabinets but he also takes things out and then stores it somewhere else:travis trying to run a finger across his lips, but he still uses his entire hand and it goes very slowly: travis is doing very well, he is walking more than he is crawling, he is sleeping from approximately 8pm to 7am and he takes one nap in the afternoon, usually from 12noon to 3pm. it looks like he is not gaining weight anymore or at least very slowly but he is getting stronger by the minute. he is "talking" more and more as well, although it is still gibberish, but he has more sounds and he repeatedly says things like "baby" and "OK". i am talking more to him in dutch now, and he always has to giggle when i pronounce the letter g; but, sometimes he actually imitates that sound. he hardly throws temper tantrums, only when he is hungry or when his diaper is really really full. sometimes he gets cranky when it's time to sleep, but usually that completely evaporates when he is put to bed. all in all, travis is still a pretty easy little boy :-) sunday, august 22, 2010

the tj chronicles 56

2010-08-07T18:05:00.021-04:00

it's been 3 weeks ... and it may well have been the three busiest weeks in our lives! we've moved, even though we're still in the process of setting up and unpacking, which is a long and arduous process, because we want to organize everything as much as we can. travis really seems to like his own and new room. for the last week we have been taking him to his room at bedtime while he was still awake and every time he went to sleep without fussing or fighting or crying. guess this is another milestone. the other big milestone in the last month has been that travis has started walking, so we had to travis-proof the kitchen cabinets where we keep the cleaning products and the pantry door. the cabinets on the kitchen island are now travis' cabinets, because for some reason he likes to open and close doors. he also uses the cabinets to (temporarily) store things like an old cell phone, a thermos, an old remote control and a half empty plastic bottle of water. but now the moments you've been waiting for, pictures of the little dude ... standing in his playpen, which he has pretty much outgrown, chewing on his fisher price cell phone:travis is "speaking" more and more and this is him saying "wawawawawawawawawa":this is him saying "leedl-leedl-leedl-leedl":he loves playing hide and seek with the pieces of mail and his mailbox:travis parading in the living room with denise in the background sitting in the loveseat with her laptop in her lap, which is now something in the past, since we have our study set up, with ergonomical chair desks:no, he is not wearing a lamp shade as a hat!: travis fast asleep in his playpen: the next pictures are of travis walking as seen on facebook before:sadie is very good around travis, she lets him pet her and she also lets him use her as a pillow. and only rarely does she gets fed up with him being a little bit too rough: the last few days he has been crying a lot more than usual (a lot more, because he usually doesn't cry at all) because he's got another molar coming in. and when he is feeling sore or sad he will come walking up to get some love and comfort:and how can you deny that if he looks like this?! this is a close-up of him getting ready to put his head on my leg:and this is him hugging my leg:(this is my current windows desktop picture) another shot of travis using sadie as a pillow:and although it looks like he is biting into her, he isn't, he is just giving sadie and open mouth kiss, the way he gives each of us open mouth kisses :-) travis eating pizza, standing up:travis eating his cereal while sitting in his newly adjusted trip-trap:sadie giving travis headbutts:she almost genuinely doesn't care anymore how travis treats her, she actively looks for him up to a point where she meows when we take travis to his room for his nap: we'll get the rest of the house organized, slowly but surely, and hopefully (even though it looks like it's contradictory) i will get to travel more in the second half of the year, since the first half has been kinda slow. yes, i'll be away from home more, but that also means i appreciate being home more. saturday, august 7, 2010

the tj chronicles 55

2010-07-17T20:48:00.000-04:00

a quickie update of my blog, since we're in the throes of moving house. about a week and a half ago we safely returned from our road trip, putting 5,312.8 miles (8.549,72km) on the mazda, which held superbly, having played 1,430 random songs on the zune (out of 16,781), having taken 2,623 photos (most of which i still need to post-process and everyone survived! before i share the good news first a few pictures from the last night of our stay at the beach house on the north carolina outer banks. the first two are sunset shots:this is uncle barry enjoying the sunset as seen above with a beer and travis in his lap: ok then, the good news: travis is walking!!!! well, really it is more like shuffling, but he gets around by carefully taking small steps. that is, if he doesn't wimp out and crawl. this is travis taking a step:as you can see, he is cheering for himself :P in the next 4 shots you can see he can even walk while carrying something:we're so proud! last night i gave travis a bath and before the bath we weighed him and his average weight is about 32lbs (14.5kg), so because of all the moving around he does he has lost a little weight, which is good news for denise and me, because he is pretty heavy to carry around:in the bathtub with me, but not paying attention to mama who is taking the pictures:and now he has seen the camera, and he is not pleased:or so it seems. i tried holding him still to make him look at the camera, but it is like trying to wrestle eel in a tub full of snot:finally, a moment of levity:travis is extremely curious, so even though he just threw a shampoo bottle out of the tub, he wants to make sure it is on the floor: today, travis took even more steps, so he is gradually building his confidence and it will not be long anymore before he runs around the house. oh joy! speaking of house ... today and tomorrow (saturday and sunday) we are having a garage sale, trying to sell some stuff that we're not moving to the new house. so far, the response is not all that great (i believe campion made one sale), but the weather is not in our favor (rain and thunderstorms, or at least the constant threat of rain and thunderstorms). hopefully tomorrow we'll make some sales :-) campion began packing his things from his bedroom a few days ago and today i packed 22 boxes, clearing out the living room shelving units (all our CDs, DVDs, LPs and books) and the second floor landing cases. on sunday we'll do pepper's room and our bedroom and the drawers in the living room. the kitchen will need to be packed closer to the moving date, which is friday july 23. we have hired a moving company to help with the move. they will disassemble and reassemble all furniture for us, which will help us tremendously. especially since denise's back is on the fritz again ('on the fritz' betekent 'speelt weer op') and i don't really feel like doing it all pretty much by myself. sure, it's not cheap, but at least if they break something they are insured. in any case, my next blog will come from the new house, where we hopefully have an internet connection, because comcast is living up to its nickname, comcrap! saturday, july 17, 2010