Like I even need to mention that I'm horrible at actually attempting to keep people up to date on what we Zwickl's are doing... I actually can't believe that I've been as bad at is as I have, and unfortunately, I have no desire to actually catalog almost six months of what we've done... so, I guess I'll just hit the highlights. :) Pictures always take the longest, so in interest of actually getting this up, you'll have to wait until I can get my act together. :) I promise, soon...
NEW JERSEY
In August, Connor and I went New Jersey with Mom, Dad and Shannon. Andrew ended up not being able to go with us, since he needed to be in WA before we would be back. So, Andrew and I spent a nice night out to celebrate our anniversary before we left - dinner and The Proposal (hilarious!). The flight went well, and Connor is actually becoming an amazing traveler! He's gotten on a plane more times than most 1 year olds, I wager. Anyway, we landed in Philly quite late, and then headed to Dad's parent's house to stay. Mom, Dad, and Shannon all went to NY the next day to see the Yankees play (they won) while Connor and I hung out with the family. Mom and Dad stayed there, while Shannon, Connor and I headed to another Uncle's house to sleep in the best bed ever. We were really quite busy over the week that we were there, but it was really nice to see people we hadn't seen in a while, and let them all meet Connor, who was walking quite well.
WASHINGTON
From August t0 January, Andrew was "assigned" to Richland, WA, to work at the Hanford site (it's where they were working on some of the pieces for the Atomic Bomb during the 40's.). They've been working on cleaning it up for the last 40 years, and apparently, there's no end in site. Andrew's deal was that he worked for three weeks, came home Thursday nights, and then went back Sunday night. He was gone quite a bit, which none of us liked, but it was better than no job. He was able to spend a lot of vacation up and be home about ten days each for Thanksgiving and Christmas, which was definitely nice. In the time that Andrew was in Washington, Connor and I got to visit three times - basically two weeks each time. The first time, we focused on the Tri-Cities area (Richland, Kenewick, Pasco), the second time we visited Seattle, and the third, we just drove a lot from Seattle to Portland. Again - Connor has flown a lot, and he's done really well.
BIRTHDAYS
Because of the 3 week plan, Andrew wasn't able to be home for his birthday on Oct 5th, but he came home the weekend after - which was Connor's birthday, on the 10th. We celebrated Andrew's birthday when he came home, and Connor practiced opening presents with Daddy. On Saturday, Connor's actually birthday, we had a big party to celebrate. The original plan included grilling outside, but the weather did not want to cooperate, so the whole celebration was in confined to the house. Andrew's parents and grandma flew in from AZ, and it was nice to see them again. We also had quite a bit of his extended family come, as well, which was nice since we don't normally see too much of them outside of summer. Connor didn't quite know what to do with his birthday cake (no smashing from my little guy), and he wasn't very good at opening his presents - he was much more excited about playing with the toys afterwards. He did end up coming down with croup right after his birthday - which he ended up "fighting" while we were in Seattle - but he managed to get through it like a trooper.
HALLOWEEN
Andrew was able to be home for Halloween, so he got to go Trick-Or-Treating with us. Connor's costume? He was a turtle. :) And so flipping cute it was ridiculous. We took him out in my parents neighborhood (because of course Nana and Dziadzia - the new correct version of grandpa in Polish - had to go with), and managed to get quite a bit of loot. It was a little chilly, but Connor's costume was basically little pants and a coat with a hood, so he stayed pretty warm. He really enjoyed holding his bucket - and afterwards, could get enough of dumping his candy out and then putting it back in, and then dumping it out... He actually still plays with the bucket a lot now. And we're pretty sure that he'll have a ton of fun next year...
THE HOLIDAYS
November and December - and pretty much January and February - flew by quickly! Like I mentioned before, Andrew was able to be home a lot for Thanksgiving, so we got some good family time. Thanksgiving was a pretty quite affair - just dinner with my parents and siblings.
Pre-Christmas, we had dinner with Andrew's brother/wife and sister, and then Ellen and her boyfriend Dan joined the Palombi's for dinner Christmas day. Christmas was pretty fun though - Connor had a blast with opening presents. At least, at first. He was a wee bit spoiled (okay, a lot bit spoiled), so there was a ton of stuff for him to open, and after a while, he was just done. But he did really well. Shannon got a Wii, and we spent entirely too much time (and continue to spend too much time!) playing Super Mario Bros. Andrew, Connor and I stayed at my parents both Christmas Eve and Christmas night - Christmas night was because it suddenly was 10PM, and none of us (Andrew, Shannon, Maria and I) were ready to stop playing! Really, I still get excited about going over to my parents 'cause I just want to play! We did get to see our Hawaii-based friends, the Gomes', when they visited, which was nice, but unfortunately, weren't able to spend much time with them since we headed to AZ pretty much right after they got in.
We spent New Years in AZ with Andrew's family - and this time, Adam/Jamie and Ellen/Dan were all there during the same time. Ron, Andrew's Dad, had to go to airport like seven times in five days for all the travel! We were down the longest, from Tuesday to Saturday, so we got to do quite a bit, including the Phoenix Zoo. We really had a nice time, and are hoping that we can make it down again sometime before next winter.
The Monday after we got back, Andrew had to head back to WA, my grandparents came in on Tuesday, and then Connor and I headed to WA, too, until the 20th. Again - January just flew by. But we had a nice time with my grandparents, who I wish we could see more often (we're also hoping that New Jersey will make it into our travel plans this year).
JOB STATUS
Unfortunately, the funding for the project Andrew was on ran out in the middle of January, and then was officially laid off February 1st. When we came home in January, there was a possibility of him going back to WA on a different project, but it didn't work out. So, right now, Andrew is doing the stay-at-home-dad thing. Which, fortunately enough, works out since I'm finally back to work. Yes, after a year of being the stay-at-home-mom, I was able to find something. I'm now working as the Admin/Office Manager for a promotional company. It's basically a two-woman show - myself and Linda, who I knew from IOM (we used to work with her for various promo products). She worked with mom quite a bit, and we still kept in touch, and when her office manager told her she was moving (after 10 years), she knew that I was looking for something, and long story short(ish), I started work on February 3rd. I've been there a few weeks now, and I'm really enjoying it. A lot to learn, but really interesting. Now, we're just crossing our fingers that it doesn't take too long for Andrew to find something - although he and Connor are enjoying their extensive time together after not being able to see each other all that regularly.
THINGS CONNOR DOES/SAYS
Connor does seem to favor Dada a lot now. He's always running to get him, and freaks out a bit when he can't have him. But he still loves me, too. :) He's getting SO BIG! We just had his 16-month appointment - he's 31 1/2" (50%), weighs 26 lbs 14 oz (60%), and his head measures in the 95% (like that's a surprise!). He has a bunch of words now other than Dada and Mama - balloon (which is really more like brrrrr but always means balloon), book, ball, buh-bye, bath, more, that. Andrew's also taught him to point to his mouth when he's hungry - which he does all the time! Our little guy loves to eat. We've started letting him use a spoon, and it's just messy time when he does it. But he's definitely getting better at it. He LOVES bath time (in fact, we have to s-p-e-l-l it if we're talking about it and not giving him one, since he gets so excited about them!) and it's tough to get him out of the tub. He's running all over the place, loves to go up and down stairs, holds hands with us when we're walking, hugs his stuffed toys (as well as any other baby he can get his hands on!), and loves learning. He's always pointing to everything thing and asking "That?" Andrew does a very good job at explaining it all to him. :) He just got over a small bout with RSV (a respiratory virus which apparently normally puts babies in the hospital, but Connor must not have had a severe case at all) and an ear infection. They couldn't give us anything for the RSV, but he was on antibiotics for two weeks for the ear infection - and consequently got a pretty evil case of diaper rash. Fortunately, the ear infection, RSV and diaper rash have disappeared. We've also had a couple BIG milestones - Connor is officially weaned, and sleeps through the night - in the crib. Weaning was actually much easier than I thought it would be, and since we were already doing it pretty much only at night, right before bed, I wasn't in any pain once I stopped (which is great, because we all know how much I don't like pain!). We are the happiest sleeping parents on the planet. :) And really, I think Connor is sleeping much better now, too, since he has all his own space.
IN SUMMATION
We're not sure what our 2010 plans hold, but hopefully, only good things will come our way. There are several places that we'd like to visit, but trips will be put on hold for a bit until we can get things settled in the job market. Andrew should graduate with his Masters this December - we're all anxious for that to happen, since he hates homework. He's taking two online classes now, since when registration came he wasn't sure where he'd be, and has two more left until he's done. We've also taken the last two seasons off from softball (Fall 'o9 and Spring '10) due to our crazy schedule, but hope to be back at it for summer, which should start registration around April or May. Right now, like the rest of the world, we're pretty addicted to the Olympics. We watch it as much as we can, and then get the updates from the web if the event is taking too long to get to the point and we have to go to bed. It's really annoying to us that they don't a) show more of the events and b) show the events when they're actually happening, but we still gobble up anything we can (this morning we watched women's curling, USA vs. Russia - and tried to understand what was going on... but it was the Olympics! So of course we watched!). Those of you on the East coast, I don't know how you can manage to stay up late enough! Whew!
Anyway, that wasn't too bad, I guess. Actually, typing this mess isn't too tough - it's the loading the pictures and the formatting that I hate. Ugh. So we'll see how much of the latter two I do. :) That's it for now. Hope things are going well - and I'm really going to try to update you all again... sometime... before summer. :) But don't hold your breath! We know how I am...
