"Happy To You!"

That's what Mädchen says whenever she finds out it's someone's birthday--happy to you! So this morning when she woke up and Gretchen went to get her, the first thing she said was "happy to you!", because she knew it was her birthday. It's hard for us to believe, but our little girl is now two years old! When she was a tiny little baby in the hospital, it was impossible to imagine what she would be like when she got older, but here she is...

Then (in the hospital a day or two after her birth):



Now (at a group birthday party for her group of toddler friends a couple of weeks ago):



Then (on the train back from getting her passport on her 1-month birthday):



Now (birthday breakfast this morning):



Then (very first family portrait):



Now (family portrait at a little birthday gathering this afternoon):



"Happy to you!"

Storks

We had a little flashback to our Basel life this morning when we read the Sunday paper and came across this article about the efforts to rebuild the stork population in the Alsace. They really are iconic there, and we couldn't get enough of them.

Scofflaw

Now that property values are dropping here, and taking tax revenues with them, our county must be in need of money. I don't have any hard evidence to support this, but I do have circumstantial evidence. Namely, I've received at least four ticketsin the past couple of months--all written around 1:00-2:00 in the morning-- for not having proper registration stickers on my car. We live on a street that can be pretty hard to find (taxis frequently get lost along the way, or at least they did in the days before GPS became popular), so they're clearly going out of their way to write as many tickets as they can.

First I got my state registration stickers and lost them under a pile of other paperwork, which resulted in ticket number one (needless to say, I found them pretty quickly after that). I thought I was all set, but then I got ticket number two, which was for not having the right county decal. While I hold the county largely to blame for this one--our taxes were paid and they said they sent the proper decal, but in this case we don't have any record of getting it. I called the county and they assured me they'd send a new one, but before it came I got another ticket for the same offense (this time I appealed...we'll see if they have mercy). Finally the decal arrived, so naturally I went right out and put it on the car, right? Ummm...no (I had to find a razor to scrape the old one off, I'm tired and forgetful when I get home from work, etc). I kept forgetting about it until going out and finding yet another ticket on my car this week--this one clearly no one's fault but mine. And yes, this time I finally scraped off the old decal and put the new one on.

To top it off, one morning this week I stopped for bagels and coffee on the way to work in an area where there's not a lot of parking. But it was early (7:00am) and I was just running in for a minute, so I figured no problem--only to come back and find yet another ticket on my car, this one for parking in a restricted zone.

At this pace, my contributions to the county may be sufficient to keep classroom sizes small for the next year...

Summer fun

Here's our girl (on the left) with her 4 buddies having fun in the sun...

"Happy Daddy Day, Daddy"

July 1, 2006 was the day we brought Madchen home from the hospital. At one point, Kirk returned to the living room after peeking in our bedroom at our sleeping baby and said to me: "I just LOVE her!" From that point on, she has had him wrapped around her finger. Almost two years later, watching Kirk interact with our baby girl still brings a smile to my face. He has such a wonderful way with her... and I can't quite put it in words. I think it just comes naturally to him because there's so much love between the two of them.

To celebrate Father's Day, I was thinking I would let Kirk sleep in a little later than usual and run out to pick up bagels and coffee for breakfast (that's usually his job on Sunday mornings). But Madchen had other ideas. Instead, just minutes after waking up, she wanted to "see Daddy" and wish him a "Happy Daddy Day". She then spent the next 15 minutes crawling all over him in bed as he tried (unsuccessfully) to pretend to still be sleeping. Next thing you know, we were all up and out the door having an early breakfast at the Original Pancake House. That's life as a father, isn't it?!

There's something special about a Dad's relationship with his little girl. I was blessed to have a wonderful father. Now I'm blessed to be married to a man that is a wonderful father. Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there!

Reconnected

We still have no A/C (we're hoping for tomorrow or Tuesday), but neighbors gave us a couple of extra window A/C units they had in storage, so we've been able to keep the house at a semi-manageable level of comfort. And Verizon came yesterday and got our phone/internet/cable up and running again so we're no longer feeling quite so isolated from the rest of the world...

When it rains, it pours

Just to recap, since getting back from vacation a few weeks ago:

-- Our dog died;

-- I got a separated shoulder; and

-- Gretchen got pinkeye and a bad cold.

They say things come in threes, so we figured our bad luck had passed--or at least that's what we thought until Tuesday night.

I was on a business trip to Philadelphia that night, and Gretchen called to tell me she was freaked out. She had been giving Mädchen her evening bath when there was an enormous flash of lightning and crack of thunder, at which point the power went out instantly. (The severe storms last week were followed by record heat, and a cold front was bringing in another round of bad storms.) She quickly got Mädchen out of the bath, only to realize that there were a bunch of fire engines two doors down from our house because a live electrical wire had come down in our neighbor's yard. By then it became apparent that the lightning had actually struck on our street. Not only was our power out, but so was our phone line. Our neighbor across the street came over and told Gretchen that his circuit box had literally blown out of his wall and wanted to know if ours had, too (luckily it hadn't).

By yesterday the electric company had replaced the blown-out transformers on our street and we finally got our power back around mid-day (but only after having to flip every circuit in our house first). There was just one big problem--our brand new air conditioner wasn't working (neither was our fiber optic phone/internet/cable, but that was lower priority). The A/C repairman came out to look at it and told us the electrical surge from the lightning strike had basically fried (literally) the inside of our furnace, and it probably wouldn't be until next week (and thousands of dollars) that it could be repaired. So, with a weekend of 90+ degrees and a return of humidity in the forecast, we have to decide if we want to tough it out or move somewhere cooler. (Oh, and of course our phone/internet/cable system is still out.) Ugh...

Knock on wood, we haven't found much other damage (yet), although in our dining room we have a little speaker dock for our iPod, and I just happened to look at the plug and noticed that the plastic casing around the plug had been blown off and the whole thing looked scorched, so now we're wondering if maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to have an electrician come in and make sure there isn't anything else we should be worried about.



Happy days!

Flashback

When it comes to planning travels, I tend to like to gather a lot of information and take a lot of notes before making any decisions (which is not even remotely how Gretchen would go about planning a vacation, but maybe that explains why she has more or less outsourced all travel planning to me). So it was quite a blast from the past to pick up an old notebook in our living room and finding copious notes and lists of ideas for vacations when we lived in Switzerland. For example, I'm not even sure exactly when this is from (or even if it was pre- or post-baby), but the page I'm looking at now has the following list (my current observations in brackets)--and keep in mind that, as much as it may sound like we were jet-setters, since we lived right in the middle of Europe most of these places would have been fairly quick and inexpensive to get to:

Edinburgh [still bitter that we never went, and jealous of The Big Finn's current visit to Scotland]

Tallinn [that's Estonia, in case you were wondering...I always heard it was pretty, but it wasn't as easy to get to as other places]

Prague [we'd been there before, but I guess we thought about going again]

Salzburg [pity I never made it...maybe one of these days I'll actually watch "The Sound of Music"]

Lisbon [ditto...Portugal may be right behind Scotland in terms of regrets about not visiting]

Sevilla? [despite the question mark, we did make it there]

Casablanca? [this must not have been very realistic if it was the only one I scratched out...but the guy who cuts my hair now is from Casablanca and raves about Morocco]

Provence [can't believe we never got there, as close as it was]

Amalfi Coast? [settled for Capri instead]

Venice [one of our favorite trips]

Ljubljana [Slovenia is supposed to be one of the better-kept secrets in Europe...but I still haven't the slightest idea how to pronounce "Ljubljana"]

Istanbul [I really enjoyed it and wanted to take Gretchen, but we couldn't work it out]

I also found this list from when we were trying to squeeze in one or two last quick trips before moving back to the States (in the end we had a great weekend in Berlin and a more difficult weekend in Munich).

Then there are the pages and pages of notes from when we were trying to decide where to go for our so-called babymoon. Unlike the previous ideas, which would have been easy because they were within Europe, we were feeling more ambitious for our babymoon. In the end we were basically trying to decide between the Maldives, Dubai, and Thailand. As much as the Maldives looked gorgeous and decadent, it also would have been insanely expensive and we were concerned about what would happen if Gretchen needed medical assistance and we were on an isolated island. Dubai also looked really expensive, and in the end the whole high-rise-on-the-beach thing just didn't seem as appealing. So Phuket, Thailand--which was much more affordable, offered good health care if we needed it, and promised good food--it was. Ah, memories...

Maybe it's just me, but...

...on the list of local restaurant closures for health violations (always a must-read), doesn't it seem a bit odd that a coffee place would be shut down for not having hot water?

Things that suck

(1) Feeling lousy with a really nasty summer cold (which Gretchen has)...

(2) ...that results in her having to make a trip to Urgent Care (where we are becoming regulars) for treatment of pinkeye (and no, for those who saw "Knocked Up", there was no farting on pillows involved)...

(3) ...while your husband is still incapable of lifting your daughter above his waist because of his separated shoulder...

(4) ...and this advisory just came up on the Weather Channel:

HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 12 PM TO 8 PM EDT SATURDAY...EXCESSIVE HEAT WATCH NOW IN EFFECT FROM SUNDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH MONDAY AFTERNOON...

A BERMUDA HIGH WILL CONTINUE TO REMAIN OVER THE WESTERN ATLANTIC THROUGH MONDAY AND A WEST TO SOUTHWEST FLOW AROUND THIS HIGH WILL BRING HOT AND HUMID CONDITIONS. HIGH TEMPERATURES ACROSS MOST OF NORTHERN AND CENTRAL VIRGINIA AS WELL AS THE BALTIMORE AND WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREAS WILL REACH THE MIDDLE AND UPPER 90S EACH DAY. THE HOT TEMPERATURES COMBINED WITH HIGH HUMIDITY WILL CAUSE HEAT INDICES TO APPROACH 105 DEGREES SATURDAY AFTERNOON. HEAT INDICES MAY APPROACH 110 DEGREES SUNDAY AND MONDAY.

THE COMBINATION OF HOT TEMPERATURES AND HIGH HUMIDITY WILL COMBINE TO CREATE A SITUATION IN WHICH HEAT ILLNESSES ARE POSSIBLE. DRINK PLENTY OF FLUIDS...STAY IN AN AIR-CONDITIONED ROOM...STAY OUT OF THE SUN...AND CHECK UP ON RELATIVES AND NEIGHBORS.

Twister, the Sequel

Forget what I said about not having to think about tornadoes. After an afternoon and evening of multiple severe thunderstorms and tornado watches (but thankfully no actual tornadoes where we live), losing power for about five hours (it just came back), seeing neighbors with chainsaws in the pouring rain cutting large branches that had fallen, and driving past a house and car two blocks away that a big tree had toppled onto, I have to say that I'm glad it's not something we typically have to worry about...

ADDENDUM: The good news is that we shouldn't have so many storms over the next few days; the bad news is the forecast highs for the next week are 90, 94, 96, 98, 95, 95, and 91. Ah, nothing like summer in DC!

Nachrichten von der Schweiz

I barely have time to keep up with the news here, let alone the news from Switzerland. So I was interested to see an AP headline this afternoon that said "Swiss reject anti-foreigner campaign." As much as immigration is a hot-button issue here in the States, it's nothing compared to Switzerland, where it seemed like just about every election when we lived there featured some sort of anti-immigration initiative(s), courtesy of the far-right populist political party. I guess everything has its limits...