Old Man Winter approaches with his trademark nip-in-the-air…but we didn’t write to talk about the weather. So, we were boring last month, even Jay’s birthday was pretty low-key (though we did have awesome cake made out of chocolate). If you’re still looking for someone to vote for in the upcoming presidential election, Jay is now eligible.
For us, October involved getting ready to go to the U.S., and then being in the U.S., and then recovering from the trip to the U.S. As you can see we’re pretty patriotic in that the U.S. occupies most of our lives and we don’t even live there. We had a great time during our visit – it was really nice to see everybody and to meet lil’ Bennett for the first time. James enjoyed spending time with family and meeting all his cousins. Grandpa Biddulph spoiled James with all-he-could-eat berries which ended up spoiling his shorts but (fortunately for Grandpa Stu) we were the ones who had to deal with that. Jay got a chance to hang out with Matt and Dan on Strawberry Reservoir and (for those that haven’t heard already) Jay also experienced the colder side of Strawberry by accidentally falling in. What kind of lake trip is complete unless someone ends up soaked?Since returning from Utah James has started to prefer walking to crawling. He’s not very good at it though and looks pretty much drunk all the time. Even though we joke about beating him, all those forehead and shin bruises are from his walking accidents.
We dressed James up in the obligatory Halloween costume this year – a purple dragon – and used him to get candy for his parents at the “Trunk or Treat” hosted by the U.S. Army Garrison.
As you’ve seen in videos of his early days, James can produce some really great ROARS! So, we were a little surprised and dismayed when our menacing dragon ignored parental prompts to roar and ended up waving his index finger and babbling “scidley, skidley, scadily” to the treat givers. Fortunately, they all thought he was adorable and gave him candy anyway. James’ “conversation” sounded really important. I’m sure a babble translator would explain that he was expounding on something very profound about the finer points of Halloween celebration and lore but since we mock what we do not understand, we just laughed at him.Jay has started biking to work (whenever he feels green and liberal or whenever Bimmy needs the car). He’s slowing getting better at it and didn’t have to walk his bike up the hill last time he rode to work. Bimmy’s friend Craig would be proud. Apart from our vacation, Bimmy mostly studied in October for her PNP Board Exam. She’ll take the actual test while we are visiting the Mike and Roo Peterson families in Detroit during “U.S. Tour Take-Two” over Thanksgiving.
