Juddmansee.com

Oh dear, what happened since May?  June and July have been well documented on our flickr account but we’ve gotten pretty lax in our blogging.

Water:  We opened the pool at the beginning of May, and all 3 of us really enjoyed the water thanks to the heater we put in this year.  Isaac started out enjoying floating on his back, but now he really likes the front crawl, both on land and water.  He loves the water, at bath time or pool time.  We’re trying to teach him to blow bubbles and not swallow water.  We hosted a Memorial Day party again this year, and had almost as many kids as adults.  Most weekends you can find us having a few friends over to splash around and cool off.  Isaac and Brian did their first swim class at the Y today, and learned some songs and games to play.  Isaac seemed to have a great time even though the water is a bit colder there than at home.

Garden: The garden has been a success again this year. We had a good crop of peas that we managed to get in early enough to harvest before our July trip to the midwest.  We have had a lot of salad greens, kale, and a good number of haricot verts. Our tomatoes and peppers are starting to fruit and the herbs are really taking off.  Our fennel looks like it’s about ready to harvest too.  The only disappointment has been spinach – we just can’t get it to grow, or else we have a small critter who loves to chomp it off as soon as it gets a few leaves.  We put in another round of lettuce, chard, and kale to have through the fall.  Most of the time we garden when Isaac is napping, but sometimes he is content to play in the grass while I’m weeding or picking vegetables. (and yes, sometimes “playing in the grass” = eating the grass)

Travel: Somehow this year’s trip to visit our family seemed even more rushed than usual.  Maybe it’s because Brian’s mom and grandma are getting ready to move, or because we’re sensitive to Isaac having down time between meeting so many new people, or maybe we’re just getting older.  But we had a wonderful time seeing family, and realized how hard it is for them to be so far away.  Some of the highlights for Isaac were showing off his eating and crawling skills, playing with puppies, swinging with James, seeing grandparents and great-grandmothers, some of our oldest and youngest family members, and learning that beards aren’t actually that scary.  The hardest parts were sleeping in so many new places and spending lots of time in the car.  But we all were good road trippers overall.

Work: I have a new job as of June, in the same company, but a different position.  The good news is that it’s more self-paced and doesn’t have sales and funding goals.  The bad news is that it’s self-paced and I have some bad habits to break!  July has been a bit better with coming in early, leaving at a reasonable time, and getting in a few more workouts during the week.  I have visited most of the sites where my software engineering team works, and I’m learning a lot about the breadth of our company’s capabilities.  It’s been an adjustment to get used to a different culture, a different boss and a different set of co-workers after being in Burlington for almost 10 years.   But I’m confident this is a good move for me and I look forward to getting settled and making real progress.

 Exercise: Brian competed in his first race since Isaac was born, and literally made a splash at the Wildcat Sprint Triathlon in Lowell last weekend.  He saw a flyer for the race at the Y when he joined, and decided that it was time to baseline his fitness.  It turns out that he had a terrific race, placing 3rd in his division! Woohoo!  

Other than that, the weeks seem to go fast.  Between trying to get a reasonable amount of sleep (sometimes interrupted by 3am feeding, sometimes not), keeping healthy food around to eat, chasing an active baby and having a little down time to feel like a normal adult, life is busy and fun.  We’ll try to do better about blogging as the summer days fly by in August.