Oct 19th - First Baby Party

We had a huge baby party in mid-late October!  We'd posted earlier when baby Brady met baby Eli (Katie's friend Rachel's son).  Well, on October 19th a few of Katie's friends from Columbus came up for a wedding, and we had a bring your own milk party at our house Friday night.  At 5:30 we had one baby in the house, but by 6:00 the numbers had quadrupled!

Eli is on the far left, and the other two are twins Elliot and Parker Anderson.  They're son/daughter of our friends Ashley and Craig.  Ashley was Katie's housemate from Miami, and we used to live next to them in Columbus and split Bengals' season tickets with them for a few years.  Elliot and Parker were born a week after Brady (Eli was about 6 weeks after that).

It's funny how things change - we used to be wondering what bar we'd go to with our friends on a Friday night.  This Friday night we just ordered pizza from Giordano's and hung out at our place watching our kids squirm around!  It was fun, though - it will be neat to watch all these guys as they grow up!

We got a picture of the dads with the kids as well.

Our friends Sarah and John were also up for the same wedding, and they stopped by earlier in the afternoon.

We also hung out with them on Saturday at a bar/restaurant called Crossing.  We saw Ohio State come back from what seemed like a sure loss to Purdue.  Brady seemed very interested in the guys next to us who ordered a "fish bowl" (a shared drink with a lot of liquor in a bowl).  Hmmm... at that point it was time to take the baby home.  Charlie stayed a little while longer with some other friends and watched Michigan knock off Michigan State for the first time in four years!

All in all, it was great to see so many of our friends in one weekend!

Oct 12th - Vegas!

This has been the Fall of Weddings for us, and I (Charlie) had another bachelor party in early October.  This one was in Las Vegas - somewhere Katie has been a few times, but I had never been.  This was for my friend Jon, whose wedding we are actually going to this weekend.  This was Katie's first time all by herself with the baby and the dog in Chicago, so I only went for one night - I left Friday morning and booked the last flight back Saturday evening.  So it was about 30 hours of Las Vegas, which is still plenty of time there!

We stayed at the Aria hotel, which was very nice - though as this was my first time there, I've got nothing else to compare it to!

We gambled most of the time there, though the most interesting thing I did was go to a gun range there, which was the first thing we did on Friday.  It's a pretty popular thing out there, as there are quite a few gun ranges, and it was a unique experience.  You basically pay a little over 100 bucks to shoot at a paper target - we did a group package with 4 rounds of machine guns and a contest with 2 handgun shots.  Let's just say I did not win either of the competitions!

Other than that, we played blackjack most of the time there, and I did OK with that.  Actually, I won money if you don't count any gambling after 2AM (when I tried a game called Pai Gow Poker that I pretty much didn't understand) or before 9AM (when I bet on Saturday football games - and my only winning pick was Michigan - Go Blue!).

We went to a couple of casinos outside of the Aria's hotel casino, and the most interesting one I remember was (I think) called Sunset Station - it had a ceiling that was made to look like the sky, so it feels like you're outside while you're there.

All in all, it was a fun first time in Vegas, though I was glad I came back a little earlier than the rest of the group and help out with Brady!

Early October in Chicago - family visits

After Katie spent a little over a week at her parents' house, we had a couple of visitors up here in Chicago. Charlie basically spent his second full week of work out of town in Dallas, but it was good experience for him.  He did get to eat at a really good Tex Mex restaurant, though he didn't get to jump away from work for long enough to go to the Texas State Fair - a 2+ week affair that was going on while he was there.  He was able to get back late Thursday night (instead of Friday as planned) - so that was good.

Katie's Mom, Sue, came back up along with her, Griffey and Brady from Eaton to help us move in and to help out as Charlie was traveling.  The first weekend back up, we had another visitor.  Charlie's sister, Abby, was up in Chicago for a conference, and she stayed with us on Saturday night.  Abby, Charlie and Katie went out for dinner (while Sue watched Brady), and after some trouble getting service at one restaurant we went to Goose Island Wrigleyville.  Goose Island was a craft brewery in Chicago that opened about 25 years ago as a one location brewpub.  It has become very popular and known for being a "Chicago" beer.  Anheuser-Busch has since bought the brewery, so it certainly isn't that small any more.  The second location that opened was the Wrigleyville one where we went.

This was Abby's third time seeing Brady, and he keeps getting a little bigger each time!  (Notice Griffey peaking out to see what all the hub-bub is :) )

Katie's dad Bob came up toward the end of the week to drive Sue back and help do a little organizing.  This was a fun opportunity for more family time with Brady.

Brady enjoyed reading with Grandma Sue...

...and watching TV with Grandpa Bob!

Brady meets Eli

No, this isn't a rematch of last year's Super Bowl!  While Katie's mom was in town when Charlie was in Dallas, they went with Brady to go visit Katie's friend, Rachel.  Rachel and her husband, Pete, had just had a baby 8 days earlier, so we wanted the two babies to meet!

Brady has almost two months on Eli, so our little guy actually looks big next to the newborn!  They had  a great time meeting and have already planned future get-togethers to discuss things like politics and the world economy.

Katie's old roommate Shannon was also in town from London, so Brady got to meet two of the "Labyrinth girls" from Miami University.  Brady really liked Shannon and had a great time playing with her!

Here's one more pic with both babies and all 3 Labyrinth girls!

Charlie's golf trip to Michigan

We've been busy, so we're a bit behind on posts!  The last post, Katie went home to Eaton shortly after our move to Chicago to hang out with her parents.  The reason Katie went home was to get Griffey, who stayed there so he didn't interfere with the movers, and because I had a golf trip the next weekend (September 21-22) with his friends.

After going with Brady on Tuesday, I went to another Reds game Thursday of that week with my friend Bryan, then we drove up to the golf resort.  The group went to a place in western Michigan called Gull Lake View.  The golf was near Kalamazoo, and we play 36 holes both Friday and Saturday - four different courses in all.  Considering I'd played exactly 29 holes of golf this summer, I had a bit of trial by fire.

We split up into two teams of 6, and do a bit of a Ryder Cup style competition with two man scrambles and points for each round.  It rained for a couple of hours on Saturday and we barely got all 36 holes in, but it did make for some nice scenery on the last round.

My team pulled off the win, so I got to take home the "Cup"!

(Eat your heart out, Becker!!!)

Brady meets friends and family in Ohio

The day after going to the Cubs game, Katie took a trip to Eaton to visit with her parents for a week and see some friends.  It has been so nice to live closer so that we are able to make more trips like this.  While living in Jersey, it was much harder to come visit Ohio.  The week was spent mostly just relaxing around their house and taking Brady and Griffey on walks.  Katie's long-time friend Meleah and her daughter, Shaylen stopped over to meet Brady.

And Katie's parents have season tickets to the Miami Redhawks football, so Katie and her dad went to the game on Saturday.  They played University of Massachusetts and pulled off a win.  The game was kind of boring and poor Miami doesn't draw much of a crowd, so after the 3rd quarter, we decided to go uptown to the bookstore and Katie's old employer - Attraction's....or now as it is called Bar 45 East (stupid name if you ask me) .   We just sat at the bar and watched all the young college kids have their fun and reminisced about when I was in college.  We agreed that I had a lot of fun at Miami and my parents had a lot of fun visiting me while I was there.  We couldn't stay too long because I had to get back home to Brady.  My mom was watching him and being a nice grandma despite it being a very sad day for her because earlier that morning, their cat - Sasha - passed away.  She was a really old cat (15 years) and had been sick for awhile but she gave my parents a lot of company and joy over the years.  It was really hard for my parents to let her go, but in a way it was sort of a blessing so she didn't have to suffer any more and she went peacefully in her sleep.  She will definitely be missed and I was hesitate to unload Brady on my mom after having such a tough morning, but she said it helped her keep her mind off of things while enjoying Brady.  I knew Brady was in good hands, so I was able to have a fun afternoon with my dad in good ole Oxford.

                           

Also while in Eaton, Charlie's mom and grandfather (Grumpa) made a visit up to Eaton so that Grumpa could meet his great-grandson for the first time.  It was quite cute introducing them and Brady was as usual a very good baby and enjoyed meeting Grumpa.

Brady's first baseball game

Tuesday September 18th was Brady's first ever baseball game at 7 weeks old (which beat a record of one of our friends sons :) ).  The day after we moved into the house in Lake View, we decided unpacking boxes didn't sound nearly as fun as walking to Wrigley Field!  And to make it even more perfect, the Cubs were playing the Reds.

We bundled Brady up in his Cincinnati Reds gear and Charlie carried him in the Baby Bjorn carrier. This was our first time using the Baby Bjorn carrier and it will definitely become a favorite baby item to use.

Brady with a Cubby Bear

Next to the statue of new Hall of Famer Ron Santo

We originally planned to only stay a couple of innings but Brady seemed to like it so much, that he lasted the whole game.  Wrigley Field even has a First Aid room that mothers can use to feed babies, so Katie took advantage of that.

Brady seemed to love the baseball game, so much that he fell asleep.  Everyone around us congratulated us on having such a cute baby and we even met one guy who didn't have his son with him but told us he has brought his 11 month old son already to 5 ballparks.

It was so much fun bringing Brady to his first baseball game and even though he will not remember it, we will always cherish these "firsts".

Park: Wrigley Field

Score: Reds 3, Cubs 1

Winning Pitcher: Homer Bailey

Brady's Reds record: 1-0

Brady's Home team record: 0-1