Yes, we had a new baby a month and half before the last update.

Yes, our friends and family are mad at us because they haven’t seen any new pictures of Gabe.

So, here they are.

Our trip to the Midwest (first Chicago, then Wisconsin, then Michigan) began well because we were breaking in the 2004 Odyssey we had purchased two days earlier. I’m a big believer in minivans. Though selling our Saturn Vue was hard, we definitely enjoy the room, leather seats and wireless headphones (!!!) the new car has. We could put music or movies on for Jonathan and he could sit back there and listen away while we didn’t hear a thing. Beautiful!

In Chicago we invaded Doug and Kim’s house again, where Jonathan proceeded to have the kind of temper tantrum you can only have after 1 nap in 8 days. First time he went to bed without dinner. We went to Lincoln Park Zoo, a wedding, and breakfast with some other great friends of ours from college. Chicago was great, but rushed.

After that we drove up to Wisconsin and stayed at Papa Phil’s house. We had a great time just hanging out with family while we there, and I was able to spend a bit of time out on Papa Phil’s boat fishing. We didn’t do great, but I did catch the biggest Sheephead (freshwater drum) I have ever seen. What fun to bring that in on a 6 foot perch pole!

Jonathan and Gabe (mini-Phil) loved playing with the cousins and being around Aunt Katie and Uncle Josh, as well as the rest of the extended family on the 4th of July. Jonathan had his first experience with sparklers (or “sticks with fire” as he called them), and we watched a bit of the fireworks from Nanny Linda’s dock. It was a fun, relaxing trip and we look forward to being back over Christmas/New Years. More pictures from the trip here. More pictures and part 2 of the trip coming soon!

Had a great weekend. I just barely made it into Chicago before a big snow storm hit…we tried to land three times before the pilot could see enough to put the plane on the ground. Thursday was spent on campus at Trinity Christian College (TCC) for an alumni event, Friday was day long meetings for the Alumni Association Board of Directors and then a banquet that night for the Alumni of the Year awards. Saturday was breakfast with a great friend, Jeremy Junkin and then hanging out all day with Doug and Kim (with whom I was staying) , Keith who flew up from Ft. Lauderdale (and waited a good 45 minutes to complain about the weather), Brian and Matt. Good times (and deep dish pizza) were had by all.

I made it back in time to watch the Super Bowl (I was hoping to see the Packers…grr). ‘Twas a great game and I was excited to see the Patriots choke in the end. After the game I went to ESPN.com to start reading all of the analysis, when I was greeted by a familiar face…in fact, one that I had seen all weekend in Chicago. The Trinity Christian College Troll. There, on the front page of ESPN.com, was the mascot of the school I had just returned from. Great free advertising for a small Christian school in the suburbs of Chicago. The article focused on great, weird, unknown team names for college basketball teams. Was pretty cool to see.

In other news, Renee and Jonathan are having a great time in Florida with her folks. Jonathan is being a good boy and yesterday they all went to Sea World in Orlando. He was so excited to tell me how “Shampoo” splashed the people at the show and Renee said that he was very upset Shampoo did that until he was told that they wanted to get wet. He carried around a Shampoo bag all day and told everyone he met about it. They are down there until next Sunday enjoying the lovely weather while I play bachelor again up here. So far so good, but I’m starting to wish they were around again. It’s okay. I’ll be tough.