We went biking together as a family along the lake after John was done with work. Here we are at Montrose Harbor, 5 miles from our home.

removed baby countdown timer - john delivered the kid a long time ago.

Lilly and I went sledding this weekend. We sled down our building's driveway, then we ventured to the lake and found some sand dunes to slide down. We had lots of fun!

This was too cute to not post. We visited my family in Idaho this summer and Lilly loved it. She had a full time friend, her cousin Tyson. I am not certain how interested Tyson was in Lilly. He was a classic boy--push her, shove a little bit and then wait to see if she'd push back. When she didn't, he was through with her. My favorite was when they were playing catch with a little rubber football. Lilly would toss the ball high in the air to Tyson. Tyson would then return the ball by throwing it straight at her face. At one point, he just walked up and hit her in the face with the ball (while still holding the ball). Evidently, he wanted the effect of throwing the ball at someone but didn't want to actually give up the ball. Well, we have returned home and have since enrolled Lilly in Judo so that she can take Tyson down when we visit next.

Well, if you don't already know, I am interning at a company that runs a successful hedge fund and dabbles in a bunch of other securities stuff. This creates quite the conflict of interest for me. I see lots of investing and lots of money at work...yet, at home, I am a cash strapped student. I have always liked to invest and this has poured over into my legal pursuits--I am planning on doing something in the securities world. Well, my old job used to match my piddly retirement contributions--to the effect, that it felt like I was playing with real money. Ever since I quit that job to start law school, I've been wanting to get back in the game. But, hey, you try to convince your wife to let you play with the money that your family is supposed to eat with. Consequently, (my wife laughs at me for this) in order to keep up my desires to keep investing I started selling off our undesirables--you know, stuff that sits in your storage room that nobody wants. Well, it turns out that somebody does want our junk. What suckers! I have been able to jump into a new Roth IRA and am working on maxing it out by the end of the year--all because people are buying our junk. That is beautiful.

Catherine doesn't like to post pictures of herself, so I am hijacking the blog for this post. This shot was taken in Boston while we were there for Thanksgiving. Catherine's parents found a good place for us to take family pictures. I know, I know, you are saying, "How much better can it get than family photos over a Thanksgiving holiday?" Well, it does get better--we were asked to wear sweaters. Catherine's brother, Mike, was the smart one and decided to wear a nice sports jacket--why didn't I think of doing something like that! Anyway, I thought this was a great picture of the women in my life.

Eat Your Heart Out Gucci

Nothing is cuter that a 1 year old dressing up.

This is for you, JEN

Jen, I hope you enjoy some new bathroom/waste-time-at-work material!

SNOW SURFING

Watch Out! It's Lilly on a snow mobile. Unfortunately no one knew she would fall asleep while steering. It's good her mom had years of experience and the courage of a lion. Instead of screaming in fear/delight at every bump in the Humpherys' field, Catherine used her skill to narrowly avoid the house and Elizabeth who peed her pants in fear. Yes, Elizabeth is waving in the picture like nothing happened ... just ignore her.

Getting to Idaho is harder than you think. Especially for a mom with a 1 year old daughter. It consists of having 2 flights cancelled, staying in 2 hotels, losing your luggage, and Lilly wetting her pants AND the hotel sheets (possibly the mattress too, but lets not think about that).

The 2 Positive Moments:
1. Bouncing on the hotel bed with Lilly
2. My sister-in-law Amy coming to rescue me.

CUPCAKE FIASCO

Word to the wise: When your child turns 1 and has her first birthday, don't make that organic cake mix your friend gave you that has been sitting in your cupboard for months. Your daughter won't like it and neither will the guests.

Lilly seemed to warm up to Grandpa Humpherys quite well. This pic is from our trip out to Idaho for my little sister's (Natalie) wedding.

Well, I just heard that there is a new Park family blog. Catherine and I thought we were going to be able to get away with blog lethargy (you know, where you start blogging and quickly fizzle out--only to find that you haven't touched the thing for almost a year). The Park blog is going to create some pressure on us to actually keep this thing up. Initially, we created the blog so that our families (in Idaho and Boston) could keep up with Humpherys' happenings. Well, little did we know that my family in Idaho either cared less (not probable--we hope) or they just weren't into blogging (of course, we are inclined to think it was the latter). Subsequently, we felt little incentive to keep this thing updated. Now that people might be watching, we will try to do a little better.

This is the highchair we found at an antique store in the middle of Illinois. It doesn't pass any safety standards, and that's how we like it. Putting Lilly in is like hitching a horse to a post. We plop her in and then tie her down with a piece of fabric. We love it; there is nothing quite as satisfying as tying your kid down so she can't move or get into trouble. Hopefully, she will be amenable to that when she turns 16 and starts to think about dating.

Even more amazing than the fact that she fits in our bathroom sink, is that we would put her there for a picture.

We have decided to start a project for our date nights. We will get some Ben and Jerry's (or some other artery clogging substance) and work on this quilt for the next few months.

Update: We have eaten lots of fattening goodies...but we haven't even started the quilt.