LarrabeeFamily.com

Well 2011 is officially here, so I am taking a moment to reflect on what 2010 brought us. We had a pretty interesting year overall I would say. I was just reviewing the posts I have made in 2010, and it is amazing to see how much the kids have grown in just that one year.

Oliver had some interesting milestones for 2010.  He started Kindergarten this year.  He lost his first (and second) tooth this year.  He had his first Halloween Parade, as well as many other school activities this year.

Summer continues to grow everyday, and is really starting to get her own personality, with a dash of little miss boss attitude.  She is still going to dance class and seems to enjoy it quite a bit.  She had her first dance reticle this year.  She  is very much interested in coloring and other artistic things – and she does rather well in my opinion.

Both kids have been enjoying more outdoors activities lately, they like going fishing from time to time, and going on nature hikes at on trails at the local park.

Kim continues to work at the same company – but at the end of 2010 transitioned to a new position which should keep 2011 interesting for her.  She also ran her first Half Marathon in 2010.  She also suffered an injury that put her training back a bit in 2010, but managed to run almost just under 450 miles over 10 months, and is making a recovery and has big plans for 2011.

I made an effort to get back into shape, and even start running myself in 2010.  I was able to shed about 35 pounds over the course of about 6 months.  Mostly accomplished by eating better – but I also logged a little over 332 miles of running myself.  I ran a few 5K’s and also ran the 2010 Run for the Diamonds.

We had a few nice outings as a family.  We had a couple trips to Annapolis / Baltimore - where the kids sparked an interest in baseball and the Orioles.  We also checked out the science musuem an Maryland zoo.  We took advantage of our Philly Zoo membership as always, and Kim and I took a refreshing trip to to Turks & Caicos Islands.  We also had plenty of fun around the house, and other activities in the area.  So looks like overall we had a pretty good year

In other family news,Grandma Larrabee became Grandma Smith (though the kids still call her Grandma Larrabee).  Uncle Tommy got his own apartment in the NYC area, and is engaged to be married, and Uncle Leo ironically also moved to a new apartment and also is engaged.

Here is hoping for a great 2011!

Well almost the exact day I started to feel better Oliver started with the same nasty cough.  Hopefully he is doing better today – but in any event the school took some more pictures of him which I downloaded and added to our site, here they are

click to view the new pictures

Well I am a bit late on the Happy New Year message I suppose, better late than never though.  The holidays are once again over, our tree is down and everything is getting back to normal everyday life.  We haven’t taken alot of photos since the holidays because we really haven’t been doing a ton to take pictures of I guess.  I did get some video of Oliver “playing” the Wii, and one night he busted out a pretty serious karaoke session with his new microphone set which I aslo got on video.

Kim’s birthday is a week away from today, we don’t have any specific plans yet though.

Oliver’s school takes pictures and updates us on there activities from time to time (more often now that one of the teachers has returned from maternity leave).  So I got copies of the photos to keep in his album here on our site.

Well things have been crazy as always around the Larrabee home.  Oliver recently was out of school a few days because of bronchitus, Kim is still battling asthma, allergies, or whatever is causing her to have breathing problems.  Just when we thought it was finally starting to get better, it got worse.  Summer is crawling around, and climbing everything, perhaps more climbing than Oliver ever did – and we though he was going to be the troublesome one.  We haven’t made it to the Bloomsburg fair yet this year, originally we had planned on the previous Saturday but Oliver got sick and changed those plans. 

Last night Kim and I took a few hours off to have a night together alone for a change, I won tickets to go see So You Think You Can Dance - which Kim likes to watch.  It was alot of the same routines that they did on the tv show – with a few that were new.

October is coming – we will probably end up taking a trip to the pumpkin farm again this year, to let the kids pick out our pumpkins to carve and ride the hay ride.

Just uploaded some pictures from the last week

5 Images – Summer finding out how great an Egg Roll is.

7 Images – Our little man looking serious and preparing to go to school

Oliver started his phase in week at pre-school yesterday.  We take him to class and sit in the side of the room so he feels safe – and he gets used to the teachers and other students.  Honestly by the looks of it he doesn’t even need the phase in period, as soon as he sees those kids and all those toys he is off and he doesn’t come back to our side until the teachers walk him over and say its time to go home.

He seems to be getting along with the kids really well, though at times he doesn’t like to share very much – or clean up after himself, but he will learn.  Some of the kids are potty training or potty trained – I am offering the first child that gets oliver to sit on the potty a crisp $100 – ok not really, but with luck they will help him catch on

Friday after work we went to the 2007 Plymouth Kielbasa Festival (no joke).  Oliver had an ice cream for dinner, summer a perogi, and Kim and I each had a kielbasa.  We browsed around the stands, which was mostly just food – and then we entered a few tickets into a silent auction which benefits homeless pregnant women.

 Saturday we went to Knoebles again – this time for my annual company picnic.  It was a bit too hot honestly, but we had fun – got to see kids of the various people from work and got to ride a few rides.  This trip marks the first trip to Knoebles that Oliver actually enjoyed the rides and didn’t scream on every one we took him on – in fact he was screaming that he had to wait in line before he could get on the ride again.

Today is the start of a busy week, Oliver starts pre-school this week, and later this week I have to take my car to get an estimate on repairs.  A 16 year old kid rear ended me on Thursday.  Additionally I have to start the work required to get our dishwasher installed – and if there is any time left we still have all of the work scheduled for bathroom.

Same start as every day, got some breakfast and then we headed over to Wet N Wild. I rode a couple of the “thriller slides” called “The Bomb Bay” and “The Blue Niagra”. We spent a little bit of time in the kiddy area as well. We were thinking of leaving for some lunch, and possible doing something else, and a pretty big storm rolled in. Actually much worse then Ernesto, but it didnt last long. We spent the rest of the day shopping, and driving around. So not many pictures today. They start on page 29.