Saturday Fun With William

Dave and I had spent the afternoon with William yesterday. He was happy and full of energy -- totally ready for some serious play time! He's growing by leaps and bounds and every day he seems to conquer something new. He's able to sit up (unassisted) for longer periods of time, is doing the commando crawl, and loves to play games such as Peek-A-Boo. Here's a quick video of our play time ...



This is one of my favorite pictures of the day ...

President-elect Lincoln

Being a history buff of Rochester I was very surprised to hear that Abraham Lincoln made a stop here in 1861 and gave a short speech. There is a plaque near Mill Street in the city that marks the area in which the President-elect stopped. Well, Barbie and I headed for the city in search of this plaque. We did find it on the off ramp for State Street near Mill Street. Here are a couple of pictures we took.



Lincoln was on route (via train) from his hometown of Springfield Illinois to Washington DC for his inauguration. This leg of the trip was from Buffalo to Albany. He stopped briefly in Rochester and gave the following speech:

"I confess myself, after having seen large audiences since leaving home, overwhelmed with this vast number of faces at this hour of the morning. I am not vain enough to believe that you are here from any wish to see me as an individual, but because I am, for the time being, the representative of the American people. I could not, if I would address you at any length. I have not the strength, even if I had the time, for a speech at these many interviews that are afforded me on my way to Washington. I appear merely to see you, and to let you see me, and to bid you farewell. I hope it will be understood that it is from no disposition to disoblige anybody, that I do not address you at greater length."

The train arrived at Rochester at eight o'clock. A crowd of people numbering not less than 8,000 filled the space around the depot," wrote Journalist Henry Villard. According to Victor Searcher:

"Rochester did get to hear Lincoln as had been planned. Largely because of arrangements made and unmade, the majority of people waited for Lincoln at the wrong place."
-Victor Searcher, Lincoln’s Journey to Greatness, p. 146-147.

Note: Two days earlier Lincoln made a stop in Painesville, Ohio.

David's Coming On Board!

David and I were having lunch today and talking about all the fun stuff we do. He mentioned that maybe he should start a blog, similar to the A-Team blog, devoted just to stuff the two of us do together.

I thought it might work just as well (if not better) to have David become an author and write on our family blog. He really liked the idea and so very soon we'll have posts from David too.

How exciting is that?

Almost Two Months Later ...

I can't believe it's been almost two months since I last posted to this blog. And of course, at that time I was promising holiday updates soon, soon, soon.

I think I also mentioned it was the first day of my phlebotomy course.

Put two and two together and I guess it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the phlebotomy course has taken up WAY more time than I expected and that all the holiday and blog posts I had planned fell way to the bottom of the "to do" list.

I've actually completed 8 weeks (out of 10) of the program and will be graduating on March 13. I feel like I'm waiting to get my life back.

It's not that I'm spending all day in the labs or class and then all evening studying. Far from it. I'm just finding that after 9 hours on my feet and feeling stressed about it all, I come home exhausted and basically collapse on the couch. While the computer might be in my lap, it's for minimal surfing during commercials (or when I wake up from my 5 minute naps that seem to occur frequently between 7:00 and 10:00) -- certainly not for writing blog posts. THAT would require the use of brain cells (gray matter in particular) that seems to be very much lacking these days.

Come the weekends I feel like it's hurry up and try to cram a week's worth of living (read that laundry, shopping, and cleaning -- none of which seem to really be getting done by the way) into two short days. So the blogging? It's not happening.

However, I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and I'm determined to get holiday pictures off my camera -- soon. And catch up on all the important stuff I wanted to blog about -- soon.

And have a life again -- soon.

God help me if I should actually get a job!