One Year and Counting

With this post, we reach our official one-year mark as bloggers. (Well, actually our first post was Sunday, September 17, 2006, but we figure this is close enough). We would also like to take this moment to congratulate those faithful readers (all two or so) who have been with us from the beginning . . .

Anyway. We actually have bigger news to report this week: Dan is back with our family! Andrew no longer has to answer the question, "Where's Daddy?" by pointing at the photo on the wall--he can point to the real thing!

How did such a momentous feat occur? you ask. Well, we'll tell you. Wednesday morning my mom drove me (and Andrew) to the Salt Lake airport and then drove away with Andrew, who (according to my mom) persisted in saying, "mama mama mama" all the way back to Provo. Despite his initial perturbation at being abandoned by his mother, we think his mother had a harder time with their separation than he did. He certainly looked more bemused than excited when I appeared again.

That same morning (well, early afternoon), Dan drove out of State College and arrived in Columbus, OH, just in time to pick me up. We spent that night in Columbus, and the next day drove through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and most of Missouri. We'll spare you the details of the drive. We brought along an audio book of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, read by the inimicable Stephen Fry, which helped us beguile most of the drive (and in fact, we were on the last CD of the 20 CD book when we arrived in Provo). That was possibly the most exciting thing about the drive itself, which was certainly--and luckily--unremarkable (my premonitions of our imminent death notwithstanding).

Friday, we continued our drive, passing through the entire length of Kansas (who knew the state was so big? The eastern parts of the state were rather pretty, but the last hour or two was pretty monotonous), and halfway through Colorado, coming to roost on the western edge of Denver. We went to a fabulous local Italian place that night, called Abrusci's. We had to wait for a while to be seated, but it was worth the wait, from the fresh bread to the delicious entrees. We ordered bruscetta as an appetizer, and although I've never had bruscetta with pine nuts and capers before, it was quite tasty. Dan ordered shrimp scampi on linguini and I ordered a penne gorgonzola--an unusual combination of chicken, broccoli, red grapes, slivered almonds, penne pasta and a gorgonzola cream sauce, but surprisingly good. We could go on, but probably shouldn't. Needless to say, dinner was probably the highlight of that day.

Saturday, we left Denver about 6 a.m. and arrived in Provo about 3. We were excited to see Andrew, but he wasn't quite sure what to do with us. I think my parents were more excited to have us back than Andrew was--if only because they no longer had to take care of him. (My dad reports that Andrew is a "goober.") Apparently Andrew now knows how to fake puke into the garbage can, and he delights in chasing quail ("quay quay") around the backyard. He also said his first (we think) sort-of sentence this week: when we called one night to talk to my parents and to Andrew, Andrew insisted on holding the phone by himself, saying determinedly: "I hol."

I have to say, it's been quite nice to have Dan back with me--he got to do daddy duty with Andrew in nursery this morning, so, for the first time in nearly two months, I got to go to all of my meetings in church today. And of course, I brought my camera with me for our trip and then failed to take any pictures, so you'll have to use your imagination to picture all the charming vistas we drove past. Tonight, we're having a family dinner with all of the local cousins: Joshua, Brielle, Jacob, Emi, and Enoch. Andrew will, I'm sure, be thrilled when he discovers all of this. The evening promises to be fun and chaotic, and we'll report on it in our next post. Till then, be well and happy!