MIT Ballroom Competition

Okay, it's been forever and a day since I last posted to this blog. In most cases, I've communicated through Facebook and Email. That said, I felt like the blog was the best place to share a few videos of Hannah and her partner Saira dancing at the MIT Ballroom competition.

This is one of the larger competitions with oodles of talent. Unfortunately, they didn't place. They did make it to the quarter finals several times. Susan and I were wiped out. We had to get out of bed at 4 a.m., leave the house with a group of kids by 5 a.m., and arrive by 7:00 a.m. I do not think we returned until well after 8 p.m. Yikes.

Here's the Swing video. I think they were disqualified for the hand slapping. Hannah could tell you for sure.



Here's the Rumba video. I apologize for the quality. I filmed them on my Droid.

Quebec Trip, July 2010

We'll we kind of got away from updating our little blog over the past few months. Looking through photos on the computer this morning, I realized what a cool time we had in Quebec this year.

Each July for the past four years, we have loaded up the car and driven to Quebec city for the Festival D'Ete (Summer Fest). With lots of things to do, cultural attractions, and most importantly tons of live music, the two week festival is a great time. A $50 pass gets one into any outdoor venue for the length of the festival.

We typically stay for a few days and time our visits around bands that we want to see. This year, we saw Rush and The Black Eyed Peas. We also took the opportunity to walk around the old city, eat at a few really cool places (Bistro Sous Le Fort) and visit the fort that once protected the city. Interesting note: Quebec City is the only walled city in North America.

Check out the photo album below.

More about Skylar

Okay, most everyone has seen the photos on Facebook. Still it seems like I should take a second to put some photos of Skylar up here on the blog. Sky's been a good girl in her first week. The kids, I mean the parents, have not gotten a whole lot of sleep. Watching them wander around with drawn faces and red eyes does bring back a few memories.

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Evangeline and Skylar

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Evangeline, Hannah and Skylar

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Erick and Skylar - Love how she has her hands to her face..."oh my"

Skylar Says Hi

Ok, I know we're just proud grandparents, but this is the cutest. She actually says 'hi. Click here to watch

Baby Skylar!!!!!

We would like to welcome the newest member of our family, our granddaughter Skylar! She was 6lbs 10 oz and 19.5 inches long. She has a full head of hair and is extremely alert. She was born on November 1, 2010 at 9:27pm. We are so excited to finally meet her. Erick and Evangeline are doing well and are happy parents. She is absolutely beautiful.

click here to watch the movie

Two Day Trip to Vegas

Just got home from a short two day visit to Las Vegas. I flew in early Thursday morning to meet with some folks who are planning a tradeshow there in 2011. The ability to fly just about anywhere direct, is one thing that I really miss about living in Chicago. Reaching Las Vegas by noon from the East Coast required a 7am flight from Hartford to Dallas, then a 90 minute layover before flying to Vegas. All told, the trip took 8 hours.

It was one of those fast two day fly-work-sleep (a little)-work-fly trips. I landed, went to the hotel to check email, make a few phone calls and clean up before the reception that night. Afterwards, I went back to my room to sleep until about 2:30am, when it was time to stare at the walls and daydream about sleep. By the time I took the red-eye home at 12:30 am on Saturday, I was pooped. Check out this photo of people playing slots in the airport at midnight (who are they?). You can't hear it, but the Wheel of Fortune theme song is looping endlessly in the bacground.

I'm told that Vegas is an ideal trade show city, that people will fly there because of the many things to do outside of the exhibit hall. For those like me, that don't gamble, rooms are cheap, restaurants are plentiful and good, and there are plenty of activities. I might even want to visit the race car track nearby. Sources report that people can take three or four laps in a real NASCAR. Maybe I'll make the trip there one day as a visitor.

A Weekend with Mom and Dad

Mom and Dad came for a long weekend in Connecticut. Mom, in particular, was excited because she had recently uncovered some long lost relatives who lived and died in Simsbury, Connecticut more than 200 years ago. A serious genealogist, Mom could not wait to visit the local historical library to learn a little bit more about who these folks were and how they lived.

Successfully completing our mission on Saturday, we determined that there are some good secondary sources about at least one of the families, the Holcombs. While at the library, I ran into one Lawrence Phelps, a middle age guy wearing a Boston Red Sox shirt. He was on a quest to find the original Phelps' homestead and final resting place of the Mr. Phelps who first settled Simsbury. Lawrence told me that he was the 11th generation to live in the area, and that he had touched the gravestones of 9 of his forefathers but was missing this one. The original Mr. Phelps passed away before the town cemetery was started and likely was buried on his homestead. Wherever that was. A cool story.

After leaving there, we drove around West Hartford for a while before finally stopping at Ben & Jerry's for a cone. The power of ice cream always amazes me. It has the ability to take one back to their child hood. At one point on the ride home, I glanced over at my mother. She was sitting there with her feet dangling off the seat, eating her cone and giggling. Could have been 10 years old again. Wicked cool.

Our search of the local cemetery today did not turn up any Holcomb headstones. We'll have to head back there when we have a little more time. Some of those old headstones are a little hard to read.

While visiting the cemetery today, we snapped these shots of my folks. Luckily, I was able to nab a shot or two of the photo shy Susan in her natural habitat. Good work indeed.