Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Sarah and Daniel Take on NYC


This has been a long time coming. Sarah and I visited the Big Apple back in March. I told Sarah I'd go through and choose some (many) of the best photos we captured and post them on the blog for our families and friends. Well, I put in an hour or so in April and just completed the project last night.

We had a fantastic time on our which focused mainly on soaking in the essence of the city, taking in many of the famous sights and eating as much delicious food as we could possibly pack down. It was our first significant vacation without children since we had Carter and we realized we needed it; Sarah turned to me one evening and said, "Now I remember why I fell in love with you." We laughed, but there is some truth to that. We've gotten away for a night, maybe two, but this was a full-blown, official vacation together that didn't include being interrupted incessantly or having ice water spilled just as the food arrives at the restaurant table.

We stayed in Lowe Manhattan and thanks to Sarah, we were able to effectively use the subway system to get around the city. We never once took a cab, something that I realize after just having visited another unfamiliar city in St. Louis, is quite a feat. We used my phone to locate hot spots, restaurants, sights and places to just walk around or shop. Some of our favorite moments included our jog through Central Park, walking the streets of Brooklyn to find a famous chocolate shop, dining together in an authentic NYC deli after watching a Broadway play and simply experiencing that extraordinary city together. I speak for both of us when I say that New York City is everything we expected it would be and we can't wait to return someday.

Now, on to the photos and BEWARE, there are a lot!



The master navigator:


Bless the iPhone:





Ground Zero:


Thanks to my man Dan Q, we knew that from the BK second story we'd get a good view of Ground Zero:

We did do some shopping:



I made her pose for this:

Was happy, just a little cold:








Too bad she married a teacher:

Stunning architecture everywhere:



Mmmmmmmm...




Let's go...



Grand Central Station





Going to the top of the Empire State Building:









Some kind Italians took this photo. Grazie mille amici italiani!














Art and more art....




Night life:


Dining out...with NO kids!


CENTRAL PARK EXCURSION:


Step #1: Get Some Bagels




Naturalist

Exploring the park




Mmmm.hmmm








Woman down!

How cool is this? Very cool.




"Gay monster Danny"




America's Next Top Model riot:






Facebook FTW

Best pizza I've had in America:



I'd never seen Phantom before:





We walked up to the pit:

I'm not supposed to have taken ANY of these shots, but you know me

Asking for charitable donations...good but much more interesting in costume....

Thanks for seeing it with me even though you already had Babe!


Held the cam above my head and just took a shot

Goodness sake

Good thing we burned about 8K cals walking that day!


TAPPED out!



Yeah, I almost got pawned a couple times on the subway


The Fantastic MET



And we did get pregnant after this trip, so thanks FG!

Some Egyptian foot and finger wear...I asked how much to buy they said if you have to ask...


Actual Egyptian ruins:

So cool, so cool...Sarah didn't love the armory quite as much as my inner 12 year old.

Arguably the most expensive piece of artwork in N. America purchased for a museum...Duccio's Madonna and Child
Most people pass this thing without knowing what's up. Thanks wikipedia, you're the best!


Candle's burned spots along the bottom of the quadro:

You like it, they have it:

Sari's fav

My all time favorite Van Gogh...I didn't even know it was there!


Fantastic

Does your armor have a built in beard? Didn't think so.

Leaving the MET:

Huge dog we saw in Central Park

Sarah talking to her mom or someone:

I'm down for the Middle East cuisine

This place is famous for their falafel etc. at incredible prices

Fueled up and ready to keep on truckin'

Getting ready to walk across the Brooklyn bridge




Traffic below us on thebridge:

A little SoCal in Brooklyn!

I wish I had had a real camera that evening:


We sought shelter one night at the Apple store to re-charge and get warm (and book a dinner date for our last night):

Last day:

Lady Liberty

Up close:



A pheasant in NY? WTH?

The Food Network area of the city (we named it that)

Chelsea Market

Fancy Shamsy foods and decor



Our last supper in NYC would be here (thanks to restaraunt week we got hooked up with a great meal for a lot less than we would have paid
otherwise




Before dinner we did the Rock

You know how stubborn we are, now it's a fact.


At the top of 30 ROCK





Awesome art deco

The last meal


Our table was at the windows glowing with warmth

Sarah helped this nice Jew find his way on the subway, she was that good by the last day



Dim Sum for the last breakfast before hoppin' the flight



We love NYC!






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Monday, December 14, 2009

Happy Birthday My First Born in the Wilderness and Thank You for the Tsunami of Gratitude

How's that for a title?


He looks a lot like his mom with his brown eyes. Actually, he looks especially like her when he smiles because he eyes disappear...ha haa ha! *It should be noted that Carter combed his own hair the day of this pre-school photo shoot.


Today is our first born son Carter Daniel Todd's birthday. He turned five. Even though I haven't posted on our blog regularly in some time, I felt the sudden urge to write down some words if for no other reason than to have them time stamped. The thought inevitably comes that perhaps digitizing and publishing one's thoughts on Google's redundant servers located in secret locations hidden throughout the earth, probably under the seven wonders of the world, is the best way to record your thoughts for posterity. If you write them only on paper, a single house fire could destroy them. And if not, are they going to make it through the millennials who are sure to toss out paper all together so they have more room to lounge and text message?

More seriously, and the whole reason I am online when I should be fast asleep since I'm up in about 6 hours): Carter. Before he was born I didn't realize what a shock the love a child can generate within his parent's heart could cause; I knew people loved their children, but I don't think I could have realized how quickly and profoundly I could fall in love with a person I had known for such a comparatively short time until I had a child. Then again, that's just another powerful argument to add to my essay on why experential is the best kind of knowledge. Experiencing that love changed me in profound ways, and in ways I don't think every parent changes when they cause a baby to be born into this difficult world, or wilderness. Sure, I love my dear wife and until I met her I hadn't really been in love, so I had experienced that new kind of love which I realize is still unfolding and growing, especially as our family grows. Indeed, I loved her in a way I had loved no other, yet now I see the same is true for both my children and almost every other person I hold dear. Love is something that is both profound and profoundly unique depending on the nature of the relationship and the promises that are made either explicitly or implicitly due to the nature of the relationship.

I have found that the love I feel for Carter and Claire has helped me understand my relationship with God in a way that has caused me to begin to realize how deeply God must love me despite my extremely narrow vision and selfishness. I now see that even my feeble efforts to live up to my potential must please Him immensely and when I make mistakes, or simply bad choices, He can send me help but He will not force me along the higher path since He knows I must learn for myself.

Carter is a wonderful little person and my favorite boy on the planet, but that goes without saying. Like other children fortunate enough to be brought up in a loving environment with many opportunities to interact with others and take positive risks, Carter is precocious yet absolutely innocent, tenaciously curious and athletic and despite his rapid growth physically and psychologically, still completely willing to "nuggle" on the couch at nearly any time of day, although early morning is preferred.

Finally, Carter makes me want to be a better person. As I walked toward the Disneyland hotel with my ever-wise father-in-law the other night, the air was suddenly pierced by cries, innocent and high-pitched. We looked up toward the noise, as did a few passersby, to behold a small huddled mass on a balcony above and to the right of the hotel entrance. It then became clear that it was my little family who beckoned us from the fifth floor. They held balloons and called out, "Daddy, Daaadddy!" I could see Sarah, her pregnant figure silhouetted against the yellow light of the room standing in the center, and two little figures huddled near her. Their balloons undulated in the night air and the light from the room that filtered through their colors formed a miniature rainbow above their heads.

In that moment I was suddenly and violently struck by how wonderful my life is: I have a body and it works, I have a beautiful wife who loves me and chooses happiness in the midst of difficulty, I have two healthy babies and another on the way, bombs don't go off where I live and I generally feel safe wherever I go, we can take ourselves to see world class physicians when necessary, we have plentiful friends who are sincere and loving, we have jobs which provide us shelter and transportation along with the ability to choose the foods and activities we partake in and a family support network who love me and my wife and our babies... of course the mind moves a lot faster than words can, so suffice to say I felt a tsunami of gratitude.

Simultaneously, however, I felt this pang of responsibility and duty. I felt that slight sting in my eyes indicating the potential release of tears and although none were shed, I knew I had just received a message from a divine source, perhaps from some place deep in the cosmos or perhaps from the deepest reaches of my innermost being, that I must make sure to always keep those precious beings, my wife and my babies, my number one priority for both time and eternity.

Carter, I love you buddy!
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Monday, November 30, 2009

Teddy Bear Tea

Attending the Festival of Trees in downtown Riverside has been a long standing tradition in my family. Most years during Thanksgiving weekend we would walk around and see all the trees with anticipation for the approaching Christmas time. It has been even more exciting the last two years as our kids are old enough to enjoy all the children's activities and my mom has helped her friend Kathy decorate a tree. On the day after Thanksgiving a Teddy Bear Tea is held and this year my mom and I got tickets to take the kids (all of the event proceeds goes to the Riverside County Medical Center). When Carter got a better offer (The Polar Express with cousin Ryan) we got Claire's friend Lucy to come with us instead. There was a lunch and entertainment. The entertainment was better for older kids but the girls still enjoyed it. Claire and Lucy were very sweet and it was fun to have some girl time for Claire!


The girls with their Teddies at the entrance
In front of our friend Robyn's tree

The tree my mom helped with "Visions of Sugarplums danced in their heads"


Claire's eyes are closed but Lucy's face is priceless
The face we get when we say, "say cheese" A good time was had by all!



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Tuesday, November 3, 2009

I took a gamble...

and I won:) Claire, with all her personality and opinions, is just a little difficult to coerce into letting me do her hair everyday. Most days, she looks like a "ragamuffin." We had keep her hair long for Tinkerbell (post to follow) and although she has beautiful hair with some natural curl, I knew the solution to our problem was a haircut but was nervous. For future hair cuts we will go to Aunt Sydnee but for this one we headed to Monkey Dooz for $10 Tuesday. The car and movie playing did work to help her relax for the hair cut. I think she is quite adorable (but, I am her mom). It'll grow quickly also and maybe by next year she will be ready for longer hair. For now, my life just got easier.
Playing a game and riding in the car during the hair cut
Lookin' all grown up

Side view--I love it!

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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Drum roll please...



The newest Todd baby is a BOY! We are thrilled!! More importantly, baby is healthy, super active (doing somersaults during ultrasound) and big (as usual for us)! We have a long way to go to pick a name. Danny prefers "unusual" names; Redwood is one of his current favorites (his friend's name, although he's not actually pushing for that, but you get the idea). I am leaning toward Presidential (Grant, Thomas, Clinton--joking on Clinton, we can't have a Carter & Clinton:)). We've still got 20 or so weeks to decide so we are in no hurry:)
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Monday, September 28, 2009

Closure on the Pipe Situation and a New Addition to the Todd Pad

To follow up on the last post, everything was taken care of regarding the sewage line the day after the second "event occurred." Ironically, the object causing all the trouble in our pipe was the tip of a very old plumbing snake that must have been used a long time ago to clear out a clog and that had become stuck and, obviously, had broken off in the pipe.

You could tell how old it was by the layers of rust on it. Obviously at some point earlier in the month the item must have shifted a bit and started snagging things. At least it wasn't something that the kids put down the toilet because in this case there was nothing we could have done to avoid it which sort of makes it easier to swallow the unexpected costs.

In other news, our good friends Bill and Kathryn and their wonderful daughters gifted us (Carter) their beautiful female Bearded Dragon. "Beardies," as they're known in the pet industry, are beautiful lizards that come from Australia. They are omnivorous and will eat everything from grapes and leafy greens to crickets, worms and even small mice and so forth. We're excited to share some photos and videos of her in the future. I guess the Lindsays' two dogs in addition to the lizard was a little much, so when we found out they were looking for a good home for this radical reptilian, we had to jump on it. Sarah, while a bit less excited than Carter and I, is very accepting of her and is content to see Carter excited about having her live in his room (in a 20 gal aquarium). I'm sure as we take care of her, feed her and clean her habitat that there will be an abundance of learning opportunities. Bill even gave us all the associated accouterments including a UV light, supplements to feed or sprinkle on crickets to make them more nutritious for the lizard, a water bowl with magnetic fasteners to keep it from being overturned, etc. Thanks again guys!

This pic is NOT of our lizard Spike (Carter decided on the name but I secretly call her Gertrude or "Gertie") but ours looks very much like this. By the way, she's very docile so even the kids can hold her but I am limiting that in order to preserve her health an sanity. Thankfully for her health, Claire is quite scared of her!



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Thursday, September 17, 2009

Our very small trials...

It would be difficult if I were to sit here and try to enumerate the difficulties of our lives here at the Todd Pad knowing that in our relatively small church group (or ward) we have numerous individuals with cancer, organ failure and various mental, emotional and spiritual crisis. Indeed, our lives are wonderful in comparison to so many people who live daily with the death of loved ones, divorce, sickness and the other trials which are extremely difficult to endure yet are all too common; Sarah's expecting and the baby appears to be healthy (sex to be determined in a few weeks!), my new job--while challenging-is going well, Carter just started pre-school again and loves it and Claire, oh Claire, is growing rapidly in every way possible. Now, this isn't to say that there aren't serious trials in our lives--I've come to see that everyone has "serious trials" whether they realize it or not--but it just wouldn't be appropriate to discuss certain issues because the hardest trials are generally things you don't want to write about publicly, such as things from the past we deal with, choices loved ones make or have made, issues of the heart, temptations, trials of faith and so forth. These are the kinds of things that hurt the most but, for the most part, are confronted by individuals on their own, with their spouse, or with the help of clergy or therapy or, unfortunately, swept under the proverbial rug only to surface again later. Now, this ISN'T to say we're necessarily dealing with those specific things right now in our lives, but I think it's worth clarifying that there are different kinds of trials.

So, with that said, we have had some challenges as of late. Since Sunday we've been experiencing plumbing issues. Although we got the intial clog snaked for about $150, today we had another back up which I feared might since we never saw what was blocking it, and we spent an additional $170 getting is re-snaked and scoped with a fiber optic camera system. That $170 helped us find a fairly large, solid object (plastic/metal) which is now stuck about halfway down the straight sewage pipe which leads to the street. That was going to cost A LOT to fix--at least $450 and perhaps as much as $1,500 or more depending on how much pipe would have to be exposed and relaced--but I worked something out on the down low and we're going to get the pipe dug out, cut, spliced and have a new clean-out port put in. EVERYTHING, including the initial work last Sunday night, is going to end up costing us close to a grand, but at least the guy who's going to do the pipe repair is also going to scope it again to see what's beyond that one object that's stuck in there in order to verify that there isn't anything else farther down the line toward the city line. When you're trying to save a little and pay of student loan debt, make a car payment and survive with a pre-2008 home loan, things like this can be extremely disheartening, but that's life!

On top of this, our clothes washer broke a few weeks ago and in an effort to save some dough, I bought one on CraigsList. No big deal...except we didn't get a private seller which is what you want (you know, someone who is moving and sells their washer for 80% off because what else are they going to do?), we got a guy who fixes 'em up and re-sells them (illegal) and that was not a good idea. Anyway, he was basically running a business without a license, so after losing about $50 and five minor garage floods, we finally got most of the money we paid him back and bought a brand new one from Costco (2 year warranty).

Also, Claire broke her leg and was in a cast, although she got out of it early. Those who've had little ones with a cast know the fun of trying to make bathing, swimming, walking, etc. possible. Good thing she healed incredibly fast!

So, in the last 5 weeks or so between these two fiascos we've had about 7 floods, two of which included the always interesting and delightful appearance of everyone's favorite guy....Mr. Raw Sewage which, I must say, was limited to the drains in the tubs backing up a bit and a little water leaking from the bases of the two toilets. "Hmmm...what is that little sphere..." picks it up, "aaahhh, pooop!" Yes, that happened to me when I was rinsing down the tubs after the first incident in preparation for the disinfection of the bathroom. You can't imagine how much bleach/chlorine, cleaning agents, disinfectants, etc. we used on the bathrooms floors and in the tubs. We even washed the beach towels that we had used to stem the tide of water TWICE in color-safe bleach. Then, of course, we repeated the whole process today after the second clog and I've now missed a day-and-a-half of work.

On the bright side, we're all alive, we're still happily married, Carter and Claire think life is all about eating, playing, learning, church, family, friends, sleeping, food and all the other good things that really are the same essential things that make us happy as adults when we're focused on what really matters in this world. Yes our little house was built in 1959 and may have some old drains, but we have drains and therefore we have water and a house and the list could go on and on. Yes we just spent about $1000 on something we had no idea was coming, but we can move on despite the fact that we might not get that fancy SLR camera when we thought we would (December).

Beyond that, the number of people (Chris B., Ryan J., Rick D., our neighbors Reid and Bev, Adam, etc.) who came by, consulted with me or literally got to work to try to figure out where the $&%# "clean out" opening is (that's where you stick the snake...ahem...which in this old house just happends to be in the closet of the master bedroom)--was phenomenal. It makes me realize that when we need help, there are literally a dozens of people we can call, including family, friends and neighbors.

So, we're thankful that our problems can be solved with time and money because there are many, many other issues that can't be solved in that way or, really, at all, at least for now or in this life. I hope that getting through these little obstacles will help us get through bigger ones in the future because I'm sure they're coming...and that's OK.
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Friday, September 4, 2009

The newest addition to our "pad"

I was going to find a cute picture of a tadpole, but, they really aren't that cute. So you will have to settle for an all text announcement that we are having a third baby in March. I am feeling chubby and sick in the evenings but I don't throw up and am grateful. Carter definitely wants a boy, we will find out October 14th and can't wait!

--Edit:

This is Danny and here's a tadpole:
http://giraffian.com/pictionary-files/t/tadpole.png
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