Orange you glad I didn't say fuschia?

So they finally finished the saga that has been redoing the facade of our building. They even cleared out our parking spot from contractor detritus. Generally I'm happy with the result, but I do find the new color choice of our building a little odd. If you care, we're the middle two windows on the left hand side.

What happens to a dream deferred?

It explodes into a frenzy of rock greatness!

After waiting two decades I was finally able to see the Police in concert this Wednesday night. It was AWESOME!!!! They may be old but they can still rock. They played all their old great stuff. I was a little sad that I didn't get Tea in the Sahara, which "super fan" Taudine claimed was a Sting solo song but is actually on Synchronicity. It is one of my very favorite songs. Oh well. We still got Walking on the Moon, Message in a Bottle, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, Roxanne and Every Breath You Take as well as myriad other songs from all their albums. As you can see from above I enjoyed myself greatly.

So did Taudine and Taylor.

So did a sold out audience.

Chris and I took the subway to the concert. Madison Square Garden connects to Penn Station underground and it's a little confusing to figure out where you're going. Thankfully there were some handy signs specifically directing us to the concert.

Oh, we put on the red light! Roxanne......

Pictures from the blessing

I have so many cute pictures. I don't even know how I'm going to fit them all in. The blessing was wonderful and it was great to be around our family for this event. I was very sad that I had to cut my trip short, but how can I miss The Police in concert? I've been waiting for this reunion for 17 years. Without further ado, here are Beckett pictures. These were taken after the blessing at Jil's house by my professional photographer friends Sheryl, Michelle, and Sara.

Finally, some real family portraits.

How lame is this hat? It came with the blessing outfit and obviously we didn't have him wear it. But I thought we better get some pictures to embarrass him with when he's 16. Girl hat. At least he has the decency to look ashamed in the first one, but then in the second it seems like he gets the joke.

And here's the whole family, minus Kaili and Jason who we hope to morph in. Aren't we a cute bunch?

Suave and sophisticated

I get updates from Dawnell about the fun time she's having in Utah with Beckett. Here he is happy to be in his new car seat in his new car. As you can see, Beckett is trying to get into the Harry Potter spirit by giving himself a forehead scar. That little kid sure does like to scratch his face. We'd mitten him, but he gets lots of joy out of grabbing stuff.



Here is Beckett's new car. It's a 1996 Toyota Camry. Yea car! Dawnell and I are already planning road trips to far away lands. You know, Costco, Red Lobster, Ikea. We're excited to drive, but refuse to go more than 10 blocks east of our apartment.



Here's Beckett showing his suave and sophisticated side. Why, is that a bearskin rug? All he needs is a top hat.



Non-spoiler: HP7? Worst. Ending. Ever.

Santa Monica

I've been jamming out on my hot pink Nano lately, and one group I've really been pleasantly surprised about is Everclear. I always knew of Everclear, but had never considered myself a fan. I thought that they had one or two catchy songs every album, but that was about it. However, when you put out albums for 15 years, and you have one or two catchy songs on each album, that equals a pretty nice greatest hits album. Additionally, my radio station on Pandora.com (try it, you'll love it), whose formula is a mix of my top ten favorite groups, kept pulling up Everclear songs for me.

Long story short, after spending an enjoyable but short three day weekend in the WJ and while I'm back in NYC Metro waiting for Dawnell and Becks to return, I couldn't help but think of this great phrase from Everclear's best song:

Lonely and dreaming of the west coast

Too Perfect? That's Your Criticism?

Despite what you might think, this isn't going to be a post about how Beckett is the cutest tiny guy out there. I mean, he is, but I'll wait to blog about that when Dawnell and Beckett return from Utah with our camera full of cute pictures.

Anyway, Mitt Romney is running for president of the United States. Sure, I'm biased because he's Mormon and that rules, and he saved the Olympics when they were held in the greatest metropolitan area in the world, and that rules, but I really believe he's the best candidate. I think what would bother me more than anything is if he didn't get a fair shake from people because he was Mormon. I mean, it's not like we're space aliens, or even Scientologists.

Check out this article from the July 5th edition of The Economist. I think the main critiques of this article are ridiculous. Since when is it a problem that a politician is "too good" to be true. I mean, after the last eight years of being led by someone who really hadn't accomplished much before running for president, shouldn't we be looking for someone who has succeeded at everything?

The writer of the article also criticizes Mitt's "improbably wholesome" image. Wait, so now we would rather have Clinton era scandals or Guiliani style public divorces instead of Mitt and his creepily wholesome family? Clearly the writer is some East Coaster who doesn't know any Mormon families. Hey, that "improbably wholesome" family sounds like about half of the families that I knew growing up.

You know what, I'm sick of America choosing people to lead their country because they seem cool, (Bill) or because his actual speeches sound more like a Saturday Night Live sketch than actual parody (W). Why don't we go back to looking for the "too good to be true" candidate. Back when I was growing up the guy who seemed too good usually was the best candidate. But, hey, that's fine. The Economist can keep looking for someone with fatal flaws. Me? I'll just keep supporting "too good to be true." And you know why? Because it's true.

Beckett's Blessing

It's finally time to bless Beckett.

Please join us for this wonderful event on Sunday July 22 11:00 AM at:

(ward house location and sister's address belatedly removed)

So this is why people hire nannys

This weekend Chris and I took a trip to see the Hill Cumorah Pageant. We went with two other couples in a mini van we rented. It takes about 5 1/2 hours to get to the pageant from our place so naturally we were a little apprehensive if Beckett could handle the ride. And we were even more nervous about if our friends could handle a crying baby for five hours. We were quite pleasantly surprised with how it all turned out. Beckett was pretty good, but our friends were even better. They were so gracious and nice and helpful. Like calling shotgun they fought over who got to sit next to him in the car. They carried him around and made him smile. It was almost like Chris and I didn't even have a baby.

Here's proof. This is our friend Jason who carried Beckett all around the Whitmer farm for us. Our friend Andrea promptly took Beckett when he started to cry at the start of the pageant with a, "Don't worry I've seen this before. I'll walk him around back." She then delivered to us a sweetly sleeping baby who didn't wake up for 6 more hours. And then was so happy and cute in the morning. No wonder people hire help. But you can't buy friends like there.


Thank you Jason & Sheena, Daniel & Andrea, and Matt & Addy (who we didn't get to see as much as we'd like). You all made the trip a hit for us.

And a few more pictures. At the hotel Beckett got to go into a swimming pool for the first time. He seemed to really enjoy it.






Are you holding on back there dad?












We opted not to teach him the dead man's float.






Finally some pictures of the three of us together.

The long dark sojurn is over

So after seemingly endless days without the internet Comcast finally decided to get out order right and hook up our internet. Whew! I have been dying being disconnected. We're working on getting the house in order but we don't have AC in our main room yet so I mostly hide in our bedroom with Beckett so nothing gets done. Beckett is getting more coordinated. He's learned that he can hold things, and even better, that he can eat them once they're in his hands.

Although as you can see from the picture he still gets confused sometimes and just ends up eating the back of his hand. It seems to be a win/win proposition as he doesn't mind too much when it's his own fat fist instead of the delicious letter I.

UPDATE: Dawnell published this post while sitting in our main room with the air conditioner on full blast. Apparently she wrote most of it before I installed the AC on Friday night.

In the meantime, keep a lookout for some adorable pictures of Beckett's first trip out of the New York City metro area that took place over the weekend.

C & D in the J.C. (or whatever you suggest)

I'm not sold on the new title, but it's clear that Moons over Manhattan is false advertising. And it was such a catchy title. I'm not sold on the title above, so if you have any suggestions feel free to comment and let us know.

Dawnell's a bit out of the computer loop until Comcast tells us that they will accept our money, so I thought I'd post a quick update. We are officially moved into our new apartment. Pictures will be coming when the front room is no longer one big box closet. We're pretty pleased with the apartment, although we still need to pick up a few things to make it a bit more comfy, an air conditioner or two foremost among those.

And now, because you all sat through two paragraphs, I present to you the cutest thing ever, Smiling Beckett in a tomato hat.