Living the Seaver Life

The Dragon and The Ladybird

2009-11-02T08:51:00.000-08:00

The we-lost-a-camera-and-we-caught-up blog post

2009-08-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

Seriously, you'll going into withdrawal as soon as you close this window:

Seeds of a Dream

2009-08-13T19:09:00.000-07:00

Chillin'

2009-05-31T20:03:00.000-07:00

Smiles all around

2009-05-17T20:18:00.000-07:00

3 months

2009-04-21T21:48:00.000-07:00

5 weeks

2009-03-05T19:09:00.001-08:00

Mad weighed in at 7lbs 8oz last week:

From Videos of Madeleine

Two weeks...

2009-02-12T22:44:00.000-08:00

From Videos of Madeleine

A New Life....

2009-01-30T20:14:00.000-08:00

for this family and this blog, manifesting in the form of Madeleine Pamela Anne:

2008-05-25T19:47:00.000-07:00

The family was able to come in and celebrate Owen's special day. The picture would be even better if I would have gotten off my phone but Fernando needed directions!

Owen's first taste of sweets!! (other than when grandma gave him chocolate at 3 months and Darryl gave him a cookie at daycare!) He loved the frosting but couldn't get a good grip on the cake part.

The birthday boy could not stay awake after the sugar high wore off.

Great-Great-Grandma Kenney was able to visit on her way home from Florida. Owen had just gotten a new pair of camo pants and wanted to show them off.

We went to Port Huron for a weekend and on the way back we had to take a picnic break at Arby's. Don't we look like British ASBOS

For the Owen fans

2008-05-15T07:25:00.000-07:00

We'd been shamefully out of touch, (why does every blogger I know have so much guilt connected to their inability to blog regularly, I mean, its not enough that most of us have families etc. right?), but here's Owen to make up for it:

Owen

2008-03-07T04:51:00.001-08:00

Owen's First big booboo. You can see the bruise on his forehead :(

I don't know how to rotate the picture! Put this is Owen sporting Liverpool!

Owen was visiting his new friend Sofia Campos and took a seat on his own personal couch.

He loves his vegetables.

We had to lower the crib because he is such a big boy that he stands up to let us know he is done with his nap.

He was knocked out after a day with his friends. We were trying to wake him up so we could get him tired before the car ride to Michigan.
Grandma and Grandpa watched Owen during Gretchen and Adam's wedding. What great babysitters!

Don't you love his painted on tie! Once again he is partying with the ladies!

Getting ready for bed after the wedding, doesn't he look exhausted!

Quick picture update....

2008-02-21T20:11:00.000-08:00

I know I am bias but he is so cute.

Our first art project. It went well, he was not sure what was going on and why we had paint all over the kitchen floor but I thought it was a success.

Now that he is eating big people food he loves pasta primavera. He is starting to look like a big boy now. He is also wearing his bib that sponsors his Grandpa Badgero's catering company.

He looks like Darth Vader in this one.

The best gifts a kid can have are the wrapping the real gift comes in.

Owen attended his friend Sima's first birthday party. We had a blast as adults but I am pretty sure the kids had no clue what was going on!

Owen had his first slice of pizza, he loved it just like his dad.

It has started!

Owen had a long day and was happy to sleep in any position, he didn't flinch at the flash.

Owen likes to help with the laundry in any way he can, we have a great time here at the Seaver homestead.

Valentine's Day!

2008-02-14T13:07:00.000-08:00

I am at work and can't motivate myself to actually work so I thought I would write an entry. Yesterday, Sam, Owen and I did our first art project. I can't talk about it in depth because the Grandparents have not gotten it in the mail yet but it was a lot of fun. While we were doing it I realize again how wonderful it is to have a husband that is up to do anything and a son who has to go along with it because you are still in charge! Owen was good during the project and it made me excited for the future projects we can do together. Each day I feel more blessed and excited that we have a kid to raise and teach. I feel it has taken me awhile to truely enjoy parenthood but I feel so blessed to have Owen and Sam in my life.

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day and tell the people you love how important they are to you.

Life with Owen

2008-02-09T14:41:00.000-08:00

Owen is enjoying the king size bed more than us!

Owen get his first tooth around seven months. He was strong and didn't fuss much. Good thing we don't remember them coming in, doesn't feel too good.
Went to Michigan for Uncle Chad's play and Grandpa's retirement party. He loved all the attention.
Grandpa bought him a new hunting outfit. Once you are a grandpa it is okay to shop for your grandson.

Owen is sporting his England gear with Rich and Jenny at his first wedding.

We went to St. Charles for a close get way. We walked around the tow a little but mostly relaxed.

Owen is like his dad and feels much better after a starbucks coffee.

If Owen lived in England they could arrest him for being an ASBO(Anti-Social Behavior Order). But we still love him.

Owen loves to read like Sam. If I were to suggest any series of books for little ones it would be the Peekaboo books, they are wonderful.

The Year's End

2008-01-10T19:02:00.000-08:00

There was a whirlwind of family around our lives for the last couple of months, and I'm ashamed to say I've yet to mention it.

It all started back in November when my parents came to visit, the first time in six years that I was able to celebrate my birthday with them face-to-face, and it was not only a lovely day, but a fantastic ten days with them. The highlights were the breakfasts we shared at various Chicago locations. The Story of the visit, of course, involved Owen at Ann Sathers, as pictured:

He chose this one morning in front of the roaring fireplace and the indomitable cinnamon rolls, whilst cuddling his grandmother (above), to let loose the most violent diarrhea of his short life. My father and I rushed into the mens bathroom, that had no changing table, and spent twenty minutes being a shit-attrition team. At one point, I was holding a naked baby up while Dad was scraping the brown fluids of his back with the 200th paper towel. Thankfully, we managed to get a handle on the crap, and soon had Owen safely back in a fresh suit and back into mum's hands.

We went for a lovely walk that same afternoon in some of Chicago's urban forest district, whilst Owen slept in his wolf hat:

More to come...and not of the brown variety...

Christmas was...

2008-01-10T18:50:00.000-08:00

Singing Silent Night by candlelight

One Laptop Per Child

2007-12-03T21:49:00.000-08:00

In a break from the tradition of pictures of Owen, I'd like to announce the 'Simply Giving' program of the OLPC Foundation.

A while back, MIT, announced their intentions to provide every child on this planet with the ultimate educational tool, as cheaply as possible ($100). Such a cheap laptop would need to cross many barriers, physical, cultural and otherwise, be child-friendly in every way, and durable to boot.

For the first time, I found out today, that they'd finished their designing and testing, for how long I'm not sure, they started mass production in November. They couldn't get it down to $100, but $188 is still damn good. You can check out the beast at

http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/explore.php

My favorite thing about this laptop is that every one of them has a wireless router in it. For the less tech-savvy, this means they not only can connect wirelessly, they give out wireless signals, and thus a whole classroom, miles away from any base station, sitting under an acacia tree, can form their own network!

News have come in, and governments are buying them in bulk, Peru just ordered 260,000 of them, and if you want in on the action, you can actually order a laptop for a child (chosen by the foundation in places like Cambodia, Afghanistan, Rwanda etc.) as a gift:

http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/give-a-laptop.php

Just think of the boost in literacy any child would get with one of these in their hands, in a world where even decent paper, let alone a book, may be hard to come by.

Owen's first video

2007-11-30T11:12:00.000-08:00

For the first 40 seconds, you really do need sound. Its 10 minutes long so don't feel bad if you don't watch the whole thing :-)

Rice Cereal!

2007-11-04T07:26:00.000-08:00

Every Saturday morning Owen and Sam watch the English soccer on T.V., soon Sam will be bringing him to the pub.

Even when Owen is sick he smiles

Showing his booty!

Owen has just started to cuddle with the blanket my Aunt Shellie made for him. If it is near his face he will just fall asleep!

Owen's new talent is putting his feet in his mouth.

Owen is not quite sure if he likes this solid, bland food!

Such a big boy sitting in his new highchair from Grandma Kenney

This is the new use we have found for Owen's pack and play!! He likes to chill in the mound of clean clothes while mom and dad get dressed!

The Seaver family is starting the brainwashing early, GO England. He fits in with all the neighbor kids now!

Can he get any cutier? I know I am bias but he just is such a wonderful boy. I love these sleep dresses, I wish they made them for adults.

Pumpkin Patch!

2007-10-24T19:00:00.001-07:00

My two handsome men.

Owen's first costume of the day from Maurita

Owen is flying with his large pumpkin hat!

Owen loved the pumpkins

Ellie and Owen in the Patch

Owen is trying to give Ellie a kiss but she is not having it.

BOO to you.

He is already addicted to chocolate like his dad. I was trying to make a Halloween dish and he wanted to help, what a good boy.

He is so cute.

Kids must think there parents are crazy dressing them up and putting them on pumpkins :)

We are so lucky to have a boy who is cheerful most of the time. He is such a joy to have in our life.

2007-10-17T18:36:00.001-07:00

He is growing so fast. I love his pants in this picture. I wish they made fun clothes like this for adults.
Owen loves the Johnny Jump-up Aunt Shellie gave him. He is still a little small for it but he still loves it.

Owen is flirting with Joceyln when she stopped by after a performance.

PARTY!!!!

Updated photos of Big O!

2007-10-17T17:50:00.000-07:00

Smiles for Daddy

They grow up so fast. Owen always smiles at the person who is NOT holding him. They are fascinating to watch.

Owen is getting a pep talk from his soccer buddy Alejandro before the Marathon. Warming up his shoulders.

Owen: "Running in this heat can be so draining"

Owen was cheered out by mile 19 and decided to take a cat nap before running the last 5 miles.

At Sam's soccer game and no one around to take pictures of the dedicated fans, Owen and Mom.

Growing can be hard work. By the end of the day he is knocked out. I think it is all the flirting he does at daycare. He is the only boy and the girls love him, a little like his dad.

The picture explains it all. "How do I look?"

Owen is in the early stages of sitting up on his own. We were getting ready for a walk with our first cardigan made by one of Sam's relatives. Looking like Nigel in this picture, it must be the sweater!

You just have to smile when you see this picture. We were bundling up for a nice fall walk.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear is one of our favorite books at the moment. See how he can hold the book on his own (little hands on the side, look close) he is a genius. He is in the running for the MacArthur Fellowship...

Maureen Chaseley hand knitted this sweater for Owen.

Doesn't he look like a future rugby player. He is sporting the Liverpool hat that Rich Robles bought for him. We start the brainwashing early in our family.

Cuddles with Owen are the best!

TOO CUTE....

I can eat my feet Mommy aren't you proud of me?!

He fell asleep saying his bedtime prayers.

I will love Owen whatever he chooses to do with his life...

2007-10-13T20:02:00.000-07:00

Belated Entry

2007-10-11T21:16:00.000-07:00

It's been so long, a month and a half, I can't think what to say. Owen is losing his hair, but his smile is getting bigger. He's learning to sleep through the night, though he still refuses to go to sleep without a swaddle.

These are select pictures that are not strictly in chronological order.

In this last picture, Owen is holding a player with an England jersey, whom I've dubbed 'Stephen', which means something if you know me...

As the weather gets colder, we have a Liverpool hat, from Rich that I can't wait to break out!

Meeting a top 100 author

2007-08-23T19:04:00.000-07:00

He only wrote 8 novels, not including the collection of short stories, and yet his '80s vision of virtual reality, biotechnology and internet crime in one book was enough to get him listed. I think I've plugged him before, but this time, he came to Evanston to sign his latest book! So I took Owen, and my '94 copy of Neuromancer, to meet him. Unfortunately, he didn't look up in time for the photo, so this is the best we've got.

Photographic update...

2007-08-23T18:57:00.001-07:00

Nuff said...

Picture alert...

2007-08-10T12:19:00.000-07:00

Erika's brother, Chad, uploaded a bunch of pictures of Owen to his Facebook account.

Blueberries and Salmon

2007-07-29T12:11:00.000-07:00

So we just got back from a lovely week in NW MI with the Badgeros, The Wedges (Erika's aunt and uncle), and Erika's grandparents:

There's a lot of pictures to look at, but I've got a select few here and will post more later:

We went blueberry picking

while Owen was napping

and this picture, for me, epitomizes American dining, a short stack of home-made fluffy blueberry pancakes with blueberry sauce. The juices literally squirted onto the plate...

Finally, Doug took Erika and I to do a spot of salmon fishing, here's the spoils, yum yum!

Two months...

2007-07-20T18:20:00.000-07:00

Owen weighed in at a hefty 9 lbs 10oz on Tuesday, he also had his first vaccinations and took them with some fuss that was short-lived...

Here we have Owen with his great-great grandmother, 95 and still kicking...

All five generations for you to count and wonder about the water in Michigan...

2007-07-05T17:14:00.001-07:00

Cutie!

2007-07-05T17:07:00.000-07:00

So at 4:45 this morning Sam decided to turn Owen into a little piggy with flapping ears. This kid is going to grow up with a complex! Owen was not ready to sleep so dad decided to encourage his restlessness with some fun. He seems happy to entertain dad.

Growen' Owen...

2007-06-20T22:47:00.000-07:00

He gained 12 oz in 7 days.....

My favourite things about my son so far...

2007-06-09T00:29:00.000-07:00

I love it when he's awake, alert and just looking around.

I love it when he's falling asleep after a good feed, and he squeaks with contentment, which I can hear.

I love it when we give him a bath, because he obviously enjoys himself.

I love hearing Erika laugh at him, like when she unlatches him for a burp in the middle of a feeding, and he makes this great 'heeey, I was eating that!' face...

All Systems Are Go

2007-05-28T11:23:00.000-07:00

I should know, Owen just peed on me.

Welcome to our world, son...

2007-05-24T11:39:00.000-07:00

Announcing Owen Nigel Douglas Seaver (05/21/07, 6lbs 12oz, Liverpool fan):

InfoMonger

2007-05-18T21:00:00.001-07:00

So, I like to read. At the last count, the list of blogs I subscribe to in my reader numbers 60. Normally I like to share stuff with people, but I read so many stories every day that I never want to keep emailing people, though I do every now and then.

Well Google came up with this cool thing that combined Reader with Blogger into this little 'Currently Reading...' widget, so I can click on a 'share' button on every story I like, and it automatically comes up on our blog. So now, even if I'm not writing anything, you can check in any day and see what I'm reading.

Process I: The Room

2007-05-15T17:41:00.000-07:00

So, I hadn't noticed that Erika said at the end of her last post that she said I was going to do some posting that same night, when in fact, I was sitting there thinking, 'sweet, if she's posting, I can hold off posting for a few more days....'

Well, this post is about the baby room, the first of many developmental processes we will be going through as parents and humans. At first, when Erika mentioned painting the baby room, and I thought, "eeewww", imagining the hassle that comes with painting a room that already has a computer desk, a futon and a barely used ugly armchair all crammed in, no thank you! Erika stayed on my back, and we came to a compromise, which was to paste a border around the top of the room. I just looked through our 5 years of pictures, and though I enjoyed the nostalgia (you wouldn't believe all the places we've been) I didn't find one! No, I'm serious, not ONE picture of our second bedroom before its current glory...man, we must have hated the room. :-)

But seriously, I did dredge up this picture Erika took after we moved the crib in and threw out ugly. In case you're confused, we have mirrors for closet doors, so you're looking back into the room, and you can see me at the computer at the other end of the room:

But then, I guess God decided we were going to paint the room, and let us know this with a some snow melt and a hole in our roof. I'd rather He didn't do it at 2am, but there we were, bleary eyed, dragging every perishable thing we saw in reach out of there, including the futon mattress:

The bucket in the middle is 3 feet high and was half full at the end of the night. To compound things, the water traveled over our ceiling and starting spreading splotches:

So after the emergency calls at 4am, the nice Hispanic roofers and a return to a state of low humidity, I reconsidered, we should paint. We were going to have to cover up the stains at least. We decided, after a painful trip to Babys' R Us to register, that we'd do a jungle/safari theme for the baby room, and so we purchased a jungly border and chose a dark green colour for the top half of our room as well as a sky blue colour for the ceiling. Here's me priming away:

Janna, Megan and Emily all came round one Saturday afternoon to help me paint the room, we did the full two coats on the ceiling first and then the walls. Sadly, I've only got one picture of the fun we had, which doesn't show the rum and sprite either:

Erika wisely took some 'before' and 'after' pics:

Then, after letting the paint dry, we had a go with the border. We were idiots and attempted to wet and paste a border on the longest length of the room without stopping to think about it, we'd wrestled that floppy, slippery paper against the wall about half way down until we realized that we didn't get it wet enough for the rest of it! So instead of taking it off again, we simply sponged water on it, pressed and prayed. The end result looks good, we were pleased with it, but if you were to look closely, you'll see many an opportunity for little fingers to pull it away again, so I'm open to any suggestion bar duct tape:

Finally, before rearranging all of the furniture, I got a big sponge and dabbed some clouds on the ceiling. I just took this picture with a flash at night, so I may repost some nicer ones in the daylight:

What with the painting done, we put everything in its rightful place. The crib now has a cool mobile with safari animals, and also on the rug too. Next will be the myriad of nice pictures we got from people. So it's just about come together. You can see two of the quilts that had been made for the baby, and also one of the pictures (of a turtle) in the bottom right corner.

We're really pleased with the room, I never would have done any of this if it hasn't been for some water, I guess I got motivated....

ps: talking about turtles, there was one wandering about our street the other day(!) do they migrate?

Thumper

2007-05-13T17:07:00.000-07:00

Well it has been about 9 months since I have added anything to our blog. As you can see from the picture below, a lot of things have been changing in my life and body! I am currently 37 weeks pregnant and awaiting "Thumper". We named him/her Thumper because I have been amazed at how much a baby can kick you from the inside. There have been so many interesting things that have happened with this miracle. I have experienced another human being having hiccups and it shifting so fast that it almost makes you pee instantly.

We have the babies room almost finished thanks to all our housegroup friends who came over to paint and to all of Sam's hard work. We have a blue ceiling and sage walls with a jungle border. Sam is still finishing up the clouds on the ceiling. All our friends and family have bought us amazing gifts for Thumper so the room is the best room in the house.

I have five more days of work before I go on maternity leave. I am looking forward to the rest and time off. I will then just have to finish up my graduate class that starts the 14th of May! I wanted to finish this class before the baby comes so I have one less class after it arrives. Once/If I finish that class I will have 2 more classes before I am complete with a Masters in Reading. Well I think that Sam is going to be adding more to the blog today so I will leave it to the master but I wanted to get out a little hello before our WHOLE life changed!

Love Erika
Stay tuned for future pictures of the upcoming Baby Seaver

Pearls in the New Year

2007-04-09T18:47:00.000-07:00

So, last bit about our England trip, it goes without saying that the event was my parents 30th wedding anniversary. To make it an extra special occasion, they had a wedding reception and renewed their vows at the very same place that they did 30 years ago as hippies, only this time there were no joints being passed around. This was an extra special time for me, not just to be with my family, as much as I miss them, but also to honor my parents, and to see them honored for their relationship. In today's world, I have nothing but respect for them to have persisted through all the hardships they experienced, and to have raised us three kids to be the people we are. Mum and Dad, I salute you!

Some photos:

Dave and I are mucking about while getting ready to go:

Mum with her sons:

Dad with the inevitable hat:

Amber and I are getting ready to rumble:

Mum and Dad at the ceremony, exchanging the rings:

Amber and I giving our li'l speeches:

The signing of the registrar:

The children and spouses:

Dave giving the best man speech at the dinner:

Can you tell they're brothers?:

Finally, I shall admit that when giving my talk about Dad, I choked up at the end, and never got to finish. I was trying to give an impression of how much my father has forged my identity as an Englishman through being the man he is, and my closing and unspoken lines were:

When I miss my Dad, I miss England.
When I miss England, I miss my Dad.

Pearls before Breakfast

2007-04-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

I shamelessly stole the title of this post from an online article in the Washington Post. As a form of an apology for not having blogged in so long, I'd like to link this particular post to that article.

It's a long one, well written, and quite touching in the sense that a great violinist, playing some of the greatest classical music ever, could have this little an impact. Even if you've not got the time or energy to read, put the sound on and watch the videos.

"Pearls before Breakfast"

I can't tell you how much I hate Manchester United

2007-03-03T07:52:00.000-08:00

So Liverpool is having a good game at home, though it's still 0-0, I'm warm in the Globe hanging with Pat and Corey and enjoying my full breakfast (including white pudding as well as black). The one doubt that creeps into the back of my mind as the game enters the last five minutes, is the number of times Manchester United scores at the end of a game. Then two minutes later, they do just that. 1-0, game over....I hate them so much... The atmosphere in the Globe was good though, lots of scousers and a few mancs.

Anyway, I'm getting round to posting a few pictures. I don't do the whole chronological thing that Jamie does, but here's a couple from England this winter. In this picture we'd ventured out on a beautiful saturday to the nearest seaside town, Hastings, only to catch a storm. This is us, including Tim, hiding under a bus shelter and enjoying a few warm fresh donuts.

Here, we are enjoying a swift pint after a good walk. Next to me is my sister's nephew, Andrew, and my brother Dave is the furthest along the bench.

My nephew, Jude, is showing off his superman outfit that he got for Christmas:

More later, MSU is on TV, peace out.

Settler's achievement

2007-02-24T12:12:00.000-08:00

So Seth and Jennifer came over to play some settlers last weekend and to watch some B-ball. Annoyingly, the Parsons continued their winning streak, I believe the Seavers have only managed to extract 1 win out of dozens against the Parsons. But, all the more interesting, Seth achieved something which was a first for me in a game of Settlers, can you see what it is?

Hint: Seth's color was blue.

On another note, my father-in-law gave us some beautiful tulips:

Nothing like cookies on a monday!

2007-02-05T13:59:00.000-08:00

My lab is hosting the coffee break for the dept. this afternoon and decided to have a cookie contest. Mike, Dean and Roger are setting out the cookies and their labels. The selection here includes such delicacies as White choc. with pecan biscotti and lemon curd bars, mmmm. Results on the winner will be posted shortly.

Update:

Dean's choc-chip coconut macaroons seemingly won the day, but after some further analysis based on the range of values people assigned (each cookie was rated from 1-10) it turned out that Marta's biscotti won the day!

Da Bearz!

2007-02-04T14:36:00.001-08:00

We're hanging out at Nevin's waiting for the big game to start. The news is that Nevin's have discontinued McEwan's but now have Newkie Brown on tap. Left to right its Andy, Emily, Janna, Erika, Jennifer and the back of Seth's head.

Fort Myers to Chicago

2007-01-31T22:39:00.000-08:00

So, I would try and say more about the time we had with Brad and Kathleen, but when Kath has put together her own excellent description of the weekend, I'm almost tempted to just cut 'n' paste it and put my own comments in.

She is not joking about the room of wacko dreams, every morning I came out of there feeling a little shell-shocked, hair out in tufts, going 'what on earth was THAT?!?'. The annoying thing was that I kept getting woken up in the middle of these dreams and was completely forgetting them but for a few weird sensations of familiarity (they all must have had people I knew in them).

There was a really good dolphin moment for me, on the lack-of-sunset cruise. For the most part they'd been barely breaking the surface of the water, or jumping over the wakes of other peoples boats. The passengers were all pressing towards the bow trying to get a good shot and I was on the left (starboard?) side when all of a sudden a single dolphin came straight up out of the water right in front of me. Now that was cool.

We really had a lovely laid-back time, no rush to head off any place and we got the royal treatment, it was good to see Bradleen again!

Coming back though was quite the ordeal, the temperature dropped 60 degrees, literally. Its going to get worse this weekend I see. But who's going to worry about the weather when Liverpool will be thrashing Everton (Globe pub at 6:45am this Saturday, anyone?) and the Bears are going to intercept Manning so many times he'll throw up on his own center.

Speaking of which, I'm up late watching a typical ESPN show on the history of the Super Bowl. The one thing I've learned to respect about American football, I could drudgingly admit, is the ability for a quarterback (not all, mind you) to put the ball in a sprinting receivers' hands at 50+ yards. You can now get this amazing slow replay shot zoomed in on just the ball, hanging and spinning in the air for minutes before being caught. Its like watching Stephen Gerrard pass....man...

So, tonight I also finished 'ripping' the latest, greatest British comedy. Its surreal, not necessarily laugh-out loud but definitely keeps a smile on my face. My brother, Dave, had the DVDs and we had a laugh together this Christmas. I managed to get some episodes onto my mac with the help of a nifty application that I think Brad would like: 'Handbrake'. It actually made me a little homesick watching it tonight, its just inherently English.

This Friday, I'd volunteered to show some people around at Northwestern. Its the time of the year again when prospective PhD students come and interview faculty and get interviewed. I went through the process myself three years ago now and nothing serves a more acute reminder of my arrival in this country almost 5.5 years ago than conversing with these young bright-eyed bushy-tailed to-be-grads, most of whom I'll never meet again. It makes me wonder about what would not have happened in my life, if I never made the move. Happily, what will be is a new family member!

1am, time to go and snore in Erika's ear. I'll leave you with a post from one of the blogs I have in my Reader.

Sanibel Island

2007-01-27T13:00:00.001-08:00

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside. Oh I do like to be beside the sea!
So after a morning of alligator, turtle and bird-watching at a nature preserve followed by Moe's Burritos. We're now chilling on the beach at Sanibel island. We've got a sunset cruise planned for later followed by a demolition of MSU by Ogden and OSU (which I secretly hope won't be the case) while playing the Game.

Florida Sun

2007-01-27T08:09:00.000-08:00

Aaaaaaahhhh

A January breakfast in Fl

2007-01-27T07:19:00.001-08:00

It's going to be 76 degrees today. Better put my shorts on!

Erika and Brad

2007-01-26T17:27:00.000-08:00

We've arrived in Florida hanging with Brad (pictured) and Kathleen. Just about to go get some icecream!

Jennifer and Bella

2007-01-25T20:59:00.001-08:00

Settlers Night

2007-01-25T19:52:00.000-08:00

So Janna's sick, (get better soon Janna!) and I'm content to take pictures of our games of settlers in the dim lighting of the Parsons condo. Brian and Emily (in her new sweater vest) are contemplating their next step to island domination.

Entering the MoBlogosphere

2007-01-25T15:56:00.001-08:00

So, following Kath's hint (http://suncoastliving.blogspot.com) I checked out the new freedom you have with blogging. Not only can you email a blog, you can even send pictures from your phone directly into it. Be prepared for an inundation of two-bit knackered snaps of chicago.

For now, this is me in Daniel's office.

Tonight, the Parsons are hosting yet another Settlers night for our housegroup (& friends) and I intend to send so many pictures of Janna to my blog that some millionaire at Google will give her a call and pay her to stop being friends with me (as well as invite her on a date...)

Baby Seaver at 20 Weeks

2007-01-12T18:57:00.000-08:00

If you were there, you could hear the baby faintly singing: '...alk on thr.....ind,.....on t....gh.....rai........on, w.....k on, wi...h...pe....yo....ear....'

We're back from dear old England, will blog all about the trip later on this weekend, right now we're trying to pack, fold and put away Chaos.

Countdown to Christmas

2006-12-20T14:34:00.000-08:00

So, I'm at home today, trying to get over a sore throat. Hopefully it won't get any worse come this weekend when we fly home to England.

The past week or so have been pretty crazy, two mondays ago the remnants of our fall soccer team, Barcapool, met for one last hurrah at Redmond's, to watch the Bears trash the Rams. Left to right, in the first photo, you have Stephanie, Holly, Me, Pam and Seth:

Thanks to Steph for the pics. Do y'see the sweater? It's been my number one piece of clothing since I discovered it in our closet, it says 'Lee's Construction' on it and was evidently designed to withstand the elements. I don't know why but I've enjoyed being overtly 'blue collar'.

Thursday we had our housegroup's christmas dinner, a few gifts exchanged, some settlers of course, and a big white bow not pictured here for my sake:

Saturday we went to two different christmas parties, one was a massive children-infested (in a good way) cookie contest at the Fullers and then we moved onto the Cadys for to bop the next few hours away. Sadly there are no pics as we forgot the camera.

Sunday, Erika and I skipped church in the morning and went to a different service to which our friend invited us in the afternoon, a Christmas special. The highlight must have been the 50-strong choir singing the Hallelujah chorus.

During the weekend, Erika's cousin gave birth to a baby girl, Congratulations to Elizabeth and Zach, and welcome to Isabel:

Finally, my father-in-law makes the best Santa you could imagine:

End of another quarter

2006-12-08T19:12:00.000-08:00

So, tomorrow afternoon I'm sitting down with my partner TA to grade the last exam of the Molecular Biology class for sophomores (3rd years) at Northwestern. Finally, that along with my penultimate class (in which my group got the best grade for their projects by 0.04 points! *self-congratulatory slap on back*) means the next quarter I can just worry about research....I hope....

Quiet White and the Christmas Light(s)

2006-12-06T20:01:00.000-08:00

Well, its been a while since I blogged something. Thought I'd write again before Janna makes a point of it. The November weather was unseasonal, as it should have snowed on thanksgiving according to Mrs. Parsons but it didn't, in fact it was an extra 20 degrees almost for the next week. Then the snow came. A heavy white blanket settled over NE Illinois overnight, and we all woke up to winter and to find our cars missing.

Well, we didn't get ours towed this year, but we'd learned our painful lesson years ago, nothing worse than standing in the snow in early morning sub-zero temperatures and looking at an empty 'my-car-used-to-be-there' spot.

Last weekend, Erika and I went to the annual church dinner and dance at a golf club in Glenview, it was a nice evening, a buffet dinner with plenty of food and, surprisingly, a few kilograms of Baklava. We had ourselves a friendly table with some girls from housegroup and also and got to know a few more people from church. Erika, Janna & Emily are the three wide grins below:

The very next day, we enjoyed a spontaneous breakfast at IHOP with Janna, Emily, and Robin. It was nice to see the latter, an interpreter for me at church and also at some of my meetings at Northwestern. It always gets a little strange knowing that you're friends and yet have a professional relationship at certain times of the day. Speaking of which, I was accused of a different interpreter of becoming an American Deaf person the other day simply because I was attempting to have a conversation with her in the middle of a lecture. Apparently, a lot of deaf people do that with their interpreters and it took me a long time to warm up. I know that the professor noticed, but honestly, what could he say? :-)

After breakfast, Erika and I went to get a christmas tree, we'd spotted a temporary open air lot that had opened up on sheridan road, complete with a little caravan and a grizzled war-vet type lashing the tree to the car for us and reminding us to keep the water topped up. We got the thing decorated in one day, so along with the winter Quiet White, we got the Christmas Lights.

Peace, for tis the season.

The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. John 1:9

The end of another season

2006-11-20T22:16:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm sitting on my couch, having washed the mud off my hands and trying to wind down from a late game of football. It was probably the second most fun game I played this season, the first being the aforementioned mud-fest. The game tonight started at 9:30pm, in close to sub-zero temperatures, and it was 0-0 all the way into double OT when the opposition finally scored the golden goal. Being a playoff game, that finished it for us, not with a bang, but a whimper. Though the whimper was partly because the late game meant so few of us were up for another trip to Redmond's, our magners-on-draft-and-irish-nachos sponsors. Well, can't blame us, it was close to 11pm when we finished.

It was pointed out to me by a lovely lady recently that things had been quiet on the blog-front. I concur, and this post is in part dedicated to her. Though, in retrospect she doesn't keep a blog of her own, which makes her point moot really. Anyway, here's to Janna, middle English literature teacher extraordinaire.

I am currently blogging from a firefox plugin I discovered the other day, called 'performancing'. If you're a firefox user and a blogger, you should check it out, it saves having to keep logging in, but its not good with the pics so I'll have to log in anyway. But the pics are a bit sparse today. Being me, I forgot to take the camera tonight and so have no picture of the team in all our muddy glory. But the picture wouldn't have had Courtney (FL), Stephanie (Kenya) , Erika (Preggers), and Fernando (Jail) so perhaps it would have been severely lacking anyway.

I'm putting a couple of belated pics here just for the sake of it. About a month ago now, Chad, Erika, Emily and me went to a 'hawks game and even met Tommy the Hawk. The only highlight as our team got blanked like 4-0. Thanks to Chad for sending them to me belatedly:

It was my birthday last friday, and I was well treated to breakfast-in-bed, a dinner at Red Lobster with a Bahama-mama and accompanied by my Sugah-mama. The celebration was on saturday night and we had a joint do at Seth's (who's a few hours younger than me) with a few friends to hang, scoff pizza, and play Settlers. The Parsons, despite being new to the game, have continued their winning streak much to the despair of the Seavers. We need to pick our game up! Gladly though, it seems we've won a few more converts.

I mentioned a few posts ago that I was re-reading William Gibson, well he wrote 8 books in all, and I'm now in book No. 7. Enjoying every minute of it, I think this one, 'All Tomorrow's Parties', is probably a close second favourite , perhaps competing with 'Count Zero', to be the runner-up to 'Neuromancer'. My sister sent me a book, 'Arthur & George', the abstract reminded me of another book I read last year, called 'Dr. Strange and Mr. Norrell', which I recommend, but there's no magic in this one, seems more historically accurate (not that there's anything accurate about magic either...). Thanks Amber, I look forward to the time I have for it this weekend, in between Xbox, football and turkey.

Anyway, I'm blabbing, I think my lungs have returned to their normal capacity, g'night...

Low Blow

2006-11-07T20:35:00.000-08:00

So I'm watching SportsCenter, as any male american does, and they were talking about something that happened on Monday Night (American) Football, the video made me giggle so many times I went onto youtube.com to find it. Rest assured, within 24 hours, someone had posted the video on the site:

For the non-americans, if you watch the first few seconds after the scrimmage, you'll see a yellow flag flying, that's the 'whistle' for a penalty. Give it a few more seconds (40 to be exact) and you'll see what the penalty is.

Clubs are Trumps

2006-11-06T17:11:00.001-08:00

So, we just spent a weekend in Michigan with Erika's folks. One of her cousins got married and it was a pretty typical affair. The nicest part was getting to play cards with her family and the boring part was having nothing to read but science papers on the way home.

Here's a couple of pics. The oldies in front of Erika are her grandparents (on Pam's side). We forgot to take the camera to the reception so nothing there.

Clubs are Trumps is a euchre-style card game that involve losing your money. It mounts up in pennies and nickels and if you lose you generally end up paying anything from 30 cents to over a dollar. I think I won about a dollar and 17 cents in my first game, and lost 48 cents in my second. What I like is that they're serious about it, they'll get up and dig every penny they find that counts, like I got my two cents change from Erika for two quarters. Though I hear Chad still owes Doug :-)

I love 'That 70's Show', its the kind that would probably make your spouse roll her eyes when you stop on it while channel-browsing but the quips make me laugh. Here's a classic:

"Wow Hyde, you're serious about this, you're leaning forward, you've got your sunglasses off....you're freaking out man!"

Mud

2006-10-28T12:16:00.000-07:00

So we finally got to play a game on Monday, my local football team, because games had either been rained out or our opponents didn't show up. We did have a pick-up game when the latter happened last time and I think it helped us as a team, because we played really well on monday, won 2-0 and our resident hard-core Catalan finally scored! (Roger had been incredibly unlucky for over a year with his shots, could never seem to get the ball in the net). The best part of the game was the mud, brought back memories:

Also posted here is a picture (hard-copy) sent by my sister of my 2 year old nephew. It was a nice surprise to get the picture in the post and I've placed it in the optimal position on the bookshelf opposite our couch. Thanks Amber!

Gretchen and Adam kindly sent us some lovely flowers too, thank you!

Went shopping yesterday, on my own, decided to give Erika a break from the drudgery, especially because of you-knowwhat. Spent half an hour trying to find some sun-dried tomatoes for her meatball recipe. Got home, found out I went to the wrong store and spent about $70 more for doing so. Damn...

Congrats also to Erika for going full-time. After two years working part-time at ETHS and scrounging extra maths classes, she was offered another class last week to officially put her on the tenure-track. Yea, they do 'tenure' in high school here, weird.

Erika and I watched a good movie last night: "On a Clear Day", British, so of course it was good. I recommend it, especially to my family.

So today, we're going to a Blackhawks game, Chad is in town and tomorrow night I'm hoping to visit the Matsuokas and get blitzed by the li'l ball of energy called Koji.

2006-10-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

Well, eventual weekend, friday night, after Erika got off at the Firehouse (ya, should be the last time she works an extra job for a looong time), we went to see Tiff and Carmelo. They got married this summer. Flashback photo:

He is a master drummer from Haiti (bit of a celebrity there apparently),

playing with his band at a local restaurant.

Saturday morning we got up early to go tailgate for the NU - MSU game here in Evanston. We had breakfast burritos, bagels and Buck's Fizz, which is Mimosas to the yanks. Our friend Seth is in the Navy and we're were conveniently situated on the porch of the Navy ROTC center at Northwestern:

It was my first time in Ryan field despite being at NU for 5 years (I was wearing green by the way).
There were more fans there than I expected and yet it had a good gameday feel to it. MSU made the biggest comeback in the history of first division college american football, scoring 35 straight points in the second half to win 41-38. So it was a fantastic game! Well...not for all.

Erika and I went shopping after that. She'd been badgering me about the holes in my shoes and jeans for a few weeks, and I finally caved in on one condition: I get a nap before we shop. We ended up sleeping for an hour in car while parked at the mall. We sound like bums, but it was a good nap! Good enough for me to try on about 8 pairs of the jeans Erika threw over the dressing room door, if you know me, I kick up a fuss at having to try just one on.

I should pause here to mention my latest fad. I have a lot of favourite socks which are aging and have holes over the big toes, and though I'm not picky, I hated the thought of even having to go buy some new socks. So Erika supervised my first attempt at sewing up holes in my own socks last week and it was a success. I'm now hooked, there's something satisfying about the whole process, almost as if I'm rejuvenating clothing! Sad I know, but it's giving me something to do with my fingers other than read and be on the computer.

Anyway, after shopping we came home and just vegged. This morning a few friends, namely Andy and Stephen were running the Chicago marathon so we went to cheer them on. I'd never been to a marthon before and I must say I was impressed with the community spirit. Not only was the sight of 40,000 runners impressive, along with the huge variety of ages, sizes and nationalities, so was the spectators, there was so much cheering, yelling, flag-waving. I'm sorry to say that this is the only picture of the whole morning that I took, in Chinatown. If you squint, tilt your head to the left and look down your nose, you can just see the dancing dragons on the corner: We went to two different places, the 11 mile and 22 mile markers, and the crowd was just belting out. Many of the runners had their names on their fronts and everyone was just calling them out by name and encouraging them. I'd never dream of running 5 miles, but after seeing the community spirit of 26 miles, I feel I could be motivated to participate someday. But then on the way back, all the hobbling tired people with their green and yellow medals round the neck made me think a little more....hmm, it's a long 26 miles.

We hung out with Gretchen and Adam (mutual friends of Stephen and his wife Emily) afterwards, had lunch at Rock-Bottom (where I had part of my stag do back in summer of '03) and walked to Gretch's apartment. She's just moved back to Chi-town and is renting it from a friend of her father. It's right over Navy Pier, overlooking the lake and the loop, amazing place! Plush carpet, leather couch, all the works though the TV could do a li'l upgrading :-)

As for Erika, she seems to be managing the nausea well, she threw up for the first time last week but I don't think she'll do it often at all over the next few weeks which is good. She does spontaneously gag at times, which, if I wasn't so emotionally invested in her, I'd find incredibly amusing.

Mum and Dad are getting their vows renewed in the new year. It's been fun to hear about their preparations, as it's another mini-wedding except this time its your parents doing it. We got the invite to the reception and I have the food list posted here. Wanted my American friends to see some of the options, can anyone guess what's in 'Spotted Treacly Dick'? :-D

Neuromancer

2006-10-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading Neuromancer for the umpteenth time in my life, I picked it up again because I was reading about Gibson earlier this week. Somehow my net browsing meant that I saw some reference to him somewhere in Wikipedia and I found myself reading his own page. Did you know that a paper was published in Nature that found more mistakes in the Britannica Encyclopedia than Wikipedia? Understandably, the paper is being contested by the former, should we have a 'Best thing to do with old and redundant encyclopedias' contest?

But I digress, I was excited to find that an actual documentary about Gibson and his views on life had been made, it went to the top of my netflix list soooo fast.

*beat*

What's that?

*Sound of leaf hitting ground*

You haven't heard of William Gibson, Father of the cyberpunk genre, King of cyberspace and Visionary for virtual reality and the net?!?!? Man, forget the Wachowski brothers, he invented the Matrix 15 years before Keanue Reeves put those sunglasses on. Anyway, like I said, I just finished reading Neuromancer for the thousandth time. nuff said.

Got some left over pics from two different BBQs this august, check out Jenny's shirt:

Beginnings

2006-10-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

So, we have a new blog, its a follow-on from our successful trip blog but specifically for for all the random happenings in our lives here in Chicago, we'll save the other blog for when we go out travelling again (which will be this Christmas). A motivation for finally getting my finger out and writing is the expectancy of a new member of our family currently weighing in at 4mm: Foetus Seaver! Give him/her a round of applause ladies and gentlemen!

(Pssst, it's the little grey smear)

My parents sent us a lovely bouquet of flowers too, I'm posting a pic so they can see how beautiful it is. Thanks Mum and Dad!