Picking pumpkins

All of us at the pumpkin patch, and the pumpkin Tyler picked out.

And Tyler crawling down the hall.

Just a couple pictures to show how much he has changed.  Now that he's crawling, he can't stop moving!

Seven months

Tyler is seven months now.  And he's crawling!  He is growing up so fast.

He's starting to feed himself.

And he's got three teeth, which you can kind of see in this photo.

And he absolutely loves it when Mommy goes through her coupons!

Six months

Monkey is 6 months now, and still laughing a lot.  That is, until we call or Skype someone...then he just stares.  He's definitely his father's son.

His hair was getting crazy long, so I gave him his first haircut.  It was an experience.  Here's a little before and after...

Tyler in his jumper. A most useful gift from his beloved Aunt Marissa.

Five months

Tyler is five months now.  He's consistently around 90th percentile for everything.  He's a big baby!  We finally got a highchair, so last night, he had his first meal in it.  He seemed to like it, and it was a lot easier to feed him and clean up afterwards. 

Norfolk

While Aunt Marissa was here, we also went to Norfolk, VA.  Matt and I had been before, but a friend of ours is married to an enlisted sailor who just got back from deployment.  When they asked if we'd like to come down to hang out with them and get a tour of the Ike?  We said heck yeah!  None of us had ever been on a carrier before, and this was a rare opportunity to get to see all the Flag areas.  Needless to say, we had another great trip!

The meeting room

Part of the Admiral's office

Our tour guide, Chris, at his station.

Marissa was really happy to see that laminator

Our little group on another meeting room

All the ordnance fired and who fired them.

Our friend, Kristen, sitting in the Captain's office chair

Marissa in the Admiral's chair, overlooking the flight deck

Our turn in the Admiral's chair!

The view from the Admiral's chair

And one more person to hop in the chair

The view from the Ike.  The carrier you can see to the right is the George H. W. Bush.

Ha ha!

Okay, seriously now.

The Island

Chris giving us more information. 
And yeah, we're just standing out on the flight deck looking for B-1-RDs and CGU-11s.

Front view of the Island

A mural at the Quarterdeck

Dead baby afloat!  This is also on the Quarterdeck.  We were getting ready to leave, and Tyler had passed out.

After the tour, we went to the World's Largest Nex where Marissa found the World's largest Rice Krispies treat

The view from our hotel the second night.  This is in Portsmouth, where the Navy ships get repaired.

Kristen and I at Busch Gardens.  Since we were down at Norfolk, what the heck, right?  One more thing off my bucket list!

Right before Marissa had to leave, she and Tyler had a minute to say goodbye.

Another great trip!  We had lots of fun with Marissa, and miss her terribly.  Especially Tyler!

New York City!

A lot has happened since we posted.  Marissa came up to visit, and we took two trips.  The first was to New York City!  Since it's in my liberty zone, we had been wanting to go since we got here, but it just never worked out. But it worked out this time!

We hopped a train to NYC, which was a lot of fun.  Quality of life on a train is so much better than on a flight!

Once we arrived, we took the subway to Times Square.  Walked down Broadway, and checked out the theater district.

The escalator in the Disney Store

Yeah, you saw that right. Bubba Gump Shrimp! After seeing this, we were constantly listing all the ways to cook shrimp!

Then we went to Ground Zero to check out the Memorial there.

This is the location of the South Tower.  There was another one like this where the North Tower stood.

This is the tree that survived the attack and collapse.

Since we were at the southern tip of Manhattan at this point, we took the Staten Island Ferry so we could check out the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  On the way back, we also got some great pics of the NY skyline.

Then we went to our hotel.  We had a great view!  Right outside our window was the Empire State Building, and just behind that was the Chrysler Building (which I think is much prettier).

And because this was the craziest parking garage we've ever seen!

 A great trip! We were only there a weekend, but we had a blast!  Saw a great show, and got to experience some of NYC. But we were very happy to get home to Baby T.