Geez...try to give the new kid a week in the spotlight and catch flack about a lack of blog update. I'll remember this when I'm being teased for the disparity in the number of photos of my children.

We had a busy busy weekend, with a trip to Great Grandma and Grandpa's, a 5K walk, a basement clean-up project, and of course, our seventh anniversary. John's whole family got together Saturday in Chariton, Iowa, home of his grandparents and about a two-hour drive from here. Edward was a champion road tripper--sleeping for about 45 minutes on the way there, just long enough to give him the energy boost he needed to stay up two hours past his normal nap time. The rest of the time on the road he was eagerly looking for trucks, buses, tractors and other vehicles--basically just an extension of our daily car trips, but on a much larger scale. We never see THAT many trucks on the way to daycare, although we do pass a construction site with TWO cranes on the way home. And I have to tell you, this never loses it's luster. Another thing about driving with Edward is that once he sees a truck or a bus or other vehicle and it drives away or we turn, he asks for "more bus?" "more truck?" as if I can simply conjure another for his viewing pleasure.

Anyway, we had a really nice family visit--the first since Easter--and Edward had fun playing with (or more like, near) his cousins. Here you see him outside where he discovered the hilarity of tipping over a goose lawn ornament. Just as long as he never tries that with the real thing! He also acquired a Halloween gift basket on this trip, courtesy of John's aunt. While he loved the contents, it was the outer package that most captured his fancy. "Pumpkin" is one of his latest words (though most people would probably require translation to know that's what he was saying--it sounds more like "pum-po" which is a little like his word for "purple.") We were quite tired after our day trip, so we were content to let Edward run around with his "pum-po" as entertainment as long as he wanted.

This weekend's near-record heat was in stark contrast to seven years ago when we actually had snow late in the evening on Oct. 7. This difference was not lost on our many well-wishers. We ended the day with a nice dinner out and an ice cream treat, which we felt we doubly deserved after our day of mutual labor. Mine was a 5K fundraiser for the local schools (walking with Ed in the stroller and two friends for company.) John's was the next stage of our basement clean-up after two heavy rains this spring/summer produced our first basement water in five years of homeownership. It's a labor intensive project that we hope will mitigate the problem in the future, or at least demonstrate to potential buyers next spring that we have taken steps to spare them the hassle. Unfortunately, due to the extreme heat, we had the air conditioning on (in October? Crazy!) so the house got a bit fume-y from the oil based wall paint. Luckily the heat broke on Monday and we've had cool breezes blowing through ever since.

And finally, here's a shot that's about two weeks old (shock!) of one of Ed's current hobbies (a.k.a. time-killers.) He can reach these pans in the drawer under the oven, but they're too bulky/heavy to carry more than one at a time, so it takes quite a while to remove them individually, carry them to wherever a path is needed and then lay them all out in a row. This of course is immediately followed by carrying them back to the drawer one by one and starting all over again.