Fletcher Warhol

Okay - it's Laura's birthday tomorrow - here's a sneak preview of her birthday present...

See? Bri and Dave aren't the only artsy ones...

Happy Birthday babe!!

Okay, I admit it...

...I'm freakishly large. But I would swear on a stack of Bibles that nobody larger than an Oompa Loompa would fit in the front seat of the Subaru with that new car seat behind it. There is absolutely no way within this time space continuum that I'm going to be able to shoehorn myself into the passenger seat of the car. Here's the only solution I can think of...

..."Paging Dr Who... Dr Who to the Tardis please."

Remember the Tardis? That amazing space/time travel machine from the 70's and 80's that was an unassuming police box on the outside, but was opulent and spacious inside. It was even the color of the Subaru!!

Here's the inside...

we need this option for the next vehicle... which in true Tardis fashion, will remain stuck in the appearance of a minivan, but be a cool SUV, or even a sports car on the inside. But have a beverage cooler and maybe a DVD player. hmm, maybe that won't be so bad.

Safe travels, whatever dimension they may be in...

Speaking of interesting stuff...

...that's been happening around here, a few weeks ago we went to the Nashville BBQ festival. We agreed that it was a little light on the BBQ, but had plenty of festival.

In a rare, non-humid evening, we had a wonderful time sitting outside and hanging out with the Kennedys. Even the parking situation was pleasant as we found free spots at LP Field and walked across the Shelby street pedestrian bridge.

Craig designed this new building - I thought this was a cool shot...

Here We Go....

...Steelers? Titans?? It depends who you ask!

Laura, Fletcher and I joined the Kennedys tonight for an NFL kickoff party. Kim whipped up some awesome homemade pizzas (barbeque chicken and buffalo chicken)... oh, and then she topped it all off with homemade ice cream. Phew. I'm stuffed.

Fletch & Laura suited up in Black and gold. In fact, he even wore the outfit to school today. I'm surprised that they fed him...

Congratulations Dr. Spencer!

Congrats to Beth on successfully defending her dissertation entitled "Part term word learning in low SES children". Or something like that... After numerous frustrations (typical of these things, trust me) Beth managed to convince her committee that she deserved to graduate. We were convinced all along.

Unfortunately, this accomplishment closes a very happy chapter in our lives, as Beth will be moving to Columbus, OH to start a very prestigious post-doc at 'THE' Ohio State University. She will be working at the Schauenbaum Center, in the area of word and language learning in the low SES child population. We have no doubt that we'll always be close friends, but will dearly miss hanging out on the weekends, ducking to the office next door for an opinion on a study design, grazing at Costco on saturday mornings, playing with the dogs, running sewer pipe, installing siding, painting... I'm detecting a sweat equity issue here, I'd better cut this off... In summary -

Good Luck Beth!! We'll miss you!

Shots!!!

Fletch visited Dr Walters yesterday for his 4 month check up - here are the stats...

-Height- 85th Percentile

-Weight 60th Percentile

-Head Circumference - 85th Percentile

The innoculations elicited screams of an unprecedented fury. These screams were the equivalent of nuclear weapons. Unbelievable. Fortunately, the sound and fury signified nothing. By the time we got downstairs, he was back to his old happy self.

Baby Thudd

Here's a pic of Alastair shamelessly stolen from the Baby Thudd website!

A Welcome to the Family Notice

Laura, Fletcher and I extend our congratulations to Steve and Sarah Thornton-Budd (Thudd) on the safe arrival of their son Alastair Peter Thornton-Budd. Mom, Dad and Baby are reportedly doing well!

Cheeseburger in Paradise

Laura and I were taking a break from working around the house on Saturday and playing with Fletcher. We were watching a DVD of pictures taken on a patient/friend's sailboat while sailing in the Gulf. The pictures were set to music, and when "Cheeseburger in Paradise" came on, Fletch just lit up! Check out the video below. Hopefully it's not a giant file -

Summertime In Nashville

Lots of things have happened since we last posted... hmm, where to start?

Soon after our last posting congratulating the Kennedys we traveled to Memphis, TN for our Green Card interview. After all of the mental buildup, then entire process took about 20 minutes. My favorite part was "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of a terrorist organization?" I was pleased to be able to answer honestly with "NO", but was more than a little perplexed about whether the Feds really think that anybody is going to say, "Okay, you got me. I've spent ten years developing my cover, vacations in the desert training for the big day, and geez, if anybody had just asked me this sooner, I'd be in Gitmo for sure!!". Weird. That said, there were lots of good questions, and despite the fact that Laura said that we had met in May of 2009, they gave us the all clear, so now I can stay here!!

A few weeks later, Laura and Fletcher flew up to Pittsburgh to spend the week in Connellsville with Grandma and Granddad Ivey. Sounds like they had a good time. I spent the week running subjects and working, and hopped in the car with Henry a few days later and drove up. We had an uneventful trip and enjoyed a day or so at the river house before hopping in the car and driving to Mississauga to visit Nana and Didi Dundas. Great Grandma Dundas (We call her Gigi) was very excited to meet the Fletchman.

Travel plans being flexible, we made a last second decision to head to Goderich Ontario to visit Pete, Sara and Avery Kendall at their cottage on the shore of lake Huron.

The weather wasn't ideal, but we enjoyed hanging out, and even tried to take Pete's new sailboard out for a spin. The wind wasn't quite strong enough to really rip it, but at least we know that the thing still works. It amazes me to think that I'd had that sailboard for almost 20 years! I'm sure that it's more than a little bit archaic as far as windsurfing technology goes!!

Mom and Dad Dundas threw a big Canada Day party on July 1st, and we were lucky enough to have most of the family (Sue and John Budd, Steve and Sarah Thudd, Chris and Tara, Mike, and of course, Gigi) come over, as well as Pete, Sara and Avery, Owen, Dom, Parker, Chase, Gerry and Lucille, and Rebecca and Andy Shibby. It was a great afternoon/evening. It was the first time in my memory that there were 4 generations of Dundas'es' in the same place at the same time.

We then headed back down to PA for Independence day and enjoyed the traditional 4th of July picnic that the Iveys throw each year. A large crowd of family and friends gathered for a fun day of games, food and fun. And beer. Lots of beer. It would be Un-American to not have so much beer. I defended my 3-legged race title from last year with yet another Sandusky - Matt and I crushed Pat and Britney. Maybe we should play the Turkeybowl as three-legged teams this year....

Sunday the 5th, John and Nina organized a family float trip down the river to Phil's Nite Club and beyond. Fletcher stayed with John during the first half, then came down to visit us at the bar for pizza, wings and beer. Drew took him back to the house, while Laura and Emilie continued down to Adelaide. Fletcher, Frank, Linda, Judy, Jenny and I played music all afternoon - working on a few favorite tunes - "Folsom Prison Blues" and a contemporary worship song that Linda was learning for church. She's really rocking out the Bass these days - Frank and I were teaching her to walk between chords for that Geddy Lee sound. Okay, mostly it was Frank.

We headed back to Nashville and had an uneventful drive - Fletcher was awesome in the car as usual, and with a minimum of stops to feed him and run Henry, we made it back home in time to start work.

I think I'll finish this post off and come back a bit later with more... somebody wants a little attention :)

Congrats to Kim and Craig...

... on the safe arrival of Brynn Simmons K. A healthy baby girl, weighing in at 7lbs, 9oz. Mom, Dad and Big sister are doing well...

So much for freedom of the press

So I've been studying for my Green Card interview...The first amendment to the US constitution guarantees the freedom of the press. Apparently the founding fathers never met my wife. After posting the last writeup on our weekend with Nate and Bri, she started bugging me to change things... "I don't like this picture of me." and "We didn't go there... that was with my mom and dad.", "Will you put up a better picture here? I don't want a picture of my fat pasty self"

Next it'll be "Eat your broccoli, you love broccoli." Sheesh.

Watch out, Americuh, Big Brother (Sister) is alive and well!

:)

Good Times Come to Nashville.

We were lucky to have more visitors last weekend as Nate and Bri flew in for a few days. Bri brought along her photo gear, which of course resulted in a multitude of awesome pictures of Fletcher, Laura and Henry. Her photoshop powers will be severely tested, however, making me look more like a combination of Brad Pitt, Daniel Craig and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.




Weekend fun included a trip to the Yazoo Brewery - a local legend for delicious and effective beers. Check them out at http://www.yazoobrew.com/



Yazoo is located in an old car factory called the Marathon Motor works building. Marathon built cars in Nashville that were considered to be superior to the competition in the period leading up to WWI. Apparently, however, the managers were the same guys who now run GM, as they went under as quality slipped, market share shrank, and production technologies outgrew them. Also similar to GM, there seems to be a great nostalgia for this problem plagued product... weird.




Anyway, the brewery is in a very cool building, and there is a taproom and beer garden (courtyard) where you can sample the wares during selected hours. We took Fletcher on his first Brewery tour on Saturday. The tour guide thought it was pretty cool to have a baby in a Bjorn learning about beer. I'm still not sure how I feel about that...





It seems that Nate and Bri enjoyed hanging out with Fletch. Bri continued giggling even as she was drenched in spitup from shoulder to the toes of her right foot... an event that inspired Nate compose one of his trademark original musical hits, "The purple burpasaurus". Fletcher enjoyed that one a lot!


Beth came over to hang out and have dinner on Saturday, and helped Laura and Bri prepare a delicious dinner of shredded beef tacos, some sort of corn salsa and Kim Kennedy's famous spicy pineapple 'vegetable'. It seems that Laura misjudged the type of hot peppers to add, however, as my face melted off when I ate it, which has never happened when Kim made it. (Food promo shots unashamedly stolen from Bri)







Sunday we managed to squeeze a fair bit of work into a busy (and hot) day. Drew scraped and painted a soffit and finished up some cedar shingle work while Fletcher, Laura, Nate and Bri headed to Star Bagel for breakfast then coffee sipping shopping for used books and assorted baby parephenalia at such favorites as 'Target', 'Costco' and 'McKays'. Since I'm always working, I hear talk of these places, but forget what they are actually all about. Ask Laura. She makes the money, she spends the money. It's only fair.


After cleaning the paint debris up, (and cleaning Drew up), we headed to the Rosepepper Cantina for a late lunch. After sampling delicious Sonoran cuisine, Bri had a big smile on her face and headed for the airport in good spirits.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Fletcher and Drew were enjoying some quality time on the deck...



Then we thought that we'd have some Key Lime Pie, 'a la Bri'

A strictly pictures post...

...is all I have time for.

Okay, maybe a little bit of editorial. Here's the first bath at home.

Henry says, "Dude, How come you get your own sheep? Do you have any idea much work it takes to catch one of those yourself? Sheesh..."

Big brothers are so much more fuzzy and comfortable than dads...

I wonder if we can save on daycare this way?? hmm.

Laura Says....

... that Fletcher's fans want another post.

Well, here goes. The day started early for the little guy as we dumped him into the open arms of Nana Dundas at 6 am, so that Laura and I could sleep. We snoozed in peace until almost 9am after being up for a good chunk of the night. Seems that we've produced a nocturnal infant (I think that he takes after Grandad John, who seems to be able to fall asleep anywhere, anytime.)

Fletcher is working on his reputation of being a ladies' man, as he was swarmed by four eligible (okay, three eligible - sorry Raz) young ladies clad in their post-music city marathon sundress finery). It has not yet been ascertained whether post race celebratory alcohol was involved in the attention.

Pics to follow-

We're Heading Home...

...soon. Supposedly.

Fletcher was checked out by his pediatrician, Dr. Walters, and Laura was checked out by an OB, so we have the green light to take the little guy home.

Fletcher is a little on the yellow side today, but Dr. Walters thinks that the jaundice should start clearing up as he gets more breastmilk through him. He's not quite a hyper-bili baby, so there's no need for the bili-blanket or bili-light yet. I think that we'll just spend some time out on the deck this afternoon soaking up some rays. That'll help.

Well, it's time to get some stuff out to the car, and the infant seat in here for fitting (Thanks again, Kim and Doug), so I'd better get moving.

He's Here!!!

We were proud and excited to welcome Fletcher William Dundas April 14th, 2009 at 12:54pm. Fletcher weighed in at a healthy 8 pounds, 3 ounces, and measured 21 inches from head to toe.

Laura is doing great. She made it through her surgery without any complications, and is resting comfortably.

Grandma and Grandad Ivey were here in Nashville for the birth and have taken lots of pictures. We'll try to post a few of them over the next few days and will do our best to keep you updated as we get ready to head home and get into a routine with eating, sleeping, and all that baby stuff. We should mention that Fletcher and Nina share a birthday! What are the chances? (actually, about 1 in 365.25, but still pretty darn cool.)

Big brother Henry was very interested in sniffing Fletcher's blankets and tells me that he's looking forward to their introduction. At least, that's what I think the madly wagging tail meant...

Thanks for all of your visits, flowers, emails, texts and phone calls. We truly appreciate being in your thoughts. We'll keep posting if you keep reading!