The Evelyn doll

The resemblance is uncanny.

The mold is still intact

As I was going through my pictures, looking for blog material, I cam across the following photos. I know I have said it many times before, but it is amazing how much they look alike... even after 5 months.

Going to the movies (April 3rd)

The first week of April Ian and I had a mother/son day out. We did some errands, had lunch, and went to see How to Train Your Dragon, which was AWESOME!

Our errand consisted of getting Ian a haircut at Snippits. With each haircut he has become more and more resistant to the idea, and at this one there were almost tears. The next time we go I have a feeling I will be holding him in the chair. The woman was very good, however, and we were in and out in under 10 minutes.

Lunch was pizza at "Pizza Planet" which is what Ian calls Uno's Chicago Bar and Grille. It took me a while to realize that Pizza Planet is the Chucky Cheese like restaurant in Toy Story 1.

The great thing about Uno's is that one of the kids meals is "make your own pizza." They bring out a pizza flatbread, a bowl of sauce, a bowl of cheese, and a plastic apron and the kids get to put all the ingredients together. Then they cook it and bring it back. Ian is crazy for this -- every day he asks to go to pizza planet.

The movie was fun. It wasn't too scary or too loud, and we only had to miss a little bit when we took a potty break. Ian loved the popcorn and soda and really enjoyed the movie. He as overjoyed the next week when he got a Toothless toy in his McDonald's Happy Meal.

We had such a great time that JD has already reserved Shrek 4 as his father/son movie outing.

Erin visits!!! (March 27)

Going back in time a bit...

In March we had a wonderful thing happen -- Erin came to visit! We haven't seen her for 10 years, which means the last time we saw her she was Ian's age (and SO cute)!

It was a little weird to reconcile that tiny little girl with the blond curls with the very mature and self-possessed young woman she has become. She was confident, friendly, and had a great sense of humor. Now that I've met a grown-up Jeremy and a grown-up Erin I have to say -- RJ has done a great job and raised some really great kids. I can't wait to see Alex!

Jacque tasked us with coming up with something to do on Sat. and I chose the aquarium. Oddly enough I do not think I have ever been to the aquarium -- not even on a school field trip -- and I've been wanting to take Ian for the last 4 years.

We had several adventures that day. The first was introducing Jacque to her new phone (we got her a droid). The second was trying to catch the train into Boston. We were sure we were going to miss it and ran the whole way from Granma's house. We then proceeded to wait 40 minutes for the train because someone *stares at JD* read the schedule wrong.

When we got into Boston we had pizza at South Station -- the best pizza I've had in a long time -- and picked up some sweets at another one of the south station vendors.

Then came the T adventure. It took us about 1/2 an hour to figure out how to buy a Charlie card and another slightly stressful 1/2 hour trying to get on the right trains to bring us to the Aquarium. There was also a LOT of stairs that we had to carry the stroller up and down. JD and I burned off a lot of that pizza.

When we finally emerged in front of the aquarium it was to the sight of a MASSIVE line for tickets. Half of Boston must have decided to go to the aquarium that day. It was starting to look like another one of my brilliant ideas.

Things got better when we got in the aquarium -- it was crowded, but not impossibly so, and the sight of the four story tank was well worth it. Ian had a great time. He especially liked the shark.

My camera was still lost at this point so I used my cell phone camera (which is why the pictures are a bit blurry). I am definitely going back sometime with my new camera.

After we had seen everything in the aquarium we went to Fanueil Hall for dinner. It was also extremely crowded -- but that is part of the Fanueil Hall experience. We made our way back to the T, successfully purchased more Charlie cards, and even found an elevator.

I am interested to know what Erin thought of the whole experience. She took our chaos and confusion in stride but I am sure she had some stories to bring back to RJ and family. :)

The clean condo

I've been MIA recently for a few reasons.

Reason 1: My wonderful beautiful little camera, that I loved so much, disappeared. Have I mentioned this before? I think I must have... a couple times... because look what appeared in my mailbox a couple of days ago!

An overly innocent mother mentioned that I should be receiving "something" in the mail.

I almost died when I saw what it was.

I immediately took several pictures before realizing there was no memory card. Nooooooooooooooooooo!

So then I went to Target, got a memory card, and took a few more pictures.

This camera is even smaller and cuter than my old camera and it is BRIGHT blue so should be easily spottable from wherever I might put it down.

Just to compare, here is the camera I have been using for the last few weeks (it 5 mega pixels vs. the new one which is 10 mega pixels):

So now that one can go back to peaceful retirement, thank goodness. :)

So, camera luv aside, here is...

Reason 2: We have been cleaning and packing and cleaning and packing in an attempt to make our condo showable. I put together another blog to show off the results.

http://www.41chatham.blogspot.com/

Upon sending out an email about the condo site I received the following comments:

From Mom: My God! When I said to keep personal items out of the picture I didn't think you would completely empty the place out! If you mean to keep it clean, does that mean live with no furniture? What did you do with all the computer things? Oh Geez! Amazing, what a job.

From Mims: Where did all your stuff go? I have never seen it so clean!

From Hill: Yeah for creative writing!!!!! You could become a real-estate agent!!! (OK this part is a little mean) OMG! That's the CLEANEST I have EVER seen your house - you mean business!!!

From Papa: Ok Hanna, what did you do with all your stuff? You must have moved it from room to room.... (!) Good luck with the sale. do you have another place under raps? Papa.

Can you tell that I might be a teensy weensy bit of a slob? *grin* And maybe, just maybe, I might have a bit of packratism.

When I took those pictures we were definitely depending on the magic of camera angles, but since then we have actually moved enough into the storage unit that it is almost possible to keep it clean on a daily basis (if only we didn't have to do laundry).

We also went and contacted a realtor to sell the condo, and today JD gave him the keys. We have a realtor to buy a new place and are actually going to go look at one this weekend. In addition, I've put together a little flyer to send around to the owners. Hopefully all this will come together and result in us, living in an actual house, by this time next year.

And just because I can, here is some more new camera luv:

Mourning for the camera

Pondering...

This camera

Unfortunately it has to wait until after taxes, house stuff, and April birthdays before I can think of saving up for it. I have pathetically few pictures of March due to the loss of my other camera, which is still MIA.

Hmmmmm...