Request for Proposal

Ain't a-gonna need this house no longer
Ain't a-gonna need this house no more
Ain't got time to fix the shingles
Ain't got time to fix the floor
Ain't got time to oil the hinges
Nor to mend the windowpane
Ain't a-gonna need this house no longer
He's a-gettin' ready to meet the saints

--- This Ole House

These pics are for our friend to look at. The corners of our concrete steps have busted out, so we are trying to determine the best way to fix it short of having to pay over $1k to replace them. The joys of buying an old(er) house.

Well, our baby...

If you're a parent, you've probably felt a bit competitive. Especially when other parents insist that their baby slept the whole night through from day one...or that their baby exited the womb already bilingual...or that their baby by the first week could dance and sing like James Cagney in "Yankee Doodle Dandy."

Luckily, we're not like that.

Recently, our almost 3 month old son Sammy (notice how we want to emphasize he was less than 3 months old at the time) was sitting on Michele's lap in the kitchen. He was watching his 10 month old cousin Ana drinking from a "sippy cup." Suddenly Sammy became very agitated with his eyes glued on Ana and her sippy cup. Sensing his desire, Michele grabbed another sippy cup, filled it with formula, and offered the cup to Sammy. He grasped the handles with both hands and pulled it towards his mouth. Michele had to guide it to his mouth (he's just a baby after all) and most of it spilled out...but that's our baby.

Our Sammy, the real thing, shows up all those Cagney wannabe's.

The Great Similac Heist

Our loot of liquid gold spiritied away from the Twin Cities.

We have finally made the transition from breast milk to formula with Sammy now (sincere apologies to La Leche). At the hospital Sammy where was born they used Similac. We would "top off" Sammy with some Similac after he drank the breast milk. So for consistency sake, we feed him Similac now.

Sammy seemed to get gas from the powdered Similac, so we resorted to the pre-made formula...which can be troublesome in the middle of the night. Once we open up one of the 32 oz. bottles we have to refrigerate the unused portion. Sammy does not look kindly on delays for nighttime feeding. So we buy the small 4oz bottles to open during the night...to avoid wasting precious time warming refrigerated formula.

Therein lays the problem. To the best of our knowledge, no store in Rochester sells these valuable bottles. The closest Babies'R'us store is currently up in the Twin Cities. Our stock ran out and last night we had no pre-made small bottles...Sammy was displeased with the wait he had to endure for warm formula.

Luckily, Sammy's Aunt Annie makes runs to all the Babies'R'us in the Twin Cities and buys their entire stock for us. Today she made a humanitarian run down to Rochester with the boxes she had cleaned out of 3 Babies'R'us in the last day.

17 boxes of Similac: $240. Gas for the trip to Rochester: $9. Avoiding Sammy's wrath: priceless.

SammyTrip2006: Great Aunt Prudy

During our Spring 2006 trip back East, little Sammy got to meet his Great Aunt Prudy, sister of Paul's mother. Sammy really enjoyed meeting her for lunch during the day and again later that night at the 50th Anniversary celebration for Paul's parents. Paul overheard Sammy whispering to Great Aunt Prudy that she's long overdue for a trip out to Rochester, MN to see him!

Great Aunt Prudy and our little Sammy

More Prom Pics....

Here's some more pics from Paul's senior prom. They were taken at his sister Anne's house.

Paul & Michele...1985 vintage

Yes...those are white sneakers he's wearing.

SammyTrip2006: Last stop, Great Uncle Joe's

The last stop we made at the end of our Spring 2006 trip was at Sammy's Great Uncle Joe's house. Uncle Joe is Paul's mother's brother. Uncle Joe didn't make it to Paul's parents' 50th Wedding Anniversary because he came down with the same kind of bug which resulted in the hospitalization of Michele's Grandparents. We intended to only briefly stop by, but willingly let our arms be twisted by Uncle Joe and Aunt Rosemary to stay for some savory steak and spend the night. Uncle Joe has had some health problems in recent years, so he's started an aggressive weight loss program. He's lost so much weigh he needs suspenders now and is looking a lot better!

Great Uncle Joe, Great Aunt Rosemary, and Sammy

Note: In the photo above is Uncle Joe's dog Teddy. He was recently attacked by a pit bull. Uncle Joe single handedly rescued Teddy who needed to have some fur shaved to stitch him back up.

SammyTrip2006: Lisa

On our way back home from our Spring 2006 trip, we stopped off in Springfield, OH to see a childhood friend of Michele's named Lisa. They lived next to each other years ago and kept in touch. Springfield is an older town with some excellent brick buildings (which we love), we'll create a post later on with some pictures of the buildings that Paul took.

Some years ago, Lisa and her family stayed at our house on their big trip out west. They have wonderful children who all have a great disposition. Every Christmas season we look forward to receiving a letter with a photo of the children. Now that we have a child ourselves we need to reciprocate.

Lisa now plans to move back to Texas in the near future once she graduates this June with her dietician degree. She has really been a great friend to Michele over the years and Ohio's loss is Texas' gain.

Sammy really took to her warm and outgoing personality. Unfortunately, we missed seeing Lisa's husband Rodney this time.

You can't see it in this pic, but Sammy really liked Lisa.

Corbin holding little Sammy.

In the front, Kaitlen, Sammy, & Kristen.

In the back Lisa, Michele, & Corbin.

SammyTrip2006: Great Grandma "D"

As we headed back west from our 2006 Spring trip, we stopped in western Pennsylvania to see Sammy's great grandmother. She's now 92 years old. She worked hard through most of her life running a neighborhood grocery store with Paul's grandfather (now deceased).

She's as tough as nails -- even a bus running over her couldn't take her out (really!). In the mid 1990's, a bus did run over her causing a compound fracture in her leg. It took a long time, but she recovered. The doctor said to Paul's father, "She's in great shape for a woman in her 70's" To which my father told the surprised doctor, she was in her late 80's. Let's hope little Sammy gets some of her long living genes.

Great Grandma clearly enjoyed meeting Sammy who is named after her son. She prefer's calling Paul's Dad and little Sammy "Samuel" so we had to be careful to use little Sammy' proper name. Paul engaged in some playful conversation with Great Grandma:

Paul: Grandma, how old are you, 79?
Grandma: No, I'm 92!
Paul: You don't look a day over 80.
[Grandma blushes]

Great Grandma "D" holds little "Samuel" for the first time.

Paul & Great Grandma "D"

SammyTrip2006: Dave, Jackie, & Max

No trip (least of all our 2006 Spring trip back east) to NJ is would be complete without seeing our good friend Dave and his family.

We've known Dave for almost 20 years now.

Paul's brother David met Dave in college. One of our fondest memories is when we saw the movie "The Gods Must be Crazy" at a cinema. The four of us went and Paul, David, and Dave were literally on the floor laughing so hard their bellies hurt afterwards. The rest of the audience didn't know what to make of it. But that is the kind of off-key humor that the three of them enjoyed...whether it was Monty Python, SCTV, or the Simpsons.

Dave eventually moved from upstate NY to NJ like we did. He married Jackie, a woman with a special touch for felines. They have a wonderful son named Maxwell -- and it was an honor for Michele when they asked her to be his Godmother.

During our visit there, we got to see how much Max has grown up in the last few years. He's exceptionally bright and very personable. He was kind enough to bring out his battery operated Thomas the Train set. Both Paul and Sammy were mesmerized. Max had several sets so the track setup took up a large living room.

Wherever Dave is, so are good eats. The first night we ate food from the Mikado Japanese restaurant. The next night we dined at one of our favorite restaurants, sadly not available in Minnesota, Friendly's. And to top it off, Dave cooked us a giant stack of tasty pancakes for breakfast.

We can't use enough superlatives to describe Dave (which he rightly deserves). He is one of the brightest, funniest, most decent people we have ever known.

Dave, Max, & Jackie.

Michele's Godson, Maxwell.

Dave, Jackie, Max, Michele, Sammy, & Paul

Sir Topham Hatt berates two workers...
...he should remember they are unionized!

Little Sammy was mesmerized by the trains!

The massive stack of tasty pancakes made by Dave.

Our good friend Dave...

...we think he should move closer to us!

SammyTrip2006: Claudine, Bill, Emma & Baby to be

While in Jersey during our Spring 2006 trip, we swung by to vist Claudine (pregnant w/baby to be...later named Miranda), Bill, and their daughter Emma. Michele met Claudine in pharmacy school (yes, yet another pharmacist). Bill is a great guy, a modern day equivalent of Thomas Jefferson -- he reads philsophy books, makes furniture using age-old techniques (yes, completely by hand), and grows a garden using heirloom seeds. Their daughter Emma is a delighful little girl who graced us with her ballet dancing.

Our visit was short (only a few hours) but it was very pleasant. While we were there, we went to the Torino Trattoria...perhaps the best Italian restaurant we've ever been to. We ate ice cream (Paul had the King Cone). Bill showed us his heirloom garden and the beautiful workbench he made from a classical design.

Claudine, Emma, and Bill

(Miranda was born after our visit)

Emma, Claudine, and little Sammy.

Emma holds little Sammy.

A highlight was when the ice cream truck came by!

Emma after eating ice cream.

SammyTrip2006: Daxa & Ashwin & Cast Iron

On our Spring 2006 trip back East, a must stop was to see our good friends Daxa and Ashwin. When Michele was going to pharmacy school, she and Daxa were part of a 4 person study group that stuck together through the entire undergraduate program (one of the 4, Mark, lives in Rochester MN near us). When Michele returned to NJ to get her PharmD degree, Daxa went with her at the same time. Ashwin is also a Pharmacist too (as are a good number of our friends). We occasionally go on vacation with them.

When we arrived, we were greeted with a sumptuous dinner of -- what else-- Paul's favorite dish chicken parmigiana. Daxa dazzled us with her cooking skills the whole time we were there. They have a lovely house in a nice area. The fourth study mate, Sheila came out and visited with us at Daxa's. Later Daxa and Ashwin took us to a local outlet mall which has a le Creuset store. We were able to buy Michele the massively large cast iron Dutch Oven she's always wanted (in red). As a result, we had to rebalance the load in the car to accommodate the heft of the purchase, but we hope it leads to good eats in the future.

It's always a pleasure to visit or go on vacation with Daxa and Ashwin. Daxa always impresses us with her success climbing the ladder in the pharaceutical corporate world. Ashwin and Paul are both ardent fans of the NY Yankees and got to catch part of a game on tv while we were there.

We hope to see them again soon!

Daxa and little Sammy.

Ashwin and Little Sammy.

SammyTrip2006: Back to Jersey

Part of our Spring 2006 trip back East was to visit friends we made when we lived in New Jersey. We lived there for most of the 1990's in two places that we rented. One was in the "hood" and the other was in a nice neighborhood with a landlady who lived in the other side of the duplex.

We never took pictures of where we lived when we lived there, so we took a few quick photo's in case little Sammy ever wondered years from now what it was like.

We had so many adventures at both places it could fill an entire blog by itself...such as Paul's epic hand to hand battles with mice (really) and when 3 five year-olds tried to shake down Michele for money (really!).

Our first apartment was 600 square feet. The rent (in the early 90s) was $700 a month -- heat included. The only thing was that you had an on/off switch for a thermostat. The only way you'd get heat was if you turned the switch on and they decided to turn on the boiler. We lived there for 3 years. The tenants down stairs were a Cuban guy and a redheaded wife. So we called ourselves the Mertzes. As time went on the neighborhood started to get rougher (with very tough 5 year-olds for example), so we moved.

The second place we rented was 1/2 of a duplex in the same city, but a better location (near a Mediterranean bakery!). Rent was $800 a month in the mid-to-late 90s which was a bargain since something that large would typically cost $1200 a month back then! Peggy (the owner) lived on the other side. She was extremely friendly and took care of the outside. It was like we had our own groundskeeper. She was a great landlord.

The "hood" where we first lived...
...in the upper right hand apartment.

This is where we rented the right hand side...
...from Peggy who lived on the other side.

SammyTrip2006: Plattsburgh Wedding & The Art of Feng Shui

Paul's niece was getting married up in Plattsburgh NY, so we planned on attending as part of our Spring 2006 trip back east. Unfortunately, Michele's grandparents continued to have health problems, so just Paul went to the wedding and she and Sammy went back down to Mount Upton. Being away from Michele is awfully hard on Paul, so although he put on his best happy face, things are just not fun for him unless Michele is with him.

Weddings always produce interesting conversations at the reception. At the dinner table, Paul's brother was telling him about how he and his sons were taking TaeKwonDo lessons. Another relative upon overhearing this started talking about how he has a black belt in it and started to explain the nuances of the different fighting styles. Paul is more of a follower of the Feng Shui method of self-defense...prefering to arrange large pieces of furniture like bureaus and wardrobes between him and agressors.

Here's a pic of Paul's familyn at the reception.
In front are his parents.
In the back from left to right are
Diane, Paul, Anne, and David (not in order by age).

Blast from the Past...1984

This picture was taken outside Stonhedge Nursing Home in Rome NY during the holidays in 1984. Our youth group had gone there to do something for the residents. Since we went to different schools which competed in sports, Michele wore a button for Paul's school and he one for hers. Talk about 1980's hair? But for some reason, this is one of Paul's favorites!

We were so stylish back then...really!

Michele (age 16) and Paul (age 17)

Blast from the Past...1982

October 23, 1982...that was our first date. It was the fall semi-formal at Paul's school. Paul met Michele at the Christain Youth Organization (CYO) at our church. Paul was smitten at first sight. Finally, Paul developed enough courage to ask Michele on a date. Well, it took him 45 minutes on the phone to finally ask her. And Michele promptly took two weeks to decide!

24 years ago! Back then Michele was 14 and Paul was 15.

Notice how Paul knows how to put the moves on...
...could we stand any further apart...
...and be in the same pic?
(Picture taken at Paul's Parents)

Bad Camera angle, but at least Paul closed the physical gap!
(anybody recognize which Robert Wood painting is behind us?)

This was a picture taken by Cyndy Manglapus at the dance...
...with one of those Kodak Disc cameras...
...(remember those?)...
...Paul likes to think his arm was around Michele...
...but he didn't even get to hold hands that night!

Blast from the Past....1985

1985 seems so long ago. We were teenagers. Paul had more hair and weighed a lot less. But Michele was as lovely as ever.

Below is a picture of Paul's senior prom that they went to. The prom was at the Griffiss Air Force Base officer's club. The theme song was Bryan Adam's "Heaven"...which we danced to at our wedding 17 years later! Paul drove his parents 1979 green Mercury Monarch (which he spent all day waxing). Michele asked Paul how he'd like her hair for the prom. He said, "Keep it long." She went and had most of it cut off (relatively...remember, this was the 80's). But when Paul saw her in her gown, his heart stopped.

Michele may disagree, but Paul feels that he likes her hair best like that. If he could just get her to cut it that way now...

But in any event, Michele keeps growing more beautiful every year.

Michele (age 17) and Paul (age 18)

More Prom pics here...

SammyTrip2006: Grandma & Grandpa "D"

A big part of our Spring 2006 trip back home was to attend the 50th Wedding Anniversary of Paul's parents. They both met while working at the Air Force research lab then known as Rome Air Developmental Center. Aside from having spent a few years away in the Army, they spent almost all their married years in Rome, NY.

Mom & Dad "D" raised four children and always put them first. For example, when our little Sammy was born, they came and spent a month with us helping out. That's the kind of people they are. Family comes first.

Paul's parents at St. Paul's Church
after they renewed their vows.

Mom & Dad renewing their vows at St. Paul's Churh.

Paul's Mom & Dad

SammyTrip2006: The Godfather and Eggplant Parmigiana

"And I hope their first child be a masculine child. I pledge my ever-ending loyalty." -Luca Brasi, The GodFather

During our Spring trip 2006, Little Sammy got to meet his Great Uncle Andy...who is incidentally his Godfather (really...we are Roman Catholic). Although "Don Andrew" is not Sicilian (Sammy is by 1/4), he is a wonderful Godfather. Great Aunt Diana had offered to make us eggplant parmigiania...which Don Andrew attempted to get it changed to chicken parmigiana. Unfortunately he was not able to make her an offer she couldn't refuse. Even more unfortunately, Great Grandma & Grandpa Marks both took ill and needed hospitalization, which resulted in a raincheck on any parmigiana.

In any event, Don Andrew showed his calming influence when he took a fussing Sammy into his arms...and Sammy immediately fell asleep. Here is a pic of Sammy being calmed by Don Andrew (unfortunately, Paul screwed up and we have no photo of Aunt Diana w/Sammy):

Sammy shows his Godfather...

...his Brando impersonation.

SammyTrip2006: Aunts & Uncles Come Calling

Paul was a bit lazy with the camera at first, so he missed getting photos of all Michele's Aunts and Uncles holding little Sammy for the first time during our 2006 Spring trip. But as time went on he improved. We're hoping to get some images from relatives (please send to Sammy's Aunt Sharon), but here are some of the few that Paul managed to get while we were staying at Great Grandma & Grandpa Marks'.

Sammy is comforted by Great Aunt Ruthie

We have no idea how this picture is possible...

...Sammy *not* smiling...

...when held by Great Uncle John?

Impossible!

SammyTrip2006: Uncle Paulie

Few people have a way with children as Michele's brother Paul. It's a gift, his ability to connect with children. So it's only natural that during our Spring 2006 trip back East, little Sammy immediately took to his Uncle Paulie.

Sammy sure is glad to meet his Uncle Paul

Uncle Paul & Sammy napping.