Thank you for voting for Eli

We want to thank everyone who voted for Eli in the baby photo contest the last two weeks. He did not advance to the top 25 round, but we had fun with it while it lasted. If you want to see the babies that are still in it, the website is the same: http://www.1061kissfm.com/pages/contests/baby/.

Thanks again for your time and help with the votes!

Pictures Updated

I put a new web album up titled Pumpkin Patch. Check it out!

Round 2!

Thanks to all of you who voted for Eli in the baby contest! He did make it past the cut to Round 2, which is the top 100 babies. There are still a lot of cute babies in the running, so we would appreciate you taking the time to vote again this week. The voting for this round is today, October 20th through Thursday, October 23rd.

You may vote once per email address, per computer, per day so give Eli your full support!
He sends you all a big grin and a sloppy baby kiss as a Thank You!

http://www.1061kissfm.com/pages/contests/baby/

Most Kissable Baby Contest!

We have entered Eli into a baby contest- KissFM's Most Kissable Baby Photo Contest. There are so, so many cute babies in the competition, and this first round of voting will narrow it down to the top 100, then the voting will begin again. I am asking you to visit this site: http://www.1061kissfm.com/pages/contests/baby/, smile at all the other cute babies, and scroll down to vote for Eli Noble!

To vote, click on the circle by his name, enter your email address and a confirmation will be emailed to you. Your vote will not be complete until you verify the email, so please follow through so we can count your vote! You can vote once per day, per email address, per computer so if you have more than one, please vote again but you will need to do it on a separate computer! The voting goes through 10/17, so we would love if you would vote everyday! I'll let you know if we make it to the next round and ask for your vote again at that time if we do. Eli's picture is from his 5 month photo shoot and of course he has changed so much since then, but I love that picture. We hope you are all doing well and appreciate you taking a couple of minutes of your time to help us out!

Philadelphia for Holly

Now for Holly's take on Philadelphia. Justin read that if you aren't from Philadelphia, you aren't allowed to call it Philly, so I won't.

Here is Justin with Constitution Cow in the Independence Visitor's Center. Now that's cool!

Holly with the Liberty Bell. Its smaller than I imagined it would be. It was still amazing to see and to think about the history behind it and all of the people that have had contact with it over the last 200+ years.

Having a chat with George Washington at the signing of the Constitution at Constitution Center. This was a cool room, with statues of all of the signers standing around having conversations, discussing the importance of this document and what events are about to unfold.

This is the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the site of the first Congress meetings. The head chair is actually the original, where Washington sat to preside. We heard three different times during our stay that the sunburst pattern at the top of the chair was a conundrum for Ben Franklin, as he wasn't sure if the sun was setting or rising over our new country. At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, he declared that it was in fact rising.

I enjoyed the history of the town. Our hotel was on 18th and Market, which is just a few blocks from all of these tourist attractions. We rode the Subway a few times, but mainly walked a lot. This was nice since as you read in Justin's post, the Subway system is a bit lacking in cleanliness and clarity.

I was determined to have a Philly cheesesteak, but as we didn't find any offered (besides at the little street corner vendors that were a little scary), I settled for a Philly Cheesesteak Omelette at 'Jones', a fabulous 70's rendition of a diner. Shag carpet, bowl-like chairs, tator tots on the side, you can imagine. It was great- best atmosphere in a restaurant that we found.

We also saw Betsy Ross' house, Christ Church (amazing!), Independence Hall, the Delaware River, the Quaker free Meeting House, Ben Franklin's home site and publishing/postal buildings, Elfreth's Alley (the longest continously inhabited street in America) and so much more.

If you get the chance to go, take the opportunity. Besides cool buildings and such, you can almost feel the presence of those that formed our new nation, and that gives me goose bumps!

Philadelphia

So I am sitting around the house looking at our weekend plans last Wednesday and realize that they are full of chores. Knowing no limits to my desire to rid myself of chores, I decide to pitch the idea of flying out of town at the last minute. Holly bites and we are off to the races to see where we can get too. After some complicated digging I determine that the flights to Philadelphia aren't that full, a key to flying for free! So we make last minute plans to fly Eli out to West Texas and Holly and I b-line to the north east.

I really enjoyed Philadelphia. I love American History just slightly more than Texas History. I also am an immensely proud American and love the utter genius that is our form of government. To see and hear amazing stories about our county's founding and the unexplainable success other than by divine providence, was moving. I have tons to write, but I think it would be too boring. Lets just say that after D.C., I think every American should make a pilgrimage to our nations true first capital.

One of my favorite mental games to play while I travel is the social experiment in my head of "What does this city tell me as a tourist?" Meaning, while traveling about what broad generalities can one pull about the culture of the people inhabiting this city. Below are a few of my observations about Philadelphia.

1. Just like everyone expects that every Texan owns a horse, every street corner in Philadelphia does not sell Cheesesteaks. In fact I never ate one. I never found a place, in my standard milling about, that served them except for a pizza place.

2. Philadelphia is a lot less concerned about tourists. The subway stops were not labeled to relate to local landmarks that tourists would know. For instance, if you didn't know that Independence National Park was at 2nd and Market, you would have been completely lost on the subway.

3. The competition for cab fare is extreme. We could not walk along a street longer than a minute or two (no matter the time of day) without a cab driver honking his horn at us to see if we wanted a ride. Every time we walked out of our hotel the door man asked if we needed a cab. It was genuinely odd.

4. Homelessness is crazy rampant. I was amazed the number of people sitting absolutely everywhere. Dallas has its share, but this was amazing. Not a lot of begging, surprisingly, but still very noticeable.

5. For every Starbucks, there is a Dunkin' Donuts. I mean these people must hype themselves up on this stuff constantly otherwise the economics of it wouldn't support. Suburban Station alone has two DDs and a McDonalds.

6. The subway system is a mode of transportation, not a 'gateway to the city'. It was truly a disgusting place. I really reminded my of Mexico City Metros. The cars were nasty, the stations were nasty and the street level entrances were down right scary. There has been no effort to remotely spruce anything up to make it presentable.

So I don't know what you get when you combine all of that, but I think you get a city focused on bigger issues than tourists and vagrants. Maybe they are trying to solve issues the weekend tourist cannot see or fathom. I don't know, what I do know is that it is worthy of the trip. Just do your research first!

Eli's September Update

Eli is now 9 months old! He is crawling, has pulled up to standing on the couch a couple of times, loves finger foods and is a pro at 'mamamama' and 'dadadada' but doesn't associate them with us quite yet. He is just over 21 lbs and is 28 inches long, right in the middle of the curve for his age, but his head is in the 90th percentile. I wondered why his t-shirts were all so tight getting on! We attribute that to being his father's son. Here's a snapshot of this past month.



Eli next to his bag on his first day of 'school'. He started at a daycare in Allen 3 weeks ago and is doing great there. No, Mama didn't cry, but it is hard leaving him with strangers!

This is Eli's "I'm crawling now, and am going to get into something!" look. His favorite destinations are the ficus tree (in order to eat the fake grass out of its pot) and the loose floor trim in front of the fireplace. "Yes, I hear you saying 'no' guys, but I'm pretending not to!"

Here are the boys playing "Conquer Dad" or something like that. I believe it ended with Eli plowing completely over Justin's head and going for the no-no fringe on the pillow.

Eli got his first haircut last weekend by my grandfather. PawPaw was previously a barber and does all the boys' first haircuts in our family. Eli was fine until he heard the buzzing sound and then lost it. It took Justin and I both to hold him still so he wouldn't get an ear taken off.

I know you can't see it very well here, but this is the finished product. He looks like such a big boy now! And the tears were over as quickly as they had begun. That's Eli's tears I mean. Mine started after the drama had died down and I realized that my baby was growing up.