Back From Alaska!

Last week we took a 10-day trip to Alaska! It was a lot of fun, but the flight with a 1-year-old riding in lap was NOT fun. Overall Ezekiel did pretty well, though. I think he had a lot of fun seeing his cousins.

Some of the things we did: Visit Potter's Marsh, where we saw a few bald eagles! (not pictured)

We drove up to Matanuska Glacier, where it was a chilly 20 degrees, plus strong wind. The babies did not have much fun at the glacier, but it was awesome to see. Thankfully, Luke and Amber had lots of warmies for us to borrow!

We participated in a family-oriented race, in which the littlest of our party shared the jog stroller.

We got snowed on in Girdwood! Ezekiel followed his cousins' lead to learn that snow can be fun!

And of course we spent some time around the house, so that Ezekiel could help his cousins explore the place.

Constantine says, "I know you're new to this whole '1-yr-old' thing, but I'm a pro. Let me show you some tricks."

Crawfish Boil

Every year Justin's parents in Cushing, Texas, host a good-old-fashioned crawfish boil. It seemed a good opportunity for Ezekiel's first trip out to Cushing, so we loaded him up for the three-hour car ride out there and hit the road. He is not a big fan of riding in cars.

I can't say I blame him. Still, Justin and I didn't let his grouchiness spoil the trip for us.

Despite his refusal to nap for more than 3o minutes of the drive out there, he was a very good sport for a big day of fun in the East-Texas sun. He enjoyed getting to see some of the beautiful scenery as we approached the Crawfish boil.

We got to meet some of Justin's friends from long ago. One such friend greeted Ezekiel by holding out a live crawfish for him to examine. After staring at it for a few minutes he decided it was safe, and reached out to touch it.

Justin's parents have a very fruitful garden. My favorite garden produce was the tomatoes! Ezekiel helped me pick a cherry tomato, which he couldn't quite figure out how to eat. I bit into it for him, and then he dropped it on the ground.

He enjoyed the opportunity to play in the dirt.

And although he was clearly very tired, he maintained a mostly cheerful demeanor- he was just so excited about all the new sights, sounds and people.

The O'Shay family home is also home to a bunch of cats, several of whom just had kittens. This shows three of about 13 kittens that were lingering around the porch.

By the time we left, we were all feeling rather tired and worn out by our long but fun day. But then again, with only one baby it could have been a lot harder; I'm imagining how I'll feel when I have a whole brood of little O'Shays to take care of.

O'Shay Visit

Last weekend Justin's parents came in for a visit. They got to "ooooh" and "aaaaah" about Ezekiel's cuteness. They also brought us some fresh, home-grown green beans and potatoes! Awesome! And although we hadn't planned this ahead of time, Kipp was able to help Justin get rid of the stinky old hot tub that came with the house!

They cut it up with a sawz-all and loaded it into Kipp's truck. Then they used a small jack-hammer to break up the concrete block underneath.

Ezekiel enjoyed playing on the porch and watching.

He is risen!

We got to celebrate Easter with our family from Alaska and Dallas. We had a great time seeing everyone! At one point while I was upstairs with Ezekiel, Titus, Apollos and Constantine, I went to go play nintendo with Titus. Apollos was playing with some K'nex, and I saw Ezekiel crawl over towards him, so I said, "Hey Apollos, can you make sure Ezekiel doesn't try to eat any of those tiny pieces?" Apollos said, "Sure! [in a super high squeaky voice:] Ezekiel, don't try to eat any of those tiny pieces." Then he went back to playing... I guess he thought I needed him to translate that into baby speak for me. He's learned that from his big sister.

Here's Ezekiel having fun with some of his Alaskan cousins:


Simon and Katrina were in town too, and they got to stay at our house with us! It was fun having them, and getting to spend some time with their kiddos.


We had a picnic at the train park. Joy helped feed Ezekiel. I think he really enjoyed that.


We did our family Easter egg hunt on Saturday. I said I wanted to put some eggs in the grass for Ezekiel to crawl around and find. The other adults laughed at me but agreed to humor me, saying, "Hannah thinks Ezekiel will crawl around and look for eggs, so we're going to leave that one in the grass." After having to call off several eager egg-hunters from picking up "Ezekiel's egg", it caught his eye and he excitedly crawled over to hit. After picking up his treasure he proceeded to play with it for quite a while. I was not disappointed!


For Easter morning we dressed Ezekiel in his nicest clothes. He did remarkably well in them! We wanted to get a picture of the three of us, but Ezekiel's patience was not sufficient.

[This is a post I wrote a while ago... I guess about a month ago. For some reason it never got posted, probably because I couldn't get my pictures to load for some reason.]

About a month ago Justin started his new job. I am happy to report that he likes it quite a lot. We're still adjusting to the new schedule, and even though he has to spend many hours away from home now, he does in fact like what he's doing. Also, having him get up and leave early each morning helps me get out of bed and get productive too. I have actually been wasting very little time lately!

I have been trying a different direction with my research lately. I had been losing interest in my current topic (having to do with matching grants in the provision of public goods). After spending about a year reading the literature and trying to find exactly what direction to take my original research, and finding nothing substantial so far, I started praying that God would give me guidance about how to proceed. Should I look for another topic? At the weekly required workshops, in which we listen to a professor from another school come talk about something they've worked on, I often found myself thinking "this seems kind of interesting. Would I be more motivated to research if I worked on this?" Then a couple of weeks ago a fellow grad student shared some topics ideas with me, said it was a good topic to be working on, and asked if I wanted to discuss ideas together. So I've put aside my boring public goods formation work for now to explore coalition formation, which at the current time seems more interesting. Hopefully I'll get some traction here.

Ezekiel is 6-1/2 months old now and he is crawling!!! It's not hands-and-knees crawling yet, but he army crawls. The other day he scooted over to me for the first time and tried climbing onto my lap. Super cute!!! I picked him up to reward him for this cute behavior. Then he started chewing on my shoulder, so I guess he was hungry. Speaking of which, he's been super hog-jaws lately. He doesn't really like baby food we try to give him, but he's going to have to start eating something else soon because I'm having a hard time keeping up with his milk consumption. Then again, as Mama observed while looking at his thighs, "he's clearly not wasting away."

I recently started giving him toys in the bath tub. It's really cute to watch him try to pick up the rubber duckie as it bobs along in the water. Sometimes he uses his plastic dinosaur to corral the duckie towards him.

Eggplant Parmesan

I recently made eggplant Parmesan. I've made it a few times, as Justin and I try to eat a meatless meal every now and then to feel healthy. I've found breading the eggplant is easier when you're well prepared: I set up an assembly line. Eggplant -> flour -> eggs -> bread crumbs -> wire rack to dry. After letting them dry for 30 minutes I'm ready to fry them in olive oil. Like almost anything frying in oil, they smell really good. Here's the yummy crispy eggplant in the pan waiting for the rest of the Parmigiana.


The tomato sauce is super easy now that I have an awesome Ninja blender/chopper/food processor/lightbulb changer. First I loaded up the stuff I need chopped super fine (garlic, parsley, basil, serrano pepper) Ninja it; then I load up the tomatoes and olives and blend it all together!
And it's so easy to clean when I'm all done! What an awesome Christmas present.

Ezekiel's favorite Christmas present is still the ribbon ball.

And he recently learned to stick his tongue out and make that sound by blowing between his tongue and his lips. How do you spell that sound?

2012 Year in Preview

Here is what we imagine our 2012 might look like:
Justin should finish his Master's degree and start his new job.


We plan to go visit Mari and Chris and Isaac in their new home in Pensacola.


This Summer we may go to a family reunion/90th birthday bash for my paternal grandfather in Colorado. We might drive.


Later in the Summer we hope to go visit Luke, Amber and the kiddos in Alaska. It will be a great time to leave Houston behind for a while!

In August we will celebrate Ezekiel's first birthday!

Though there are no specific plans yet, who knows- we may even have baby #2 on the way!