Cruise Vacation

During the first week of September, Rina and I took our third cruise. In the past, we’ve flown to Ft. Lauderdale and sailed to the Caribbean. This time, we found a ship leaving from Baltimore, so we took advantage. A long summary post follows.

New Addition

A couple of months ago, I mentioned that we were planning to have a new addition put onto our house. As it turns out, that’s not the only new addition coming up in our lives.

Rina and I are happy to announce that our family will also be gaining a new addition at the end of February. We welcome you to follow along with his/her progress here.

Diet Update

I hadn’t mentioned Weight Watchers in a while, but given I hit a milestone yesterday, it seemed appropriate to do so. Since starting on May 13th, a little over 3 months ago, I’ve now lost 25 pounds. Weightwatchers.com even gave me a little graphic star for a reward. If little graphical stars aren’t motivation, I don’t know what is.

TV: What I Want, When I Want It

At the house, we’ve been subscribed to satellite television, specifically Dish Network, for a couple of years now. We switched from Comcast cable due to their ever-rising costs. Now, for television, we pay half of what we were with Comcast. Recently, I’d been looking at upgrading the experience even more, through the power of DVR. Two weeks ago, we took the plunge and got it.

Farmers Market

I’ve been wanting to check out the Wheaton Farmer’s Market for some time now. Every Sunday morning between June and October. So today, lured by the promise of farm fresh produce that originated in Maryland, not Peru, we ventured out into the heat and traffic of downtown Wheaton to check it out.

Gunpowder Falls State Park

On Sunday, Rina and I hung out with our friends Netanel and Sharon and their twin children at Gunpowder Falls State Park.

Quietness

Life has quieted down a little bit lately. Stuff going on behind the scenes, but nothing worth mentioning. One might argue the stuff I’m about to mention is also not worth mentioning, but too bad. Latest updates inside.

And then there were none….

This morning, my last surviving grandparent passed away. My grandfather had been in the hospital for just under a week, and suffered from a number of health setbacks while in the hospital. Yesterday he had started to recover slightly, but we knew not to get our hopes up. Still, the phone call this morning was surprising. Fortunately, everyone in the family had gotten a chance to say goodbye as we knew the odds weren’t good. He’s had a number of health problems over the past 25 years, so the fact that he made it two months shy of his 85th birthday was a blessing. Still, no matter how much time you have with someone, it’s never enough.

We’ll miss you, Grandpop.

Start spreadin’ the news, I’m leavin’ today….

This past weekend, Rina and I went to New York City for her birthday and to visit relatives we have there. It was quite an action-packed weekend, despite being only three days long.

Welcome to Animal Kingdom

Our yard is becomming quite the zoo, it appears. We’ve always had squirrels, but what homeowner hasn’t? They don’t matter though. For a year or two we’ve had a chipmunk running around (near as I can tell, it doesn’t sing). And there’s the occasional herd of deer that wander around our neighborhood. Fortunately, they haven’t learned how to jump over our fence to get to the tomatoes, although I have seen them jump other privacy fences in the past so I know they could if they wanted to.

This past week, though, has suddenly gotten more disturbing.