blasts from the past

This has been a fun trip so far. It's also been somewhat of a shock to me. When we arrived Friday night my dad (aka "grandpa") scooped up Nate and offered to show him around the house "where mommy grew up." It hit me that we were in Grandma and Grandpa's house, and that the way I remember visiting my grandparents is the way Nate is probably going to view my parents' home. No wonder my parents always seemed to know their way around my grandparents' places - they actually LIVED there. To me it was such a foreign place, but to them it was still home.

Then on Sunday we had a brunch with some local family and friends. It was so great to see everyone and introduce people to Nate (who was relatively well-mannered despite being immensely tired), but it too was somewhat emotional because I could look around at the many phases of my life - friends and family from when I was born, kindergarten, middle and high school, college... Like a little episode of "This is Your Life" punctuated with yummy food.





















My family went for a walk around the arboretum, where I learned to walk, rode a bike for the first time, crashed a bike for the first time, wiped out rollerblading (in the same place as the bike incident)... Thad broke his collarbone rollerblading once - I think we should keep Nate away from them in case there's any genetic component to rollerblade injuries. The lilacs were amazing, which was great because I think Rochester's lilacs are probably peak now too, so we didn't miss out on the flowers altogether. Nate was quite amused by an older Russian (I think?) woman who was asking us questions in Russian that we obviously couldn't respond to very well.
















Nate also had fun meeting other babies and kids. He met his cousin Freya for the first time and he tried to eat her. He's definitely well into that phase where babies want to put everything into their mouths. He also clearly does not understand that other people are, well, people, and that cousins are not for eating.

We also got together with some of our college friends and their kids. It was particularly interesting to see him with our new friend Julia who was born 10 days after Nate. It was fun to see them together to see where they are similar, what they're doing differently, etc. And just to spite their parents, Silent Nate spent the day talking up a storm and Julia The Talker clammed up, despite their parents claims to the opposite.