Our Big Fat Greek Anniversary...OR...5 Years and Goin the Distance...

We spent a week trying to figure out what we wanted to do for our anniversary, and finally just decided to do a couple things that ended up being Greek themed. First, we went down to Fairmount Park in downtown Philadelphia to walk around the Water Works. Some of the buildings are Greek in their architectural style and fit in nicely with the Museum of Art in the background:



We got down there around 7 and had a dinner appointment at 8, so we just wandered around and watched the sunset.


Hard to believe it has been 5 years. Look at these skinny babies:


And now we're fat and old...well at least one of us.


After a nice walk with the sun setting, we went to Zorba's (I may have just made that name up) for some Greek food. Don't tell our vegetarian sisters, but I ate a lamb. Unbeknownst to me, the restaurant was BYOB, so we were stuck drinking water.


I decided to try and take one last scenic shot before leaving the park, and asked Jaime to stay out of the picture. So this is what happened:


Once dinner ended, it was only 9pm and my sister was babysitting all night (thanks Kellie!), so we decided to really turn up the romance. We went back to the Museum of Art for their open air cinema where they were playing one of the best chick flicks of all time. It ranks up there with Braveheart. ROCKY!!! It was a strange anniversary date, but it was really fun watching it on the same steps that he runs up in the movie. And being with a bunch of Philadelphians cheering every time there was any sort of Philly reference added to the fun. It was a Rocky marathon (I-III), but we didn't have it in us to go the distance. We just watched the first. This was our view, taken with my phone's camera:


And somebody else took this picture and posted it on Flickr. Roll your mouse over this image to see where we were sitting. You can't miss Jaime's hair and long legs, even in a blurry silhouette:



Since I didn't take this picture, I should give credit to rollingroadshow. I think this is the group that actually put on the movie.

Does Tessa love YOU?

Did you hear that Josh's twin sister Kellie is living with us now? No? Well, Josh's twin sister Kellie is living with us now. There are lots of perks to this situation for us, not least among them being that she has a fancy MacBook Pro laptop that she lets us look at sometimes. I won't lie, it's pretty dreamy. As much as I love and appreciate my five-year-old Dell clunker - which has been a loyal companion throughout almost our entire marriage, consistently gets a better wifi connection than Josh's newer computer, and even survived falling from the roof of a moving vehicle that time last winter when I forgot it was up there on my way to Miriam's house (Yes. Yes, I did that.) - Kellie's laptop is undeniably a sexier piece of technology. Part of me feels like a cheating dirtbag for saying so, but there it is.

Tessa is particularly fascinated by the camera function on Kellie's laptop. Here she is a few days ago having a chat with Kellie while I am in the background writing something for the family email newsletter. (You may notice that I don't actually have my laptop on my lap. This is because the screen doesn't hold itself up anymore and now has to be propped up by the arm of the couch. I really need to jerry-rig it with duct tape or some other equally classy solution. "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without," as Grandma would say!)

Anyway, if Tessa doesn't mention your name here, I wouldn't worry about it too much. She probably still loves you. Just not as much as Uncle Shane. :)

Is this even the same kid...

For some reason I think it is hilarious putting grown up glasses on Tess. These are my glasses, and I have about the weakest prescription possible, so no one needs to worry about the fact that I some times duct tape these to Tessa's face for days just for entertainment. I maintain she had that lazy eye before I started this.

Since the girl was a few months old, I've let her try on my glasses. That's right. "Let" her--not force her. She loves it...which is obvious from this picture of her at 3 months:



And here's one from just this last weekend:



She's just the cutest lil nerd that ever was.

Hair did...

Tess is a big Lady Gaga fan, or so it would seem. When we told her that we were going to New York to celebrate the 5th of July, she only agreed to come along if she could wear her hair in some sort of ridiculous Dr. Seuss inspired mohawk/mullet. Ah, sweat. Mother Nature's hairspray:




Just to let you know how fun of a day it was for the poor little girl, compare her hair in this picture from the beginning of the trip:

From the Mouths of Babes...

Awright, awright, awright, awright.

Blogging Shmblogging...

Thank you Mama. This went on for like 10 books. I wasn't quick enough to catch the whole thing. Just the end.



Tess has turned in to a polite little girl, although she is a liar. Every time I ask her if she has pooped, she says, "No." Usually she is flat out lying. She knows it. I know it.

Anyhow, she is polite. When I thank her for doing something, she responds by saying, "Thank you, daddy." And I say, "Thank YOU, Tess." And then we go through that about 17 times before we both get too bored or angry with the other's stubbornness.

Happy International Museum Day!

To celebrate this renowned holiday we took advantage of free admission at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It was great because our personal tour guide (Josh) came along too. We've had a hankering to visit there for a while, but hey, $15/person is exprawnsive, man! Free, though? Free we can handle.

I did Tessa's hair up cute for the occasion - check out her first pigtails!!! I nearly died from the cuteness of it all. She nearly died from my squeezing the life force out of her and saying shmoopy things like "Ohhh! My baby's not a baby anymore!"







I had to turn on Dora to get her to stay still long enough for me to do them.



We had a great time looking at pichurs (and sculpchurs) at the museum. Here are Tess and I with a Rothko:



And with a large hanging Calder mobile:



We found this painting by Edouard Vuillard a little disturbing, though:



It wasn't the picture so much as the caption that made us do a double take:



Here are Tess and Josh outside in front of the Rocky steps:



And lastly, here is a video of Tessa taking a cue from Dada and giving us an art history lecture. Hope you enjoyed International Museum Day as much as we did!