Dear Family and Friends,
Happy Heat Wave! Hope you are all staying cool this summer. I’m not! After a HUGE electric bill last month, Daddy put Mommy and me on a spending diet starting with the air conditioning. Now we just get in the car during the 100+ degree days and spend $3 a gallon driving around to keep cool instead of staying home and sweating in the 78 degree house! Or worse, go to the mall where it’s really cool! Mommy says not to tell Daddy though, it’s our little secret.
Part of our “diet” also includes cut backs in other areas including this newsletter. You may have noticed that it’s not fancy, no headlines enlarged and in color, and no extra software expense to mass mail to you all at once. I’m also having to use Mommy’s email address to send you this letter. That was all cut from our budget! Sorry…..
Happy Heat Wave! Hope you are all staying cool this summer. I’m not! After a HUGE electric bill last month, Daddy put Mommy and me on a spending diet starting with the air conditioning. Now we just get in the car during the 100+ degree days and spend $3 a gallon driving around to keep cool instead of staying home and sweating in the 78 degree house! Or worse, go to the mall where it’s really cool! Mommy says not to tell Daddy though, it’s our little secret.
Part of our “diet” also includes cut backs in other areas including this newsletter. You may have noticed that it’s not fancy, no headlines enlarged and in color, and no extra software expense to mass mail to you all at once. I’m also having to use Mommy’s email address to send you this letter. That was all cut from our budget! Sorry…..
We had a nice summer vacation to Florida to visit the Vaneskahian side of the family. Daddy’s sister, my Tia Ani that lives in Uruguay brought her new baby boy, Paolo to meet his American cousins. I also got to play with my cousins Perla and Isabelle that live in Orlando. Then we all got in a big van and went to the beach for a few days. We had a great time!! We played in the sand and hung out by the pool. It was nice to spend time with my grandparents too! My Abuelo, (I just call him Abu) just came to visit me last week! He came to celebrate Daddy’s birthday and spend time with me! We had lots of fun. He even went to The Little Gym class with me! He did pretty good for an old guy! Then my Abuela will be here in a few weeks for my birthday party!Good news! Aunt Mary and Uncle Vicky are all moved to Texas now from Memphis, yeah!! Cousin Grace and I went over to help them unpack. Once they are settled in Grace and I are going to vacation for a week or two at their house. I know they will want us to stay longer but I’m sure Mommy and Daddy will start missing me by the second week. Since Grace is their granddaughter she might stay longer. I bet Uncle Vicky will take us to Six Flags and the water parks. I think the zoo might be nice this time of year too. I’m sure that he and Aunt Mary will do anything that Grace and I want to do!
Grace and I have been seeing a lot of each other lately. Our parents took us to a new place to play called “Kid Muse.” It’s kind of an indoor play place. If you look at the pictures taken that day, it looks like our parents were having more fun that we were. Daddy was hogging the air hockey table and Brian took a nap in the bean bag chairs!I’ve developed quite a collection of airplanes and helicopters! Sometimes I spend all day just flying them around the house. Mommy really likes it when I do! What she likes most though is when I leave them on the carpet. They are metal and she finds them with her bare feet! Everytime!! I always know when she’s found one because I can hear her. Daddy’s teaching me all the body parts and I can identify each one’s cockpits, wings, propellers or turbines, rotors, etc. Mommy works with me to teach me the letters of the alphabet and the numbers and Daddy comes home and it’s all about airplanes and helicopters!! Daddy even lets me read his Air and Space Magazines! (When he’s finished with them, of course!)
Another milestone was reached this last month. I went to my first cinema. Mommy and Daddy planned a whole Saturday around my first trip to the movies. We got up early and went to the new Cinemark to see the movie, Cars. Daddy had the camera, Mommy got the popcorn, cokes, and forbidden candy and we got the best seats in the house in plenty of time before the previews began. I had time to run up and down the row, eat some popcorn, dig in Mommy’s purse, check out the seat mechanism to fold it up then down, pull the straw out of Mommy’s coke and drop it on the floor, run up and down the row again and climb on the hand rail. Then the previews began…about 20 minutes of them. By the time the real movie started I didn’t care anything about sitting in a seat watching anything, I’d had all of the popcorn and candy I’d wanted, and I was ready to begin my decent on the stairs in the dark. After the first 15 minutes of the movie Mommy was tired from wrestling to keep me in her lap and Daddy was embarrassed because we were being so loud so they scooped me up, popcorn bag and all and out we went. Daddy had a disgusted look on his face. I felt bad that I had disappointed him but he just had to understand that Barney himself could have been there dancing in the row in front of us, but after 30 minutes I’ve hit my max and I’m ready to go!
Speaking of disappointing parents, I think Mommy has given up her dream of me being a concert violinist. She’s finally faced facts that the best she can hope for is a drummer in a rock and roll band! I’m sure it would be ok with her if I could get a job with Bon Jovi!! I got a set of drums for my birthday last year and she and Daddy kept putting off taking them out of the box. They said I wasn’t old enough, but I know they just didn’t want to hear me practice. (She said I’d already been ruined with the Leap Frog Drum from Old Uncle Dave that I got last year!) Well, I began playing Uncle Tommy’s drums in his garage at he and NayNay’s (Renee) house in Southlake. Tommy said when I get older he’ll really teach me how to play! Mommy started feeling guilty so she told Daddy to get out the drums and put them together for me. Boy, can I really rock!! I’m much better than I even thought I would be. Anytime you want to hear me just ask me to play my “bum bums.”
I think I disappointed the old man too. He’s in a big hurry to have a little scientist in the family…and well, Mommy tried to tell him it wasn’t a good idea…. Anyway, Daddy had a rocket that he and J.D. had launched a couple of years back and he decided that I would think it was really cool. I’m not even 2 yet (but only 12 shopping days left!!) and J.D. was about 5, but Daddy thought I would like a loud blast and a fast shooting rocket. So he drags me and Mommy out in the 120 degree heat in a field and gets it all set up. Did I mention he forgot something and had to go back home and left us standing in the blazing sun!!? Anyway, finally he’s all ready and he gives Mommy the blast-off button to push so he can hold me and all of the sudden there’s a shotgun sound and I think I’ve been shot!! I’m screaming and can’t be still long enough to see where blood is coming from. Daddy’s trying to get me to watch where the rocket is going up and I’m just trying to run for cover before the sniper hits again. For some reason Mommy is laughing hysterically. All is happening in a matter of seconds and just as I realize I haven’t been shot, out of the sky comes the rocket falling directly overhead so I make a run for it! Daddy just shook his head and through the pieces of the rocket back in the box and headed for the car. Me and Mommy were already inside with the car running and the A/C on high!
I had a little road trip this summer and did my first crusin’ 6th Street in Austin on a Saturday night at midnight! Mommy and Renee have been on many, MANY, road trips over the years, but never with a toddler in tow. We dropped Charley (Renee’s daughter) at a volleyball camp at UT in Austin and headed south for a weekend of outlet shopping and visiting Carolyn (Renee’s mom) and Grandmama Smith who just moved to Boerne. Our last night back into Austin late to get a hotel room so we could be there early to pick up Charley the next morning somehow Mommy got us in the 6th Street traffic. Mommy and Renee laughed about how many times they’d been in the crowds there before (20 years before), but not in a Suburban, and not with a toddler in the back!
I shouldn’t have to mention this, because I know it’s on everyone’s calendars….but my 2nd birthday is coming up in just days!!! Yes, I know it’s hard to believe that I’m growing up so fast but I’ll be 2 on September 4th! Unfortunately Mommy made a promise to Daddy last year at a weak moment that this year’s party would be scaled down from the blow-out we had for my first birthday party. That promise added to our “spending diet” and this budget birthday may not be one for the scrapbooks!! But, come on over anyway and help me celebrate. I think we can afford a cake and some ice cream! We’re going to party this year at home on Saturday, September 9th starting about 6:30pm. (Maybe Daddy will be in a good mood and we can turn the air conditioner down a few degrees for the party!) Hope to see you then!!
CLICK HERE FOR OUR MOST CURRENT PHOTO ALBUMS: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vaneskahian/sets/
July-August 2006, Kid Muze, and June Trip to Orlando
Love,
Jean- Martin (Marty) G. Vaneskahian
p.s. from Mommy
I apologize for the many red eyes in the photos. Our camera is terrible about red eye and I used to go in and adjust the color on each of the photos, but I seem to be running out of time these days!! Sorry!! ~Marjorie
