Vacation in Rockport, MA

Even though most of the town has left for the season (evidently December 17th is the last day until spring), we've had fun in this picturesque town.  Luckily enough stores were open...unluckily no restaurants are open past 3PM which meant we need to drive to the next town for dinner (or eat really early!).

Christmas 2011!

Zach enjoyed Christmas with the Fraziers (featuring Lee McCoy).  Opening all those presents and eating was exhausting work.

NICU Gifts!

We spent the afternoon buying gifts for the NICU.  22 Jellycat animals and Aden and Anais swaddles.  Zach posed as an elf and delivered the gifts.  We saw some of his former nurses in the process!

We took some post delivery pics near the MGH Christmas Tree.

Christmas tree fun

Zach was pretty excited to play with the Christmas tree!

Somebody is sick AGAIN!

We are blaming Grandma Cloutier for all of us being sick.  Luckily Zach still looks cute while sick.  On the good side, he already looks better today.  And other good news, he is on a eyepatch holiday!  We went to the ophthalmologist on Wednesday (3 HR VISIT!!) and vision on his left scored better than the right. Making the visit even more interesting was the fact we had to lug Zach about 2 blocks (in the rain) without his stroller (we parked in a handicapped inaccessible lot due to bad advice from Jason).

     

Zach has visitors!

Zach's Grandma & Grandpa Cloutier came to visit from Phoenix.  Unfortunately, Grandpa broke his ankle the 2nd day!

Thanksgiving (we are posting a little late)!

Somebody was a bit moody...but enjoyed his nap with Dad.

The big walker!

Zach has had this hand-me-down trainer for many, many months.  But in the last few weeks he really started zooming around (and ramming into our furniture and sometimes us!).  This wasn't his best performance, but it was the best of the short videos we took after he briskly walked halfway across the house to our amazement!

Yum yum!

Zach got tired of waiting for us to feed him and took matters into his own hands!

halloween!

Guess who is the world's cutest astronaut?  That's right, Big Z of course!  We hit a few of the neighbor's houses and greeted a few well disguised kids at the house.  Zach was getting especially good at grabbing candy out of bowls by the end of the night, but was less fond of dropping them in his bucket!

Zach was clearly the star of his school parade, and seems to know it with this pose!

Endicott Homecoming Weekend

We all joined in the festivities from balloon animals (an alien actually), to a reception at the president's house to a concert (that Zach mostly slept through, but was really quite good!).  Other than having to dodge raindrops off and on it was a fun time!

Apple picking in Berlin MA for Columbus Day Weekend.

The Northeast Consortium for the deafblind sponsored an apple picking event.  Zach got in on the action and picked, or swung at, a few prime apples!

Birthday #3!!!

Celebration with Zach's own cupcake, which he mostly ate after this pic was taken!.  Also with presents!

Ice Cream

We're not sure if Zach like's ice cream.  We'll leave you viewers to judge.

Papa Visits from Phoenix

Zach & Papa had a good time.  Zach's changed a lot since the last visit (tripling in size for one!).



Eyelid Surgery

Zach had surgery on his eye on 9/8 (we are a little behind on updating the blog!).  The surgery was a success - he can now open the left eye bigger than the right (not that you can tell from the before/after photos below...)!

Labor Day Vacation - White Mountains, NH

It was our first vacation where we all had fun!  Zach especially liked the swimming pool and the top of Cannon Mountain.

Pool at Loon Mountain Resort

Cannon Mountain

New Camera!

In preparation for our big vacation (3 days in the White Mountains), we bought a new camera.  Seems a bit overkill for our skill level (we more than tripled our mega pixels!).

Big Day before the big storm

Zach had a big day.  First he managed to spill a bottle of water all over the floor and on himself - too exciting!!  He didn't seem to mind being wet as seen from the photo below.  In the afternoon we took a trip to the Institute of Contemporary Art.  Jason had bought a 1/2 off membership and we were required to redeem by the end of August.  With Hurricane Irene heading our way we decided to go today.  It was a nice trip, but a little hurried.  The museum is right on the water with excellent views!

Corn & Tomato festival in Concord, MA

Nothing is more exciting than celebrating the arrival of the tomato and corn crops here in MA right?  Right?  Anyway, we found this fun, and Zach really liked playing with this water bottle.  He did get to pose briefly as a corn kernel, with some help from dad.  To those in corn advertising, you know where to reach us.

Providence

It was a busy day...Wretham Outlets for pants (Jason needs non-holey non-jeans for his new job) followed by dinner in Providence.  We went with the entire family...Brenna, Jason, Zach and Gerry!  We happened along an art fair along the way where Brenna found authentic French macarons - yum! 

Zach loved the light fixtures!

Finger painting with OT

Back when he was really little, finger painting, or anything similarly messy, was about the only thing that caused a severe negative response.  Now he seems ok with them, usually.  Here was a session with his normal OT in the house.  He's sitting in his cardboard-based Perkins chair/desk.

Excitement at the Couch

Family Day at Endicott

Jason starts his new job Aug 15!  With a >10 word title he must be impressive (Chair of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics/Assistant Professor of Biotechnology).  Note the school does not yet offer Engineering or Mathematics as degrees...but still!

Did we mention the school has private beaches???

Neuro is back in our life

After years of avoidance, neuro is back in the picture.  The resident lectured us that we were supposed to be seen 2 years ago...oops - how did we forget???  We quickly remembered how much we disliked neuro as the fellow tried to explain yesterday's delay.  Evidently it took the fellow until 11AM to read the results...hmmm - this still didn't add up as we didn't get the results (2nd hand) until 3:30 PM (after badgering from the pedi floor doctors) and actually talk to 1 of the 50 person neuro posse until 5:30 PM...did we mention that we hate neuro??