Happy Birthday (Again)

I wanted to post a couple of things that happened with Ethan this weekend. But, of course, right now I can't think of what they were.

So, I'll just make a post about Ethan's combined Birthday/Christmas weekend with his grandparents.

We went out to Albany this weekend (as should be obvious by the above statement) now that Ethan is a 2 year-old. We were worried that he wouldn't do well but he seemed to take it all in stride.

He enjoyed walking through the 'woods' behind Grandpa Gibson's house. And walking on the bridge over the stream. In fact, the boy kept trying to get into the stream and I had to keep pulling him back.
Mia and I enjoyed watching the Best Christmas Pagent Ever starring Cris, McKay, and Bryson (and some other people from the community).
After the play, Ethan enjoyed chasing Bryson around the house and opening his Train presents. He loves trains. You usually won't see Ethan without seeing a train in his hand (and his cup in the other hand).

The evening we went over to Grandma Miller's and Ethan got a sombrero to add to his hat collection. I picked up a car outlet. It's a little battery-generator thing that you can plug into your car and has two normal outlet sockets for pluging things in. Very handy. Mia got stuff too ;)
Then, we sat down and decorated little cake trains (did I mention that Ethan likes trains) that Linda had made. Ethan mostly just ate the candy that we gave him to decorate with... so did I.
They turned out looking very unique and very good. Mia and Linda did most of the hard work, but Tim created a car or two as well.

On Sunday we did some more hanging out with the families. Took some Christmas pictures with all the brothers and sisters (a feat to get everyone in the same place at once). And in the evening, took the back wheel off the car to see why the brakes were making a scratching sound everytime we braked.

We couldn't find anything wrong (or at least fatally wrong) with them on Sunday night so we drove back to Boston. On Monday, Mia took the car in and had to replace all four rotors and brakepads. The one consolation we have is that the mechanic told us the parts on the Grand Marquis are made to wear out quickly, so it's not that we neglected them.
I guess that's good news. Fortunately, I had a Christmas bonus that we used to pay for it. (Again... I guess that's good news)

But, aside from that, then entire weekend was fun. And Ethan loves seeing his grandparents. Mom and Dad, I'm sure that includes you too ;)