Friday, December 31, 2004

A great year

What a great year. Our first full year with our son - a year that may not be topped!
We had a great holiday season. We celebrated Christmas in White Pine at Erik's parents the weekend before Christmas.

Meghan and Sam came in from Albuquerque for a couple weeks. Christmas at the Oglesby Ranch was fun. Food in the afternoon, gift-opening at night, most of the night!

Friday, November 26, 2004

Thanksgiving 04

November 19 was an awesome night at the UTC McKenzie Arena where the Lady Mocs played the Tennessee Lady Vols in front of 10,051 fans. The Lady Mocs lost, but it was fun.

This Thanksgiving was a good one, even though Erik had bronchitis. The Gray family went to Asheville to celebrate Thanksgiving with Mom, Bob, Tobi and Corey on November 20-22. We had a good time. Corey made the entire meal. All Stacy and Erik did was buy wine.

We spent Thanksgiving day in East Ridge at the Oglesby Ranch with Stacy's side of the family. We ate much and had a good time.

The 15-month-old little terror, a.k.a. our son Rigby is progressing right along. It has been an awesome past year and a half with him.

Sunday, October 31, 2004

Halloween

It's Rigby's second Halloween. Last year he was a little, red pepper. This year he was a RigBEE.

The family all went to "Boo in the Zoo" at the Chattanooga Zoo.

Rigby is almost 14 months old and he is now all over the place letting mommy and daddy chase him. We are having so much fun with our little man. Everything that moves is now a "buh-buh." It started with barking dogs, but he has expanded his description.

Saturday, September 04, 2004

Rigby's Party

It's birthday party time! We had a great day of festivities. Our birthday boy was under the weather with a fever and did not have much to do with the party.
Erik "snuck" Stacy's sister, Meghan, from Albuquerque to Chattanooga for the party. Everyone was surprised.

We had a great time with friends and family. Rigby got great gifts.

We had a football tailgate themed party, complete with chicken wings, special dips and chips, snack foods, cokes and beer. Football balloons adorned the house and blue and gold spirit shakers were strategically placed around the food and gift tables.
Rigby’s big cake was a huge hit. The cake said, “Happy Birthday, Rigby, Our MVP” with a football in the middle. The border of the cake was blue icing, which dyed everyone’s teeth, lips and tongues blue. It was funny, and the cake was very tasty.

Rigby’s personal cake had an icing football helmet with “Rigby” on it. He played with it a little, but because he was not feeling good, he did not eat any of it. We are saving it for later when he can dig in.

The guys ended the day watching the LSU-Oregon State football game.

Rigby finished the day in better spirits. He found his new toys to be quite fun and danced around with many of them

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Happy Birthday, Rigby

Happy Birthday to Rigby! The first birthday for our son. The day was pretty normal. Now that Rigby is walking he just wears himself out at school and when he gets home he falls straight to sleep. Since today is Wednesday, we are waiting until Saturday to have his big party.

Monday, August 16, 2004

New Smyrna Beach

Stacy, Rigby and I spent a week at New Smyrna Beach, Florida with our friends, Beth and Steve. We stayed in a beach house across the road from beach.

We had a great time enjoying the lazy days. We would wake up around 8 a.m., which is late for us. We would play with Rigby for a couple hours, and then when he got tired, we would all go to the beach. Rigby would be slathered up in 60 SPF sun block, asleep in his strolled and placed under a big umbrella. That gave us time to lounge on the beach and play in the ocean.

The house we stayed in was great. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room and a sun room on the back that extended almost the length of the house. There was also garage where we could store all of our beach stuff.

We frequented some local taverns on the beach. The beer of choice was Yuengling.
We did eat seafood, but there was a pizza place across the street from the house that had fantastic pizza and good beer and pizza specials. Their double cheese pie was the best!

We had to leave a day early from our vacation because of Hurricane Charley wreaking havoc on the state of Florida. We got out in time, and the hurricane eventually killed 27 people and caused billions of dollars of damage. It was weird to watch the news when we got home and saw some of the places we had been destroyed by the storm.

Sunday, June 06, 2004

Memories

This weekend is one of memories.

We look back 60 years and remember some 150,000 who fought and 10,000 who died on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944 - D-Day. It is sad to think the last of our World War II heroes are at the sunset of their lives. Today is a time to remember what was acheived 60 years ago today - the beginning of the fall of Hitler, France's release from Nazi Germany and American courage. In 1941, America's military was not even known to be in the top 10 powers of the world.

Today is also a day we mourn the passing of our 40th President, Ronald Wilson Reagan, a true American legend. Politics aside, this great man helped end the Cold War, encouraged citizens to be true Americans and honor the country we live in. Rest in peace, Gipper.

On a personal note, Stacy, Rigby and I enjoyed a great Saturday evening with Aunt Meghan (Stacy's sister) and Uncle Sam at Hiroshi's on the Soutside of Chattanooga. Meghan and Sam are visiting from Albuquerque, where they are both working on their Master's at the University of New Mexico. We are going to visit them in the Fall.

We ate enough Sushi for six people. Hiroshi also made us a treat that was not on the menu - ribeye steak wrapped around asparagus - it was awesome. He also presented us with fried cheescake smothered in chocolate sauce, whipped cream and cherries.
Rigby slept in his stroller the entire time - we were there for almost two hours.

Monday, May 31, 2004

May was a great month!

Stacy, Rigby and I went to Savannah May 15-20 to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Gray Wedding. We stayed at a hotel on Bay Street in the historic downtown area. We visited most of the beautiful old city squares, enjoyed some awesome food, and a walked a all over the place.

We also visited Erik's cousins in Savannah and had a short but good visit. We took a 30 minute drive East to Tybee Island to give Rigby his first view of the Atlantic Ocean. He absolutely loved the ocean water and the waves coming in to shore. He grabbed at the soft sand and squeezed it between his fingers. Nothing seems to scare him.

Savannah pictures are on
Rigby's Site.

We went to my parents' house in White Pine for part of Memorial Day weekend. Tobi and Corey also came in from Asheville - a quick hour drive.

Rigby had a temperature of 102 on Friday and was pretty miserable. He woke up on Saturday another child from the day before. He was laughing and playing and acting like the day before never happened. Soon, we noticed a little something in his mouth - his first tooth peeking out! That is the only thing I can think of that got him so irritated the day before.

The cicada bugs were in full force. They only come out once every 17 years. It was so loud during the day time with all the bugs chirping. The trees and bushes were covered with cicadas and the ground was littered with dead ones. It was wild to see.
The second half of Memorial Day weekend was spent at the Oglesby Ranch in East Ridge. We had a southern shrimp boil on Monday and ate until we were about to pop.

Most of Stacy's immediate kin was there. It was a good day to remember.

Saturday, May 08, 2004

Crawling

Batton down the hatches, bar the door and run for your lives! Rigby is starting to crawl. It started Friday evening when he was lured by David Cope holding a Sesame Street light just out of Rigby's reach. He took a couple shuffles and then went to his belly. since then he has performed three to four knee shuffles forward. He does not seem to surprised by it all when everyone in the room cheers him on.

On Saturday, May 1, we participated in the annual Chattanooga MS Walk. We had a good time and the Grays raised $440. Rigby enjoyed his time at Coolidge Park on the Chattaooga North shore.

These last couple weeks have really flown by at work. We are staying hard at it I suppose.

Rigby turned 8 months old on May 1. Hard to believe!

Monday, April 12, 2004

Rigby's first baseball game

Rigby saw his first baseball game on April 3 - the Cincinnati Reds and Baltimore Orioles in an exhibition game at Chattanooga's BellSouth Park. It was chilly to begin the day, but the sun came out and we had a great time.

Easter weekend was fun at Erik's parent's in White Pine. It was a lovely and relaxing weekend. Tobi and Corey came in from Asheville and we all ate a lot of food and watched Rigby talk jibberish and roll over a lot.

Sunday, March 28, 2004

San Antonio

Erik traveled to San Antonio the first weekend of March to participate in the Sigma Chi Alumni Training Seminar. I had been to previous ones in Los Angeles and Nashville. This year I took on a role of a team leader for one of the three alumni dicussion groups and presented a communication seminar to the entire alumni group. San Antonio was wonderful. I took great pictures of the Alamo in the bright afternoon sun and then at Midnight under a full moon.

I spent a lot of good time with brothers I had never met. We had a great last evening on the Riverwalk. We had a big meal with many Pacificos and then wandered to Durty Nelly's, and Irish pub on the Riverwalk. We ended the night at Pat O'Brien's - yes like the one in New Orleans. Two Hurricanes finish the night just right! whew!
We moved Rigby to the UTC Children's Center this month. It is in downtown and much closer to work. We enjoyed our couple months at Primrose School in Hixson, but it was time to get him closer to us and the opening came up.

One of my alma maters, Xavier, made it to the Sweet 16 after knocking off Louisville and Mississippi State. Xavier's next stop was Atlanta and I hooked up with many Xavier fans and friends from school who made the weekend trip to the A-town. We beat Texas in another great upset and then almost beat Duke, losing by four. It was a great time and I am proud of the Musketeers.

In addition to a couple days in Atlanta, we feasted on some Varsity, the 75-year-old hamburger joint downtown. I brought home Rigby a Varsity hat that he wore with no fuss!

Rigby is sitting up, smiling and laughing and rolling over now! It is awesome.

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Erik to Cincy

Rigby has his first ear infection and second cold. He is such a trooper. He barely complains (cries/yells) and he had a 102 degree temperature. He went to the doctor to get checked out and get prescription drugs. He weighed in at 19 lbs., 9 ozs. and 27.5 inches long. He is a big boy!

Rigby is starting to grab at everything, smile at mom and dad, and laugh heartily. He is so much fun.

We are doing great. Both working hard and loving every moment with our son.

I went to Cincinnati last week en route to see a University of Kentucky basketball game. I stopped in to see friends at University of Cincinnati and to gloat on the big Xavier win over the Bearcats (again!). I walked through Xavier's campus and visited the Cintas Center, where hoops reign.

Oh, first thing we did when we hit Cincinnati? Skyline Chili!

I spent the evening and into the early morn with some of my Xavier classmates. That was a great time to catch up and visit a new and old haunt of ours.

The UK - South Carolina game was awesome. UK won by one. We sat in the press row "crow's nest" which hangs off the second tier. The main press row is now occupied by wealthy season ticket holders.

We also got to sit in on the post-game press conference and listen to head coach Tubby Smith.

Not much fun winter weather in Chattanooga - just a lot of rain. I suppose I am now ready for Spring.

Thursday, January 01, 2004

Happy New Year!

It is hard to believe that 2003 has come and gone. Hard to believe that we have a four-month-old son!

We have had a great two weeks during the holiday season. Stacy took Christmas week off and I worked most of the time, but it was okay. Being at work was not too bad. Seemed like all of the external partners we work with were on vacation so we got a lot of older issues taken care of.

We spent New Year's Eve at White Pine at my parents' house. We actually all went to sleep before the stroke of Midnight. As long as we knew Dick Clark was counting it down we knew it happened. :-)

We also used this time to celebrate Christmas with them as we did not get to visit at Christmastime.

New Year's day brought a lot of football and me on the couch.

My sister, Tobi and her husband, Corey, came over from Asheville on New Year's Day and we all had a great time.

No time for diets as we all ate heartily!

We came home on January 2 stopping in at the Super Target in Knoxville. What an awesome place!

Rigby has his four-month checkup at the doctor's office tomorrow. He is doing great. He had his first cold last week. It was hard to watch our little boy coughing and congested. He is getting through it though. His temperament is so great!

He has great head control, is very alert of his surroundings and laughs at mom and dad when they make funny faces and sounds. It is great!