Jacob and the New Camera

So, we got a new camera from my parents for graduation. It took me a while to pick out which one I wanted, but, I finally did, so we finally got it. The camera is a pretty standard point and shoot, a Cannon Powershot SD 750, and I like it a lot. Here are a few pictures I took of Jacob today with the camera.

Jacob updates

I have been doing many fun things with Jacob in the last couple of weeks. Here are just a few things we've decided to share with the Team Hoopes readership!

Last week we visited Plymouth Orchards in the rain. It let up for a little while and we ventured outside to the petting zoo. (Tangent: I grew up calling these Pet-a-Pet Farms, which is more fun to say.) Jacob didn't notice the animals all that much this time around, but for the most part they were all eating so maybe he was just being respectful.

The orchards and cider mills here in Michigan are known for their cider (imagine that!) and doughnuts. Jacob shared a doughnut with me and seemed to enjoy it. You'll notice that I am not as respectful as Jacob when people are eating and I get in their face and take pictures. He was sporting some new clothes that day from his Aunt Megan and Aunt Kristin.

Having finished his Lazy Lasagna, except for a few scattered bits of cottage cheese, and after sipping a few slow sips of his diluted juice, Jacob cried out "Dinnertime nap, anyone?"! Jacob wasn't around for this since he was already in bed, but one night last week I figured I'd try out a new idea I saw for Candy Corn Quesadillas. They were so cute, and tasty too. I think a 3 year old Jacob would be even more wowed than candy candy corn-loving Jeff was, so that is why I include this picture here. :) I wish I could come up with stuff like this on my own sometimes. *If I made them again I would not bother with the bottom layer, though the extra cheese was delicious. Also, cook them in a pan like I did and finish up in the microwave to get the desired look looking better if you wish. We like our cheese crisps crispy, not soggy.*

Our doctor's office is just down the road from the Domino's Pizza headquarters here in Ann Arbor, just around the corner from home, so I took Jacob on a hunt to find and to visit a pretty ugly office building yesterday after we had his head measured again. I decided to take a picture of the sign for kicks, but I guess I was hoping for free pizza when I drove into the parking lot. Oh well, at least you can notice our lovely fall colors in the background. Next door to the Domino's corporate office is a farm, called Domino's Farms even though it is not affiliated with the pizza chain. There is a big pet-a-pet farm there so we'll have to make that visit soon!

And here are some videos for your entertainment. Jacob learned just last week that he is tall enough to play me a tune, and he is a huge fan of the Rocky soundtrack like his parents. Last night for Family Home Evening, our friend getting his Ph.D. in music did a trumpet demonstration for us. Jacob must have been paying attention to that...notice 0:26-0:29 in the first video.

Randazzo's

Last Friday Jacob & I took a trip to a produce market with my friend Andrea and her two kids. I had heard good things about this place but hadn't taken an opportunity to drive out there yet. I got all of the above food for $16.99. That's one bag of croutons, 1.64 lb peaches, 1 lb broccoli crowns, .73 lb green beans, 1.25 lb plums, 1 cucumber, 1lb bag of almonds, 1.91 lb onions, 4 oranges, 2-28 oz. cans of diced tomatoes, a can of Italian bread crumbs, 5 lb of carrots and a bag of barley. There was very little there in terms of fruit and vegetables that was much over $1 or $1.50 a pound and I was thoroughly impressed. I can't wait to go back in a couple weeks when we go again!

Solving Problems

So, having arrived in enlightened and progressive Ann Arbor, Stacey and I have significantly changed the way we think. Most recently, we have been concerned about many different issues that, if not addressed, could create serious problems not only for our society now, but for the whole world for generations to come. These are issues like global warming, deforestation, poverty, injustice and overpopulation. In fact, the issue of overpopulation has been very concerning for us. There are increasingly too many people on this planet, natural resources are being depleted, economic growth is being hampered, parking spots are in shortage, and many other problems have resulted because there are simply too many people—and it is getting worse. We are a little concerned about this, not only for our sakes, but also because of little Jacob. We want him to have food to eat and fresh water to drink, and overpopulation could, in fact, prevent him from getting those things. So, Stacey and I decided together that we had to do something to fight this problem. We considered the first and most obvious alternative—stop having kids. It is very reasonable, and would help. But, by having one, or two, or even three fewer children, we would be decreasing the population problem only on a very small scale. We decided we needed to do something that could help other people as well, and help all to come to a solution. So, we put our best genes together, and decided to make a new little person that hopefully will have the ability to help solve this problem. Our hope is that our next child, to be born this March (around the 23rd), will be able to help solve this societal problem and bring peace and prosperity to us all. We are very excited to be helping contribute to the solution, and not just be part of the problem. We'll find out whether this mover and shaker is a boy or girl on October 21st.

Jacob Through the Year

Today Jacob finally had his 1 year well baby visit. I wanted him well for it, and since there were ear infection & RAD issues last week, we went in today! His head is still holding in lots of brains so it is off the charts again, his weight is 23.63 lbs (58th percentile) and his height is 30.51 inches (67th percentile). With that height percentile, I am happy to report that he is finally catching up to his 6'4" father after all!

Humor me whilst I show off pictures of our cute little guy from last year to now.

We love you, Little Jacob!!

Contests You Can Enter

Alright, I know I don't keep up with much stuff like this these days, but every now and again something interesting pops up. Here are a few things of note: Handbag Planet In honor of launching their new line of handbags (which, by the way, I always call purses...), they are giving away a free handbag every hour for 24 hours. Yes, that is 24 free bags and you could win one of them. There are all sorts of ways to enter, so check it out at the link above. And here are a few that end today: A former college dorm floor mate, Brit, has a sister in-law named Molly who posts all sorts of interesting things on her site, My Favorite Things. Molly is having a giveaway for candles. Perfect for fall! And boy has it hit here in Michigan...58 for a high today, anyone? And, last but not least, the ladies at Mom Generations are giving away 4 $25 giftcards to shutterfly's store. That could pay for a lot of pictures! In general their whole site is great and chock full of good ideas and product reviews for moms.

Jacob Turns One!

Jacob had his birthday on Saturday. I decided that birthday parties at this age are more for parents and other guests than for the baby, but he sure had fun even if it tuckered him out a little. :) We had my parents here for the weekend so it was fun for them to be able to celebrate with us & Jacob.

It is hard to believe that a year has passed in so many respects, but our little guy sure has changed a lot over the last several months, so it was really fun to celebrate and remember the excitement of his arrival on Thursday 20 September 2007. Quite an amazing day...

Saturday morning I finished making monkey cupcakes and a jungley-looking cake to go with the monkeys. It was fun to put my leaf and vine-making skills to work again as it's been a while since I took the Wilton I class. Here is the end result:

That afternoon we took a trip downtown to the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum. It was a lot of fun and I'm excited to go back with the year pass my parents helped us get. They even have a 4 and under Preschoolers Exhibit so that looks like it will be a fun place to hang out, particularly in the winter months, I am told. Jacob enjoyed several different parts of the museum and it will be great to see him discover more when we go back.

We got home from the museum, fed Jacob some dinner and then he began the festivities in an excellent way: by making a mess! I think he ate a little bit but most of it ended up on the table and his high chair and on his appendages!

He was not so interested in all the presents at first but did like the box that some shirts came in. He has certainly warmed up to the new toys and books since we opened them, though, and loves to scoot around and cruise while holding his new things.

Books

It has been a couple months since I posted what books I have been listening to by means of books. So, here are a few I have listened to lately.

D-day – Stephen Ambrose

This lengthy book all about D-Day was AMAZING. It was very interesting because it was long, but it was only about one single day, so allowed for a great deal of detail related to D-Day. It was amazing how much planning went into the greatest land invasion ever. I had never thought about it, but there were large groups of people just in charge of directing traffic on the beaches, identifying and recording who died, and thousands of people dedicated to just feeding the landing troops. Amazing.

Citizen Soldiers – Stephen Ambrose

Another amazing book by Ambrose. He wrote these three books based on thousands of interviews with military people from all sides of WWII, and writes well. Citizen Soldiers is about WWII in general, and is very, very good and interesting.

Band of Brothers – Stephen Ambrose

This book, which was made into an HBO series, is also very good. It highlights one particular group of paratroopers throughout WWII, from their training the in the US, to their D-Day exploits, to their taking over of Hitler’s mansion after the war ended. It was amazing, and made me think of a lot of things I never thought of before. Listening to these three Ambrose books really makes me wonder what my generation would do if faced with a problem like WWII. I simply do not think we could do it. We are too lazy, too spoiled and we have no concept of sacrifice. I really enjoy books about WWII, and am currently watching a 16 hour documentary on it with Stacey. More about that later.

The Measure of a Man – Sidney Poitier

An interesting book about the life of Sidney Poitier. He is pretty liberal, and has some ideas that I think are ridiculous, but it is interesting to hear how a very popular older actor who was very famous in his time thinks about the world. He talks a lot about being black in America, and that is also very interesting.

A Song Flung up to Heaven – Maya Angelou

By the same person who wrote “I know why the caged bird sings”, this was an interesting book, written by a lady who has had a very interesting life. She basically talks about a part of her life. She moved from Africa to the US to help Malcom X on a project, he got killed before it started, so she did some other stuff until Martin Luther King asked for her help. Then, before that started, King was killed. She has some interesting insights, and talks mostly about being black in America. Like “The Measure of a Man”, it interests me to understand these types of authors—people whose view of the world is very different than mine. In fact, Angelou spoke at the Ross School of Business (where I now go to school) last year, and the article I read about it emphasized how different she is than the normal business type person.

The No Spin Zone – Bill O’Reilly

In this book, O’Rielly basically talks about an issue, talks about a few lines from an interview with someone he did on the issue on his show, and then talks more about the issue. It was interesting to hear what many famous people have said to him on his show, and interesting to hear what he thinks. On many issues, I agree. On some, I think he is a logic deprived idiot. You win some, you lose some.

Perelandra – CS Lewis

An amazing book, and perhaps my favorite of the more than a dozen I have read by Lewis. It is the second in the Space Trilogy, and is very good. A guy travels to Venus, where the Fall has yet to happen. He does logical, spiritual, and ultimately physical battle with Satan in order to try to preserve the innocence of the Eve figure. It is very, very interesting in making you think about the Fall. It discusses a interspatial kingdom ruled by God. Since the Fall already happened on earth, one did not need to happen on Venus, and so it needed to be avoided. Anyways, it was a very interesting book from a philosophical and religious point of view, and makes you think about the fall, humanity, and existence. Since I was listening to it as I unpacked, I didn’t get all I could have out of it, but what I did get was amazing. Like all of Lewis’ stuff, his doctrine is not always necessarily true, but it is well reasoned and interesting.

Wisdom of our Fathers – Tim Russert

This was a great book. Apparently, Russert wrote a book about his dad, and had such a great reaction, had to come up with something else about fathers. He solicited peoples stories about their dads, and this book was the result. It is just a whole bunch of stories about people’s dads. They are all very well written (he picked a couple dozen from tens of thousands of submissions), and some were very touching, and some very funny.

Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams- Lynne Withey

A book about Abigale Adams. I listened to John Adams by McCulluagh a while ago, and it was much better. Nevertheless, Abigail was an amazing woman, and the book was interesting.

The Logic of Life – Tim Harford

The book starts out being like a watered down version of Freakonomics (which is an amazing book), and ends up being like The World is Flat (not that great of a book). It essentially talks about rational choice theory, which suggests that everything everyone does is for a rational reason. It was very interesting, and it was good. The beginning is a little racy, talking about the rationality of teen sex and other such issues, but, it was good.

A Noisy Addition to our Home

Question: What has four wheels, a short pedal and a sustaining pedal, little hammers, and is covered in fancy black and white fashions?

Answer:

Our Freecycle piano! Yep, it was free. It is in great shape, not too out of tune, and looks so lovely in our dining room/living room area. We are finally on the path to adulthood.

We're all becoming quite adept at playing, but since I am able to reach the keys when standing (unlike Jacob) and I am home (more than Jeff), I am a piano hog. And I love it. :)

Kevin & Tess's Wedding

In honor of Kevin & Tess having been married for a month and 2 days, I thought I would post a few pictures from the big day: 8/8/08! We were so glad to be there with them and the whole family before we made our trip east to move to Michigan.

The nephews were all wearing a lavender color while the nieces sported pretty plum dresses. Here is Jacob mingling with some lovely flowers on the Denver Temple grounds:

Colorado was a pretty state; I'd only been to the Denver airport previously, and that hardly counts for visiting a state, so it was great to spend several days there. Here is the temple: This one shows many emotions in the Hoopes cousins. Ryan and Willy became good friends on the trip, Josh wanted his mom right then, Jacob was a little bit upset, Dallin was waving his hands around, the girls were trying to hold still, with Benjamin smiling a big smile, Taylor and Peter looking on at everyone, and all in all it is just a fun picture. Tess sure looks happy!! And she should be, she married into an amazing family. :)

Secret Conversation as Shown in Picture Below

Jacob: Uncle Kevin!!

Kevin: Yes, Jacob?

Jacob: You are married to Aunt Tess now! That is great! You must be hot in your tux. It is pretty warm out here.

Kevin: It is pretty toasty. Jacob?

Jacob: Yes, Uncle Kevin?

Kevin: Thanks for not spitting up on us on our big day.

Jacob: No problem. I got my mom instead, just for you.

(I do love this picture)

Congratulations! We miss you guys.

Michigan Fruit Outings

Michigan has an excellent climate for growing things. But, apparently people don't have enough hired help to pick all that they grow (I'm sure you've heard about the one-state recession thing). So, joy of joys, they rely on the general public to harvest for them! :)

We were happy to help out on a couple ocassions in the past few weeks. And by "help out" I mean, pick or look cute, depending on which member of the family you are.

At the entrance to Dexter Blueberry Farm on a fairly humid, overcast day.

Doesn't he look thrilled?!

The blueberry bushes are very pretty but blueberry picking is pretty slow since you have to hunt for the ripe ones. The biggest and probably best-tasting ones were usually hiding underneath leaves and other branches. I spent a lot of time thinking about how this could be a parallel for people in our lives that maybe we are still getting to know or that we haven't even met yet. Ask me about the Parable of the Blueberry sometime.

He isn't quite old enough to help, but he did help by being very well behaved in his stroller.

2 hours and 4.35 lbs of blueberries later, I had plenty to make these tasty blueberry cornmeal pancakes later that weekend, some blueberry ice cream, and freeze the rest for later consumption.

On September 2 we went to another U-Pick place...this time it was a little closer and the fruit of choice was red raspberries!

My boys, hard at work in the fields.

I think Jeff and I looked pretty stylin' in our milk jug sashes. It is easier when you can pick with both hands.

Jacob was very good again on this outing, and was often found with his monkey in his mouth. That is where most things end up these days, but it is very funny when it is something big and he tries to move around with it, like a stuffed lion or penguin.

Jeff with our bountiful harvest that has also been frozen for the most part to be enjoyed in the future!

Monday I went back to get another quart of berries and then Tuesday I bottled a batch of raspberry jam. Add this to what we did on Saturday with our farmer's market purchase of probably 20 lb of apricots: three batches of apricot jam, 4 quarts of apricots and some dried apricots. I don't think we'll need to buy any jam for the rest of the year! YUM.

Next item to pick: apples for eating and applesauce canning!

Realizations

So, we are in Ann Arbor. It has been very fun. For the last two weeks, I have been going to “math camp”, which has been not very fun. Unfortunately, I am not very smart as far as math goes, and I am very unprepared as far as the courses I have taken. Hopefully, it will be alright. However, while in the course, I have been able to meet many very interesting and intelligent people.

In meeting all these people, I have come to a realization that I never really thought of. I feel ashamed for not really thinking about it more. It sounds silly to say, but, I will say it. I never really thought about the fact that different countries have different parts. In the cubes around mine, there is someone from North China, and someone from South China, and they not only look slightly different, but they sound and act different. In asking, some of the difference is due to where they are from. China, interestingly, has been a unified country with one language for many, many years (thousands, I think).

Indians are even more different. It has only been recently that India was one country, and they still do not have one language that everyone speaks. (I asked one of my Indian friends what language he would speak to someone from India he saw to know they would understand, and he said “English.” There is a guy from India in my program I was talking to about this, and he said he speaks 3 languages, but right now, speaks English better than any of them.)

This recent unification means that people who are from different parts of India are even more different. I can already tell the different between someone from Northern India and someone from Southern India. It is very interesting to me.Like I said, I am kind of ashamed for not thinking about this earlier. In the US, we really don’t think much about other countries, and it is a little sad. Coming from the richest and most powerful country has the effect of making one not think about other, extremely important and larger (population-wise) countries. Being here and interacting with people from literally dozens of countries on a daily basis has helped me in that. Anyways, that is that.

Trip To Ann Arbor

So, we have been somewhat deficient in posting to our blog lately. It is not as if we had a lack of things to post about. Indeed, in the last month, we have had the biggest change in our family ever (with the exception of Jacob being born). We moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and have not really said a whole lot about it. So, I guess this post will fill you in on a few details. Our move started out by packing up our house and putting it all on a truck. It was kind of a busy couple days. I took the last section of the CPA on a Friday, we had a nephew get baptized on Saturday, Stacey defended her master's thesis on Monday, and we loaded the truck on Monday. In any event, here I am on the truck, with all our stuff. After sending the truck on its merry way, we had to say goodbye to another truck. I have driven this black Nissan for the past 9 years, and will miss it dearly. We have become one, but, because of reasons outside of my control (and because the truck was never mine, only loaned to me), the truck and I had to part ways. It will be forever missed. So, after the important goodbye to the black truck, we drove to Denver for my brothers wedding. Before the wedding, we spent a few days camping with my family, which was really fun. All of my sibling and all of their children were there (23 folks in all), which was really fun. My family is really starting to become more of an empire than just a few people who are realated. It was very nice to have everyone there, something that has never happened before, and so it was a very good time. Jacob especially enjoyed it. Not only do the out-of-doors provide plenty of grass for him to eat, but he also enjoyed eating dirt, sand, and other things he found on the ground. After camping, we went to Denver and stayed in a house all together. Then, Kevin got married. It was very weird to see him get married. But, he did it, so all weirdness aside, it is done. I feel like he must have been very deceptive in tricking Tess into marrying him, as he definatly married above himself. Hopefully she does not figure this out too soon. Anyways, here is my family in front of the temple, and then Keving and Tess (holding their favorite nephew). Then, we drove to Michigan. It took us two days from Denver, and was kind of a blur. I got reservations for a hotel in Iowa, and miscalculated how long it would take us to get there, and we ended up rolling into our hotel at about 1:30 in the morning. That was no fun. Then, after going to church in East Moline, IL (home of John Deere headquarters), we were back on our way to Ann Arbor. We passed through several states on the way to Michigan. We finnally got to Michigan, and then to Ann Arbor at about 6:30 on Sunday evening. Amazingly, Jacob was very, very well behaved the whole way. We would just give him a bottle and feed him, change him when we needed to stop anyway, and for the most part, he created no problems. His biggest ordeal was when he decided to cry for about ten minutes, but, he got over it and became happy. He also did a lot of talking to himself and telling himself stories. They are apparently pretty funny, because he laughed a lot at them. I never thought they were terribly entertaining. Here is a picture of Jacob hanging out in the back seat, like he did very well for some 24 hours.