Banana-Fana Fo-Fana

Let's play the name game, shall we?  It's well known in our circle that we cast a wide child-naming net.  There are lengthy lists, a scoring process, eliminations, re-scoring (seriously), and a whole slew of names that are just off the table from years spent in a kindergarten class.  It's a hairy ordeal no doubt, but it did yield Avett the first time, so the bar is set pretty high.

We're struggling to find the right name for #2.  We did some work coming back from the beach in March and narrowed the multi-page list to a shorter (still multi-page) list, but haven't gotten any closer since then.  Today I put them all up on the chalkboard in our kitchen so they're in our face and maybe we can figure this thing out.

Baby Timmons v2.0 is on here somewhere, probably

Between this whole name thing, this recent purchase, and a soon-to-be nursery that's still pretty full of junk, your friendly neighborhood blog writer's been a little stressed.  Like, waking up in the middle of the night and staying awake stressed, which those of you that know me know is very abnormal if not caused by a brand new baby that needs to eat all the time.  I'm a guy that likes my sleep, so we've been working hard to get stuff done.  Van?  Check.  Nursery?  Ruth Ann has been great in picking and compiling things, and with some help, I got the room painted and most of the new furniture assembled.  So yeah, some progress.

Great Helper

Voila!

Lo and behold, I got a full night of uninterrupted sleep last night!  And it was awesome.  So we'll continue to chip away on the name and all the other prep work for this baby, and try to manage to relax, take a breath and have a little fun while we're at it.  As busy and stressful as things have been for me, we've still managed to do some fun stuff.  Proof below...

Mother's Day at the Deacon Tower.  Someone enjoyed spending time on the field:

and even put up with some family pictures with the Moms:

The Robinsons:

The Timmons Collective:

And Team Timmons (I'm sporting the temporary Clark Kent look):

And for comparison, here's last year's Father's Day vs. Mother's Day this year:

Let's not also forget that the rascal turned 19 months old (give yourself a hand, kid), 

And that Ruth Ann turned 32 weeks (!!!) pregnant.  She looks good, right?

 

And in late-breaking weekend news, after more long hours, I can proudly say that all baby furniture assembly is complete.  Our upstairs is kind of in shambles as we search out a home for everything that's being redirected out of the new baby's room, but we're making headway on that too.  And over dinner tonight, we did a little bit of name work.  We might get ready for this little guy after all!

 

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End of an Era

No, I'm not just talking about the series finale of The Office, but did you watch it?  It was amazing.

The particular era that's come to an end is my glorious 11 years spent with a very special...automobile.

This Automobile:

That's right, friends, my undercover (yet very functional) sport wagon aka, silver bullet, aka Scooby has moved on.  The hood scoop, the turbo boost gauge and all 227hp, the whole shebang - gone.  This was the first new car I ever bought with my own money, and I've loved it.

(a lot)

I know what you're thinking, "if you love the car so much, why don't you marry it?  Or at least don't sell it?"  It's a fair question, and here's a hint:

And while you can't really see it in this picture because RA is a great-looking pregnant lady, she is indeed quite pregnant.  And as great as the Subaru is, putting a second car seat in the back wouldn't be all that comfortable for anybody.  So, what's an almost dad of 2 kids under 2 to do?  How do you possibly replace such a great ride?  What you do, if you're me, is embrace fatherhood and take the plunge.  And when I say "take the plunge", I mean buy a minivan.

Zoinks.

Now this:

I'll let this settle in for just a minute or two.  Everybody back with me?  Cool...

In the words of Ron Burgandy, "that escalated quickly".  After I mentioned needing to part ways with this glorious piece of magic, a friend was interested in giving it a great second home.  And before I knew it, I was driving something that could swallow my old ride.

Is it weird to think of me driving a van?  It is for some people I've talked to, but maybe the weirdest thing is that it's not weird to me.  At all.  I mean, do I watch that Swagger Wagon clip more regularly now?  Sure, I do.  But by and large, I'm almost proud to roll in this giant tank of a vehicle.  I consider it a dad's badge of honor, that just so happens to have a back-up camera and Bluetooth.

So, transportation is all set.  Stay tuned for another update on names, nurseries, and general prep for still unnamed baby #2.

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Ketchup

This blog title is a reference to how much Avett likes demands to dip food these days, surefire clickbait for Ginger, AND a weird way to tell you that I'm going to play "catch up" on the happenings with Team Timmons.  See what I did there?  Wordplay, for the win!

Sorry about that, sheesh.  On to the news...

You already know about our recent trip to the beach for the Wrightsville Beach Marathon.  We couldn't let the runners have all the fun, so we decided to pack up the crew and venture to the aquarium at Fort Fischer. I was super excited about this and thought it would be right up Avett's alley, and boy was I right - for about 36% of the time we were there.  The other 64% of the time was meltdown like we've never experienced before with our normally good-natured little dude.

 Cool Place!

We went from the "content in the stroller"

To the "oh wow, let me explore this"

To the "hey, let me hang onto you around the albino alligator"

To the "if you don't let me push this stroller wherever I want to go, I'll squall, throw myself down and bang my head on the ground" *headbanging not pictured

And again "driving"

Eesh.  Call it lack of naps, being off schedule or just not digging the fish, but we were "those parents" for the first time.  The scornful looks are SO special.  But it goes with the territory, as they say.  We still managed to have a mostly good time, and baby 2 got his first aquarium experience (sorta):

As did Eleanor and let's face it, it's deeply rooted in her genes to love animals

Avett was able to rally pretty well and have a good time at dinner

We also had plenty of time to rest and relax, which was a welcome break from the daily grind.

(Almost a bro)

+/- 8 seconds of stillness

Smooches

And finally what's a trip to the beach without, well, the beach?  It's not exactly beach weather in March, but we did have a make a quick run out into the sand.

Not all smiles and unicorns

(my enthusiasm didn't rub off)

Not our best family shot

On the car ride home, Avett caught up on some much-needed Zzzzzzs, and we played the baby name game.  Our version of the name game involves each of us scoring each name on our 2+ page list, combining the scores and hanging on to the top vote-getters.  We have some front runners, but we still have some work to do.  Stay tuned on that...

And since this is a catch-up post, here are some other fun shots since the last big update.

Quick trip to the doc for a fever and urine sample.  Not the most fun we've ever had.

Then back again for the 18 month checkup (still hugging the bottom of the size curve)

I'm 18 months old, y'all!

Avett loves his Swiffer (and truck, wearing PJs and Cousin Eddie hat)

The dogs love snack time

Avett loves the new helicopter I control with the iPad.  Either that, or he likes watching Cooper's reaction.  Cooper does NOT like the heli.

Avett loves the BAAAA (banjo), and I'm getting a little better

And I love these two

Until next time...

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Marathon Musings

After a whole mess of running last year, I decided to take some time off to let my mind and body recover from all of the wear and tear of the roughly 520 miles I put it through.  I still need to be active somehow, and I'm enjoying (I guess?) my winter P90X2 regimen that is coming to a close in the next few weeks.  From there, it will hopefully be some time on the bike, the wife having another baby (yikes!), and then another training plan for NYC in November (barring natural disasters).

Over St. Patty's weekend, a small crew went down to Wrightsville Beach to watch my running buddies Coach and C-Nix run a marathon.  This will be a painfully obvious statement to most of you, but even as a two-time marathon veteran (Big Sur and Charlotte Thunder Road, what-what!) it's an observation that I wasn't able to make until the race was done Sunday afternoon - I can now confirm that watching a marathon is infinitely more enjoyable than running one.

I feel largely responsible for suckering encouraging these guys to start distance running, so I thought it only fitting to give them my support for the big race day.  My goal was really to give people a laugh, as I remember how much I always need something to laugh about when I'd been running for 4+ hours.  Here's a brief recap, with photo evidence below:

1. Set alarm for 5:15, greet runners, give sleepy pep talk, blast Eye of the Tiger through my iPhone's speaker
2. Get coffee
3. Get pre-made signs, Ginger, Amy and Elle to take up our cheering spots (the race ran by our rental house twice)
4. Hold signs, cheer sorta quietly (it's still 6:30 and dark at this point) until our peeps go by, get some chuckles from the non-serious runners.
5. Shower
6. More coffee
7. Get in costume, grab cowbell and start cheering (loudly this time) the marathoners who are making it to mile 13.
8. Get into cars, drive to mile 25 on the course, resume signage and cheering (and galloping)
9. Meet our peeps at the finish to congratulate a job well done.
10. Celebrate (it was St. Patty's after all)

And the highlights in pictures:

1

3a

3b

7a

7b

7c

8a

8b

8c

9 (who was I to ask them to move to better lighting after running 26.2?)

10

All in all, a very fun weekend (says the guy who didn't run a bit).  Hats off to my guys and to all the other runners on a job well done, and while I'm not ready to start running again just yet, the race did spark a little fire in my gut.

We did some other fun stuff on the trip, so look out for a second post with some details and other updates from TT!

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Random Roundup

So I've been away from the blog for a minute or three, but have about an Avett nap's worth of time to try and catch things up around here.  Fair warning, this might be long and will likely be all over the road, but it won't be as hard-hitting as my last entry.

Four is the new three:
Most importantly, and by now I think most of you already know this, buuuuuuut we're expanding, and the dudes are taking over!

We're beyond excited, and normally oscillate somewhere between trying to prepare and trying not to freak out/be overwhelmed/wonder how to get 4 people ready and out the door every morning.  Between now and June, we've got to do a ton of prep work for #2, not least of which is finding a name for this stinker (a challenge last time to say the least).  And name #2 needs to live up to the awesomeness of name #1, so Bob or Billy just ain't gonna cut it.  Think happy thoughts for us, we have work to do...

Avett keeps a'growin' and a'changin':
Avett's just a shade under a year and a half old.  The cool, calm, and collected (usually) nature of this little man continues to amaze me.  He's walking, and he's finally started making some words instead of just grunts, which has let us quickly realize that the kid is a southern gentleman already.  I don't think Ruth Ann or I have much of an accent, but you wouldn't know it by listening to Avett.  Two of his go-to words right now are "bite" (food not others) and "bye" (accompanied by a wave), and both are said with a drawl suitable to an old timey man from South Carolina.  Pretty funny, but I'm not sure where it comes from unless he watches Honey Boo Boo reruns at my folks' house.  Speaking of my parents' house/best daycare on the planet, he has a really good friend over there.  Jackson's quite the patient pup, I just wish ours put up with these kinds of adorable shenanigans better than they do (which is to say, they don't.  At all.).

Going Viral, maybe:
Have you heard about the Harlem Shake yet?  If not, a quick YouTube search is the best way to explain it, but you will quickly lose 2 hours of your life in 30 second chunks if you do.  This is one of those weird internet things that makes no sense and has just caught fire over the last week or two, to the tune of over 44 million views of a bunch of different interpretations.  In an attempt to bring some fun to work, we decided to create our own version in the office, then challenged our other US offices to do their own.  They're all out of the SilkRoad YouTube channel and are all pretty great.  Give ours a watch right here, and help spread the word - we need to take home the bragging rights for the most popular clip.



Merlefest:
It's no secret that Team Timmons is a fan of the Avett Brothers.  They are playing at Merlefest this year, and for it to be such a great festival, I'm sad to say I've never been.  That will change this year, and I can't wait.  Here are a couple clips to help explain my excitement level.

TAB on LNJF nearly makes my head E-X-P-L-O-D-E

Try to watch this entire clip without smiling:

Speaking of twang...
I started taking banjo lessons!  Two weeks in and I must say that I'm pretty good.  That is, if your expectations are really low and don't mind hearing the same, simple stuff over and over.  I'm enjoying it so far and have really been able to see some progress already (I'm not sure that RA would say that she's HEARING a lot of progress just yet, though).  The sappy sucker in me really wants to learn to play so I can play with and/or help teach my boys to play (yes, I need a few years head start on them).  Best believe I'll be learning Rainbow Connection, Froggie Went a-Courtin', and of course Dueling Banjos.

The Quintessential "First Song", complete with what RA refers to as metal witch nails, aka, finger picks

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle in someone else's bin:
Quick story, but strange enough to mention here.  A little while back, we got curbside recycling at the casa.  Even though we had to pay extra for it, we were mega excited, seeing as how we'd been collecting and hauling our recyclables away ourselves since we've lived at said casa.  A couple weeks back, our pickup was delayed by a day but I forgot and rolled the cart up anyway.  When I got home and opened the lid to check it, it was still full.  But it wasn't our stuff.  Someone in the 'hood is piggybacking on our recycling cart and dumping their stuff on pickup day.  I'm enough of a hippie to think that's kind of OK (save the Earth and all), but it's weird.  I gave the stink eye to the entire cul de sac just in case anyone was looking on.

Climb on the Vine:
Most of you know I'm a tech nerd and love a good app.  I really, really like Vine, and I wish some of you loyal readers would too!  It's new and somewhat slow to take off, but you can kind of think of it as Twitter and Instagram's lovechild, but for video.  You get 6 seconds for your video.  That's it.  Think animated gif.  Think looping video.  The app is very slick, and let's you easily record multiple quick shots in that 6 seconds, so creative people can really have a blast.  My creative bone is just so-so, but here are a couple of the things I've done so far.  Get your Vine on and find me, it's superduperfuntimes!

Stop motion beer smiley:

See what I did there? loop:


Mad Skillz Animated Loop:

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