Happy New Year!

Okay, so we have been horrendously lazy about posting on the blog for the last six months but will attempt to get back on track. This is a monster post of the most interesting things that have happened since August.

Please also see the previous post for the most recent update on our horrendous weather.

First off we went to Italy in September with Robert's parents, sister, and brother-in-law. It seems appropriate to start off with a picture of Robert's dad Bob and Gray with a gelato in hand since gelato was a common theme throughout the trip.




Next up is a picture of us on a water bus in Venice. Gray loves boats, looooooves boats, looooooooooves boats. Thus Venice was a great experience for him and, as a result, his parents.



The family on a foot bridge in Venice.



An excellent dinner, way past Gray's bedtime, but given there was pasta and bread and gelato he didn't mind at all.



On the way home we had a six hour layover in New York City. What to do, what to do? We took the train in from Newark to the city, went up the Empire State building despite driving rain, and then had pizza on the way back to the airport. We would have been exactly on time had our flight not been four hours delayed.



We spent Thanksgiving in LA visiting Robert's sister Megan and brother in law Chai. Afterwards, Laura and Gray traipsed around Southern California. Where was Robert? Flying for 48 hours to Australia and back for 52 hours on the ground. First off for the vacationers was the Santa Barbera Zoo with Nif and Ryan. Well known for its astroturf hills best experienced by sliding down them on cardboard. Who needs lions and tigers and bears anyway...



As you can see Ryan and Gray got along famously bonding over a common language of Star Wars.




Then the LA Zoo (notice a theme here) with Julie, Brittany, and Trevor.



No recap of our fall would be complete without pictures from THE Tulsa State Fair. Fried food, low alcohol beer, and the best people watching in middle America! Gray loves rides; Gray's parents love when they end and the one bolt between the ride and orbit around the earth stays in place.





Then onto Gray's second favorite holiday - Halloween! In a major shocker for the Thomas household Buzz Lightyear was the costume of choice. This year was even better than last year as Gray really could get into the real spirit of the holiday - you know the ruthless search for the most candy possible. We still have most of it sitting around...



Next up is Gray's Christmas party at preschool. This mostly consisted of twelve 3 year olds sitting around not singing as the poor teacher Mrs. Wells attempted to get them to sing. At least there were cookies!



In December Laura hosted a baby shower in Seattle for our friends Tom and Yaya (who delivered a happy healthy baby Abbie a couple of weeks ago). While Laura was in Seattle Gray and Robert had a guys weekend - beer, monster trucks, the gun show, and food covered in "cheese"



Lastly, we spent the week of Christmas in Seattle at Robert's parents.

Greetings Everyone - after a long delay we have returned to populating the blog. Robert is guest blogging the narrative because Dr. Laura has not returned from her 5 month post PH.D bender as of yet.

As you can see the winter weather here in Tulsa is quite mild - soft breeze, gentle sun, warm days. Who are we kidding, we just has the worst snowstorm in Tulsa history yesterday which dumped 14" of snow on us. On the plus side the temperatures made it all the way to 10 degrees today for the high! Tonight it will be -7 with a brutal windchill. Since the city is completely shut down and the plows didn't get started until today we have had a family snow day - to go with the snow day yesterday - and likely the snow day tomorrow and Friday!



Gray and I watched an America's Test Kitchen episode where they made brownies. So naturally we made brownies. Luckily we duped Mom into helping with all the hard parts (basically everything that doesn't require the licking of a spoon)




Next up was a drive around town in our SUV - because we could. Robert likes to drive in the snow, especially around and around in circles. Gray took a bunch of pictures including this one




Here is our driveway - which doesn't do the 4 foot snow drift in front of the garage door any justice. Laura notes this is after a lot of shoveling and driving her SUV up and down the driveway over and over.



Our house from the street - or what we thought was the street, we could have been driving on the neighbors lawn for all we know.



Then, once the storm passed the requisite snow angels. Unfortunately the snow is so light that its very hard to make snowmen (Gray was sad) or snowballs (Robert was sad). Perhaps after a day or two.





Finally, toasting marshmallows by the fire. This picture is misleading - Gray's view on marshmallow toasting starts with putting one on the end of the stick as a diversion. His parents start to worry about where he's putting the stick and meantime he just eats the marshmallows out of the bag!



The good news is that it will be above freezing on Sunday, just in time for another snow storm Monday...

Laura's rule of life #117

If you ruin dinner (in this case by using stale arborio rice to make risotto and don't figure it out until you start tasting the risotto half an hour into cooking)...



You can always order a pizza!

The Stanwood-Camano Community Fair

Last week while we were back in Seattle we went to the Stanwood-Camano Community Fair. Every time we go Robert and his family regale us with stories of Megan showing sheep, running the Republican ice cream stand and performing in the parade. Having grown up in a huge city instead of a small rural town I still get a kick out of it all.


Here is Gray and Aunt Megan after going on the "scary" ride. He spent the whole ride curled up in a ball but wanted to go again afterward.


Riding the Ferris Wheel with Dad. When they got on the ride operator very seriously told Robert not to rock. Every time they got to the top the whole thing creaked and popped, maybe we should have called this one the "scary" ride.


Eating ice cream with Papa.


Aunt Megan, Cousin Wendy and Gray with a Goat. We also got to feed an Alpaca, and we petted a bunny and a dairy cow.

Happy Birthday Nana

First a Tulsa Shock game.


Then dinner and cupcakes. Happy Birthday Mom. We love you!


Someone REALLY likes chocolate cupcakes.

This morning we drove out of Tulsa to the Thunderbird farm.


There we picked our own blueberries.


A very proud little boy.


We bought eggs and honey from Farmer Don.


Then we came home and used our eggs, honey,


and blueberries to make


muffins. Yum!


Not a bad way to spend a hot summer morning.

Dr. Mom

I have spent the last 2 days trying to come up with some funny or clever way to post about my big news. However, I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing funny or clever about it!
To that end:
I PASSED MY DISSERTATION DEFENSE!
This means that (except for turning in my paper on August 11th at 10am - yes I had to make an appointment for it) I have now earned a Ph.D in Experimental Psychology. This also means that Robert intends to call me Dr. Laura for the rest of my life, which he thinks is a lot more humorous than it actually is!
Now I am going to sleep for a month!