Urban babies drink latte

At least so says one of Eoin's books. Well he took it to heart today and decided to make a grab for my starbucks - thankfully it was a decaf!

PS: Yes, that is a munster rugby jersey I am wearing - it should be an interesting season.

Urban thanksgiving 2009

The start of holiday season is upon here in the US with Thanksgiving this Thursday (the 4th Thursday in November) which we will spend in Minnesota with Biz's family.

However as a prelude to that, we had urban thankgiving yesterday - where our 'urban family', i.e friends, celebrated all that we can be thankful for this year. Kristin Davies kindly hosted and we had a smashing time with plenty of food (turkey and lots of sides, including lithuanian Kugalis, a potato, bacon and onion dish) beverages and craic which is the way of it. Eoin and has friend Matthew got reacquainted at their first thanksgiving event.

UCC & Friends in Chicago

My alma mater, University College Cork (UCC), started up alumni chapters across a number of US cities last year including Chicago - now UCC has been around since 1845 so they were presumably waiting for me to migrate before expanding into the US!

We held our second annual reception tonight at Chief O'Neills bar and restaurant in Chicago with over 80 people attending including alumni, the college president, faculty members and friends. It was a great evening where we caught up on key events happening at UCC (it is going from strength to strength and I found out it even has ties to my wifes alma mater, Notre Dame) and also to celebrate the musical recordings of Chief O'Neill. He was the Chief of Police in Chicago many many years ago but also spent a considerable part of his life recording traditional Irish music played in and around Chicago. Mel Mercer, head of the school of music in UCC and leader of a project to digitize the original wax recordings, two of his very accomplished students and some local musicians played (and even Irish danced) beautifully for us - it reminded Biz and I that we miss Ireland alot.



Unfortunately it was not all good news on the night - severe rain in Ireland on Thursday and Friday has caused flooding in many parts of the country, but particularly in Cork, and many of the university buildings were flooded causing much damage and closing much of the campus down for the coming week and possibly longer. Photos can be seen on http://www.rte.ie/

Houston we have a roller!

Last night when I went to check on Eoin I discovered him sleeping on his tummy. I had put him to bed on his back! From that I gathered he had rolled over, but it wasn't until this afternoon that he let loose the roll. He rolled all over the floor, changing directions and rolling toward things he wanted. I was amazed! Of course the video camera was not charged, so I missed him at his best. By the time I got the video camera working he was tired, but you can still get an idea of what he was doing. I've also included a video of him in his exersaucer. He loves it. He stares at it until we put him in it. Today he even rolled towards it.

Halloween in Old Town

We took to the streets to 'trick or treat' around our Old Town neighbourhood on Saturday afternoon with Eoin (he was decked out in his cow costume and making cow faces!). Eoin is a bit too young for the candy so we passed on all the treats on offer. It was fun to watch all the kids in their outfits with bags full on sweets and their parents in toe and to see the efforts some households go to for halloween.







It was also a delight to see the last of the autumn leaves on the trees in the sunshine as we walked along the streets and we popped into nearby Oz Park (as in Wizard of Oz).