May 4, 2008 - The Five-Borough Bike Tour

In 2008, Jim decided to participate in the TD Bank Five Borough Bike Tour in New York City with a team from Sirius.  The Tour is the country's largest recreational cycling event, and the 42-mile route takes its 30,000 riders through all five boroughs of the city, across five major bridges, and finally across New York Harbor on the Staten Island Ferry. We went into the city the day before, and stayed in lower Manhattan at a hotel directly across from Ground Zero (which none of us had ever seen before... quite an emotional experience). On the morning of the race (which started out unfortunately gloomy), Erin and I kissed Jim for good luck and watched as he rode off to join the throngs of people that were lining up for the race.  We then had breakfast in the hotel and watched the group of riders grow from the windows, which you can see behind Erin in this picture. (You can click the picture to enlarge it.)  The entire ride took Jim around 3 1/2 hours, and he came back tired but feeling like he'd really accomplished something incredible!

October 16, 2004 - Birthday Cake

What child (or adult, for that matter) doesn't like birthday cake? For Erin, cakes have always been best when she's helped decorate them herself.  Just after her 4th birthday, we went down to my parents' house to celebrate, and they bought her a birthday cake (chocolate, of course - after all, she is MY kid!). It already said the typical "Happy Birthday Erin!" on it, but my father bought some additional icing at the supermarket.  He and Erin then set out to make the cake just perfect for her.  Together they drew a dog on it (long story there, for another time), and in the pictures you can see them both concentrating to get it just right. I think that cake might just be one of the yummiest we've ever had!

October 2, 2003 - Meeting Belle

Just before Erin turned 3, we took her to Disney World for the first time.   (The timing was excellent... Erin was old enough to be totally into it, but as she wasn't yet 3, she was FREE!)  It was her first plane ride, her first trip to the parks, and her first chance to see the characters she was so enamored of in her favorite Princess movies which she was watching ad nauseam at the time.  On our first day at the Magic Kingdom, we happened upon Belle's (as in Beauty and the Beast Belle) Story Time. Erin was enraptured seeing her favorite Princess on stage telling the story. Afterward, she had the chance to meet and get her picture taken with Belle, and I thought Erin would melt on the spot. She was completely in awe and didn't know what to say or do. For her, nothing else we did that day compared to when this picture was taken.

April 26, 2007 - Meeting Uno

Molly, obviously, never met Uno, as we got her just a few days after he died. But one spring day in 2007, we found our movies from when we lived in Ft. Lauderdale, including the ones we took of Uno swimming with the other Labs in our apartment complex. (Well, he was never much of a swimmer, but he had a good time nonetheless.) We'd seen Molly "watch" TV before, but nothing could have prepared us for her reaction to these videos! She got incredibly excited, and was determined to find the dogs on the screen, even looking behind the TV to see if they were back there. She barked, whined, and (much to Jim's horror) jumped up to try to smell them on the screen. She really wanted to be playing with the other dogs! It was was sweet to see our two fur-babies together (well, kind of), and we wondered how they would have gotten along if they'd ever had the chance to play...

February 8, 2003 - Shoveling

Jim is very fond of saying that as long as he lived on the East Coast, he was almost certain to get snow on his birthday. One of the big ones happened when he turned 16 (who remembers the huge blizzard in 1978? It kept him from getting his driver's license that day), and another big one was in 2003. For this one, we were staying at my parents' house, and when it came time to shovel the driveway, we made sure to get even the youngest involved in the task. Actually, the youngest was the one that enjoyed herself the most that day! Erin had her own little shovel, and acted as if she thought it was the most fun thing she'd ever done.  Can't say the adults felt the same way, but watching Erin enjoy herself sure made the time go faster.

October 29, 2000 - Erin's First Bath

When it was time for Erin to have her first "real" bath, we knew just the woman for the job - my grandmother, Yetta. Not only was she very experienced with this sort of thing (having performed the same ritual for my father, me, and countless others as well), but we felt it was somewhat symbolic, as Erin was her first great-grandchild. It was very touching seeing her handle our tiny little baby (who, not surprisingly, hated the entire experience), and I know she enjoyed it as well. It was the first time we had four generations of our family together, but certainly not the last!

May 12, 2003 - Shortalls

It's amazing, the things you can remember by looking at a picture.  I specifically remember on this day, I got home from work and called my mom (as I do many days - well, not the work part these days, but you know what I mean).  She told me she'd had a really rough day at work and was feeling really down. We talked for a while, and I hung up feeling that I wished there was something I could do to make her feel better. Then I glanced down and saw Erin, who looked completely adorable in a pink shortall outfit, complete with matching socks. I thought if anything could make Mom smile, it would be seeing Erin in this get-up. So we went up to Erin's room, I snapped a few pictures, and emailed them to my Mom. It worked like a charm! Later, I even created a scrapbook of these pictures with the story that went with them. Just goes to prove that the power of pictures can be an incredible thing!