I never imagined this 10 years ago...

Have I mentioned that Brian really hates the beach? Well he does. So it is exceptionally cool that we honeymooned in St. Lucia and that every year we go to Cape Cod and stay on the beach for our anniversary. He knows I LOVE the beach. What a good guy.

Although Brian was willing to take the boys swimming the afternoon of our anniversary while I nursed Liv, he was more than happy to watch Liv while I took the boys.

We got to Cape Cod late Thursday night or early Friday morning, depending how you look at it. We had breakfast at the Inn and the kids played on the playground and then we headed to the kids favorite place to eat, Salty's. We had a good meal until the end. Brian took Jack to the bathroom leaving me with Tor and Liv. Tor was across from me in a plastic lawn chair. He wanted to go with Daddy so he tried to get down by twisting and he toppled the chair over backwards. I ended up handing Liv to the waitress so I could take care of Tor although Brian and Jack came right back without going to the bathroom. Tor's mouth was bleeding because he tore his upper labial frenulum but it stopped bleeding after a few minutes, but not before getting Daddy's shirt bloody :).

Here are some pics taken before the fall, none were taken after :).

The kids love Jump On Us. We went several times last year. Check out the pics here, here, here and here. This year we went every day. The price only went up 50 cents since last year. Considering what everything else has done, that's not bad at all. Here are pics from the first day, our anniversary. They boys have sure changed in a year.

The kids played on the playground every morning after breakfast and then a couple of more times the rest of the day. In one off these pics another boy is wearing a Red Sox shirt. Jack immediately recognized it and asked his Daddy why he was wearing that instead of a Yankees shirt. Too funny.

It was great to go back to The Lighthouse Inn with Liv because she was conceived there on our last anniversary trip. She is now eating rice cereal. Kind of neat.

The boys picked these flowers for me out of our neighbor's yard. They were so proud. I had to come up with a delicate balance of gratitude and discipline.

Congratulations Brian! It has been a great six months since TechCrunch announced Crowd Fusion's launch.

Read the latest press release (actual pdf here) and then additional info here and here.

Update: The Los Angeles Times had a profile today on Jon Miller. He invested in Crowd Fusion and is on the board. In the above press release he said, "We believe in Brian's innovative vision for a new publishing company and look forward to seeing that vision through." Nice!

Here's what Brian had to say.

When Jack was a baby he had a Graco car seat that he loved. He would even sleep in it. He rarely fussed in it, in fact when he was almost 3 months old, he and I drove from NY to Florida and back without a problem. The only time he cried was when I got stuck in traffic on the DC beltway going down.

We got a Graco double stroller when we had Tor and it came with an infant car seat. It was pretty cool because we got it for free with Brian's Am Ex points. Jack's old car seat was a little beat up so we used the new one. They were both Graco and they looked the same to us except for the pattern. Well Tor hated his car seat. He cried and screamed any time he was put in it and then put in the car. Grandma Jackie said it was because he hated riding backwards and not being able to see the world. The poor kid cried until he was a year old AND 20 lbs and we put him in a new Britax car seat facing forwards. That seemed to confirm what Jackie said.

We had Liv and we pulled out Tor's car seat again. Jack has long since been given away. Well once she was a little older than a newborn and awake more than asleep she started screaming anytime the car seat was placed in the car too. Both Tor and Liv were ok in the car seat before it was placed in the car, but once in the car it was awful. Jackie said that Liv was just like Tor :).

We drove out to Cape Cod for our anniversary and Liv just hated the trip. It was 5.5 hours and despite us moving her car seat to the back row and sitting with her, she still cried. Once we got out there we rearranged the car seats and put her behind me again (for better access) and it was a nightmare. The traffic out there is awful so anytime we left the resort (for lunch, dinner, activities) she cried a lot and the stop and go traffic made it worse. Her constant crying in the car seat broke our hearts, drove us insane, and made my chest hurt. It just overall made us feel awful and helpless. What's worse is she is a really good baby, she never fusses.

We left on a Thursday and by Sunday I had enough. I got on Brian's laptop and researched all sorts of car seats. Ones from $40 to $400 dollars. After reading what seemed like hundreds of customer reviews we settled on a Graco SafeSeat from Amazon. This one has more padding and it lasts until the child is 30lbs instead of 20lbs. We had it shipped to us for free and received it on Wednesday. She loves it. The only time she fussed was when we were stuck in traffic, and then it was just upset noises. It wasn't the screaming like she was just being born again. She did really great on the trip home, she even slept most of it.

Since we have been home she has been great. I took her with me to Tor's class and she sat in the car seat the whole time and watched the kids play. I got her out the last 5 minutes and then put her in for the drive home and she fell asleep. It is amazing. All three car seats were Graco yet I guess they are different.

I talked with my friend who is a child psychologist because I was worried I somehow scarred Tor because he hated his car seat for a year! She said that when I first started the story she KNEW the car seat had nothing to do with it but by the time I finished thought I did a great job figuring it out. She said she would have never thought the problem was the car seat, so I got kudos for that. She also said that I didn't scar him for life. I explained that Jack is an easy going kid and Tor isn't :). She said that kids are not born with a blank slate like most people think, that they are born with their own temperaments. I still feel guilty that I didn't think it was the car seat. Oh well. She reminded me that he doesn't have an aversion to his car seat now. That's true.

The good news is that riding in the car is a pleasant experience now. Even more pleasant for Brian since he got a new car!

We had a wonderful time on our annual Cape Cod trip. We left on Thursday July 17th very late in the afternoon. We moved Liv to the back of the mini-van so I could sit next to her and keep her entertained because she hates her car seat. About halfway there, I switched with Brian and he sat with Liv while I drove. He was really tried from trying to get a lot of stuff done before we left.

Our 10 year anniversary was on Friday July 18th and we were still in the car driving at 1am when they played our anniversary song. Brian woke up right before it started, it was felt magical. What a great way to start the trip.

Everyone had fun on the trip, even Liv at almost 4 months old. We played on the playground and jumped on the trampolines every single day, we went to Barnes & Noble four or five times (they had a Starbucks and trains), we went to the beach a couple of times and the pool once. We went to tons of seafood restaurants until we were all seafooded out :). Bestemor, Grandma Jackie, Jennifer and Delphine visited us for 2 days too. That was a lot of fun, the kids had a great time playing together. We caught two butterflies while we were there (actually the same one two different days) and caught some fish in a net and put them in a bucket. We went on a boat ride and saw where all the Kennedy's live. We played putt-putt. We also went to the Zooquarium and saw lots of animals and sea creatures and had a pony ride.

Saturday on the way home we stopped at Bestemor's Norwegian shop in Mystic (like we always do) and got some cool Norwegian things for ourselves and for Christmas gifts. We usually stop at Mystic Pizza but Jack and Liv were sleeping so we kept going and got pizza about half an hour down the road.

Oh and we got Liv a new car seat from Amazon while we were there. She actually likes this one. Woo hoo. The 5.5 hour trip was much better coming home :).

Here are two of my favorite photos from the trip. Jenn took the first one and I got the second one.

Brian and I have been married 10 years and I am still crazy about him. Wow!

We heard "Happy Together" followed by "You're Smiling Face," which is our wedding song in the car this morning. How cool is that?

We saw WALL-E Saturday. Brian and the kids loved it. All the kids did really well during the movie. It was a nice afternoon. On our way out the kids played on the Reactrix screen. They moved it to a more out of the way location but the boys had no trouble finding it.

Our subdivision has a clubhouse and a pool. It is a nice pool but the kids aren't tall enough to reach the botton of the pool even at the shallow end so we joined the pool at their camp/school. There are three pools there and the kids can reach the bottom in two of them. It also has a snack bar and two playgrounds. It closes a little earlier than the clubhouse pool.

Friday night we went to the clubhouse pool after Daddy finished work. We got there around 7pm and stayed until 8pm. I swam with the boys while Daddy and Liv watched. Here the boys are with their new hooded towels Grandma Jackie gave them.