Brady's 2 Year Stats

Brady's not quite two years old yet, but since we're leaving the country, we had his physical a bit early. As always, I'm quite anxious to see how he's measuring up, especially since he can never seem to hold up his pants that are a size smaller than his age. So here's how he did:

Height : 34.5 inches (65th percentile)
Weight : 26lb 8oz (35th percentile)

His weight has increased almost two whole pounds in the last four and a half months, which has kept him on the 35th percentile. He has gained two inches in height, which moved him from the 50th percentile to the 65th percentile. He is projected to be about 6 feet tall as an adult. This is based on Andy's height and my height if I'd ever drank milk growing up, which I didn't. I should be as tall as Andy, but if I was, I probably wouldn't have dated him, so things worked out alright ;) Andy is thrilled that Brady will be tall and he will fit right in with my side of the family where all the men are at least 6 feet tall. My mom said just the other day that Brady is dense. He's all muscle and you can actually see the definition in his legs. There's not an ounce of "fluff" anywhere on that kid. Andy and I were heavier growing up and felt like we would have to work hard to keep our kids from that same fate and it looks like it may not be a problem (at least for Brady). He eats a variety of things and his favorites are any fruits or veggies he can get his hands on. The only difference is that he knows when he's full and will say he's done. He won't take one more bite after he's said that he's done. He's learned at such a young age what most adults have yet to learn.

We're already starting to wonder where the last two years have gone. He's such a big kid now and is talking more and more every day. It really doesn't seem like that long ago that we were still living in Oakland and he was sleeping in the same room with us. He's had such an eventful childhood already and he's not even two! He's lived in three states and is about to make his fourth home in another country on another continent! How many other kids his age can say that? Andy always says that he'll be jealous of himself and I think he's right. Brady is getting the opportunity to travel the world and his only reminder will be pictures instead of his own memory. Either way, it's a great experience for all of us and we can't wait to see what his third year will bring!

Andy's Visit to Currahee

Written by Andy

"Currahee!", cried the men of the 506th PIR (parachute infantry regiment) as they charged up the steep ascent to the top of Currahee Mountain, "three miles up, three miles down!"
Currahee, is derived from the Cherokee word gurahiyi which means "stand alone, together" (the Cherokee were native in this region). This word has been forever immortalized in the 2001 HBO mini-series, Band of Brothers. It is during this mini-series that you are able to witness the men of the 506th regiment (Easy Company) go through the rigors of basic training to prepare for the invasion of Normandy, which would mark the beginning of the American offensive to end the war in Europe. These men, along with a total of around 17,000 other soldiers of the 501st, 506th, 511th, and 517th, completed training during World War II at Camp Toccoa, which is about 5 miles west of Toccoa, Georgia. In addition to the Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan and The Dirty Dozen can claim Camp Toccoa as their birthplace.

During my childhood years and into my adult years, I have always been a huge WWII enthusiast (my brother Chris more so however). I could not resist the opportunity to take the trip down to Toccoa.

Sadly the camp no longer exists as it had been shut down after the war and converted to a Georgia State Prison. The property, which housed the camp, had then been converted by Milliken & Company to support their textile manufacturing. However, the Milliken plant eventually closed and just this past year in 2011, the property has been turned over to the Stephens County Historical Society. They have future plans to reconstruct the camp as well as provide other appropriate historical venues.Within the small downtown area of Toccoa, the historical society has established the Currahee Military Museum. "It is the best kept secret in the state of Georgia", stated Reed Pelfrey, Lieutenant (Lt) in the 101st Airborne 502 Regiment.

Lt. Pelfrey greeted me as I entered and as we continued to stroll through the museum, it felt so surreal that this man had been involved in the Normandy invasion on D-Day back on June 6th 1944 and 67 years later I have the opportunity to get his first hand account of that monumental day.

Pelfrey made his drop during predawn before the army would arrive on the beaches of Normandy. The 502nd had the mission of securing the two northern causeways leading inland from Utah Beach and to destroy a German 122mm Howitzer near Ste Martin-de-Varreville.As I knew from studying my history books and watching documentaries, many of the regiments were scattered in their drops due to the heavy flak from the German anti-aircraft artillery. I asked Lt. Pelfrey if he had a clean jump, for which he responded, "I had about a clean a jump as possible while being shot at!" He landed safely outside of Ste. Mere Eglise and followed through with his intended mission. Once their objectives were secured they would push on to Carentan to secure the crossroads to link up Utah and Omaha beaches. You can see Lt. Pelfrey in the picture to the right, as well as an example of what an American Paratrooper looked like during combat.

Located in the museum is a stable, built in Aldbourne, England in 1922, that housed both Able and Easy (Band of Brothers) Companies of the 506h prior to and after D-Day. Many of the veterans who lived in the stable returned to visit the site after war. Noting a great interest in the stable, especially after the release of Band of Brothers, the owner donated it to the museum. It was re-assembled in Toccoa and dedicated October 7, 2005. You can see the pictures below of the stable in Aldbourne, then being transported, and then finally in the museum.

Each of the stable stalls included displays of the soldiers who trained at Camp Toccoa as well as examples of the enemies they fought. One in particular you should take note of happened to be a German soldier with the mark of "SS" on his lapel. This soldier definitely shouldn't be taken lightly as it marked that he was part of the

Schutzstaffel, which happened to be the elite fighters/guards assigned by Adolf Hitler himself and led by Heinrich Himmler.
The remainder of the museum had various medals, photos, maps, books, weapons, and other priceless items that help tell the story of the brave men who fought during WWII. It was definitely a different time in history where great men and women served on foil soil in the defense of the United States and the rest of the world.
I finished my trip by making the run up Currahee Mountain with my trusty steed (Camaro)! As stated, it is a three mile climb up the mountain, the first two miles are not all that bad, simple rolling hills but the last mile seemed to assent at least 1,000 feet and included sharp switchbacks. You can see my great adventure below. The first image is from a gas station on the corner viewing Currahee Mountain and you can see in one of the last shots that same gas station afar, at the intersection, viewed from atop Currahee.

After going through the Currahee Military Museum, I am sure Nikki, Brady, and I should be ready to invade Europe ourselves on January 19th!

Brady Decided to be a Big Boy

I mentioned that while we were staying at my parents' house over Christmas that Brady became very good at climbing out of his pack n play and even surprised us downstairs one day. At my parents' house, we situate the pack n play in my brothers' room between their twin beds. Since neither of them live at home anymore, he's in the room alone when it's just me and him visiting. When all three of us come up, Andy sleeps in one of the twin beds. Over Christmas, Brady would wake up and climb into bed with Andy every single night. When we got back to South Carolina, the first night he woke up screaming because he couldn't find Andy.

When we go to Germany next week, we know that Brady will have to graduate to a big boy bed, seeing as his room is equipped with a twin bed and we know he's getting way too big for the pack n play. We bought a bed rail to take with us because we don't know how he's going to handle being a bed all by himself. When we stay in hotels, he sleeps in the bed with us, but we usually keep him in between us.

Brady and I arrived in Pittsburgh on Wednesday night after a very terrible drive. Brady was great the whole time, but there was rain the entire drive and there was about an hour and a half in West Virginia, after the sun had gone down, where the rain became very heavy and visibility was very poor, even with the wind shield wipers at full speed. We are very fortunate that we arrived safely. That night, I put Brady to bed, and repeated several times to stay in his bed and if he needed me to just call me because my room shares a wall with his. He woke up screaming at 2:30AM because he couldn't find Andy and was pretty inconsolable. My mom came in and volunteered to sleep with him since I'd had a long day and needed some sleep. He slept in one of the twin beds with my mom and I'm so glad he has such amazing grandparents.





This morning, my alarm went off at 9:15AM and I hadn't heard a peep out of Brady all night. My mom came upstairs and poked her head into the room saying, "I don't think you need to worry about him being in a big boy bed anymore." I rushed to see what he'd done and pictured above is what we found. He had crawled into one of the twin beds and slept. He was still sleeping! We don't know if he crawled in during the night or if he got into it right after I laid him down for the night. I intend to check when I go to bed tonight to find out. He was so pleased with himself when he got up and was all smiles. It's amazing to see how kids show you when they're ready and it might even be before we're ready ;)

Farwell South Carolina

Our time in South Carolina is coming to a close and it's time to look back at the good times and opportunities that we've had since we moved here. We found out we were moving here in October 2010 and were very excited about the climate. When we made our house scouting trip in December, we were in for a shock. It was COLD!! We hadn't even bothered to bring our winter jackets with us. The trip was a success, because we found a great 3 bedroom rental house that would be perfect for a year-long rotation. Our move was set for mid-January and we were shocked on Christmas Day, when Andy's cousin who lives here, sent us pictures of the area covered in snow.

Andy came down to start work, and Brady and I followed a week later on January 28, 2011. The weather was GORGEOUS from that moment on. Of course there were days that we wore long pants or sweatshirts, but they were few and far between. I never had to wear my sneakers and loved wearing my flip flops year round.

Living in this part of the country has allowed us many opportunities that we would never had living up north. We got to explore the southeastern United States and did it all on weekend trips. We traveled to Atlanta, Charleston, Savannah, and Columbia for the very first time. We got to visit the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC, which is something we will never forget. We were able to take Brady to Disney twice before he turned 2. We never imagined that we'd be able to do that with a child so young and it was an experience I'll never forget. The only drawback is that it's a 10 hour drive to visit our family.

Brady has done a lot of growing up in the last year that we've lived here. When we first moved, he'd just taken his first solo steps and was still crawling to get around. He's gone through an incredible transformation in this house and it will be sad to leave. This has been his third home in his first two years and he's about to add a fourth. I envy those who get to stay in the same house and have all of the memories of their child around them every day.

Our first day in South Carolina
(January 2011, Brady at 11 months old)

Our last weekend in South Carolina
(January 2012, Brady at 22 months old)

The hardest thing to leave behind will be Andy's cousin, Nicole Trap. She also lives here and we've had a great time having family nearby. We tried to get together with her and her boyfriend, Dusty, as often as we could. When we did get together, we'd all hang out, play games, and stay up late. I'll miss that we were all so comfortable around each other that we could talk about anything. Nicole and I have so much in common (aside from having the same full legal name), and it was great being able to share anything with a friend who also happened to be a member of our family. Brady loves them as much as we do. I'll really hate only getting to see them when we're both in Pittsburgh at the same time visiting our families.

Brady and Nicole

Andy and Dusty hanging out by the computer. They were forever battling each other on the XBox in NCAA Football.

It's still really surreal that we've been here a whole year. When we got the news that we could stay a whole year instead of just six months, we were relieved to get to stay in one place longer. Compared to our six months in Michigan, a year in South Carolina seemed like it would be an eternity (not necessarily in a bad way). This year has flown by and now that we've been here a year and will only be in Germany for six months, it'll be over in the blink of an eye. It's scary how when you're a kid all you want is for time to move faster, and when you get older, you just want it to slow down so you can enjoy it more.
Thanks South Carolina, you gave us a great year and we hope to visit you again soon!

Brady the Future Engineer

Brady has always been a very inquisitive little boy. He has to try and figure out how things work and wants an explanation for everything that he can't figure out. This has us thinking that he'd make an excellent engineer someday. My PopPop was an engineer, so it's in his blood.

On New Year's Eve, we were getting ready for the countdown. My mom was doing something in the freezer and Brady stayed in the kitchen to keep her company. All of a sudden, my brother, Chris, says, "Do you see what he's doing?!?" I immediately jumped out of my chair, expecting the worst, and when I round the corner, he has all the bottles of green tea lined up and he's meticulously grabbing one at a time out of the package and lining it up with the others. He started doing it all on his own, which made it really cool.

He ran out of green tea bottles, so he went for cans of pop next.

Uncle Chris wanted in on some of the action.

Children's Museum of Pittsburgh

In 2010, Parents magazine ranked the top 100 cities to raise children. Pittsburgh came in at #4 on that list, only beaten by Scottsdale, AZ, Fort Wayne, IN, and Lincoln, NE. At that time, we had just moved from Pittsburgh to Detroit (ranked #96). Pittsburgh was given this high ranking in part due to the Children's Museum and many other recreational activities that the city has to offer, along with affordability, safety, and education. I've gone to the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh as both a child and a teacher. This was my first opportunity to go as a parent with my son. I was really excited to see it through Brady's eyes.

Pittsburgh may be the fourth best city in which to raise children, but it's COLD!!! We've been very spoiled in our year in the South and during Christmas week was the first time Brady had to wear a winter jacket. We probably wouldn't have even bothered to buy him one if we were staying in South Carolina, but since we're heading to Germany in two weeks, he'll need one over there. He wasn't really too happy about the hat and mittens.

The Children's Museum of Pittsburgh is located on the North Shore near the stadiums. We drove in from my parents' house and the first exhibit was all about tools. Brady really liked the part pictured above where they had washers and they would spiral down the grooved pole. Since there were a lot of lose screws and bolts laying around, we didn't feel comfortable enough that Brady wouldn't put one in his mouth, so we wanted to move onto another room. Brady was very upset because he was having fun and we were forcing him to leave. He didn't understand that there were more rooms full of fun things that would be a lot safer. The next room was "The Garage" and was one of the rooms where the exhibits stay the same.

I love this picture! Only 5 more years until Brady competes in his first Pinewood Derby as a Tiger Cub. Both my brothers and Andy and his brothers were in Cub Scouts. My brothers won their fair share of Pinewood Derbies and I'm sure Dubby will be more than happy to share a few of his success secrets with Brady.

In this area of The Garage, you could built a paper rocket and then use an air launcher to launch it. Brady had a blast watching other kids blast their rockets while Andy made one for him to shoot. We took our rocket home and he played with it for days.

They had a Smart Car that kids could play in and of course that was right up Brady's alley.

The next room is another room that has changing exhibits and the one that was currently there was all about wax. How it's used to form things and things that are made of wax. They had some tools out that you could use to shape a block of wax.

Next, Andy and Brady used the cranks to position and drill into a block of wax.

We moved onto the second floor which is the "nursery." It had a lot more activities that were on Brady's level and he went straight for the train table. We'll have to get him one of his own someday.

Probably the coolest thing I saw all day was the life-size Light Bright. A regular Light Bright would have pieces that were too small for Brady's age, but this one had sticks that he could wrap his whole hand around. It didn't take long for him to figure out that he had to place the colored rods into the holes and then it would light up. He could have spent all day there and I wish I could buy one of these for our house. I would be entertained for hours!

The third floor is exclusively for water play. As soon as you get off the elevator, they have a wall of raincoats and "boots" (crocs). We knew Brady was going to get soaked, so we took off his pants and since there were no crocs his size, we let him go barefoot. Fortunately, we had an extra set of clothing because his shirt got soaked anyway (thanks to daddy accidentally redirecting a fountain into the top of his raincoat).

We had to keep a really close eye on Brady because he tried several times to get into the water tanks (silly water baby). In the picture above, he's holding a duck watering can and we had to stop him from pouring it over his head like in swim class.

We had a great week and a half in Pittsburgh and are certainly glad that we had to leave when we did, because less than 24 hours after our departure, it started to snow like crazy. The funniest thing that happened while we were home, involved Brady and his sleeping situation. He sleeps in his pack n play at my parents house. We put him up for a nap one afternoon and about 45 minutes later, we heard the pitter patter of little feet in the hallway. Before we had time to register the noise, Brady ran into the room, smiling. He climbed out of his pack n play and got down the stairs without a sound. We were fortunate that the first sound we heard was a thump thump thump of him tumbling down the stairs. We've never lived in a house with stairs, so we have no idea how he got down without falling. Later on in the week, I went up to check if he was sleeping and he was on one of the twin beds, climbing down. After that, when we took him upstairs, I would tell him he needed to stay in his crib and not go near the stairs. That kid is part monkey, I swear!

The Best Gift I've Ever Received

This has to be one of the best Christmases I've ever had. Not only was Brady at a great age to open presents and be excited about the gifts he received, but I also was given the most personal amazing gift that I've ever received.

Andy's younger brother, Patrick, started dating his girlfriend, Chaleece, two days after Andy and I started dating. This meant that we entered the Trap family at the same time and have known each other as long as we've known the brothers. She's as much a part of the family as I am and she is Aunt Leecie to Brady, even though she and Patrick aren't married. We hope that someday she does become an official part of the family because she's already my sister in every way that counts.

This Christmas, she gifted me with a beautiful quilted wall hanging that her mother had put together. She had printed out four pictures of Brady all throughout his short life. The top left is when he was one day old, the top right is last year at his first Christmas (9 months old), the bottom left is this summer (18 months old), and the bottom right was this Christmas (21 months old). I've never received something so thoughtful and unique. As we are getting ready to move, it'll be placed in storage until we get back, but Chaleece also gave me quilt wall hangers, so that I can hang it on the wall. It's the perfect thing, along with our wedding portrait to hang in our living room forever. Thanks again Chaleece!