Braedon and Peyton share everything!

Winter Break

One of the absolute highlights of the school year is the time that you get to do nothing over winter break...but that wasn't the case this winter and I am going to tell you all about it from two different angles.

Winter Break SUCKS!

• Winter Break kicked off with me getting back my Managerial Finance final; I got a 79/120 on it.
• Rented a car for a trip 70 miles away; cars aren't cheap to rent.
• Flew across the country with a 7 month old. It would have been easier to have people come to us.
• After a day of traveling we got to bed at about 3am our old time.
• Never made it to Leavenworth for the lighting ceremony.
• Did a 3 1/4 hour drive to my parents house in 6 hours with snow covered road 80% of the way and Braedon crying for a couple of the hours.
• Lacie got sick watching Avator because of the 3D technology.
• GPS Lady, now nicknamed Maddy, lied to us about the time it took to get to Kyle and Bre's house and then sent us down a nasty dirt road.
• Did the 3 1/4 hour drive back to my in-laws in 5 hours due to crazy roads AGAIN!
• Rented another car to drive myself to the airport to fly to SF.
• Flew to SF to meet with TONS of companies.
• Rented another car while in SF...FYI, hybrids have about 2/3 the trunk space of the same non-hybrid car.
• Had to keep a straight face at an alumni dinner while talking to a guy that is the CEO of a sex toy internet store.
• Flew back to Seattle late and had to rent another car.
• Hung out at a dive karoake bar in Renton so that I could pick up my wife.
• Drove 1 hour each way to pick up classmates from the airport.
• Taxi passenger opened their car door into my rental car causing significant damage...traded the rental for a new one.
• Met with more companies in Seattle for hours on end.
• Parked on the street so as to save some money on parking but didn't notice that the parking was illegal from 3pm-7pm, got a ticket and was getting towed when I came out of the building...tried to save 6 bucks in parking only to spend 90 dollars on parking ticket and tow charges.
• Sat in traffic for hour and a half because of delay due to towing.
• Flew across the country with baby again.
• Rented sixth rental car of the winter break and drove 1.5 hours back to Ithaca.

Winter Break was exhausting but worth it!

• MBA classes are all curved so although I got a 79/120 on my final, I still got an A- in a class that I struggled with.
• I get corporate rates for rental cars and I negotiate even better deals than the corporate rates.
• We had an empty seat next to us for both legs of the flight so Braedon got to sit in his car seat and slept most of the way.
• Braedon fell right into the west coast schedule without a missed beat.
• We didn't make it to Leavenworth before Christmas but we did make it after Christmas and had a good time.
• The drives to and from Kennewick were long but they were beautiful and we got to see some exciting accidents (one of which we witnessed when a guy spun off the road and broke a light pole into the freeway).
• I really enjoyed Avatar.
• We had a great time hang with Kyle and Bre despite getting screwed up by Maddy.
• Learned a great deal about the SF tech companies, met great people, and really just had a valuable trip.
• When I got hit by the Taxi door I was in a rental which means that it didn't matter because my insurance won't get hit (it was their fault), my car won't have an accident on it, I was already at the airport so it was easy to swap out the rental.
• I had great visits to Seattle based companies and am much closer to having an internship.
• I was able to get half of the towing charges waived...still sucked but what can you do.
• We had an empty seat on the long leg of the flight back to Ithaca.

Bottom line: Despite the exhausting pace and craziness of our winter break, it was all worth it...but we are definitely doing a cruise over 1/2 of winter break next year so that we can actually have a break.

Peyton and Braedon

On the move

Braedon started crawling, or scooting, about a week and a half ago and he is only getting faster. I'm not sure if Peyton is happy about this as her toys have quickly become Braedons, or so he thinks. The poor girl tries to get away from the little guy with all his pulling, pinching, and prodding, but once she gets up and finds another place to lounge, he scoots his way over to her in a matter of seconds. It is actually entertaining to watch, but I don't think Peyton would agree with me. With that said, Peyton is very good with Braedon, she will share her toys and lay there and take the abuse. I think they are on their way to being best friends. Braedon absolutely loves her and constantly has his eye on her, even when he is supposed to be eating which can be frustrating. Speaking of eating, Braedon automatically becomes Peyton's best friend the minute I put him in his high chair. She knows that means she will be getting somewhat of a meal as well.

Playing fetch

We're Back!!

That's right, after about a month spent in Seattle the Peterson family is finally back in New York. We got home on the night of January 13th after two plane rides filled with an episode of projectile vomiting and granola in the eye, followed by a two hour drive in a rental car. I'll briefly explain the two episodes. Braedon had been on antibiotics for an eye infection (you will see below) and he obviously didn't have enough in his tummy when I gave him his morning dose as he vomited everywhere on the plane. That was fun to clean up but I mostly felt bad for my sick baby. We got some more food in him and he was fine for the rest of the trip. As for the granola in the eye, have you ever been so hungry that you felt the need to fold the wrapper of a crunchy granola bar in a way to make it easy to tip the wrapper into your mouth to make sure you get every last morsel? Enough said.

This picture of Baeo in girly pajamas. Safeway brand diapers = cheap = going through laundry like Paris Hilton goes through boyfriends = this picture.
Here's Braedon's eye infection. It looks like he got into a brawl at the bar. You should see the other guy! Not a pretty sight and I just felt so bad for this little guy. It didn't seem to really bother him and it is all cleared up now.

Braedon hasn't quite figured out exactly how to drive his truck yet.


Braedon and Lilly were very cute together! It seemed like he tried to lure her close and right when she got in his reach he would grab her curls.

Derek and I enjoyed a date night out one night that included walking the Botanical Gardens looking at all the Christmas lights.


I stayed up to date with my motivational reading.

Braedon absolutely loves his baths and now he has discovered the fun of playing in the bath on his stomach. He loves the water and would probably play in the bath for hours. So far there has been only one episode of him dropping the kids off at the pool. Luckily Derek was on bath duty that time.

Braedon also got to spend some quality time with his Uncle Matt, whom he absolutely adores. Whenever Matt was in the room Braedon couldn't keep his eyes off him and was so giggly and smiley.

One of the trips to the YMCA where Baeo got to go swimming.

The Saturday after Christmas we took Jenny up to Leavenworth to walk the shops, look at Christmas lights and have dinner. It was cold, but fun.

You can't go to Leavenworth and not stop in at the hat store even though it is the most crowded store in Leavenworth and you have the big BOB stroller to impossibly maneuver around.

Braedon was helping Derek on the computer one morning.

He thought it was pretty cool.

He also loved riding around in this little red wagon at Grandma Wilson's house.

So now that we are home I will continue my regular blogging!

2009 Year in Review (via a slideshow)