Josh Renaud's weblog detailing the exploits of his family in Ferguson, MO, USA. Starring Yoli, Jadzia, Ludi, Josie, and Joseph Renaud.
My nephews came to stay in town with my parents for four days. It has been a fun time for our girls. The first two days we went over to Nanny’s house to play.
The girls love any excuse to see their Nanny and play in a different locale. But the addition of their two cousins to the mix makes for icing on the cake.
Here’s the second of two videos I shot on Wednesday. This one shows my parents, my brother, sister-in-law and nephews when they came over to the hospital to meet Josie. With four toddlers/preschoolers running around the room, there was potential for much havoc. Thankfully, serious damage was avoided. I’m so glad that Justin and Becca could come up with the boys.
On Monday and Tuesday, we spent a 1.125-day vacation in St. James, Mo. where we visited my brother Justin and his family. His youngest son Keaton was celebrating birthday Numero Uno.
A few photos for your enjoyment. This is Jadzia at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo.
As I mentioned in my previous post, this was an interesting Christmas season. It was nice to have Justin and Becca in town for several days before the actual holiday so we could spend some time together.
Among the activities was a game of disc golf at muddy White Birch in Hazelwood. It was quite fun, even though I didn’t fare too well. The highlight for me was making a birdie on hole 17, which is not easy, and making par on 18.
On my side of the family, we often make Christmas lists to give relatives an idea of what kinds of things we need or would be a blessing to us. This can be a good thing. This year, Yoli and I kept our lists very simple. I wanted donations toward an iPod and she wanted donations toward a video camera.
This can be tacky, and I hope I don’t do it again for a good while. But I had been patiently waiting to get an iPod for several years now, and it was so good to finally get it. After Christmas I found a nice used one here in town (similar to one my brother Jon has already) with some accessories at a great price. Yoli did her research on digital video cameras and we are buying a refurbished Consumer Reports best-buy which we’ll take to Bolivia in January. It will be good to tape Jadzia with her Bolivian family so she can see them again and again when we are in the U.S. Likewise, we can make tapes of her and send them to Bolivia.
I am enjoying my iPod, but as is usually the case, the most memorable gift is the unexpected one. My mom got me a nice pair of gloves to replace the ancient tattered ski gloves I’ve been wearing since junior high or high school (I forget). Later in the morning she pulled out a fancy dress coat they had been saving for years for one of my brothers. Turns out it was too small for them, so she asked me to try it on. And it fit me fine. So now I have new gloves, a new dress coat, and my old English caps. When I go to work now, I look like a new man.
This past Wednesday we had our annual movie night with some friends from Hazelwood West, McCluer North, and UMSL. We watched “Million-Dollar Baby” which I had not seen before. The story takes a somewhat-surprising twist in the last portion, which made for lots of interesting discussion afterwards. Lots of thanks to Matt for hosting the night and for the great chili! Unfortunately, Jadzia was a “Million Cries Baby” through about the last 1/3 of the movie and the discussion.
That’s the challenge of the baby… Finding ways to adapt our lives to accomodate her. With movie night it wasn’t so successful, but we’ll get more creative next year.
Well, now that everything is all settled in here at our new “Renaud Family” website, we thought it was past time to post some of the photos we’ve taken lately. Most of these are of Jadzia, so check ’em out!