In case you never heard, our son Andrew James Learn was born on July 16th! I know, it seems as though we have neglected our website since Andrew came along… Actually, we’ve had some web hosting issues that take Matt’s time to be resolved, and with his business workload picking up AND Andrew, it’s something he hasn’t gotten around to fixing. Soon, I promise. For those of you who do check here for pictures, please email either Matt or myself and we will send you the link where we’ve been hiding them We actually don’t post there frequently either, mainly because the free time we do have we’d rather spend playing with Andrew!

I have been back at work since Sept 2nd (early, I know…) but have been taking every Friday off, until January! This has been a God-send, being able to spend quality time with him while he’s growing instead of taking another whole week off when he was 7 weeks old and then not being able to spend more than busy weekends with him since. He does “sleep through the night” occasionally, which is pretty much 10:30pm-5am since I have to get up for work then anyway.

Andrew is 3 months old now and has discovered he can put his feet in his mouth! He giggled purposefully like a little boy yesterday, and he can reach, grab, and manipulate objects. He has successfully managed to get the pacifier back into his mouth - but only if it is turned in the right direction

This time in 2005, Tracy and Michael became first-time parents to two beautiful baby boys. Now, they’re walking, talking, cereal-stealing, fun-to-be-around TWO year olds! Matt and I were very fortunate to be able to fly in for their 2nd Birthday celebrations. Eli was in a cast for the whole thing though, after a broken femur accident a few weeks prior. Fortunately he was relieved of his cast the day after their birthday, but he will still be taking things slow for a few weeks. Gus had a blast swinging at the pinata and playing on their new playset in the backyard. I think that blowing out their candles multiple times was the highlight of both parties!

If you have pictures of the events that you want posted here, please send them to photos@learnfamily.com!

View the Birthday Photo Album

Matt, Susan (Matt’s mom), and I traveled out to Las Vegas, Nevada for the July 4th weekend. We were lucky enough to be there on one of the luckiest days of late… 7/7/07, and have 2 T-shirts to prove it Not only is “7″ a lucky number for gamblers, but it was also a Saturday and we were tripping over brides, grooms, and their various family members who made the trek to Vegas for a 7/7/07 wedding! Personally I think the grooms picked the date because it’s easy to remember… just one number and you know the month, day, AND year! Haha…
We toured most of the casinos on the strip, including major ones like the Venitian, Flamingo, Paris, New York New York, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, Bellagio, Caesars’ Palace, Circus circus, The Mirage, the Las Vegas Hilton, and a few more. We also spent an evening in the older section of Vegas, “downtown” or Freemont Street. Matt’s mom and I both won $100 on a large Wheel of Fortune there! I also attended an informal Craps tutorial session and played my first games there.
My favorite casinos just decoration/content wise were the Venitian, Paris, and for the party atmosphere… the Rio! We got to watch some “flare bartending” which we’d seen on the Food Network. The music really made the whole gambling experience more interesting than the typical casino noises.
On Friday, we drove out to visit Hoover Dam which Matt & I toured while Susan waited in the gift shop. The most impressive part of the whole trip was probably visiting the dam and realizing how many smart engineers it took to make the thing! I’m an engineer and not nearly that smart
Also while we were out there, some random nut case went gun happy in the New York, New York casino. Luckily we weren’t there that night, but I do remember hearing all the sirens heading down the strip, then of course we heard about it the next day. Ironic thing is, a co-worker of mine went to Vegas a few months ago when they discovered a bomb (or maybe a bomb threat?) in a casino! We’ve joked to our other co-workers that it’s a sign they shouldn’t take a trip there anytime soon
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Alma and Bill Stalters, friends of the family, were celebrating their 58th Anniversary with a big house party on Sunday. All three of their children, Carla, David, and Eddie, were able to be together at once (a very rare luxury as they live in separate states), as well as most of their spouses and children. Alma and Dorothy (my grandmother) met in the mid-1950’s at a card club they had both joined. Alma had already had a daughter, and my grandmother was pregnant with my mom when they met, so they had a lot in common. They lived in the same town until my grandparents moved to Annapolis in the early 1980s, but remained close friends. In fact, I remember going on joint summer vacations with Alma and Bill, mostly to Stanton, VA where we did a July 4th Statler Brothers’ concert and parade thing. Both Alma & Bill and my grandparents’ owned a vacation trailer at Rehoboth Beach, DE in the 70/80s, right next door! We feel very fortunate to have been invited to celebrate their achievement of 58 years of marriage

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Our neighbors Melissa & Gabe brought their 20 day old son (Gabriel Jr.) over for their first family portrait session. Although a little fussy, Gabe did fairly well with all of the flashes, especially since he still isn’t able to focus on objects yet. He needed a pacifier for a while, but then we managed to get a few shots without it. In fact, Gabe (daddy) tried it in a few shots! Gabriel was not happy that daddy took his pacifier and very emphatically told him the he wanted it back.

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