January
The year began with my sister Jen and my nephew Christian coming to D.C. for a visit. It was really cute to see Bryce with Christian. He loved “holding” the baby and giving him kisses. Bryce wasn’t even quite as jealous of the little guy as I though he might be. It was so fun to have Jen visiting although the trip was far too short. Shortly after Jen left, the massive snowfall from December 2009 decided to repeat itself twice over. Termed “snowpocalypse” by the media, we endured two back to back snow storms which shut down Washington, D.C. for nearly a week. My office, which had never been closed due to snow in the previous 4 years, closed early one Friday due to the pending storm and didn’t open back up until the following Friday morning. Luckily, for John purchased a Wii for our family for Christmas so I got lots of good practice playing Super Mario Brothers Wii while Bryce was napping. John started calling me a video game addict but I kept telling him it was just the snow getting to me.
February – After “snowpocalypse” finally end, my Mom got to D.C. just in time to help take care of Bryce while John was finishing up his last little bit of studying. As always, Mom was a total lifesaver and Bryce grew more and more attached to Grandma, which he was finally able to start saying!
March – After graduation from law school, John took a position in the NYC area. We made the difficult decision to have John live in New Jersey during the week and come home to Bryce and me on the weekends. John moved up to New Jersey shortly before Bryce’s birthday so we traveled to New Jersey to celebrate Bryce’s second birthday with Nana Caruso and friends and family from New Jersey. John’s mom went all out with a “fishy” cake and tons of balloons. Bryce was in heaven. We also took a trip to Ohio to help John’s Grandpa celebrate his 90th birthday. This was the first time some of John’s extended family had seen Bryce and we were happy to be able to celebrate such a momentous event with his grandparents.
April – As we tried to figure out child care issues with John living in New Jersey, my Mom once again answered my call for help and came yet again to D.C. to help with Bryce. Although it was her third trip out in less than four months, she was willing to come again. I am not certain I could have survived without her help during the first part of the year. We celebrated John’s birthday with a trip to the Poconos. Although it was a short trip, it was nice to get away for a couple of days in beautiful surroundings and spend some time together as a family.
May – Carrie Drake joined our family for the summer as Bryce’s nanny. She and Bryce had many fun adventures and Bryce grew to love Carrie very much. They spent time making art work, hanging out at the pool, playing with shaving cream, and playing at the park. Carrie will always hold a special place in our heart for the good care she gave to Bryce during the summer!
June – We had an amazing chance at the beginning of June to travel to Florida for a family vacation with the Fuller side of the family. Grandma Fuller generously rented a beach house for an entire week so all of the cousins were able to get together and play in the sun and water. It was heavenly. Bryce had the best time riding his first amusement park rides (although he was terrified of the ferris wheel), eating ice cream cones with his cousins, building sand castles at the beach (or rather working with his cousin Jackson to destroy the sand castles others built), swimming in the pool, and playing with bubbles in the huge tub at the end of each day. We got some fabulous group and family pictures with the picturesque ocean as a backdrop.
July – John’s Dad came to visit and was astonished at how technologically adept Bryce was. Having never seen an Ipad before (but being very familiar with Mommy and Daddy’s Iphones) Bryce immediately showed Grandpa how to turn on the Ipad and navigate through the different screens. In July we dediced to move from Washington, D.C. to the New York City area. After much debate and countless hours looking at apartments both online and in person, we found the perfect spot in Jersey City, just a 10 minute walk away from John’s office. As it came time to pack up the house, Bryce wanted to contribute to the effort and tried to pack up things himself. Pictures cannot adequately capture how adorable it was to see Bryce trying to put his “turtle” in a box!
August – On August 1, 2010 the moving van loaded up all of our belongings and started making the trek up north to our new home in Jersey City. It was certainly a bitter sweet day, as we left family (my brother Marc and his family, including Bryce’s best friend and cousin Jackson) and friends behind. We loved living in D.C., a city that I had wanted to live in ever since I spent a semester interning there in college. We moved to D.C. as newlyweds (unpacking boxes on our first anniversary) and left five years later with a two-year-old. We have so many fond memories of DC and our friends there but knew that it was time to start this new chapter in our lives.
September – We began the month of September with a visit to Nana Caruso’s lake house at Brant Lake. The trip was very last minute as John’s Mom called us early Saturday morning to let us know that no one was using the lake house for the weekend. As we mentioned to Bryce that we were going to go swimming at Nana’s lake house, he immediately ran to his room and changed into his swimsuit (complete with the floaties for his arms) and packed his bag (lots of toys and swim diapers, few clothes or real diapers). He was sorely disappointed when he finally jumped into the lake – the water was so cold he actually had to catch his breath before he could start crying. Bryce and I also traveled to Houston in September. We spent several days relaxing at my Mom’s lake house on Lake Conroe and were thrilled that my Aunt Nancy, Uncle Tom, and my 95 year old Grandfather were able to come and visit us. It had been more than a year since Bryce and I had seen my Grandpa so it was a highlight of the trip to be able to spend time with him and to have him see how big Bryce had grown. We spent much of the rest of September exploring of New York City. Having grown up in the New York City area, John served as our tour guide as we explored Greenwich Village, Little Italy, Chinatown, Staten Island, Times Square, Central Park, and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge.
October – As we began October, Bryce got to reunite with his best friend, his cousin Jackson, as Marc, Kayleen, Jackson, and Lance came up for a visit. The boys played together so nicely and Bryce asked about Jackson for days after they left. Bryce really got adjusted to life in the NYC area and loves commuting on the train and insists on pushing elevator buttons wherever we go. We were saddened in October to have John’s grandmother pass away. We were comforted to know that she had lived a long life and had been ill for quite some time, so it was time for her suffering to come to an end. She will be missed.
November – By the time November rolled around we were finally ready to make public our big announcement – that Bryce was going to be a big brother as we were expecting baby number 2. We continued to adjust to life in our new location and grew to make new friends in our new home. Bryce had several occasions this month to hang out with his cousin Abigail, John’s sister’s daughter. They were really cute together and seeing the two of them interact got us really excited to see Bryce as a big brother.
December – In December we had a wonderful time getting Bryce excited about the holiday season. We took Bryce to Herald Square to visit Santa Claus at Macy’s and visited the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Then we traveled to Houston to Christmas with the Fuller/Thomas clan. Bryce had a wonderful time playing with his cousins and was thrilled that Santa Claus brought him Percy the Train – exactly what he had asked for. We happened to miss all the Christmas snow that fell in the NYC area while we were gone but headed back to a snow covered city. Bryce was so excited to see all the snow and was thrilled when he got to throw snow balls into the Hudson River outside of our house (thanks Nana Caruso).
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