Grace & Lucy’s Web Log

Ever wonder why it’s so hard to tell the difference between people from Gary, Indiana and those from Southern California? We think we found the answer - the Indiana dunes.

Yes, this is actually Indiana - we’ll be sure to take pictures of a ski slope if we ever visit Florida, and of course, if we ever make it to Scandanavia, we’ll only take pictures of dark-skinned people (so none of us will make any of our shots - well, at least not Lucy and Lara).

Good rule of thumb: Factory on the water, try not to stick your face in (but the feet? Who cares?).

Swimming near factory run-off apparently brings families closer:

Hanging out with family (Grace & Luce’s Aunt Mary) always brings out the comparisons: “oh she has your nose, teeth etc…” Here we make another common family comparison:

To really create a confusing geographical experience, the Dunes offer a variety of hiking trails and full service campgrounds (ah yes, Memorial Day, time for so many of our compatriots to cram all of the comforts of home in an RV, drive to some park for 3 days and call it “camping”):

Unfortunately for the campground residents, the Fuchster clan found a kind of fixed zip line contraption that we decided to monopolize for about 1/2 hour. Here’s Grace showing the kind of upper body strength that makes her Dad jealous:

Grace and Lucy’s Aunt Mary can’t resist providing her nieces with a teaching moment. Here she is demonstrating the pre-swing, swing and the dismount (notice how nicely she feigns bewilderment):

And to the annoyment of everyone else waiting his or her turn, we couldn’t abandon the machine until we all took a turn riding it while attempting to make our funniest faces. Mary took first prize. (Grace has a limited arsenal at the young age of 3 - puffed out cheeks is the height of funny in her world, but she scored a few cuteness points at least):

The girls finished up the weekend with some quality Grandma and Grandpa time. Here’s Grace practicing her choke hold with her Grandma as Aunt Mary smilies oblivously in the background:

Inside Grace and Lucy’s grandparents house, Lucy and her pigmentless body were so happy to get out of the sun that she decided to celebrate through dance:

And we thought we couldn’t wrap up the weekend without at least one posed family shot:

So we learned that in Grace’s world, she likes to celebrate her birthday for the same amount of weeks as she is old - so the excitement for the big day has been going on for three weeks - so mark your calendars for the year 2058 (aka “the year of Grace”)!

But this wasn’t just idle waiting - Grace believes in active celebrating. And while trips to the potty are still met with a high level of enthusiasm, she actually had a few more traditional celebratory moments - like visiting a petting zoo, seeing a Cardinals game, going for a bike ride and of course, cake, presents and balloons.

Here’s the birthday girl on the actual day: May 18

Presents, party hats, candles and cake:

And no Fuchster birthday is complete without the birthday cereal:

The day before was a trip to the Cardinals game with Grace’s friends Sanjay and Anya. Funny how much little kids love baseball players named “Pujols” (pronounced pooh-holes for you non-baseball fans out there).

Luce did get in on the action too:

And Day 1 of the 3-day celebration included a bike ride and an impromptu visit to a petting zoo:

Quick: Llama or Alpaca?

Name that breed of horse:

Luce wonders: Donkey or small horse?

And here’s a close-up of the birthday girl (or as some have suggested, a close up of Grace’s dad if he was a three-year-old girl):

Happy Birthday Grace!

So the Fuchster transition to St. Louis is finally complete - and our complete lack of postings these last few months attest less to our lack of focus and more to our lack of planning (such as packing the camera batteries and the charger in a box that sat in storage for a month and a half - but at least I had the camera to prevent papers from blowing away!).

So - we have lots to discuss, lots to share, but thought we’d start off with a quick shot of Grace and “The Luce” - both of whom are excited that our place for the next year has a swimming pool:

In case anyone wants to come visit, here’s a shot or two of the pool where Grace and Lucy’s Dad plans on spending a lot of quality speedo time this summer:

We’ll do a house tour-style posting soon, but there are a few things that remind us daily that we’re not in NY:

1) Haven’t seen a rat or cockroach yet

2) We get to see the sun come up in the morning

3) When we want to explore the outdoors, we don’t have to necessarily do it with 8 million of our closest friends.

To the last point, this may seem like a minor detail to some, but we actually have a patio - as in outdoor space - the kind that would add a $1000/month premium on an apartment in Manhattan.

Just one little quirk of our apartment - a ceramic wine rack beneath the stairs. It’s too low to actually be useful for wine in a house with small children, so we’ve found another use. By the way, if that bottle of wine we served you smells like stinky feet…

And finally, we know we’ve been horrible about staying in touch during this move. So, in case anyone forgot what we look like: