A Half-Dozen Healys

In the winter of 1997, I was passing through the suites of Sage Hall on the Williams campus, going from my entry (Sage "E") to visit a friend in Sage "A". As I passed through a common room in Sage "B", I happened upon a game of Taboo that was being played by some folks I knew, but also someone that I didn't know well. Her name was Amy Sprengelmeyer, and though I didn't know it at the time, that evening became the beginning of a wonderful relationship.

During a visit from the Rhode Island contingent, Amy's cousin Sachem shot a video of the boys playing with the Stomp Rocket. I guess the new iPhone shoots in slo-mo by default, resulting in an epic video.

However, watching 60 seconds of silent slow motion footage leaves you needing a little something... so I added the only sound that made sense.

Please enjoy.

Found a little time while on duty to gather up the pictures from September. Please enjoy the updates from the start of our school year!

A few highlights:

The start of school has started to die down (well, a little bit), and I've managed to crank out all the pictures from July and August. There are just over one thousand pictures all together, so that should keep people busy for a bit...

A few highlights:

Summer has flown by as it does every year, and I haven't been keeping up on our photos. Fortunately, I found some time this week to tag all the pictures from June (well over 500). Looking back it was a very busy month! Here are some highlights:

I was on duty at Suffield this weekend, so I had some time to kill while overseeing students in detention. I made the best of it by catching up on picture sifting, and I'm proud to say that I'm all caught up with pictures from March (since our Hawaii trip), April, and May (through the 18th).

There are a ton of pictures; here are just a few of the things we've been up to:

Suffield Academy has just begun their spring break, and we're getting ready to go to Hawaii! I figured we should catch up on the pictures from 2012 before we take a bunch of new ones on vacation.

This batch includes:

Evan's first birthday party (and his actual birthday)

A warm day outside in January (60 degrees!)

Evan starting to pull up

Sledding with Seth

Just in time for Evan's first birthday, I've finished uploading the remaining pictures (November and December) from 2011.

This batch includes:

Visiting Papa's house during the 8-day power outage

Seth visiting Bounce Town for Elizabeth's birthday

Bath time for the boys

A visit to Rhode Island

Visiting with Chris, Cathy, and Eleanor in western Mass

My week of vacation continues, and I've posted the pictures from September and October.

This batch includes:

Suffield Farm Fest

Apple picking, which turned into Seth's show and share at Tiger School

Family portrait from the start of the school year

Pumpkin picking with Geema

Oxen Hill Farm end-of-the-season party (including a surprise rainshower!)

As 2011 draws to a close, I'm frantically trying to finish the pictures from this year before 2012 gets here. I'm pleased to say that I've finished all the pictures from August 2011.

This batch includes:

Mini-golf with Grams

A private tour of the Suffield fire station

A visit from our college friends (and their children)

A crazed Seth playing hide-and-seek

I found a little time over the Thanksgiving break to catch up on some pictures, and so we've now posted pictures from the end of June (24th - 30th) and all of July.

This batch includes:

our visit to the Farm with the rest of the Healys (days 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5)

our family trip to Cape Cod (days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9)

a day at the library

Continuing my slow battle against a mountain of pictures, I've uploaded everything from the first few weeks of June.

I know the photo gallery hasn't been updated in a long while. There's been a lot going on here at home, and as the pile of pictures keeps growing, so has my level of procrastination.

Poor Seth is getting over a cough and had a rough night with little sleep last night (which meant we all had a rough night with little sleep). However, we're hoping he's on the mend and will be feeling better tomorrow.

We have been home with Evan for just over a week, as we were released from the hospital last Saturday. Just like with Seth, the discharge time was much later than the advertised 10:00am, but this time we were prepared and spent most of the morning relaxing rather than hurrying to go nowhere. Eventually everything was set to go, and we drove back home to introduce Evan to our house. Evan braved the unusually cold weather and did well with his first time in the car seat.

We're approaching the end of our hospital stay (we go home tomorrow), so we just wanted to catch everyone up on the last two days with Evan. We've also posted the pictures from our stay so far in the hospital: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

Today we got several early-morning visits from the doctors in the hospital. Amy is feeling better today, though she is still sore from the surgery. Evan is looking good, and the pediatrician gave him high marks for muscle tone and reflexes. Also, his mucus issues from yesterday seem to have subsided. He had been too sleepy to nurse since his first successful session immediately after birth, but the doctor's examination today woke him up enough so he wanted to feed again, and he had no trouble latching on and getting a good feeding. Since then, he's fed 5 times on a pretty regular schedule. Getting started with nursing seems easier this time around, as Amy knows what it feels like from when she nursed with Seth.

We finally had some time this weekend to catch up on photos, and we've posted everything up through mother's day. This includes a haircut, a visit to western Mass, Seth's first trip to the dentist, a "toddler photo shoot", a visit with our college friends, Seth riding his tractor and his new helmet, Seth's birthday, and mother's day.

We hope you enjoy them!

We headed out this morning to pick up malasadas at Leonard's, and brought them with us on a visit to Sarah White. She had a blast playing with Seth, and he had fun poking around her apartment looking for her cat Lulu (who hid under the bed most of the time). Seth even sat still for a group photo at the end of the morning.

When we woke up today, Seth was excited to play with Tommy. Tommy, Ivana, Anne, Tom, and Bandit have all been very good sports about playing games with Seth. This morning, Seth created a game where he would Bandit.

Aloha Friday! Today we headed back to my old stomping grounds: Punahou School. Because school is still in session, we didn't set up too many appointments ahead of time. We just went and ran into whoever was around.

Seth had another early wake-up this morning (4:30am), so we took shifts with him until the sun came up and we were ready to face the day. We took the opportunity to catch up on some pictures, pre-cook some meals, and play with Seth in the Williams' lovely (carpeted!) living room.

Seth woke up bright and early at 4:00am, but we managed to get him to go back to sleep for a couple hours before waking up for good at 6:30. After having some breakfast, we got our beach stuff together and headed down to Waikiki for our first beach trip.

Today was our first full day on O'ahu. We were lucky enough to wake up to a beautiful rainbow over Diamond Head, so we knew our vacation was underway!

It's been a very long day, but I'm pleased to report that we're finally here in Hawaii! Seth was a very good boy on both of our flights, and he got several compliments from his fellow passengers.

Just two quick announcements tonight... first, we've finally put up the pictures we've taken so far in 2010, and you can download them here.

Second, Seth wants to wish everyone a happy Valentine's day!

2010 is here, and we've finally had some time during our vacation to get our web pictures organized and uploaded. We've now caught up with all of 2009, so feel free to check out our 2009 pictures for the latest updates.

Seth celebrated his second Halloween in style dressed as a black kitty cat with pink ears! Many of you will remember his Halloween debut last year as the cutest little cow. We had to follow suit this year with something equally as cute, and we think we delivered with the cat costume. There are pictures up on our photo site. When we tried the costume on Seth, he wasn't too keen about wearing the little kitty hood, but once he figured out he was dressing up as his beloved favorite animal, he got right into the spirit. He had fun giving Grams an advance preview of his costume over video chat.

We finally had some time to catch up on our photos last night, and so we've posted all the pictures that we've taken so far this month:

Photos from October 2009

Feel free to log in and have a look as it's been a busy month! We've gone pumpkin picking, visited family at the farm, seen the Wethersfield girls (including a pregnant Sarah!), and had a blast at swimming lessons.

The Photo Gallery is back! Well, it's been back for a little while now, but I've been trying to catch up on the large backlog of photos since the server crash in June.

I've finally gotten some time to recover the blog texts that were lost when my server's hard drive crashed. You'll notice that there are a bunch of articles listed (again), and they may be marked as "unread" if you're using an RSS reader. If you were up-to-date before tonight, you can just mark those all as read, as there's nothing new.

Sorry for those of you that have been trying to access the site. The hard drive in our server died, and with it went the blog, the photo gallery, and a bunch of other stuff.

Hau'oli Makahiki Hou (Happy New Year!) Seth has had a very busy month since we last blogged, and there's plenty to tell about. Little Seth is looking more and more like a little boy and less and less like a newborn these days. Here's a photo of the family together, with Seth giving a kiss to his mommy.

As you can see from the amount of time that has passed since we last posted, things have been very busy in the Healy household. Our new year's resolution is to update the blog more frequently, so please check back to see if we've made good on our promise... ;-)

Life in the Healy household has been good and very busy since we last wrote (which is part of why we haven't written in a while). Suffield Academy is back in session as of today, and Amy heads back to work tomorrow. Seth will be at daycare at the school, along with several of the children of other faculty members. It's going to be a big adjustment (especially for Amy, who has been home with Seth all summer), but the people at daycare are great, and Seth will have lots of friends to hang out with. Amy has Monday and Tuesday mornings off, so she'll still get plenty of time with Seth.

Today Seth rolled over from his stomach to his back on his own for the very first time! He had been rolling "off" of his tummy time pillow for a couple of weeks, using it as a kind of ramp to get himself onto his back. But today we took the pillow away and he rolled over completely on his own!

Literally overnight, Seth seems to have gotten a real sense of humor. Today he began to smile and cackle whenever we kiss his tummy. He smiles wide during the kisses, then pauses, and laughs when it's done (as if asking for more). Needless to say, we've been playing this "game" a lot today.

Today is Seth's 3-month birthday. Sometimes he still seems so tiny and young, and at other times it seems he's changed so much and grown so quickly since he was born. I guess both are true: he has changed a lot, but he's still just a little baby.

Been a little short on sleep lately, but we've finally had some time to catch up on uploading recent photos! We've uploaded pictures from July 16th on through today. The only photos we haven't had time to update yet are those of the Healy reunion, but we'll be putting those up soon (we promise)!

Apologies to those who tried to read the blog this weekend and couldn't. I have a Mac, and I didn't test the page on a PC, so I didn't realize that the pages didn't show up correctly.

It's been over two months since Seth was born, and we've finally gotten the time to create a website with pictures and news about Seth. We'll be posting news about Seth (and us) here from time to time, and we'll be putting pictures in the gallery (click on the "Photo Gallery" link on the left-hand side of this page). Please note: you'll need a password to see most of the pictures in the gallery; if you need the password, just e-mail one of us and we'll send it to you.

Using the gallery

2:30am - Amy wakes up with a pain in her stomach. Her belly is hard, and we're wondering if she's going to go into labor just a few hours before the scheduled C-section! However, after a few minutes everything subsides and we're able to get back to sleep.

This morning at 9:42am, we welcomed the latest addition to the Healy family! Seth Kekoa Healy weighed in at 7 pounds, 8 ounces. He is 20" long, and has a full head of hair.

We wanted to send you a quick note to let you know that Zipper's birthday should be this Thursday, May 8th! We went to the doctor on Thursday for our 38-week checkup and she told us that she was able to get the date she wanted for a C-section. May 8th is the beginning of week 39, and that's when they like to do scheduled C-sections because the baby is developed enough and it makes it less likely to go into labor before the C-section.

We just had an ultrasound on Monday at 36 and a half weeks. We've attached a few of the sonograms below. The ultrasound showed that everything was healthy with Zipper, and his weight estimate was 6 pounds 13 ounces. He's a good-sized baby! These are all 3-D pictures and you can really see his face this time around. His legs are tucked up near his head right now, so you can see his toes in front of his face. It's starting to get crowded in there! We think it's cool to see his features (chubby cheeks and lips), and the ultrasound tech told us he has a full head of hair at the moment.

We went for our 34-week checkup last Thursday, which included another ultrasound (pictures below). Everything looked fine, including a strong heartbeat and growth of the baby. They estimated Zipper's weight from some measurements on the ultrasound, and they're guessing he's about 5.5 pounds (60th percentile). So he's just a little above average right now. We'll have another ultrasound in a couple weeks so they can check on his weight, and we'll talk about delivery details with Amy's doctor. We trust Amy's doctor, and she'll be advising us on our options as the date gets closer.

Happy Easter/Purim everyone!

It's hard to believe that it's March already! Suffield has just started it's spring break, so Amy has three weeks off to rest up and get ready for a busy spring! The third trimester has just started (we just hit week 29), and little Zipper (our pre-natal nickname for him) is kicking away. I can feel the kicks easily now, and Amy is feeling them all the time. We can see Amy's belly moving with the kicks a lot of the time, which is a lot of fun.

Today was an exciting one for us, as we finally told people at work that we were pregnant! It was a lot of fun, and everyone at work was excited for us. Even though there are lots of other pregnant couples at work, everyone made us feel special, and that was great.

Jason: Today is our final day in Europe, and while we're sad to end our adventure, we are looking forward to sleeping in our own beds once again.

Jason: Today we took a trip to the 'burbs of Paris, to the château at Versailles. Joanne pointed us to a nearby rail line that took us to the town; from there it was a short walk to the château itself. On the way in the gates, a French TV crew stopped me and asked me how the French treated tourists. I prattled on about being treated well (especially given my utter lack of understanding the French language), and the producer nodded vigorously before releasing me. I'm sure the footage will end up on the cutting room floor, right next to my 2nd-grade Japanese computer TV commercial.

Jason: Today was our last day at the Balincourt Hotel, our home away from home in Bournemouth. We'll miss the full breakfast, charming rooms, and friendly hosts, though the one thing I won't miss is the utter lack of water pressure. They keep the hot water near boiling; I assume this is so we can brew our afternoon tea in the sink. However, if you're in the shower and anybody in the county flushes their toilet, you're treated to a scalding Steam Bath Torture™. On the upside, we haven't needed to iron our clothes, but on the downside we're missing several layers of skin. But I digress...

Jason: After last night's festivities, we're ready for a day of playing tourist in Bournemouth. Bournemouth is an old resort town, and people have been coming to the area for a long time to soak in the rays on the beach and enjoy their holiday (note usage of British term for "vacation"). According to informative posters, the town's primary source of income before tourism was that of smuggling. Arrr, matey.

Jason: Amy and I decided to be ambitious and head for the Tower of London, which is one of the main tourist attractions in the City. The Gods of Queuing are with us, and the place isn't completely mobbed. We take a tour with a Yeoman Warder, better known as a "Beefeater". He provides a humorous and interesting history of the Tower, even going so far as to compliment Amy's neck (right after a long discussion of public beheadings).

Jason: dawn arrives early in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My wonderful Aunt Cynthia, who let us spend the night in her house, is also nice enough to wake up and drive us to the airport. Check-in is uneventful, and we're on the plane for a timely departure.