the unlikely orange

am i a bad person?  wait, don't answer that.  it was a question of the rhetorical sort.  here's the thing: my parents live about 3 and half hours away, and don't get to see our kids all that much, so each summer they graciously (and enthusiastically) volunteer to take our kids to their place for a week, a week in which they spoil them so thoroughly that they require several weeks of treatment at the milinovich detox center following the visit each year.  this last week was the week that mom and dad took the boys.  all three of them.  which means that shannon and i have had the house to ourselves since sunday afternoon.  during our anniversary week. now, some parents that we have told about this have gasped or stared at us wide-eyed, indicating that they would never be able to be apart from their kids for a whole week.  they raise their eyebrows and mentally make a note to call child protective services on us for being the most unsentimental, unattached parents the

    fourteen years ago today shannon and i finally finished our long countdown to the what was the most anticipated day of my life: our wedding.  june 26 of 1999 was hotter than hades itself, but i barely noticed.  i was too enthralled with my beautiful bride, the great cloud of witnesses that had gathered to celebrate with us, and the long-awaited beginning of this new journey.  it was, along with the birth of our children, one of the greatest days of my life.  and today i celebrate it again.  as with any journey, there have been trips and tumbles, hurdles and headaches, wrong turns and restarts.  but there have also been moments, the beauty of which i could scarcely pretend to describe.  even this moment, looking back, is like a panoramic view of the places we've trod, the ground we've covered, and it is breathtaking.  we've come a long way, baby!  and the road ahead calls with more adventure.  i can't wait to keep walking with you. 

    i don't want to miss anything.  that's part of the story of my life.  maybe it's part of the cost of being so wide-eyed with wonder at the width and breadth of this crazy creation, but, for better or worse, it would, at least at this point in my life so far be a suitable epitaph on my tombstone:  here lies greg milinovich who tried to make sure he never missed anything, and who died trying.  i don't know why this is even in the forefront of my mind right now, other than it just seems to keep coming up and showing itself to me in various ways, and perhaps even writing about it here is narcissistic, but, alas, i might as well just own up to that charge.  here are some examples of my condition: -i have terrible difficulty ordering at a restaurant, because to order one thing means to not order everything else.  i almost never decide what i am going to order until the words come out of my mouth.  it is as if i am only ordering because i simply must choose s

who hasn't had the urge to pick up a blueberry mr. sketch marker and go all heath ledger joker with that thing?  accent it with a little orange, and--ding ding!--we've got a classic parenting moment here, friends. we've been down this road before with green paint, vaseline, buttpaste, and any number of other things that i've tried to bleach from both the carpet and my memory. of course those times there weren't two older brothers who thought it was so funny that they would do it themselves!  oh well, this parenting thing is an amazing adventure!

wow....it's been quite the week!  i meant to post this much earlier, but life has been so (blessed) full.  anyway, here are the aformentioned pictures from our trip to the bronx zoo, which is a really spectacular zoo.  we were there from open to close, and there was much we didn't get to see!  as you can see from some of these pictures, you can really get close to several animals, and i only included some of my animal pictures here; i took over 180 pictures at the zoo that day!  yikes!  ps.  i wouldn't mess with that lion!    

we took a little mini-vacation last week into new york city for two days and one night.  we spent the first day at the bronx zoo (pictures forthcoming), spent the night outside the city in a hotel, and then took the train in for the second day.  above you can see shannon and the boys on the train, which was of great interest to jackson.  he couldn't wait until it went underwater, although i think he was disappointed in the end that you couldn't see that you were underwater.  we got into penn station and did the walk north through times square.  we found these payphones along the way (who knew there were still payphones?), and used them for a photo op.   for those who don't know, shannon is a bit of an m&m fanatic, so this was a must-have photo.  one of the main purposes of our trip was to go to the lego store in rockefeller center.  it was well worth it. while maybe not as large as they expected, it was still awesome, and i could have easily killed an

-well, it is officially summer vacation over here.  which might be why you haven't heard from me in more than a few days.  yesterday was the first full official day of summer vacay, and jackson was up prior to 630 (am), looking for things to do ("i'm bored").  this woke up the baby prematurely, so shannon took the two of them for a walk/bike ride, leaving cade with me.  i thought it would be a nice lazy morning until i went over to work, but by 730 (am!) caedmon had fed himself breakfast, packed a backpack, gotten dressed, and was standing by the door saying he was ready to go to work with me.  and so summer "vacation" (insert melodramatic air quotes there, please) begins.  sigh.  -jackson played his next-to-last soccer game last night, and it was by far his best of the season.  coach amanda has him playing "sweeper" exclusively now, which means he is sort of a goaltender who can't use his arms.  he was so timid and cautious around the bal