This past weekend, a huge number of relatives poured into Philadelphia for Char the Great's 80th birthday. For the record, it was actually a 320th birthday party for CTG and three other family members. One of the honorees couldn't make it, so I stepped in:

Can you tell which one is the substitute?

The party was quite the intergenerational affair, what with all of the rapidly-aging boomers...

Senility must really be setting in... they can't all look in the same direction, for chrissake!

And the burgeoning Generation X/Y...

But look out-- the young 'uns (i.e. me, Evvy and my cousins from Boise) are crashing your party. You won't be top dog for long... hell, lets just skip over these slackers and move on to us.

Frankly, the actual birthday affair was not the main attraction. With my cousins Andrew, Claire and Mouse staying in Jenkintown, it was one non-stop party. From mealtime...


To the mean streets of J-town (that's me rescuing Mouse from one of those mean streets)...


To the mean couches of J-town...


Oh, and Claire and I got married:

I'm pretty the second-cousin thing is legal in this state. Or at least in the eastern portion of the state. Maybe we should have gone to one of the rural areas to have the ceremony.

Apparently, Daddy and Andrew/Claire/Mouse's mommy had their traditional Boggle showdown after we went to bed. But in a surprise upset, Marge beat them both:

Oh yeah, "mrrrrrow" is a word. What, are you going to challenge me?

Going to my first Philly baseball game tomorrow-- more soon!

Here's my latest masterpiece, which I'm sending to Gram shortly:



As you can plainly see, it's a picture of Gram in a rocketship taking a tour of the solar system.

It's been a bit of a traumatic day. First, I had a doctor's appointment this afternoon, and mommy and daddy both promised it would be a no-shot visit. So there I am, getting weighed (still a svelte 29 lbs!), getting an eye exam (looks like I have mommy's eyesight, thank god!), getting poked in the belly. I'm just starting to think maybe the medical profession is not so bad. And then, out come the needles. O, betrayal-- thy name is mommy and daddy! Evie had to get shots too, and daddy suggested that I get mine first so I could show her how to be strong. So I took it like a man. I won't lie, I did cry for about 15 minutes... but it was manly crying.

Then it was Evie's turn. Oh. My. God. The girl giggled through the first shot, cried one second after the second shot, and three seconds after the third. Then giggled some more. Something is seriously wrong here. First, I'm the man here. If I cried 15 minutes, she should have cried for at least 15 hours. Second, does she have no pain sensations whatsoever? She should have been pissed as hell, and instead she was laughing. Sheesh.

When we got home, we were greeted by this appalling scene:


Daisy and Cute Cat were gone. Vanished. Suspicion quickly turned to one prime suspect:

In the past, this man has consumed multiple goods that would, taken individually, kill a lesser life form: a rubber nipple, ant poison, a rusted battery, several large blocks of chocolate, ladies' underwear (not the edible version), and a tube of Desitin(TM) diaper rash cream. Two hermit crabs seemed well within the realm of possibility. I could easily picture Monty, driven insane with jealousy after being supplanted as the favorite family pet by two glorified insects, deciding in his pea brain that it would be a great idea to get revenge and crab legs supreme, all in two bites.

Luckily, it turns out that neither Monty nor Daisy and Cute Cat are that stupid. Daddy discovered Daisy cowering (does a hermit crab do anything but cower?) under my bed and Cute Cat cowering under my end table.

The situation has been remedied:


I can now go to sleep without gruesome visions of Monty masticating two poor, defenseless hermit crabs. I hope you guys can rest easy as well.

OK, so I think we'll finally be caught up after this post. Last week, we drove down to Avalon, NJ to stay with Uncle Wren and Tara. I spent a lot of the time chilling in the pool, working on my tan and getting some great pin shots to send to the modeling agency I'm working with:

This one will be for the billboard ad campaign for my new scent, "Emaciation." Hey, at least I weigh more than some models out there...

Naturally, you can't go to the Jersey shore without spending some time at the beach:

We made a sand castle. I drove cars into the sand castle and into the moat around the castle. There was a secret passage as well, which this picture just does not do justice to. It was pretty sweet. I assume it's still there, so you guys should be sure to visit it if you're ever in Avalon.

I also went in the ocean.... mostly to get water for the moat (but the sun dried it up):


We went on a bike ride, too. That's me and Evie in the sweet yellow trailer behind Daddy.

Daddy's bike riding was second to none, and I took care of Evie in the trailer and made sure that she didn't cry. When we first got her in, she cried.

Then she got over it, thanks to my comforting arms:


But the highlight of the trip to the beach was when I sweet-talked mom and dad into getting two hermit crabs:

I named them Cute Cat and Daisy. As you can tell, they have the personalities to match their names.

(As a side note, Mommy wanted to name one of them "The Claw." Also, I caught Daddy made some snide remarks about the astronomical mortality rate of hermit crabs purchased by kids at the Jersey Shore. I ignored both comments.)

After we got back, we went to the pet store to get them a bigger cage (an aquarium, actually).

As you can tell, Cute Cat is much happier now.

Now that we are officially back home with no other vacations in sight, Mommy has gone on a home improvement rampage. I won't go into all of the gory details, but here is a representative picture of Mommy felling a large tree in our front yard:


That's all for now. I will try to be more timely in future posts, now that my editor's life is conflict-free for the foreseeable future.

Love,
Eli

When we left off, I was showing you pictures of my family and I moving to Jenkintown. But we didn't stay there long! Daddy needed some time to study, so Mommy, Evelyn and I piled into the Green Machine and drove to visit my friend Gram, who just moved from Charlottesville to Michigan.


Here's Gram and me going to Mushroom Park. That's Gram's dad. He's a good pusher, but not nearly as good as my daddy. It's all in the wrists.

After we stayed in Michigan for a few days, we got on an airplane and flew to Minnesota. This was Evie's (note the correct spelling mommy-- she's not Ewy anymore) first time ever flying on an airplane. She did very well, particularly with her human seatbelt. It's standard on all of the new aircraft:


We visited my cousin Sydney. She got to meet Evelyn for the first time.

She was at her grandma and grandpa's, but she left and came back and left and came back. (It's hard to quit me and Evelyn.) And soon we left.

We flew back to Michigan and then drove the Green Machine back to Jenkintown. I was a big help to mommy during the drive. I helped by telling mommy if Evelyn cried in the back seat. She didn't cry very much, though. I mean, she had me to look at for hours on end. What's there to cry about?

As soon as we got back, Mommy and Daddy went to Hawaii. The main purpose of their trip was to get me a stuffed animal backpack, which I named "Hawaii."

I'd like to put up a bunch of mommy and daddy's vacation photos, but I've been informed that they will make some of their friends jealous. I do have permission to put up this one, which is apparently fairly representative of how they spent their trip:


As soon as Mommy and Daddy got back, we started painting Daddy's office. I started things off painting my name (I'm trying to develop a graffiti tag-- it's a Philly thing, I've been told).



Then we switched to yellow paint, which made both of us grimace for some reason. Maybe the yellow made us have to pee!


Enough clowning around. It was time to get to work painting:


We finished the room. It's red and yellow (the red is on the other side). Sort of like McDonalds (speaking of Grimace)...



I've been told that since I live in a big city now (OK, a nice, safe suburb of a big city, but who's keeping track?) I need to develop some hipster cred:

The fire truck PJ's sort of ruin the image, but imagine they're leather for a second.

A few weeks ago, we all went to a swank bowling alley in downtown Philly. Talk about a hip family...

I bowled for me and Evelyn. I beat Mommy in one round. Watch out Dad, I'm coming for you.

Since we've been in Jenkintown, I've also taken up frisbee. Daddy was very insistent that I put several of these pictures on the blog. He wanted me to point out to several of his ultimate frisbee friends my superb form. He also wanted me to point out that this is powerful proof of genetics.

Good wind-up...

Powerful release...

Textbook pancake catching form...

I would be remiss to post without mentioning the bond between me and my baby sister. He's us taking a bath together. We're having a nice time.

OK, I'm having a nice time...


Here we are lying on the bed. You can see the resemblance:

Particularly from this end:


Next time, I promise I'll bring everyone up to date with pictures from the beach in New Jersey this past week. It's a long process, catching up. Thanks for your patience!