The Tanory Tantrum

Virginia - Day 7 - Four Dollahs Makes You Holla

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 15:10:00 +0000

For the last night of our vacation, we had decided to spend the night at the Holiday Inn in what's known as "Old Town" in Alexandria, VA, so that we could be close to the Reagan Airport for our flight home. We had a little bit of time before our flight, so we decided to take the kids to Arlington Cemetery.

Everybody knows what Arlington looks like. You've seen it in countless movies, such as Saving Private Ryan (which Betty still hasn't seen). But to be there was something different.

The land that became Arlington Cemetery at one point belonged to George Washington Parke Custis, the step-grandson of George Washington. Custis had willed the land to his daughter, Mary Anna Randolph Custis who just so happened to have married Robert E. Lee.

That's right - Robert E. Lee was President George Washington's great-step-granddaughter's husband, and Arlington Cemetery is on his property.

Anyway, at the start of the Civil War, the Union wanted Lee to lead their troops, but he opted to fight for his home state of Virginia which had seceded from the union. Lee's home was abandoned during the war, and Union troops occupied it and used it for their headquarters. As Union troops died, the Union started burying fallen soldiers on Lee's property - partly because they needed a place to bury the dead, and also as an FU to Lee.

We didn't have much time in Arlington so we headed straight for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A military funeral was taking place near one of the pathways that takes you there, so we walked around the cemetery to give the mourners their space. By the way, to our veterans, thank you for your service. We made it to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier right in time for the changing of the guard ceremony. But during the ceremony, Rosie just couldn't last in her stroller anymore. Betty took her out - and Rosie dashed towards the grass. (Betty may have had to step on the grass to grab her.) But don't worry, there weren't any graves around that area. We also saw where JFK was buried.

That was all we had time for, so we drove back towards DC and turned in our Dodge Grand Caravan. I yelled, "It's a rental!" one last time as we pulled into the car return. After all my fretting about vacuuming out the car, they didn't even look to see if it was destroyed inside before handing me my receipt. We could have rolled around in another few boxes of Ritz crackers, cereal and rice cakes and it wouldn't have mattered. Oh what could have been.

The walk from the rental car return to the airport terminal wasn't very long, but we had more luggage than a family of twenty people going on an African safari for two months, and I refused to pay $5 for a cart. I thought we could just walk it. Which we did - in total silence, except for cold stares and the mutterings of "it was just $5."

Look, it's like when we unpack the car after going to the grocery store: I'm carrying everything in on a single trip and I'm not going to ask for help. It's a guy thing.

Inside the Reagan terminal, everybody was packed together like sardines. The terminals are small and circular, and there's less room in there than there is on the Metro on the way back from a Nationals game. I escaped from the mass of unwashed humanity to go get some treats for the kids. And that's when I had the sticker shock of the entire trip: a pack of Skittles cost $4.

I was a captured audience, so what could I do but pay it? And while I was at it, I bought three other bags of candy, for what amounted to one of the largest purchases of the trip. I don't mind paying to fly to DC, rent a car for a week and drive up to Maryland, pay to get into national parks... but paying $4 for Skittles really irked me. This is the Tantrum, so you knew I'd have something to complain about.

The flight back to New Orleans was uneventful, except for when Rosie took one of Peter's souvenirs - his NASA helmet that we got at the National Air and Space Museum - and flung it towards Betty's face, cutting her eye. Betty was in obvious pain, but I couldn't take Rosie because she loves Betty way more than she loves me, and Rosie wasn't having it. So instead Betty gave me the helmet, which I put under my seat, and may... have... forgotten there. I guess we'll have to go back one day to get another one.

In typical Tanory fashion, our baby girl pooped with about an hour left on the flight. There wasn't any way to change her since we encountered a lot of turbulence, so Annie and I just cranked up the air on our side of the aisle and tried to pretend like we didn't know the rest of our family holding the stinky toddler.

On the drive back to Baton Rouge, Annie asked why we don't explore our own city like we did DC. That was an excellent question - actually, it was the very same question that I asked myself after mine and Betty's first trip to New York and DC back in 2006. That question led to the Food Outings that my coworkers and I took every so often, where we went to a new restaurant every week.

So now it's time to put our tourist tendencies to work in Baton Rouge - and even greater Louisiana. We want to take the kids to Avery Island... maybe take a swamp tour. And what does North Louisiana have to offer? Oh wait, they're north of I-10 so they're Yankees, maybe we'll just stay to the south.

I'd like to thank cousin Elizabeth and Dino, Aunt Charlotte and Aunt Jerry for letting us crash at their places and for letting the kids have a safe place to use as a home base for exploring new cities and making new memories. This was a trip that I hope they'll remember a long time.

Thanks for reading!

Maryland - Day 6 - Danielle Steel's Island of Adventure

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 05:27:00 +0000

On the sixth day of our vacation, we had an important decision to make: should we spend the whole day and night in Maryland and drive into DC in the morning for our return flight home, or should we spend the night near DC which meant leaving Maryland early? It was a three hour drive back to DC, another trip over one of the scariest bridges in the world, we needed to turn in our Dodge Grand Caravan... and what happened if we broke down, hit traffic, or someone's bladder neared its max fill line? Or more likely: what happened if I made another wrong turn in DC that sent us back into a neverending loop of traffic?

We decided to play it safe and rent a hotel room in Alexandria, VA, for the night. So we checked our crab traps one last time, rented a room online, and then did the most Marylandish thing we could think of:

We went to an island of wild horses.

The island in question is called Assateague Island, which is a national park. Upon entering, we made a pit stop at the visitor's center where we loaded up on all the necessary supplies, such as a plush horse for Rosie, which she cuddled and snuggled and OMG IT WAS THE CUTEST THING EVER AND I PROMISED TO BUY HER WHATEVER SHE WANTED.

We had planned on just staying in the car and driving around looking at wild horses, but after only seeing a handful of horses in the distance, we parked on the side of the street and walked around for a bit. After walking over a short hill, we found one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever been on.

Now we should have known that there was a beach there. After all, it's called Assateague Island. But we were just too focused on horses, and not on bathing suits or flip flops. So we weren't dressed for the beach, but we stayed for about thirty minutes and let the kids run around and put their feet in the water. (Or in Peter's case, his feet, legs, torso and head.) We watched people surf and go out on kayaks, and we noticed that the beach goers there were in much better shape than the tourists at the Boardwalk beach.

So just to sum this up: this island had wild horses, fit young people in skimpy clothing, and a beautiful beach. We were basically on a cover of a Danielle Steel novel.

After finally convincing the kids that it was time to go, we started heading back towards DC. Google Maps had three routes for us to choose from, but only one went through Delaware (and saved us nine whole minutes!). I had never been to Delaware before, so I made the executive decision to take that route.

Little did I know, but Delaware is very rural, which I thought made it the most Southern of the Northern states - although Betty says that Dover is an actual city, with city stuff like "things to do" and "other people." And it's pretty small. At 2,489 square miles, Delaware is the second smallest US state by total area. It only took us about an hour to drive through the southern half of the state, and most of what we drove through was rural farmland.

I thought that I'd see the same strip malls and fast food joints like we do in every other city, but Delaware was different. We passed by several red barns that are the idyllic barn that you'd find in a children's book. We saw a lot of corn and what I guess were soybean fields, and a lot of linear move irrigation systems. I liked it. And as an added bonus, we didn't hit any traffic.

Eventually we ended up back in Maryland, where we drove back over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (named one of the scariest bridges in the world), and this time I could stay in the center lane the whole way over since the bridge going back towards DC has three lanes. For me it was a breeze, but Betty said that the view down to the bay was way scarier this time around than the first time. She was genuinely terrified.

From there we went south through DC and into Virginia. Our hotel was in Alexandria, which is one of the oldest cities in the US. Specifically, our hotel was in what's known as Old Town - not to be confused with the fancy new town that the whippersnappers built in the 1800's and later. Old Town was originally a part of Virginia, then ceded to the US government to form part of DC, then given back to Virginia. I had always thought that Alexandria was named after the city in Egypt, but instead it's named after a dude named Philip Alexander that had a lot of land. The main things that we did in Alexandria were eat (at the hotel), swim (at the hotel), and vacuum out all the sand and food from our rental car so that we wouldn't get charged a cleaning fee. It was as if we had taken all the sand from Assateague Island as well as the beach near the Boardwalk, crumbled some Thrasher's fries into the sand, rolled it up with Dumser's ice cream and dumped the remains of a Boog's corndog on it, then rolled around in it in the rental car - over the carpet, up the seats and into the trunk. But after a few dollars worth of a gas station vacuum, we got the van looking like it had only had to withstand an atomic bomb blast while inside a convenience store instead of having to withstand three kids on vacation, which frankly was a big improvement.

So we had started the day in Maryland, drove through Delaware, drove through a few streets of DC and finally made it to Alexandria, Virginia. The kids got to put a checkmark in Delaware and Virginia on their "States I've Been To" map. We saw horses, braved a scary bridge, and never got lost in DC. Not too bad for a day's drive!

Stay tuned for info on our last day!

Maryland - Day 5 - Baywatch

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Sun, 01 Jul 2018 03:28:00 +0000

Our fifth day of vacation was mostly spent back at the beach near the boardwalk at Ocean City, Maryland. The day was cloudy but we rented an umbrella and some chairs, and I kept calling our beach helper "Garçon." We're fancy people, after all. Garçon ended up setting up our umbrella right in front of a woman sitting on a blanket. And I mean, right in front of her. We were so close to her that we could alternatingly feel her cold stare and hot hate emanating from the back of our heads.

The sand at Ocean City is denser than what you'd find at Gulf Shores, Pensacola or Destin. The sand always feels wet no matter where you are on the beach, which seemed a little weird at first, but was great for making sand castles, giant forts and mermaid tails. I started to make a mermaid tail for Peter - merman tail? - but ended up making extra long legs. Then we told Rosie to tickle Peter's feet, and she tried to tickle his sand feet. Despite Peter laughing hilariously, she realized that those weren't his real feet, and started destroying the newly built sand legs until she found his real feet.

Another difference between the beach at Ocean City versus the beaches in Alabama and Florida is that Ocean City has life guards on duty. I really liked that. Not only was it safer, but every so often they'd run across the beach (presumably to another life guard station) Baywatch style!

Another beach-goer found a horseshoe crab. The thing was huge. It was my first time seeing a horseshoe crab, and I actually didn't know what it was at first. But my son Peter has been watching YouTube videos by a guy named Coyote Peterson, and Peter knew exactly what it was. He explained to all of the beach-goers what it was, and then all of us adults pretended like we knew: "Oh yeah, a horseshoe crab!" Horseshoe crabs were around prior to dinosaurs, have ten eyes, and the Delaware area is where their largest spawning ground is located. Peter had wanted to take a crab home, but this particular horseshoe crab had died, so that was out of the question. We also probably couldn't have taken it on the plane, unless it had one of those "Emotional Support" dog vests. (A dog with an emotional support dog vest sat by us on our flight to DC - it was a cutie.)

The ocean water was very cold, so we ended up just playing in the shallow area near the shore. This ended up being a good thing. The cloudy weather eventually turned to rain, but before the rain came, the waves picked up. When the waves started picking up, rip tides started occurring. I had warned the kids about rip tides in advance, and taught them what to do in case they felt like they were getting sucked out to sea. Someone actually did get caught up in a rip tide while we were there, the life guards actually saved him, and then they put up double red flags meaning that nobody could go into the ocean.

So we had no choice but to go back to the boardwalk, where we got ice cream from Dumser's Dairyland. Peter wanted sprinkles, and Annie wanted a dip cone - and sprinkles. I didn't think that was possible, but at Dumser's, anything is possible. They didn't have pistachio ice cream, so Betty got a shake - and then made the mistake of sharing it with me. After we demolished our ice cream, we hit up the Sportland arcade again and beat the Pirate's Hook game into submission. It was raining tickets!

Back at Aunt Charlotte's beach house, Charlotte's good friend Jimmy took the kids out to the deck to pull up a crab trap. Checking the crab trap was a favorite activity of the kids - again, mostly because Peter wanted to take one home as a pet. The crabs were Blue Crabs, and it's legal to catch and eat crabs from your own trap up there as long as they're over a certain size. You can tell the difference between the male and female crabs by the color of their claws, and we could tell that the female crabs were fussing at the male crabs: "I told you we shouldn't have come into this trap, but nooo, you didn't listen, you said it would be fine, and now look at us!" I felt for the male crabs.

Horseshoe crabs, ice cream dip cones with sprinkles, game tickets galore, and fit female lifeguards in red spandex running up and down the beach... it had been a fun day in Maryland. We had one more half day in Maryland to go... Stay tuned for more notes from our trip!

Maryland - Day 4 - At the Boardwalk

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Fri, 29 Jun 2018 05:25:00 +0000

Our fourth day of vacation was a travel day. It was a three hour drive from Washington, DC, to Ocean Pines, Maryland, but after walking over 50,000 steps the past three days, three hours in the car was a breeze.

The only issue was that, in order to get from DC to Ocean Pines, we needed to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which several travel websites list as one of the scariest bridges in the world. It's apparently so scary that there's a thriving local business that charges drivers $25 to have someone else drive their own car across the bridge. Part of what makes it scary is that it sways in bad weather. There's also little to no shoulder, the railing looks flimsy, and you can see the bay through the railing. And it's actually two separate bridges - you can see one bridge from the other, which for some reason makes it scarier.

On the way from DC to Maryland, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge has two lanes. But on the way back, there are three lanes, but one lane goes the opposite way in peak traffic hours. But the scariest thing of all: there's a toll right before you hop on the bridge on the DC side.

I used to never have panic attacks on bridges, but we drove over the condemned bridge in Lake Charles once during a really bad thunder storm, and since then I've hated bridges. Betty made sure to tell me about the bridge well in advance so that I could get all of my panic attacks out of the way up front.

And you know what? After weeks of fretting about it, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge was a piece of cake. I kept telling myself that it was just another road. In fact, the Lake Charles bridge as well as the Sunshine Bridge in Donaldsonville, LA, near where we live are way, way worse.

Once we drove past the anti-climactic bridge, it was smooth sailing to Ocean Pines, MD. There we got to spend some time with Betty's aunts, Charlotte and Jerry, which was the entire point of our trip.

Ocean Pines is on the eastern edge of Maryland. Aunt Charlotte's beach house overlooked the Buck Island Pond and Isle of Wight Bay, and across the bay was Ocean City. Ocean City has a three mile long boardwalk filled with arcades, pizza shops, salt water taffy shops, and souvenir shirt stores. And right off the boardwalk is a beach that touches the Atlantic Ocean. Basically, Ocean City was my favorite place ever.

We were still in uber-tourist mode after being in DC for a few days, so hit up the boardwalk in Ocean City. There we experienced Thrasher's Fries, which are served with vinegar. We had hot dogs - Betty got a corndog from a place called Boog's, and you know the food has to be good at a place called Boog's - and then the kids rode some fair rides at Trimper's Rides. It had been so hot in DC, but out near the ocean it was windy and cold, and we weren't dressed appropriately. So Betty and the kids got Ocean City sweatshirts.

We went out to the beach for a bit and just got our feet wet. It started to rain so we headed back to the boardwalk and protected ourselves from the rain by huddling in a candy shop, where we bought tubs of caramel corn, salt water taffy and chocolate. I mean, we had no choice, right?! It was either that or get rained on! Then we made our way to one of the many arcades.

The arcades there are kind of like the video game areas of a Chuck E. Cheese, complete with a shop to trade in tickets for prizes. But whereas you may win one or two tickets at Chuck E. Cheese per play, at the Sportland arcade, you'd win 30 tickets at a time. Each game cost $1, so we weren't planning on staying long - until my kids found the Pirate's Hook game. This is the game where your character is in a boat at the top of the screen and throws his fishing hook down into the sea, and depending on how deep you catch your fish determines how many tickets you win. Well, that game only cost a quarter to play, and the kids could easily score twice as many tickets per game as the more expensive games. So they played this game like kids possessed. I still see visions of my son slapping the button to throw his fishing hook down, while reeling in the line with other hand, laughing maniacally while the tickets churned out. Between the two oldest kids, they won over a thousand tickets easily. They won so many tickets that the game actually ran out of tickets, and I had to tell one of the workers (who promptly fixed it).

Finally, after a long but fun day, we headed back to Ocean Pines and settled in for the night. The remake of Footloose was on TV, and the kids enjoyed watching it. I learned that Footloose takes place in Beaumont, TX, which is one of my least favorite places in the entire world. We hate Beaumont so much that we call it Blowmont. Seriously, the only good thing about Beaumont is that we found a way to drive around it. Footloose will just never be the same for me anymore.

Long story short, Maryland is my new favorite state, and Beaumont sucks.

Stay tuned for more notes from our trip!

DC - Day 3 - Monu-Mental!

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 05:12:00 +0000

Our second full day in DC was also our last day in DC, so we tried to squeeze in as many happy memories of us yelling at the kids to walk faster so that we could go see as many monuments as humanly possible in one day.

We decided to ditch the car and just take the Metro. I didn't want us to get separated on the Metro, so I took a few deep breaths, held my children close to me, and we all ran on the Metro together while I screamed a war cry at the top of my lungs. Not sure why, but it seemed like the doors wouldn't close prematurely and separate us if I stormed the Metro like I was on Braveheart. Everyone gave us sidelong glances, partly because of my terrified screaming, and partly because we had all decided to wear our LSU shirts and Tiger-bait people wearing clothes from other SEC schools.

We're really country come to town, yall.

Anyway, we took the Metro to L'Enfant Plaza (named after the guy that drew up the street plans for DC), then walked to the Washington Monument. We had seen the Washington Monument from nearly everywhere in DC. It's the tallest building in DC by law so it's hard to miss (similar to how Baton Rouge's capitol building is the tallest building in town by law), but it's also the world's largest Egyptian obelisk. We couldn't go inside because the elevator was getting maintenance, so instead I had to whisper the customary, "Does that make you randy!?" in my most Austin Powers' accent to Betty from outside in the heat.

The Washington Monument, by the way, is at the heart of a five-for-one monument extravaganza. A short walk away from the Washington Monument is the World War II memorial, including a pillar for all the states and a large pool with fountains. After that is the Reflecting Pool, and then the Lincoln Memorial. Then right next to the Lincoln Memorial is the Korean War Memorial.

The kids had seen the Lincoln Memorial in "A Night at the Museum 2" with Ben Stiller, so they knew sort of what to expect. I've been there before. But I have to admit, I teared up a little while reading the Gettysburg Address. The dude had a way with words. It was short, sweet and to the point - very much unlike this blog post. I think the Lincoln Memorial was my favorite monument in DC.

We were hot at that point so needed some AC, and decided to hit up a museum. We passed by the White House on the way to the National Museum of American History, but more importantly, we passed by several ice cream vendors. Peter got a Dove ice cream bar, but Annie got a giant ice cream sandwich, and then it wasn't fair that her ice cream sandwich was bigger than the ice cream bar, so then we had to get another ice cream bar. And then of course I had to introduce the Dad Tax.

The Dad Tax is when I, as the dad, buy something tasty for the kids, and then they owe me a percentage of their food. What better place to explain taxes to the kids than in DC? Peter didn't like that, but Annie is so sweet that she immediately gave up some of her ice cream sandwich. So that's how I know that Peter will be a Republican or Libertarian, and Annie will probably be a Democrat. (Rosie wouldn't share her treats with me - she might be an anarchist.) Betty said she didn't have to share because I wasn't her dad, and therefore she was excluded from the Dad Tax. She's great at finding loopholes - maybe I'll put her in charge of doing our taxes this year.

The National Museum of American History (or what I call the American History Museum) had some really cool stuff. In front of a metallic Star-Spangled Banner exhibit, a military band played the Game of Thrones theme song to the delight of everyone. On the bottom floor we rode a space simulator wearing Virtual Reality goggles, and the ride was basically like the movie Gravity - we were doing a spacewalk on the ISS when all of a sudden some debris hit a solar sail, and then everything started coming apart. It was intense! We saw Kermit the Frog, saw a green suit that Lin-Manual Miranda wore in the Hamilton Broadway play, and walked through a large exhibit about the First Ladies, showing all their china, dresses, etc. The girls especially liked that one.

We went back to the Air and Space Museum, this time spending time in the "space" section. Towards the end of our stay there we went to a show called "Journey to the Stars" at the Planetarium there. It blew me away. Honestly, it was probably my favorite thing in all of DC. If you go to DC, go to the Planetarium.

Our last museum of the day was the National Museum of the American Indian. We didn't see much of this one since we walked in at 5 pm and it closed at 5:30, and our kids were entranced with a video on the top floor. But they have what is apparently a fantastic espresso bar there. Betty asked me to go get some coffee, but the two people behind the counter wouldn't look at me. When I went to leave after standing there like an idiot for five minutes, my way was blocked; I guess the coffee bar closed at 5, and someone had pulled a large metal gate behind me without saying anything to me. So I was literally trapped. First I was really mad about it, like "How dare they do that to me?!" but then I realized that I was the White Man who had taken their land from them, then got ignored the African-American workers who probably had family sold into slavery and who had taken a job at the American Indian museum to sell coffee to white people like me who were probably just going to appropriate everyone's culture anyway, and then I felt better about it. I was able to escape from my metal coffee bar prison, but if I had to, I bet I could have survived on day-old muffins and coffee beans until the next day.

Afterward we took the Metro to meet Elizabeth and Dino at Nationals Park to watch the Nationals play the Orioles. I bought water from kids selling water bottles for a dollar outside the stadium. I mean, that's cheaper than at a store! And $5 cheaper than in the stadium! I also learned something about the DC sports culture that night: nobody is really from DC, so nobody really cares if the team wins or loses. For instance, we were surrounded by guys in orange Baltimore Orioles shirts, and yet no Nationals fan tried to shank them with a knife, spit on them, call them names or throw batteries at them. If we had been in New Orleans at a Saints game, there'd have at least been some voodoo dolls getting poked with needles. But no, everybody was friendly, as if the Nationals winning or losing wouldn't have a lifelong lasting effect on their mental well-being.

We stayed until the end of the 6th inning, when our kids just couldn't go anymore. On the way back on the Metro, Peter needed to go to the bathroom. For some reason, it came about that Betty knew the exact time and whereabouts of everyone's last time to go the restroom. It was insane. It was a skill that I didn't know she had, but apparently a lot of moms possess this innate pee tracking instinct. I didn't even know the last time that I had gone to the restroom, but I bet if I had asked Betty, she would have known not only where and when I went, but what I had drank that would have made me need to go. I was impressed - and to be honest, a little turned on.

We ended the day back at Elizabeth's house, with 22K FitBit steps. Those are Disney World numbers. It was a long, hot, fun day in DC. We were so tired that we didn't even play Dominoes, but I bet if we did, I'd have come in last place.

Stay tuned for more! Next up: Ocean City, Maryland.

DC - Day 2 - That's So Washington

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 06:09:00 +0000

Our first full day in DC started at Union Station. We got there by Dodge Grand Caravan and not the Metro, since my neurosis kept me up at night thinking that Betty and I would get separated from the kids on the Metro.

I get my neurosis from my mom. As my brother would say, "Way to go, Mom."

We went to Union Station to meet up with our Duck Boat tour from DC Ducks. Our Duck Boat's name was the Lame Duck, and our tour guide was Capt. Steve. If you've never been on a Duck Boat before, they're amphibious vehicles that were developed for World War II as a way to quickly move cargo onto shore. The army originally ordered them, then didn't want them, and only after a Duck boat saved some stranded Coast Guardsmen did the army reconsider. They were mostly made by women (think "Rosie the Riveter") who took such great pride in their work that many Ducks are still in use today despite only supposed to have lasted a single combat tour. We drove around the capital, seeing the White House, the capitol building, Washington Monument, the World War II memorial, the Lincoln Memorial - even making a few left turns, amazingly - then rode through the Potomac River near the Pentagon. All three kids got to get behind the wheel and steer for a bit in the Potomac.

So the Lame Duck lasted through World War II, the Korean War, driving around DC and letting my kids drive it. What a machine!

Capt. Steve gave us a brief history of a few sites in DC, starting with Union Station. Union Station was originally designed in the model of a Roman bath house. Inside are Roman statues that were intended to be guards about to get into the bath - meaning, they were naked except for helmets and capes (which is basically a Saturday night at the Tanory house). Once the statues went on display, shields were added in front of each statue to hide their mentula (which is Latin for wangs). But if you look at the right angle, legend has it that you can still see a Roman dong today. The ladies stole a glance, and between giggles reported that it must have been cold when the statues were carved.

While on our tour, a huge demonstration of mostly Chinese protestors marched in front of the capitol to protest the Chinese government's persecution of Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong. Falun Dafa is apparently a spiritual practice that combines meditation and exercises with moral philosphy centered on the tenets of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. I guess it's like Chinese yoga, but without the stretchy pants that make your butt look good. I'm not sure why they were protesting at the US capitol - maybe they were hoping that the US could do something about it, or were just trying to get attention - but it temporarily impeded our Duck Boat tour. As Capt. Steve put it, "A demonstration at the capitol stopping the Duck Boat tour? That's so Washington."

While we waited for a parade of peaceful protestors to march by us, a white, bearded guy in a suit and helmet holding a briefcase zoomed by us on an electric scooter. Capt. Steve's words were in my head: "That's so Washington."

After our Duck Boat tour ended, we ate at the historical and culturally important McDonald's at Union Station. Then it was off to our first museum of our trip...

The Postal Museum.

I'll admit, I wasn't excited about the Postal Museum. But Betty wanted to go to score some free postcards. And just as we were about to leave, we saw something that really got the kids excited: the guns that Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr used when they dueled. Our kids have been listening to the Hamilton soundtrack, and to see the guns... well, that was special.

After the Postal Museum, we got one of many ice cream bars that day to try to stay cool and hydrated. DC is hot and humid, mostly due to the hot air coming out of Congress but also just due to the climate.

Next we hit up the National History Museum. The National History Museum is one of my favorites. It's got the dinosaur bones, mummies, a narwhal exhibit, gemstones, and all kinds of stuffed animals (as in, taxidermy, not toys). It's basically what I think of when I think of a museum. My son was impressed, but my oldest daughter didn't like the fact that all those animals had been stuffed and put on display for our amusement. I kept trying to tell her that it was for our education, but she wouldn't agree until I bought her more ice cream.

After that we toured the National Gallery of Art. We saw a Da Vinci, some beautiful Monets, a couple of Renoirs, a Degas, a bust of Lorenzo de' Medici, and - Betty's favorite - some of Mary Cassatt's work. The kids didn't hate it, but they didn't really appreciate it. But we did. We realized that, not only were these works of art beautiful and historically important, but they were also very expensive. In fact, the National Gallery of Art is heavily guarded. There's a guard in every room, and if you get too close to any of the art work, you'll get a fussin' and I assume a taserin'. Basically the guards at the National Gallery of Art are the Secret Service of museum workers. Don't mess around with them.

It was about 4:30 when we got out of the National Gallery of Art. Everything in DC closes around 6 pm, and we had some time to kill before we needed to get back to our van - the parking garage closed at 7 pm but we didn't want to get there too early so that we could avoid the crazy DC traffic - so we popped into the National Air and Space Museum for a few minutes. We looked at more of the "air" stuff this day (space stuff came later), and spent the remaining time at the children's play area while I sat in the corner and charged my phone, so that we could use the GPS on the way back to my cousin Elizabeth's house.

When we got back to Elizabeth's, I had managed 18K steps on my FitBit. My software developer legs just aren't made for that kind of walking. We were hungry, so Elizabeth used Uber Eats to bring us Ethiopian food. If that's no so Washington, then I don't know what is.

Then the kids wanted ice cream. Specifically, pistachio ice cream. But we just couldn't walk anymore.

We ended our day by playing Dominoes again. I sat out the first game, then subbed in for Betty once our baby girl Rosie needed to go to bed. Betty was in second when I took over for her, but I somehow managed to come in last again. By the time I picked up the Dominoes (as was my job since I was the loser), everyone else was asleep - probably dreaming about eating Dove ice cream bars in a Monet painting while dinosaur fossils roamed in the background.

Stay tuned for DC Day 3!

DC - Day 1 - Unleash the Fury!

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Tue, 26 Jun 2018 04:08:00 +0000

We just back from a family vacation, and I want to tell you all about it. But I have to warn you, this story is not for the faint of heart. In true Tanory fashion, this tale involves a few wrong turns, naked roman soldiers, an explosion in outer space, a lost tooth, the most dangerous bridge in the world, wild horses, a pirate's hook, a giant graveyard, and a pack of $4 Skittles.

But let's start at the beginning.

Betty and I wanted to take the kids to see her aunts up in Dover, Delaware. Delaware, besides being the first state to ratify the constitution, is also famous for that Wayne's World sketch where they can't think of anything to do in Delaware. I was up for anything, especially since we love Betty's aunts and I had never been to Delaware, but Betty's aunts offered to meet us instead at their beach house near Ocean City, Maryland. Who could say no to that? So off we went!

On our way up to Maryland, we made a multi-day pit stop in Washington, DC, where we stayed with my beautiful, smart, classy, good-at-dominoes, she-let-all-of-us-stay-at-her-place-for-free cousin Elizabeth and her fiance Dino. You may remember Elizabeth from her blog Liz in Mali, which is a fantastic read if you haven't checked out her blog. (It's definitely worth your time!)

To get to DC we flew non-stop with Southwest. When we landed at Reagan airport, another flight to Chicago had just been cancelled, and their plane was still sitting in our spot. We had to wait thirty minutes for the plane to move. And during that time, my youngest daughter soiled her diaper with a stench so terrible that we almost had to evacuate the plane. The oxygen masks almost dropped. People thought there had been a gas attack (there kind of was) and were sucking air from the top vents, but lucky for us, the plane started taxiing before the flight attendants could unfurl the emergency exit slide. (Pooping on the plane is a recurring theme. It's a Tanory thing.) We blamed the stench on a couple of foreigners who didn't speak English, and stormed off the plane as if offended.

We needed a car on our trip, so we rented a Dodge Grand Caravan. I'd like to suggest that you get a Grand Caravan if you ever anticipate driving near DC, just because the thing is like a tank and DC traffic is horrible. Seriously, according to the TomTom Traffic Index, DC's traffic congestion is the 9th worst in the US (only a few spots above Baton Rouge - although we think BR's traffic is more annoying). We could have done with a smaller vehicle, but we needed the back row so our kids could sit in separate aisles. It would have been a much longer trip with them sitting next to each other. Whenever we needed to hop a curb or fit through a tight space, I'd yell, "It's a rental!" Kudos to my Uncle Jim (Elizabeth's dad) for creating that catchphrase years ago in Seattle. I still remember it and love it, and have been patiently biding my time to use it. I used it early and often.

Driving in DC aged me. Apparently the way to my cousin's house took all the left turns possible in DC, while only a third of them had left turn lights. I also took several wrong turns. Betty was navigating and told me the correct way to go, but I either didn't feel comfortable changing lanes fast enough or was too worried about hitting a pedestrian or person on a bike / scooter / skateboard / Segway to make the turn, that I sent us on unexpected detours more than I'd like to admit. I think we went into Virginia at least twice. But it was cool, our Grand Caravan had unlimited miles.

While driving on Piney Branch Road - which may or may not have been on the original GPS path to Elizabeth's house - Peter lost a tooth. He wanted to know if the tooth fairy would be able to find him. I told him that of course the tooth fairy could find him! And once the tooth fairy found us, he or she could tell us how to get to Elizabeth's house.

Finally Betty yelled, "Just drive like you're in New Orleans!" and then I snapped back to reality, making several left turns from the right-most lanes, sometimes when the light wasn't red, and often but not always on all four wheels.* Our Grand Caravan had a California license plate, so my apologies to the Californians who are now derided as idiot drivers in DC.

Despite the lack of left turn lights, the street layout of DC is magnificent and we really enjoyed our driving tour of the city. We learned that Pierre Charles L'Enfant was tasked by George Washington to design the basic plan for Washington, DC. He designed a grid with long, cross-cutting avenues, which makes it possible to see beautiful architecture and monuments from a distance. L'Enfant was eventually fired because he couldn't get along with anybody, but the city he designed is fantastic. I'm sure he didn't realize that left turn lights would be the bane of the city hundreds of years later, so we'll forgive him.

After making it to Elizabeth's house, my kids went into "What have you done for me lately?" mode and demanded food. It's like they think they need to be fed every day or something.** So we put my two year old Rosie in one of those leashes that were all the rage years ago but are not in vogue anymore, and headed out to Timber Pizza. It was our first time to use the leash, and we got a lot of weird stares from people, but as I explained with a grin and a shrug, "We're from Louisiana." That seemed a good enough explanation to most people.

You can't have pizza without ice cream, so afterward we went to Lulabelle's Sweet Shop. I got the pistachio ice cream, and despite my kids yelling, "Ugh! Pistachio ice cream?!?!" they loved it. It's literally all they talked about for the rest of the trip. Everywhere we went, they'd go, "Do they have pistachio ice cream there?" It almost became our trip's catch phrase, so I had to keep yelling, "It's a rental!" to make sure that stuck.

On our way back from ice cream, we played at one of the many public playgrounds in DC. It was beautiful: The sun was just setting, fireflies were lighting up the playground, and the smell of our leftover pizza was wafting through the air. Back at Elizabeth's house, I met one of her neighbors and asked what I thought was a witty question, "Are you a Republican or a Democrat?" I was just kidding of course - I was trying to be politically humorous although I realize that's a terrible joke. But the joke was on me: 76% of people who live in DC are Democrats. (17% have no party affiliation, 1% are Green, Libertarian are a fraction of a percent, and the other 6% are the Trump administration.)

We ended the night with a game of Dominoes. I've only stacked Dominoes and knocked them down, but apparently there are actual games that you can play. Elizabeth kicked our butts. I came in last, but not for a lack of trying. The Dominoes came to symbolize our trip. We knocked out items on our To Do List just like we knocked down Dominoes (read: Betty kept everyone in line and we only got anything done because of her elite time management skills).

Here are the day's footnotes, since some jokes need to be explained (which makes them less funny). Such are the times that we live in.

* Mom and/or any rental car claim agents reading this, it's a joke. We drove very safely and never ran any red lights. We only almost hit someone once, and it was their own damn fault, because who doesn't cross a road without looking?!? (Apparently everyone in Washington, DC.)

** Mom and any government officials reading this, that was also a joke.

Stay tuned for Day 2.

Why You Should Let Your Man Play Fantasy Football

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Fri, 01 Sep 2017 05:40:00 +0000

This blog post is for the ladies.

The entirety of human history is one tragic, repeating story of men violently attacking other men. Every war was started by men. Every battle had men hacking away or shooting other men. Bombs, missiles and rockets were developed by men, launched into battle by men, and glorified by men. Wars have been fought on land and sea, and soon will be fought in space. And sometimes these men fought over ideas or moral outrage. Often it was over a woman. But other times, it was just because they didn't like the other guy's face.

Guys don't need an excuse to wage war, is the point. We do it when we're bored. Or when it's hot. Or when someone's face is just so damn punchable.

We like movies about war, books about war, video games about war, board games about war. We even like museums about war.

Sure, there were women who were great at war, or great at building machines of war. I'm not trying to discount the contributions of women in war. But let's be real, for the most part, men are the culprits.

That's why today, YOU - I'm talking to you, ladies - have the chance to change history.

Instead of fussing at your boyfriend for watching football for four months straight, encourage it! Throw a party so everyone can watch with him, and you can celebrate football being in his life! Buy a big screen TV so he can watch it in the most megapixels possible! If you don't, he might start World War III because the next door neighbors are singing karaoke outside again.

Instead of telling your husband that he can't play fantasy football this year, encourage it! Tell him to join as many leagues as he wants! Maybe join a league with him! It will be a bonding experience. Because if you don't, he's going to tell you that he's running to the store but will sneak off to the bar to watch the last few minutes of a Sunday night game, get in a fight with a Dallas Cowboys fan, and go to jail to cool off. And let's face it, it will all be your fault.

So here's your chance to save the world. Let your man play Fantasy Football. No, I take that back - don't "let" him... make him! And to be good at Fantasy Football, he needs to do his research. Make your guy watch football - not just the NFL, but all the college games as well. He needs to scout for the years to come.

And really, what's the cost of getting the NFL Network or the NFL Red Zone in the grand scheme of things, considering that having those at your house could stop him from going completely bonkers over the smallest detail (due to not being able to release any of that pent-up testosterone) and causing massive bloodshed in the near future?

Seriously, have you seen how polarized our nation is right now? What do you want your man doing: protesting, counter-protesting, or talking smack to his friends on the Yahoo! Fantasy Football or ESPN Fantasy apps (available for free on iPhone and Android devices)?

You know the answer. Do what's right for your man. Do what's right for your country.

Do what's right for the world.

Home Defense

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Tue, 30 May 2017 01:26:00 +0000

Forget guns and cameras, I have a new home defense strategy: soiled diapers.

I'll get straight to the point. In order to best protect your home, just have a baby, feed it lots of food that seems tasty going in but rancid coming out, and then wait for the baby to soil its diaper. When you change said diaper, place it into a plastic grocery bag, then tie the bag up. You might want to double-bag it.

Did I mention that you should be wearing a gas mask while doing this? You can probably find a cheap one at your local military surplus store.

Once the diaper has been placed in the sealed grocery bag, open whatever door or window that you want to secure, and toss the diaper out.

Now, this is important: if you keep your garbage can in an enclosed area, such as a store room or garage, under no circumstance should you be putting the soiled diapers into the garbage can until the garbage is en route to the front of the yard for trash pickup. Otherwise you're just going to smoke yourself out.

Please realize that this tactic, while affective against home invaders, would-be thiefs, Mormons and stray dogs, may also prevent friends and family from coming to your home. But honestly, most crimes are committed by people acquainted with the victim, so it's probably best to keep those people away as well.

If you already own cameras and/or guns, don't despair - you can use those in conjunction with the soiled diapers. If you see a threat in your camera, just get out your gun, then throw a grocery bag with a soiled diaper into the air, and shoot at it as if you were shooting at a clay pigeon. Aim for above the perpetrator's head. The showering shards of soiled diaper will not only be enough to scare the assailant away, but the stench will also help identify the assailant later.

Enjoy your new, well-protected house!

Mister Mom

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 13:56:00 +0000

Being a mom is a tough job. I should know, because I've been one for the past two weeks.

"Hey!" you're thinking. "You can't be a mom... you're a guy!"

I can be whatever I want to be. Stop discriminating against me based on my gender!

Why have I been a mom? Because Betty had a minor procedure a few weeks ago. The procedure only took 14 minutes, but the recovery time is between 2-3 weeks. She's doing OK, but I'm getting a first hand look at what it's like to be Mom for a while.

And I'm exhausted.

I used to get excited when I got over 10,000 steps on my FitBit. It would take a significant effort on my part, because I sit on my fat ass all day at work. So for me to hit 10,000 steps, I'd have to work at it: walk around the neighborhood, park far away from the office, or just randomly swing my arm at 11:59 pm to get those few extra "steps" in. But Betty always tells me that she gets that every day just doing mom stuff. And she's right. My FitBit has been clocking in at over 10,000 steps regularly, sometimes even before 3 pm.

No wonder I'm so tired.

Betty's parents have been at the house, and they've been a huge help. I honestly could not have done this without them. Their house flooded so they've been floating around at all the kids' houses until theirs is fixed. But we really needed them this month. And even with three grown adults, we still haven't been able to do what Betty does on a normal day. I'm regularly told by the kids that whatever I'm doing is not how mom does it, and I'm doing it wrong.

One day I came into the bedroom, where Betty was on Season 2 of her Gilmore Girls marathon on Netflix, and just said, "I want to cry."

Betty laughed. Real tears of joy streamed down her face. The laughing made her surgery site hurt.

While being Mom this month, I've finally started learning where things are in my house. I've also learned that we have not one but two colanders. (We might even have three.) What!?! I went almost four years without knowing that.

I wish I could go back to those innocent days of ignorance and bliss.

Being a mom is a thankless job. The kids don't say thanks after I get them ready for school, or make their lunches, or make dinner. (OK, so Betty's parents have been doing a lot of that. But the kids don't tell them thanks either.) I'm blaming their lack of manners on Dad, and since I'm Mom right now, that's not my fault. And the kids need to be at different places at the same time. Thankfully we have great friends who are willing to be our own personal Uber drivers for a bit.

But it's not enough. I'm not a great substitute for Mom. I like to come home, rile up the kids, play games with them, bathe them, then go sit in the restroom for twenty minutes and play Angry Birds Pop on my phone. All this "make sure they get their homework done then eat a healthy snack then go do something educational then BRUSH YOUR TEETH ALREADY" isn't my style.

To all the moms out there, let me say this from all of us clueless dads: Thank you. We love you. We need you. We're not worthy.

Betty still has about a week's worth of recovery time before she's going to feel somewhat normal again. And after that... I'm going on a Mom's Night Out.

Overprotective Dad on Board

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 03:46:00 +0000

I made the perfect bumper sticker for all the new dads out there. It goes great with your Baby On Board bumper sticker.

Overprotective Dad on Board! Bumper Sticker by btanory
Browse Baby Bumper Stickers

That's right, it says Overprotective Dad on Board!

What it really means is that if you hit me, tailgate me, cut me off, speed past me, sideswipe me, flash your lights at me, play your music too loud around me or look at me in a way that I don't like, I'm likely to pull your ass out of your car and break your back over my knee.

Don't even think of honking at me.

Look man... I'm incredibly happy that I have a baby at home. But I'll be honest: I haven't gotten as much sleep as I probably should have, and I'm probably not acting how I'd normally act had I received my normal amount of Z's. And your despicable driving is really pissing me off.

That means I'm cranky.

I'm cranky like a baby that wants to be fed, and I'm about to eat your lunch. Cranky like a baby that needs its diaper changed, and I'm about to light a used diaper on fire and throw it into your car like it's a Molotov cocktail.

Drive carefully. Or else. Because there's an overprotective dad on board, and nothing is more precious than my children. You've been warned.

Weighing Our Options

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Sat, 02 Apr 2016 21:09:00 +0000

My daughter Rose was in the NICU for over four weeks. She's home now, thankfully! And in typical Tanory style, while she was in the NICU I managed to not only learn a great deal about the NICU and infant healthcare in general, but I also gathered enough personally shameful and blog-worthy material to last me several years.

For example, Rose originally took nutrition through an IV. Once Betty started pumping, Rose could be fed milk through a naso-jejunum tube - which is fancy talk for a tube going from the nose to the middle of the small intestine. After a while the NJ tube was removed and another tube was inserted to bring milk through the nose to the stomach. We slowly started incorporating bottle feeding into Rosie's feeding schedule. And at each step of the way, the doctors and nurses knew exactly how much milk Rose was getting.

Then around the two week mark, Betty started breastfeeding.

The thing about breastfeeding a newborn is that you don't really know how much milk the baby is getting. This is a very important metric for the NICU, as too little milk intake would mean that Rosie wouldn't get enough nutrients or gain enough weight. At first we tried to supplement Rosie with a bottle after she breastfed. We could assume that if she took x amount of milk from the bottle, then she must have taken y amount from the breast. But the best way to know, as one nurse attempted to instruct me, was to "measure the weight" before and after feeding.

The nurse was quite clearly talking about weighing Rosie. She meant to weigh Rosie before she fed, have us feed Rose, then measure her once she was done. They could then determine how much milk she ingested based on the difference in weight.

But what I heard was that we could weigh Betty's breasts before and after.

When it was time to do the weighing, I jumped at the chance to volunteer. "I volunteer as tribute!" are my exact words, I believe. The nurse went to hand Rosie to me, but my hands were already reaching for something else.

"So do we put them on a scale or something? And should we measure them together or separately?" I asked these questions about of scientific curiosity.

Needless to say, this story went viral within the NICU. I'm apparently a legend there now. On a bright note, everyone remembered me and asked about Rosie, so I guess I helped ensure that she was on everyone's minds!

Rose Elizabeth Tanory

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 17:49:00 +0000

Betty and I are really happy to share that our beautiful daughter, Rose Elizabeth Tanory, was born on February 24, 2016.

It's taken me a while to write about it because she was born seven weeks premature due to some complications with her stomach and pancreas, and it's been a whirlwind over here. We're so tired! And my "we" I mean "Betty." I'm not allowed to be tired, or so I've been told. Rose had a successful surgery to fix the stomach issues, and is currently kicking butt in the NICU. But more on that later.

Rose's name has some family history. Rose is Betty's middle name, and it was also the name of Betty's maternal Grandmother. By the way, Grandma Rose (aka Gama) was married to Peter (aka Baba). So two of our children are named after Betty's grandparents. Don't worry, I snuck some Tanory family names in there, too.

We had a lot of trouble coming up with a middle name for Rose. The main thing we had to consider was her initials. We couldn't have her middle name start with an A or an O, because then her initials would be RAT or ROT. Hey, this stuff if important!

We decided on the middle name of Elizabeth for several reasons. First, it's a beautiful name. Second, it didn't start with an A or O, so that was good. Last, both Betty and I have cousins named Elizabeth, and we want both of them to think that we named Rosie after them.

Regarding Rose's surgery, Betty's pregnancy was considered high risk because we lost our last child, James, to stillbirth. During the pregnancy Betty had several ultrasounds, and around week 28 I asked the ultrasound tech if she could look at the stomach. We wanted to make sure that Rose didn't have what James had, which was called duodenal atresia. Duodenal atresia is where the stomach is not connected to the small intestine, or when there is a blockage in the top part of the intestine called the duodenum that makes passing food from the stomach impossible. Duodenal atresia is also called the "double bubble" because it looks like two bubbles on the ultrasound.

The ultrasound tech and our doctors knew that something was going on, but couldn't tell us with 100% certainty whether she had it or not. It sort of looked like she did, but sort of looked like she didn't. And Betty didn't originally have the extra amniotic fluid that she had with James. We kept looking at it during each weekly ultrasound, and it seemed like each time we looked it was clearer that something was going on. As time went on, Betty ended up getting more amniotic fluid. But it always seemed like it wasn't exactly duodenal atresia, because although it had all the hallmarks of it, Betty and Rosie didn't exhibit any of the symptoms until much later in the pregnancy than what we experienced with James. We had already been through it once before and knew what to look for, and this was different - even if just slightly different.

It ended up not being duodenal atresia. Instead, it was what's called Annular Pancreas, which is where the pancreas grows around the intestine and constricts it. This was why the doctors couldn't be sure about it. It looked as if there was a blockage, but it wasn't the same sort of blockage. Had we not been specifically looking for an issue with the stomach, we wouldn't have caught it until after she was born. We would have known about it then because Rose would have not been able to keep any food down.

I really have to thank Betty's OBGYN and our doctors and techs at Maternal Fetal. It was a very stressful time for us as you can imagine, yet they were calm and kept us calm throughout everything. We knew what was at stake, and they helped us make what we believe was the right decision to deliver Rose early. We never got an answer on why James died - unfortunately, many families of stillborn children never do - so we didn't know if Rosie had whatever James had. But we knew that Rosie was not safe in Betty's belly anymore considering the amount of amniotic fluid that was in there.

We delivered at 33 weeks to the day. We were told that we probably wouldn't be able to hold Rosie after she was born because she might need help breathing. But she came out screaming. It was the best sound ever.

If you've ever lost a child, you understand. And if you haven't, let me try to explain: when you're at church and some baby is crying in the back, and you see people glancing out the side of their eyes at the family, whispering to take them out because how dare that baby annoy them while they're praying? Well... we love that sound. That's the sound of a healthy baby. We'd give anything to be able to annoy you with that sound.

So hearing Rosie scream... it was magical.

The day after she was born, she underwent a form of gastric bypass surgery. The surgeons connected Rosie's stomach to the jejunum, which is the part of the small intestine directly below the duodenum. I'm amazed that they can do this. If you personally know a pediatric surgeon, give them a hug or send them some Girl Scout cookies next time you see them. They may have literally saved someone's life that day - and given a baby a chance at life.

Our decision to try for another baby was not easy. Thank you to everyone who has been with us on our journey since James passed away. I'm not going to sugarcoat it... it's been hard. Our friends and family have been wonderful. And I don't know what we would have done without our community at St. George Church and St. George School, as well as Maddie's Footprints, Anna's Grace, Threads of Love, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, our Infant Loss Support Group, our therapists... you are all amazing people. Thank you for helping us.

Rose is currently still in the NICU, but like I mentioned before, she is kicking butt. She literally kicks her foot up in the air. It's like she knows!

Cruisin' for a Bruisin'

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Thu, 14 May 2015 05:30:00 +0000

It had been several years since Betty and I had taken a vacation by ourselves, so in late April we decided to go on a four day cruise to Cozumel. After years of waiting, I was finally able to use my catchphrase, "!Tengo el gato grande en mis pantalones!" in the appropriate setting.

After extensive research on which cruise to take and when, we decided on the Carnival Elation. We did this for three main reasons: it was inexpensive, the dates were good for us, and Betty thought that there was a Guy Fieri Burger Joint on the ship. (There wasn't.) There was also 24 hour pizza and ice cream, which sealed the deal for me.

But like any Tanory trip, getting to our vacation destination was an adventure onto itself. For starters, when we arrived in New Orleans we waited in line for 30 minutes to be allowed into the Carnival parking garage. After listening to me complain for half an hour about it, Betty got out of the car and immediately broke out in a huge smile. Apparently I was waiting behind people who were parked on the street. They must have been waiting for someone who was disembarking from the ship. There were literally four cars between me and the Carnival parking garage, and I sat behind them like a doofus for half an hour. Fortunately for my pride, twenty other cars had done the same thing.

When we got into the parking garage, a porter took our luggage and directed us where to park. I gave him a tip, but when I looked at him I didn't know what to say. "Thank you," probably would have done it. Instead, I said, "Boom!"

Needless to say, our luggage didn't arrive at our room until after dinner that night. "Boom!" also became my unofficial catchphrase of the trip.

As soon as we got on the ship we started to explore. We found ping pong tables, a life-sized chess board, pools with a giant water slide, several old people, and lots and lots of food. For our first act of cruise vacationing, we ate Mongolian BBQ (chicken / beef stir fry with Thai sauce) from one of the many buffets.

We took part in a spa raffle, and because the spa raffle took place in the gym, technically I can say that we hit the gym on the ship. It was the only time we made our way to the gym the entire trip. We then played putt putt on the deck of the ship, where Betty beat me with an amazing hole in one. (She totally cheated. Not really. Well, probably.)

Every night we ate a sit down dinner at one of the ship's restaurants. We had assigned seating, so on our first night we met our dinner mates, Mike and Laura. It was their 22 year anniversary, and they were in the middle of buying a house and trying to get the paperwork done on their smart phones before they left the US's cellphone service area. They somehow managed to stay extremely calm throughout the whole ordeal, but I was a nervous wreck for them! When I get stressed I tend to eat, and so it worked out well for me that we were already at dinner. I ate spring rolls, lasagna and cheese cake, then some of Betty's spinach dip and pork chops. For dessert Betty got Carnival's special warm chocolate melting cake with ice cream and milk, which became her dessert of choice for the remainder of the cruise.

After dinner we went back to the room and I turned on the TV for a few minutes. Most of the channels showed things that were happening on the ship: upcoming events, a video feed from the water slide, and pre-taped messages from the ship's staff. It was at this point that I saw our ship's "shopping expert," Jay, talking about a coupon book that had all kinds of great coupons in it that we could use in Mexico. Betty and I debated whether to get it.

There were a lot of activities on the cruise ship, and that night we went to a trivia contest. The main prize of the contest was the very same $25 coupon book that our shopping expert Jay had told us about on TV. Betty turned to me, and in full Napoleon Dynamite mode whispered, "I want that." I was picked to go up on stage and compete in a four round Jeopardy-style contest, and ended up winning the whole thing by dominating the "children's music and video" categories in two separate rounds. I don't mean to brag, but you need to bring your A game if you think you're going to guess songs from Lion King and Pinocchio in three notes or less before me. I won the coupon book for Betty, and it had coupons for a free heart necklace, tote bag, pearl earrings and other items at Port Maya in Cozumel. We ended up using the coupons in that book to do a scavenger hunt in Mexico. I even won a trophy in the shape of the cruise ship.

That trophy basically means that we are Cruise Champions. Stay tuned for more blog posts!

Planting Seeds of Love

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Sun, 03 May 2015 06:00:00 +0000

Betty was recently spotlighted in an article called Planting the Seeds of Love about the merits of being a stay-at-home mom, published in the Catholic Commentator, a newspaper and website regarding the Diocese of Baton Rouge. And if I can say so myself, they couldn't have picked a better mom to be in the article.

Before we had children, Betty and I discussed how we hoped to be able to parent our children and whether or not she would stay home with the kids. She wanted my input, but I wanted her to do what made her happy. My preference was for her to stay home with the kids, but ultimately it was her choice.

I was also happy to stay home with the kids, however, I would never have done as well as Betty has. Whenever Betty's away and I have the kids for a few hours, I'm lucky if I can get the kids to eat a meal or two and not destroy the house. The kids run all over me. The only thing I'm good for is beating Bowser on the Mario games. I can also make a mean sippy cup of milk.

But Betty was a kindergarten teacher, and she's put her skills to work at our house. I'm always amazed at what the kids learn from her while I am away at work. She has them learning new skills, gaining confidence, and doing tasks that help them become more responsible. The article says that a stay-at-home mom's estimated salary would be $119,000 if they were paid for what they actually do, but I think that's way too low. I think she's like the Bill Gates of Moms.

Plus, Betty has always said that I'm just like another kid. And I'm sure that I'm the kid who is the most work. So really it's like she's a single parent all the time, even when I'm home.

Add that to her estimated salary.

Please check out the article here: http://thecatholiccommentator.org/pages/?p=25392#more-25392

Thanksgiving Rap

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 22:45:00 +0000

The last few months have been difficult for us, so I wanted to do something to make us laugh. I remembered Adam Sandler's Thanksgiving Song, and thought of how there are not enough songs about Thanksgiving.

I decided to do a rap. It's really about food, but... you may not want your kids reading this. Also, I apologize for offending everyone in advance. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Rap

It's Thanksgiving time and I want to rap
About turkey, and stuffing, and all that other crap
'Cause the reason for the season is to give thanks for our feast and
Get my turkey breast and thigh, gobble gobble yo I'm feeling
Like I got some extra stuffin' want to put it up yo bird
Gonna drip my gravy sauce on yo mashed potatoes, word
Grab my cranberries and salad, grab my two crescent rolls too
Got an extra piece of white meat, thought of giving it to you

Yeah that turkey is so juicy from my own Cajun Injection
I used rubber gloves when basting 'cause I always use protection
Can't afford to let it burn and so I always need a taster
But it always turns out great because I'm the Master Baster
When the turkey is all cooked I need help to lift it, hoist
Move it to the stove top, take a bite, and yes that turkey's moist
Then I stick in my electric knife and carve it up to serve
Everybody want the white meat cause it's got them sexy curves

Flavor bursts all in your mouth, dribble dribbles from your chin
Open wide because I'm forking one more piece of turkey in
Think you got a little gravy on your cheek and in your hair
Try to eat it nice and slow, 'cause there's plenty more to share
Think I need a second helping 'cause I ate that food too fast
Wanna eat it nice and slow so my second helping lasts
Gotta save room for dessert, made a special nice ice cream
When you taste my homemade foodstuffs gonna make you up and scream

Wanna taste those sweet potatoes, maybe munch all on a muffin
Think you need to try to handle some of my own cornbread stuffing
'Cause it's piping hot and ready, gonna melt right in your mouth
You need to blow on it to cool it or you gonna start to shout
Now I know this is a rap and not a dance and not a ballad
But I really want a taste and wanna toss your ol' fruit salad
'Cause there's cherries and some melons that are all mixed up in there
Think it goes nice with that plump and perky turkey derriere

Don't forget the green bean casserole, I made it all from scratch
But it won't be long before I up and make another batch
Got your favorite carrot souffle, though it starts off really soft
As it cools it starts to harden into something like a rock
So you better eat it now and you better eat it quick
Cause I'm lighting up a candle setting fire to the wick
For it's time to celebrate Thanksgiving, now I end my rhyme
So let's pray, let's eat, let's bless the cooks, gobble gobble it's turkey time!

Helping Others in James's Memory

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 04:27:00 +0000

As most of you know, Betty and I had a stillborn baby boy named James Richard Tanory on June 4th, 2014.

Let me start out by once again thanking everyone for your love, support and generosity. We are so very touched at the way our friends, families - and even people we don't know! - have supported us. You have no idea what it means to have your thoughts and prayers directed at us and our family. We are truly blessed to have you in our lives!

Betty and I want to live our lives in a way that would make James proud of us. We have been looking for ways to honor our son, help his name be remembered, and do something positive for the community in his name. I'd like to share a few of those things with you.

For starters, our kids go to St. George in Baton Rouge, and St. George is about to begin construction on a new church as well as a new preschool / Early Childhood Building. We are sponsoring a crucifix to be hung in the preschool, and James's name will be put on a plaque inside the school for everyone to see. If you donated to the St. George building fund in James's name, this is where your donation is going. We figured that James would have gone there, and the people at the nursery school (and big school) have been so wonderful to our family throughout the years, that we wanted to be a part of helping to build something great for the children. Thank you so much for helping us make James's name visible at St. George.

St. Jude's Children's Hospital has a special place in our hearts. Not only are they an amazing organization, but some of our friends had a daughter who was helped tremendously by St. Jude's. If you have made a donation to St. Jude's in James's honor, please know how appreciative we are. Having lost a child ourselves, we want to do everything we can to make sure that other people's children are taken care of.

Last, we are participating in two walks for organizations that help families that have had stillborn babies or miscarriages. The Maddie's Footprints Forever 2014 walk / 5K run is on Saturday, October 18th at 9 am in Lafayette, and the Shana Rae Project's Walk to Remember is on Friday, October 24th in Baton Rouge at Women's Hospital from 6-8 pm. I would like to invite you to walk with us.

The first event helps to raise money for Maddie's Footprints, which is an organization that helps parents who have had a stillbirth, miscarriage or who have lost an infant. Maddie's Footprints has a special place in my heart, because it was started by two of my friends from high school, Lori Binnings McGrew and Travis McGrew, in honor of their daughter Madeline "Maddie" Noelle. They are my inspiration, because they have not just lost themselves in grief but have made the world a better place through their daughter.

If you would like to walk with us or for someone else at the Maddie's Footprints 5K, you can find more information here:

Maddie's Footprints Forever 2014 - 1 Mile Fun Run / 5K

Or you can go directly to James's team's page by clicking here:

http://maddiesfootprints.donorpages.com/FootprintsForever2014/JamesRichardTanory/

And more information about the Shana Rae Project's Walk to Remember can be found here:

Shana Rae Project's Walk to Remember

Thank you again for your support. Betty and I can never express how much your love and support means to us. God bless.

James Richard Tanory

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 03:38:00 +0000

My beautiful baby boy, James Richard Tanory, was born into Heaven on Wednesday, June 4, 2014.

I held him in my arms almost six hours after we discovered that his heart was no longer beating. We discovered it while looking at his lifeless body on the ultrasound monitor. Seeing and hearing the heart beat have been my two favorite things when accompanying Betty to ultrasounds and doctor visits for all three of my children - "it never gets old" as I like to say - and I saw right away that my baby's heart wasn't beating. It was an awful, terrifying moment that I will never forget. James' heart wasn't beating, but mine was - I could feel my heart throbbing throughout my entire body and up into my throat. I knew something was wrong.

When the ultrasound technician excused herself halfway through the process to get the doctor, Betty and I feared for the worst. Betty said she hadn't seen the baby move. I told her I hadn't seen the heart beat. We were both very scared. But I told her everything would be OK.

When our doctor told us that he had bad news - that the baby's heart was no longer beating - Betty cried. I held her in disbelief. I naively thought that it would be all right, that we could get his heart beating again, that we would do an emergency C section and then breathe life into him or that by some miracle my baby would be OK. I was in disbelief that just the week before we could see the baby hiccuping on the ultrasound, and now my baby was not moving.

We were asked if we wanted to deliver the baby that day, or wait a few days. We decided to deliver. We wanted to hold our sweet baby in our arms as quickly as possible.

Betty asked if it was a boy or a girl. We didn't know - throughout all of the ultrasounds, throughout receiving the MaterniT21 test to check for Down Syndrome, throughout meeting with our doctors, the ultrasound technicians, the nurses and the pediatric surgeon, we had managed to keep the gender a secret. But now Betty wanted to know.

It was a boy.

A boy. My son.

We had a name picked out: James Richard Tanory. He was named after two of our favorite people - our fathers. James, after Betty's dad, Jimmy. And Richard, after my dad. Or as my daughter Annie explains it, "James after Pops, Richard after Papa, and Tanory after us."

James was born into total silence at 2:30 pm on June 4. Our doctor placed him into Betty's arms right after his birth. She and I both looked at him for several minutes before the nurses cleaned him up. He was so beautiful.

He is so beautiful.

I could go on in full detail about how awful it is to lose a child, but if you've never experienced it then there's no words to explain it. I could tell you about grief and despair, and about being on the verge of crying at every instance. I could tell you about my prayers to God that he could take me instead of my son - an exchange I would gladly accept. I could tell you about how no man should have to pick out a casket for his child. I could tell you about sitting in a rocking chair in his room, humming Sweet Baby James to myself, wondering what could have been.

I could go on, and on, and on, in gory detail.

Instead, I will tell you about love.

After the nurses bathed James, he was clothed in a beautiful blue gown with hand-stiched crosses. This was courtesy of Threads of Love, an organization of volunteers who make clothes for premature, sick and stillborn children. I would like to tell the people at Threads of Love thank you - thank you for clothing my sweet child in our time of need.

After James was dressed, a photographer from the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation donated her time and effort to take pictures of our baby boy. She has already shared several pictures with us, and we shared two of them with our friends and family at his funeral service. We had such a short time with our baby boy, and these pictures will help us remember him for a lifetime. I would like to tell the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation and the photographer thank you - thank you for helping us remember our child.

Our priests at St. George Catholic Church dropped everything they were doing to come to the hospital and pray over Betty and the baby. They gave our baby a place to rest at the cemetary at St. George. They planned the funeral for us and helped us tremendously in our time of need, and continue to help us. Thank you for helping me to grow closer to God instead of blaming God.

Thank you to the bereavement committee at St. George for donating food and time to the reception after the funeral.

I've written before about how amazing Betty's friends are, and about how they set up a food calendar. It goes way beyond food - we have depended on these people for so much, and they have always delivered. I have learned so much about friendship from these ladies. They have been there for us for everything, no questions asked. When we needed flowers for James' funeral service, it was taken care of. When we wanted balloons for our kids to float up to James in Heaven, it was done. They are a constant source of love and dedication, and I hope that they know how much we love and appreciate them.

I don't know what we would do without Betty's parents. They have helped us with everything. Her mother even came with me to the funeral home - you can't get much more moral support than that. I don't know how I would have been able to handle that - and many other situations - by myself.

My parents took our other two children to their house in Lafayette for several days, and kept them entertained - and safe! I'm the nervous parent, so on a typical day I'm usually bugging Betty about all of the safety hazards that we need to make sure the kids avoid. But after having lost a child, my nervousness and anxiety kicked into overdrive. My parents were grieving but took our kids home with them and kept them happy and healthy, and I can't thank them enough.

To our family, who drove in from out of town to attend the funeral - thank you so much! Having you here with us meant so much to us.

To my brother, Todd, and Betty's cousin, Abby - thank you for being godparents to our baby. Thank you for being pallbearers and walking James to his final resting place.

To everyone who has shown love to us and our baby - thank you for the food, the flowers, the cards, the emails, the text messages, the prayer books, the gifts for Annie and Peter to keep them entertained, and thank you for your prayers. We have tried to keep up with every gift we've received but we have been overwhelmed with your love and generosity. If we miss thanking anyone personally, please know that we deeply appreciate your kindness.

To my beautiful wife, Betty: thank you. You've always shown me love and patience. You've always been the greatest mommy. You've been so strong throughout all of this, and you amaze me every day. I love you more than you could ever imagine.

Looking back on what I've written, it seems to me that this is a Jazz Funeral of a blog. That seems fitting, considering we live in Louisiana. And because I've heard enough Jazz Funerals in my time, I know that the sadness and emptiness that I'm feeling will eventually be overtaken by the love that is keeping the darkness at bay.

Speaking of love, I have one more person to thank:

Thank you to my sweet baby James. I'm sorry, James. I'm sorry that I could not do more for you. Thank you for being in our lives. Please look out for us, because you know your old man will need all the help I can get. I love you so much.

Lice Lice Baby

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Sat, 31 May 2014 20:05:00 +0000

Yo, VIP, Let's itch it!

Lice Lice Baby, Lice Lice Baby
All right stop, Collaborate and listen
Lice is back with a brand new edition
Something grabs a hold of hair tightly
Itching our scalps all daily and nightly
Will it ever stop? Yo – I don't know
Comb through my hair, just go slow
To the extreme I clean my hair like a vandal
Sit down in light so I can see, not by candle.

Dang, in my family's hair too?
I'm killing lice eggs with a tea tree shampoo
Deadly, when I find a live felony
Scream at the top of my lungs like a melody
Love it or leave it, You better sit still
Kids watching NetFlix so they both just chill
If there was a problem, Yo, I'll solve it
Check out the lice comb, we constantly wash it

Lice Lice Baby Vanilla, Lice Lice Baby Vanilla
Lice Lice Baby Vanilla, Lice Lice Baby Vanilla

Now that lice are jumping
When I pick out a nit, my fists are pumpin'
Look by the ears, by the scalp, no faking
Cooking used combs like a pound of bacon
Burning them ain't quick, to last
Use a special shampoo so the lice die fast
Wear a high hat with a souped up tempo?
Don't share it, better wear it solo
Greasin' hair with EVOO
With my shower cap on, then my hair dryer blows
The kids on standby, wondering where and how, why
Is the easiest way to make all these lice die
Clean all the towels, the sheets and the drapes
Lock stuff animals in bags so the lice can't escape

Those lice was dead
Yo – so I continued to A1A Green Hill Ave.

Kids stripped down wearing less than bikinis
I'm picking nits, fast like a Lamborghini
Jealous 'cause I'm free now of lice
Annie had a few and Peter less than twice
Ready to go scourge through their heads
The lice acting ill because they're about to be dead
Screaming rings out like a bell
I crushed a louse, just sent it to hell
Wipe it on a paper towel real fast
Crumple it up and squash it til its insides blast
Dimple to dimple, the hair is packed
Lice trying to get away before they all get jacked
Daddy's on the scene, You know what I mean
They can't escape, confronted all those lice fiends
If there was a problem, Yo, I'll solve it
Check out the lice comb, we constantly wash it

Lice Lice Baby Vanilla, Lice Lice Baby Vanilla
Lice Lice Baby Vanilla, Lice Lice Baby Vanilla

Take heed, 'cause I'm a lyrical poet
Daddy's on the scene just in case lice didn't know it
White vinegar up in Betty's hair
Enough to make her cough and search for air
'Cause my hair's like a chemical spill
Itching and scratching you can see and feel
Search and destroy, this is a heck of a work out
We keep on looking if there's even a small doubt

Dad combs through the hair, slice like a ninja

Sweep through the hair so grand, Other members of my house say, "damn"
If lice shampoo was a drug, I'd sell it by the gram
Keep my composure when it's time to get lice out
Tramautized by the fact that we had that lice, shout!
If there was a problem, Yo – I'll solve it!
Check out the lice comb, we constantly wash it

Lice Lice Baby Vanilla, Lice Lice Baby Vanilla
Lice Lice Baby Vanilla, Lice Lice Baby Vanilla

[Louse]: Yo, man, let's get out of here! Word to your mother!

Lice Lice Baby Too cold, Lice Lice Baby Too cold Too cold
Lice Lice Baby Too cold Too cold, Lice Lice Baby Too cold Too cold

Echogenic Intracardiac Focus, Duodenal Atresia, and Bears, Oh My!

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Sat, 17 May 2014 04:45:00 +0000

Betty's 32 weeks preggers right now. From our first ultrasound we knew that the baby had what's called an Echogenic Intracardiac Focus, or EIF for short. This is just a bright spot that appears inside the baby's heart chambers when viewed via ultrasound, which doesn't make it sound too bad. EIFs are pretty common, but they are a soft sign for Down Syndrome as well as possibly other chromosomal abnormalities.

And for about the past 10 weeks we've known that Betty's been carrying around extra amniotic fluid. This has made her physically uncomfortable, and this along with the EIF had us concerned that something may be wrong with the baby. Of course, the extra amniotic fluid could have just been the result of gestational diabetes, which Betty has had with all three kids.

The good thing about the EIF plus the extra amniotic fluid is that Betty has had several ultrasounds so the doctors could continue to check on the baby. If not for this, we would not have caught a new issue with the baby: duodenal atresia.

Duodenal atresia, aka intestinal atresia, is where the stomach isn't connected to the intestines. On the ultrasound it looks like there are two bubbles separated by a wall of tissue, which is known as the "Double Bubble." Duodenal atresia occurs in about 1 out of every 10K births. I like to think that we're 1 of 1K that actually caught it before the baby was born, so we have a chance to meet with the doctors, get mentally prepared, etc.

I consider us very lucky that we were able to catch this before the baby is born. Even better, there's a procedure that will fix this. A day or two after the baby is born, a pediatric surgeon will do a procedure to connect the stomach to the intestines, and then the baby will need to stay in the hospital for 3-4 weeks. We're disappointed that the baby will be in the hospital for a month after being born, but are happy that we live literally 3 minutes from the hospital and that I work about 5 minutes away so we can see the baby often.

We also knew from consulting with our doctor that our baby had at least a 1% chance of having Down Syndrome due to the EIF. The duodenal atresia raised this risk to be 33%. We were on the fence about whether we should test for Down Syndrome, but we decided to take a non-invasive test called MaterniT21 a few weeks ago. Older tests would have to actually puncture the mother's womb and then take a sample of the baby's blood by pricking the baby, but the MaterniT21 test was able to detect and sample the baby's chromosomes in Betty's bloodstream, so all that was needed was for Betty to have some blood drawn.

Our MaterniT21 test came back negative, meaning the baby doesn't appear to have Down Syndrome. The test is estimated to have a detection rate of 99.1% for Down Syndrome, so there still is a chance that our baby could have Down Syndrome, but we'll take our odds.

Waiting for the MaterniT21 test was an emotional experience. Betty and I know that we would love our child regardless of if it had Down Syndrome or any abnormality, but as a parent you always want the best possible life for your child. I thought of how to make sure I accomplished this goal, and also how to make sure that he or she didn't miss anything. I thought about school, girlfriends, prom, driving, hobbies, baseball games, video games, on and on. I thought of the other health risks associated with Down Syndrome. I also thought of how I would react if another kid made fun of my child. My thoughts ranged from beating that kid and/or his parents up, to inviting that family over for dinner to let the kids play and learn from each other. That experience really made me do some soul-searching, and I hope I'm a better person for it. (Note that if you make fun of my children, I probably still will physically attack you although I'll feel bad about it later.)

In the midst of all of this, our family and friends have been wonderful. Betty's friends in particular have been amazing. They knew that she is extremely uncomfortable with all the extra amniotic fluid, so they've set up a food calendar and have been taking turns bringing us food. I can't thank them enough - not only has the food been such a huge help, but they've also taught me a lot about how to be a good friend when someone is in need. Betty's friends are also all apparently really good cooks!

I'd also like to thank everyone who has been praying for us, as well as those who have been putting us on prayer lines throughout the country. I honestly didn't know that prayer lines existed before now. All I can say is: your prayers are working!

In some ways I feel guilty about us receiving those prayers. I feel like there are so many people out there with much bigger problems. But we're thankful for people thinking about us and for taking the time to pray for us or to go out of their way to bring us food. We're also more aware of other people out their who need help, and have been sending our thoughts their way. We hope that people are as kind and loving to you as our family and friends have been to us.

One thing we can say about Baby Tanory already: he or she is bringing people together. Thank you again for everyone's support - we very much appreciate you!

The Gas Leak

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Tue, 06 May 2014 17:38:00 +0000

We recently had a gas leak in our house. And I'm not talking about me eating too many bags of Olestra either.

My pregnant wife has super senses. That's what happens when you're pregnant - you turn into Spider-Man for 9 months. Your eyesight can detect X-rays and gamma rays, your touch becomes super sensitive to husbands trying to get lucky, and your nose is capable of picking up the smallest molecule that has any kind of scent.

Anyway, Betty opened the oven one day and smelled something suspicious. I flipped - I never wanted a gas oven, specifically because I thought our house would explode. Betty called the gas company and they came over and used their newfangled tools to detect where the gas was leaking.

"You have a leaky joint," they told me. I smelled my armpit and wrist, but then the gas guy explained more succinctly, "where your gas line connects to the oven. You need to get that bolt fitted on tighter and wrap it up good with some tape."

My father-in-law handled all of that. Nobody was willing to chance our house not blowing up on my ability to fix a gas line.

The next day, Betty smelled gas again. We got the gas guy out there again, and sure enough there was another gas leak.

"You have a leaky pipe," the guy said. "Gonna need a new pipe." This time the gas guy fixed our pipe for us.

The next day, Betty smelled gas again. The gas guy came out, told us that something in our gas oven was leaking, and that he suggested getting a new oven. We could have fixed our old oven but it would have been half as expensive as just buying a new one.

Now we don't have a gas leak. And it's all because of Betty's super senses.

So my advice to you, if you are a man who is married, owns a home and has a gas oven, is to immediately impregnate your wife. This is your only hope at finding out if you have a gas leak. Sure, the gas company can come over and test that out for you, but our gas company didn't find every gas leak the first time around.

Pregnancy super-senses are your only hope. So please, do it for the safety of your family. Get your wife drunk, play some Marvin Gaye, and nine months later you will have a safe and happy home, gas free.

The Tanory Takeover, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 05:17:00 +0000

Continuing on my recent hot streak of two blogs in five months, I thought I'd share some of the fun things that we did with the kids while in Seattle for Thanksgiving.

Don't worry, I'll get to Easter sometime around September.

Since it was winter in Seattle, we decided to go to see the movie Frozen. Or as I call it, "The extended video for 'Let It Go.'" We even got to see Olaf!

We had gone to the mall to see Frozen, and while were there one of my cousins noticed that Santa had set up shop in the middle of the mall - and there was no line! So we all piled into his sleigh, and took probably one of my favorite pictures of all time.

I think us adults were having more fun than the kids!

Afterward, my aunts, uncles and some of my cousins treated everyone to a great night at a place with a bunch of video games, laser tag and bumper cars. Think of a Chuck E Cheese, Dave & Buster's, that sort of thing - now picture that place overrun with Tanory's.

The video games were fun, but we spent most of our time on the larger attractions, like the bumper cars. My son, Peter, was surprisingly agile in his own bumper car. His 360 degree turns were pretty uncanny.

Of course the real goon on the course was my daughter, Annie. When she set her sights on you, consider your car bumped! I still have whiplash from a hit to the back from my kids.

To relax after our bumper car battle royale, we took a 3D roller coaster trip together as a family. The ladies took all the good seats in the front, but us men got our revenge by screaming like frightened little girls the entire ride.

Well, at least we had one dude who was cool as a cucumber....

Next up was Laser Tag. Here's a picture of our opponents, the Green Team. Although they look innocent enough, the Green Team - especially the ladies in the middle - were comprised of some of the sharpest shooters in the entire family. We still clobbered them though, thanks to my patented "Cover All The Sensors On Your Gun And Backpack" skillz.

Peter and my cousin Ryan had a good time playing Air Hockey. Ryan's always been great with our kids. He's one of the nicest cousins that I have, and we love spending time with him. Too bad he sucks at Air Hockey! (Just kidding, Ryan - no seriously, don't pretend like you went easy on Peter.)

Shuttles and buses were our main mode of transportation around Seattle. This was much easier than trying to coordinate multiple cars meeting up at the same place at the same time.

One such bus trip took us downtown to see the Space Needle.

And what blog post about the Space Needle would be complete if I didn't show this picture, and then ask you to think to yourself, in your best Austin Powers voice, "Does that make you horny, baby!?"

Mom, you don't have to answer that one.

Quick interlude here for a second: Back at the hotel, at night when the kids were asleep, us adults would sneak downstairs at play poker. Sometimes I would just run in, take pictures and then run out, and end up with pictures like this:

But one night I came into the poker room to find everyone singing, "We Are the Champions" by Queen at the top of their voices.

(I also found this, but we dare not speak of it!)

A day or so later, we took the bus to a great Italian place that my cousin Zach had not only made reservations for but had also put in food orders. We literally just sat down and started eating and drinking.

How's that for planning?!

But first there was a toast. Mainly to Zach, for setting up the evening's activities. And when it was my turn, I stood up, remembered the amazing poker game where everyone was singing, and my heart was filled with joy. And I toasted thusly:

"I've paid my dues time after time. I've done my sentence but committed no crime. And bad mistakes? I've made a few. I've had my share of sand kicked in my face but I've come through."

And wouldn't you know it, but an impromptu rendition of "We Are The Champions" rang out in an Italian restaurant in Seattle, in a room filled with Tanory's from all over the country, at the top of our lungs.

It was followed by many other songs that began in toast form. And our night ended when we ate every last piece of food in the restaurant and were so full that even our unibrows were bloated.

It was a trip that I'll never forget. And I know that we've imparted our love for our family on our children.

Our kids are asking when the next big trip is, so we need to decide what we're doing and when, and we expect everyone to show up!

The Tanory Takeover

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 04:55:00 +0000

I'm a procrastinator, so having an idea and actually carrying it out is very hard for me. "Why put off to tomorrow what I can put off to next week?" is my motto. I like to come up with ideas and then put them on the sideline for a few decades. Seriously, right now I'm working on a screenplay, a children's book and a financial website for my friend, all of which will be done sometime around 2082.

I like to go with the flow, as my parents like to say.

And I'm usually pleasantly surprised and somewhat shocked whenever anyone else manages to come up with a plan and stick to it, much less get other people involved.

So when one of my cousins started sending emails around after Thanksgiving of 2012 about how we should all go up to Seattle for Thanksgiving of 2013, spend time with our family up there and then go to the burial site of my Aunt Barbara who had died 20 years earlier, I thought, "That would be amazing... if we ever manage to do it!" Then I went back to my lounging exercises.

But lo and behold, somehow, some way, my family made it up to Seattle for Thanksgiving. And just like I suspected it would be, it was amazing!

May I present to you my family:

Our trip was dubbed the "Tanory Takeover." And takeover we did! We were like locusts, eating and playing cards our way through downtown Seattle.

Tanory's came from everywhere: Louisiana, Texas, Minnesota, New York, Virginia, DC, California, Arizona and even from within Washington state itself. Us Tanory's like the outer states, in case you couldn't tell. And as we each arrived in Seattle, our unibrows started to sync up and merge into one giant brow.

Everyone arrived in Seattle on different days and at different times, and communication was spotty since most people didn't have access to their phones while they were on a plane. So my cousin set up a shared mobile photo stream, and it immediately became the de facto way that we kept tabs on each other throughout the week. As people made it to Seattle, their picture made it to the photo stream. Some of my cousins live in Seattle, and they made sure to be at the airport for the arrival of every other member of the family. What a great way to land! Plus it was exciting to see the photo stream as people landed.

This was my third trip to Seattle. There's a ton of stuff to do there, like going to the Space Needle, hitting up Pike Place Market, and wearing flannel and playing grunge music. I had done a lot of that before, but of course we had to do it again - especially because we had the kids with us. So one night we all took a shuttle downtime to see the Space Needle.

Betty used to not be afraid of heights, but ever since we looked over the edge from the top of the Empire State Building in New York, she hasn't liked heights. She braved the outer edge of the Space Needle for a few minutes, then we moved on inside.

When we got out of the Space Needle, we met out on the street where a Peruvian flute band was playing. The kids danced around and played while I wondered if South Park was right in saying that the rise in Peruvian flute bands was warding off the Furry Death by giant guinea pigs.

There's no doubt that the Space Needle, Experience Music Project and Pike's Place are impressive. But honestly, every time I go to Seattle I'm amazed at how clean it is. Actually, any time I travel outside of Louisiana I'm shocked at how clean it is. Maybe that's more of an indictment of how filthy Louisiana is than how clean other places are, but Seattle is actually one of the cleanest places I've ever been. It's so clean, in fact, that I took a picture of the only three pieces of trash that I found on the ground the entire time I was there.

I'd joking say, "For shame, Seattle!" if I didn't think someone from Louisiana probably threw that stuff on the ground.

As I said before, I'm a procrastinator - but luckily my cousins are not, and they set everything up for the entire family. We had half a hotel to ourselves. The continental breakfast had no idea what was about to hit it. We even had our own banquet room booked for the entire week - and the hotel staff made sure that we spent a lot of time in that room so that we wouldn't scare off the other customers!

Even though it was Thanksgiving, the banquet room at the hotel was decked out in a Christmas theme, complete with Christmas tree and nutcrackers. Peter befriended one of them. It's amazing what a life-size nutcracker can destroy with its giant chompers!

We didn't spend much time in our rooms, but the time we did spend there was made more pleasant by the presence of a pink sticky pig thing. In the morning before we'd leave our room for the day, we'd throw the pig up in the air and make it stick on the ceiling, and then we'd see if Room Service would take it down while we were gone. (They didn't.)

Now you may remember that the Monday after Thanksgiving was when the Saints traveled up to Seattle to play NFL Monday Night football. So us Louisianians talked a big talk to our Seattlite family, but ultimately Seattle won not just the game but also the hearts and minds of our Louisiana children. My cousin gave some of the kids a Richard Sherman doll, and it was instantly the greatest gift anyone had ever given to the kids. The Richard Sherman doll still occasionally shows up on the photo stream.

We had a great Thanksgiving dinner. We could have been eating anything, it wouldn't have mattered - just being with my family made it wonderful. A few people were missing - my uncle Rex and cousins Brad, Matt and John, to name a few. And of course we were missing our Aunt Barbara, who had passed away 20 years earlier. One part of the banquet hall had a special dedication to her, and we also had pictures of her at each of our tables.

My Aunt Barbara was the choreographer for both Roslyn Sumners and Tonya Harding, and we used to watch for her during the ice skating competitions during the Winter Olympics. But my fondest memory of her is at my Papa Duke and Gaga's house, where I laid my head on her lap and she ruffled my hair for a while. She said she used to do that to her kids. It's funny how something so small could have such a big impact, but that's how I've always thought about her. Now when I think about her, I'll think of her face at every table at our Thanksgiving feast, with smiling faces surrounding her.

So I've procrastinated enough. It's finally time to say Happy Thanksgiving. I think you can be thankful for what you have regardless of what time of year it is. I've really loved looking at all the pictures from our Seattle trip, and it really does make me thankful for a wonderful family. Thank you to everyone who made the trip up to Seattle and for my cousins for making this event happen - that was truly a special moment, worthy of a much better and timelier blog.

So What If I'm Five Months Behind?

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 03:24:00 +0000

I'm five months behind on my blog posts, and I've had a hard time thinking of where to begin or how to explain my absence.

I could blame it on the fact that the last time I blogged, I posted this picture of Betty in foxy PJs. I could probably convince people that she got so upset that she beat me and/or took our computer away so that I couldn't blog anymore. People might buy it. I mean, I did coin the term "Going all Wells Fargo" based on an epic phone call she had with Wells Fargo where the head of the PMI department grovelled for her forgiveness.

Or I could blame it on the fact that Betty and I won our Fantasy Football league that we joined with our friends. Who knows, maybe the pressure of destroying our friends in a fantasy game made us want to up our game for next season, and so we've been spending even more time watching game tape, mocking draft picks, binge-listening to SiriusXM NFL Radio and writing down funny smack talk to email out to the league.

Or I could blame it on the fact that I've been watching a lot of NetFlix and playing a lot of Wii U. But I won't!

Instead, I'll just show you an updated picture of my beautiful wife, Betty.

Betty's pregnant!

Our third child is due in July. We aren't finding out the gender, just like we didn't find out for the first two. We haven't decided on any names yet, but so far we've ruled out Robert Tanory Jr, Rowdy Roddy Piper Tanory, and Megatron Tanory. (Optimus Prime Tanory is still on the table.)

Basically, the time between blogs has been the time from when Betty wore the Foxy PJs to now her being pregnant. That's how long I've gone without blogging. It's hard to believe. Maybe by the time I write my next blog post, my kids will be in college.

It's good to be back!

What the Fox Actually Says

noreply@blogger.com (Bobby) — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 13:41:00 +0000

If you've seen the hilarious video (and catchy song) The Fox (What Does the Fox Say) by Scandinavian band Ylvis, then you may be wondering what the fox actually says.

My kids asked me this question, and I couldn't let them down - so I had to find out. I didn't trust the answers I found on the Internet and so I set out on my own to see what a fox says. I'm proud to tell you that I have the answer.

What does the fox say? The fox says...

The fox says, "If you post this picture to Facebook, I will destroy you!"

Good thing the fox didn't say anything about my blog!