I realized when I posted earlier this week that it was the first blog post I had made in over two years. So much has changed in that time: I went from working in tech support to working in Systems Administration. I went from constant customer interaction to occasional customer interaction, I went from guy who has been at the company more than half the staff to guy who only has about 5 people ahead of him in terms of seniority, and a couple of them aren’t on anything close to related career paths. It’s weird.

And I became a parent.

This time last year, we were in Labor and Delivery, going through hour 24 or so of labor. The nurses were struggling to get reliable readings on their monitors, and so it would be another 8 hours before we got a good nurse who was determined to get the child out of my wife, and another 16 hours before that effort would succeed.

Today we celebrated that with a party. As all good first birthday parties are, it was at least as much for us older people as it was for the guest of honor. My wife went to great efforts to plan and prepare a simple affair with a mostly-gnome-but-generally-woodland themed affair with mushroom-decorated cupcakes and gnome decorations along with animal tablecloths. We ate under a tree and generally enjoyed each other’s company.

Here’s a small array of photos from the event, enjoy!