And now, ladies and gentlemen...

Last week, Ari met her Grandpa John, who came in from Fort Wayne with Carolyn to see the baby for a few days. As you can see, the two hit it off...	Three generations. We'll make it four when Ari travels to Fort Wayne in a few weeks and meets her "G.G." (great-grandmother Betty Stein.)
After multiple attempts, Grandpa John managed to get this family portrait...	...though Freckles, being Freckles, had to take frequent breaks to investigate the squirrel invasion of the back lawn.
Here's a nice picture John took of Lisa and baby.	And here's another.

Aunt Julie pointed out that she hasn't been featured here yet - so here's Aunt Julie holding Ari in the hospital. Aunt Julie's now an aunt twice over; her boyfriend Chris's brother and sister-in-law had their baby today, and Julie's already trying to set the two of them up together.	Here's Great Aunt Jeani holding Ari in the hospital. She was long overdue to be featured here, too!
Grand-Nan and Ari	The Fybushes in the hospital with Ari - Grandpa, Ari, Dad and Nanny
Grandpa admires Ari	At the naming lunch: Ari is admired by Uncle Henry, Grammy Fran and Aunt Belle

We were doing laundry tonight (including Ari's crib sheet and crib liner), and Lisa walked into my office with Ari's little laundry basket. It looked like it was full of laundry...but it turned out to be full of Ari, instead! She's been snoozing comfortably (and I think that's my pillow she's snoozing on) ever since	Closeup of the sleeping baby. Ain't she cute?

Here's Ari out on the deck with her cousin Rebecca Schacter. Rebecca's grandfather, Henry Stein, is the brother of Lisa's late grandfather, Curt Stein. What do you suppose would be the odds, then, that Rebecca's parents would eventually move in right across the street from my parents - just a year or so before Lisa and I were married? (You can imagine the surprise when everyone figured out what had happened!) The Schacters are in the process of moving - but just to the house right behind my parents :-) Henry and Belle happened to be up from Long Island visiting the Schacters, so Ari got to meet her first Stein relatives on Saturday, too!	Here's Lisa, opening cards and presents out on the deck. That's our friend Alexandra Newman next to her. She and husband Logan just got married over the summer, so they've still got a while before they start getting pressured to start a family. In the meantime, they can borrow Ari if they ask nicely...
Here's Ari on the living room sofa with our dear family friends, Claire and Bob Eiselen. Among other things, Bob does the excellent digital imaging work for my Tower Site Calendar.	Here's Ari's cake, which was quite delicious. Note the little lions in the corner!
Lisa opening more presents, with the assistance of Ari's second cousin, Evan Epstein. Evan, his sister Naomi, their parents Mark and Lauren, and Mark's parents, Matty and Judy, all drove up from Binghamton to be there for Ariel's naming, which pleased us greatly!	Don't these look yummy? You, too, can get delicious mint brownies (and the others, too, but the mint ones are really good) by visiting our friends the Starskys at the Park Place Deli, at the corner of Park and Berkeley Streets. Tell them Ari sent you...

We've got to squeeze one more picture in here - here's Nanny showing off what was, to her, the most exciting part of Ari's naming: the giant (four-pound) can of tuna that she bought at BJ's Wholesale Club to make tuna salad. Anyone who thinks I'm kidding doesn't know my mother very well - everyone who came over for the luncheon had to admire the giant tuna can. Perhaps you, too, would like to drop her a line and tell her how exciting her tuna can is...

Here's Ari sound asleep at James Brown's Place; holding the menu behind us is Riley Grider, one of the waitresses there - and another native of Fort Wayne! Riley graduated from Elmhurst High the year before Lisa, and Lisa knew her and her brother Scott. (James himself is also a Hoosier...)	Grammy Fran wanted to use up the film in her camera when we got home, so she thought she'd take some pictures of Ari in her car seat. Here's what Freckles thought: "I wanna be in the picture. I'll pose nicely. No, wait, I don't wanna be in the picture. I'll walk away. No wait, I do wanna... *click*"
Earlier on the same roll of film - Ari in the hospital with Daddy..	.Take 2 - and this time the dog posed nicely!
A couple of shots from a diaper changing session...it's about the only time I can reliably count on seeing her eyes wide open!	I think she looks like Nanny Carol in this picture. Every time I look at her, she looks like a different family member. I hope Freckles isn't next...

Coming Saturday: Ari's naming...let's see how she does in a BIG crowd of family and friends!

A big hello to Ari fans everywhere!

As you can see, she's spent the day learning HTML and will soon be ready to code her own page...but in the meantime, she's still happy to let Daddy handle the typing.

On Thursday, our girl had her first two trips outside the house, beginning with a noontime walk down the street to temple to hand in her naming forms. (Well, I walked - she rode in the stroller.)

After an exciting afternoon that included several feedings, several long naps (both alone in the crib and with Daddy) and several visitors (Grandpa Dan, who's now a daily visitor to Ari-land, and Karen, Laura and Seth from next door), Nanny and Aunt Julie came over to escort the lovely Miss Ariel to her first meeting of the Rochester Numismatic Association, the oldest continuously operating local coin club in America. (Her daddy is a past president, for those of you who don't know.)

Ari stayed for about 10 minutes, meeting Daddy's friends and admiring the auction lots, including several RNA presidential medals that Daddy later spent her college money on. (Just kidding - they weren't that expensive!) After that, Nanny and Julie took Ari back home and visited with her for a few more minutes. Meanwhile, Grammy Fran took Lisa on her first adventure in the outside world post-Ariel, visiting Target to pick up some needed items.

Send in more "Ask Ari" questions and we'll try to get to them tomorrow or over the weekend (along with scanning the pictures from Monday) - but in the meantime we'll address that tricky pronunciation question again: how about "Ariel" as in "aerial" (though the stress is on the wrong syllable there, and it might make Mommy think too much of those big aluminum things on the roof), or perhaps - for the benefit of our Binghamton relatives - "Ariel, which rhymes with Harry L"? (If you're not from Binghamton, you won't get it. Don't even try.) And I think I neglected to mention earlier that "Ariel" is the name of the BBC's in-house magazine, too. (Named, as it turns out, after Shakespeare's Ariel, immortalized in stone on the walls of the BBC's Broadcast House in London as "the invisible spirit of the air," the personification of broadcasting. Of course, that Ariel was a boy, and one of the sculptures created controversy because Ariel had too large a - well, I didn't say "nipple" this time, anyway.)

Enough of that...we still need pictures, don't we? Here are a few from Ari's visit to the RNA meeting...

"Aunt Mel" Childers holds Ari while Bill and Edie Coe talk to Ari's Nanny at the RNA meeting	Ursula Loose meets Ari. Ursula's the proprietor of McLeod Stamp and Coin in Rochester, and it was she who introduced me to coin collecting many years ago. Ari will start visiting her shop in a few years, if she's interested.

"Ari Has Two Grandmothers" - and neither one can get enough of her... (Apologies to the Omaha Central High Class of '61 - I did get it right - for blocking most of Grammy Fran in this picture. We'll try again tomorrow when Nanny Carol makes her daily visit.)	Grandpa Dan makes funny faces at Freckles while refusing to let anyone else hold Ari.
Little baby. Big crib.	Being held by Grandpa Dan.

The picture Grammy Fran couldn't wait for all her friends and relatives to see on the website - taken just minutes after her arrival from the airport. A special hello to all those Ermans, as well as to the Omaha Central High class of '61 (did I get that right?) and the public information office at Indiana Institute of Technology!	A sort of four-generation picture...Lisa's on the phone to great-grandma ("G.G.") in Fort Wayne while Ari waits for a feeding.
Number of page visitors who asked why there were no pictures of Dad here: zero Dad's reaction to holding his baby: priceless	"Hey, this isn't Mom's nipple! Whaddya think, I was born yesterday? Oh wait...I was born yesterday!"
See...she has eyes.	"There's still not a nipple in my mouth!"
Great-Aunt Jeani and Aunt Julie left some decorations on the car Monday afternoon...this balloon and a note in the duston the trunk: "I just had a baby girl!"	"Hey dad...you could put an antenna up there! I hear there's great trop on the way..."

Baby's first picture...and mmmm, those fingers are yummy!	5 AM...the proud grandparents arrive to see the baby
Mom, baby and, yeah, a newspaper. Gotta start sometime...	Four generations (if you include the photographer): baby Ari, great-grandmother Sylvia Berman, grandmother Carol Fybush. Ari's lucky enough to have two great-grandmothers in addition to all four grandparents!
...and it's not even Dad's fault. Grandpa John in Fort Wayne sent along a great bouquet and a copy of the Times. In a few minutes, Ari will notice how inaccurate the radio listings are.	Eyes open and ready to go. She's a very alert young lady!