Steamboat 2012

We finally made it to Steamboat last month for one of the last open days on Howelson Hill. It was sunny, nearing 50 degrees, and pretty darn comfy when the wind wasn't blowing. Nice corn. A perfect day for this.



Yeah, I'm going to get all picture indulgent on this one, so click for more...

Happy Birthday

A very special man has a big birthday today. Note that I did not say "little" man - I'm talking about the big man. The incredible father who is his child's favorite, who parents with an amazing blend of love, patience, and imagination (even if I fear finding the two of them blowing stuff up together in five years). The incredible husband who has kept this house together through my crazed schedule these last eight months and kept us all sane with his special brand of humor. I love you, Ray, and I hope you have an amazing year!



Enjoy your birthday present and try to ignore the three weeks of backbreaking work that went into that garden bed right next to it...happy birthday!

D-E-A-D

A more updated version of this video....

A good antidote to a bad day....

Happy Easter!

Our block did their own party last weekend in lieu of the big crazy town egg hunt. It was awesome. The pics are edited to avoid showing anyone else's kids, so I apologize for the weird crops and blurriness, but still.. awesome.

One of the parents is really good at party games (same one who suggested the fishing game for E's party). She kept all the kids entertained while eggs were being hidden.

Duck race (racing with your hands on your ankles) - E came in last but was the only one near his age who actually tried to do it right, so hey, I'll take that!

He didn't quite get the rules on the whole egg race. But he did run faster this way.
The kids also played duck, duck, goose (that's right, Minnesotans, GOOSE) - E and the other littlest boy kept getting up and running at random and were pretty much counted as hazards. When someone "goose"ed E, he did try to chase, but then he lost it when it was his turn to walk the circle. One of the dads got video and I hope to show it at E's prom... several hours later he told me that he was upset because he wanted to be chased, so... still working on how the game works, apparently....

When it came to the actual egg "hunt": we did two separate hunts, and the hunt for the three year olds was all the eggs laid out on our lawn, so... more of a "pick up". E was enthused, though - off from the start:

But apparently he just wanted this one special speckled egg. Ray had to convince him to grab some more...

...and ended up having to help him. Now you see what type of parents jump the rope at the egg hunt.

E did figure it out pretty quickly.

I think we had almost 500 eggs, 11 kids, and everyone was entertained for a couple of hours. Particularly us parents who got to match all the eggs back together..
Hope you all have this much joy in your Easter!

Enlightened

There has been a lot of work going on around here. Most of it is the small sort, although we did repaint the whole back area (kitchen, family room). But the rest has been the sorts of projects where we walk into Home Depot and I grab a random assortment of dowel and lathe, hand Ray a picture, and say "make this, please".

You think I'm kidding. Unless you're my family, in which case you just pity Ray.

This was actually a double header. Last summer I bought three lights from IKEA, spent a while at the hardware store pulling together some random parts that would help make three wires fit into a harness built for one, and then pled acrophobia and handed the project off to Ray.

I wasn't kidding about the acrophobia.

And possibly the fear of really ugly lights.

E thought that was an improvement, as did I. But it was still not quite what we envisioned. Hence, the trip to home depot, a few square dowels, some lathe, and oh yeah, spray paint.

I think Ray was on to something...

Oh yeah, much better. And at about a tenth of the price of the lights we were looking at in Seattle.

Now, about that dining room lamp.....Raaa-aaaay....