Monday, January 22, 2007

The Real McCoy

Taken during a visit to the Oklahoma Aquarium last fall. Why firefighters at the Aquarium? Because in a perfect world, there would be firetrucks and firefighters everywhere.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Oklahoma ice storm

The big ice storm is over and was mostly a bust (thank goodness). People in the eastern part of the state got hit worse than we did, but here in the center of the state it was just a couple of days of icky weather.

The precipitation fell as ice pellets and then freezing rain, which produced a very strange frozen substance that looks like snow but is rock hard. It isn't slippery, so you can run on it without sinking in at all.






Dean and the kids spent an hour running around the back yard on Saturday (too cold for me) and there are NO FOOTPRINTS. Very peculiar.

When I went to chisel out the car this morning I found out just how solid this stuff was. Despite 20 minutes of pre-warming, I had to use the round end of the scraper as an ice pick, to break off chunks of the ice/snow mix that encased my wipers.

The main streets are fine, but neighborhoods are very slick since there has been no sand, no scraping, no anything in the last four 1/2 days. Parking lots are awful, too -- so you can drive to most major destinations in town but you don't want to go into the lot. And they'll stay that way for days and days, since business owners don't do anything to make it better. They don't shovel sidewalks, they don't clear lots, or put down sand or deicer or anything.

But we had a nice weekend. We stayed home, drank a lot of hot chocolate, played games, watched movies, drew pictures -- really just an ordinary weekend, with extra hot chocolate.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Gymnastics







Last weekend was the birthday party of one of our friends. His parents rented a small gym, complete with instructors. George and Charlotte had a wonderful time. I was so impressed I would have signed them up for classes on the spot, but they only have evening classes for kids George's age, and that just doesn't work for us. Too bad.

George loved doing somersaults the most. The wedge shaped landing pads have marks for heads & hands; I'm not sure what the red tape is for.

Here's George learning how to do a backwards somersault. He never got comfortable enough to do this one on his own:










Charlotte's favorite was walking the balance beam. She got really good at it, really quickly.




George started out walking carefully but soon found it to be no big deal. (I cannot figure out this blogger picture-justification thing. Either I put everything smack in the center of the page or the word wrap drives me out of my mind. I hope you can figure out what goes with what.)




Tuesday, January 02, 2007

The window is up!

All fall my brother Rick has been making a stained glass window for his kitchen. It matches a set of windows that our father made maybe 30 years ago for the kitchen in the house we grew up in. They're in Rick's kitchen now, but I foolishly did not take a picture of them.

He wanted to get the window done and moved upstairs while there were lots of people to help, and he & my dad spent much of the week working on it. Dean was drafted, too, and quickly learned to foil glass with the best of them. (Do I have the lingo right?)

I didn't get many pictures of them working. Here's Rick washing the window after it was done:


And here are Dean and Dad watching him. Dad protested that this was a very unfair photo, and it was, but hey -- it's the only one I've gotten. I can assure you that he worked constantly up until this moment. Really.

I did run to get my camera when they started to bring the window up from the workshop. One way or the other, I figured it was worth documenting.



The window comes up the stairs fastened to its protective backing.

The backing is removed. You can see just the teensiest corner of the original windows over the sink.

Dean and Rick carry the window to its new home. (Careful, no flexing!) Another bit of the original windows is visible over Rick's shoulder.


Don't the colors look great?!

Then there was lots of methodical centering and fastening -- oh, and some windex action on the backside of the glass. I didn't stick around, and so I don't have a final, finished, in-place photo. But I think you can see that it is splendid.

Merry Christmas!

We had a great time in New Jersey, and because *my* best Christmas present was a computer with restored functionality, I can show you!



Charlotte loved the ride-on horse. Here Claire was pushing her down the hall. George was directing traffic -- I think he was being a stop sign.

The grown-ups did some playing, too.



Cookie making was at least as much fun as cookie eating.

Lauren, George, Claire and Charlotte on Christmas morning.


A knight's costume, swords AND viking helmets? What was Santa thinking?

Christmas, round four -- all the cousins together on Dec. 27th.

Charlotte has mastered a suitably dramatic style of present opening.

Charlotte and Amy got matching pajamas for Christmas -- Charlotte from Grandma & Grandpa, and Amy from a friend.


The knights are protecting the Fairy Forest.

Star Wars Lego was the hit of the week with George & Nicholas. Even Charlotte managed to do some pod racing -- George said, "She doesn't mind if she has to start over!"



It was a quiet trip home.