One-Tired Mom

Happy February!

2012-02-01T11:23:00.003-05:00

I am kicking off the awesome month of February by bringing my blog up to date for 2012. I'm hoping to stay on top of things and gradually go back and flesh out some of the empty spots from 2011 when I hit my all-time blogging low.

My blogging fell off for a variety of reasons, but one of the main ones was my inclination to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I always want to wait until my photos are organized and edited or until I have time to write something witty or meaningful. Well, enough of that! My focus from here on out is going to be to just get the content up there and spend more time doing things worth blogging about and less time worrying over how good the blogging is.

So now I present January 2012:

Mike on College GameDay
Annabelle and Harvey
Annabelle's get-well card from her drama friends
Mike and Sarah's roadtrip
Annabelle with friends at a party
Mike lifting heavy objects
AOK Party (lots of hats)

Hats off to a great evening!

2012-01-28T23:37:00.008-05:00

"The hat is the ultimatum moriens of respectability." (Oliver Wendell Holmes)

Ollie might have changed his mind if he had been at the AOK party at Ft. Leavenworth tonight. "AOK" stands for "Aussie," "Orange," and "Kiwi," and indeed the Australian, Dutch, and New Zealand officers were our hosts for the evening. As the invitation said, "No hat, no entry. No mug, no beer." No worry--there were hats and mugs a-plenty, but we checked our respectability at the door!

Fred opted to wear his German Volksmarch hat:

I don't get many excuses to wear my Derby hat, so I had no difficulty deciding what to wear:

All other photos are here (you can click on any photo to see it larger in a new tab):

Mike: Gettin' strong!

2012-01-25T22:36:00.003-05:00

Mike is continuing this semester with his recently discovered passion for power-lifting. Today he maxed out his squat at 425 pounds!

Annabelle: Party on, dude!

2012-01-22T22:50:00.003-05:00

Hooray! Annabelle is on the road to recovery and was able to go to her friend Joe's birthday party tonight:

Two thumbs up for that!

Mike: Roadtrip!

2012-01-21T22:25:00.001-05:00

I've living vicariously through Mike right now. While we spent this weekend with temps in the 20s, he and Sarah enjoyed an obviously balmy roadtrip, first to Universal Studios in Orlando:

And then to the beach:

What? Me? JEALOUS???

Annabelle: Get well soon!

2012-01-19T22:43:00.003-05:00

Annabelle has had an icky few days. She told me before she left for school on Tuesday that she thought she was coming down with something. Sure enough, well before noon she was texting me to pick her up! She missed the rest of Tuesday and all of yesterday and today. She did manage to drag herself in for play practice yesterday afternoon but not today. Her drama friends made her a get-well card, which made her smile:

Back to school tomorrow (I hope)!

Annabelle and Harvey

2012-01-15T22:47:00.002-05:00

Lookit Mike on the teevee!

2012-01-14T21:57:00.004-05:00

ESPN's College GameDay was in Tallahassee this morning ahead of the FSU-UNC basketball game. Mike called to ask me to record the show so that he can look for himself when he's home for spring break. Fred and I watched for a bit, and when we saw the camera pan the area where Mike said he was sitting, I hit pause and grabbed my camera:

I don't follow basketball and didn't watch the game, but apparently FSU's victory was quite the big deal. The crowd (including Mike) streamed onto the court after the game:

Band on the run

2012-01-02T20:15:00.004-05:00

Annabelle left at the crack of dawn the day after Christmas to join 50-something other members of her high-school band on a marvelous odyssey to Florida. Three theme parks, one parade, and performing in the half-time show at the Champs Bowl (go, 'Noles!), all sandwiched between 2 24-hour bus rides. She had a fabulous time and arrived home Saturday night utterly exhausted.

On Thursday, Fred and Mike and I put on our best FSU finery and went up to the man cave to watch the game on TV:

It's the first time I can remember caring one way or the other about the outcome of a football game. Of course, what I REALLY cared about seeing was the half-time show, but naturally ESPN couldn't be bothered to show that, instead choosing to focus on some bitter old man talking smack about FSU. I've been waiting none too patiently since then for a video clip to come online, and it finally happened today.

If you look at the back of the short line on the left-hand 41-yard-line, you can see the speck that is Annabelle:

The kids were kept busy almost every moment they were in Florida, but Jenny and Jeff managed to surprise Annabelle at supper Friday night before the second 24-hour bus ride:

Annabelle was too tired to stay awake to ring in the new year once she got home, but it was well worth it. She had a blast and made a lifetime of memories!

2011 accomplishments

2011-12-31T22:12:00.008-05:00

One of my favorite annual posts is where I gather together all the books I read over the preceding year. I had been in somewhat of a reading slump, so for 2011 one of my resolutions was to read more. I got a Nook for Christmas last year, and that has helped a lot--text as big as I want and pages that turn with the click of a button. I've also started listening to audiobooks on my one-hour commute back and forth to Kansas City 3 days a week. This year's collection:

I started off 2011 hoping to do one Shutterfly photo book per month. This proved to be way too ambitious, but I did get through several. I made 3 family yearbooks, starting with 2010, then 2009, and then 2008. Then I also made smaller albums for our Spring Break trip to Europe and our 2009 trip to Jamaica. My most recent accomplishment is a little book about Annabelle's 2008 summer show Beauty and the Beast:

Click here to view this photo book larger

2011 was also a great year for knitting! I finished my red sweater early on, which gave me a nice start. Then I did a pair of socks for my mom's birthday:

I also made Annabelle a really awesome pair of skull-and-crossbones socks:

And then just today I finished up this scarf:

It's modeled after the one that Dolores Umbridge wore in the last Harry Potter movie:

I used this amazing free pattern.

My one creative disappointment for 2011 is that the blog kind of fell by the wayside. This happened for a variety of reasons--time, energy, etc.--and then once I fell out of the habit, it got easier and easier to put it off. I still do want to go back and put pictures at least in at the proper spots because I do like being able to have speedy access to those.

So for 2012: more reading, more photo books, and more knitting and a new, improved blog. I'll drink to that!

Hark!

2011-12-03T23:34:00.000-05:00

Annabelle tried out for and made it into the District Honor Choir. This is a huge accomplishment, as our district is a really competitive one. The concert was this afternoon, and Fred and I were blown away by how good they were. I've spent this evening uploading clips to YouTube so that you can see the whole thing. Annabelle is in the back row, sixth to the right of the REALLY TALL (you'll see what I'm talking about) boy.

"Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal":

"Calm on the Listening Ear of Night":

"The Word Was God":

"Ne Imami Iniya Pomoshchi":

"I'm Running On":

More Godspell!

2011-11-22T19:05:00.004-05:00

I've been really busy the past few days, finishing an indexing project and getting ready for Thanksgiving. I've managed though to upload a couple of clips from the show to YouTube. This little non-musical snippet is one of my favorite parts, where you can really see Annabelle hamming it up:

And here are the first 2 musical numbers from the show:

Our poor old video camera, which was such cutting-edge technology 10 years ago, is an absolute dinosaur now, so I borrowed a high-def handycam from a friend to shoot the show. I'm very impressed with the quality of the recording when it's on the computer, but unfortunately when I burn it to DVD, it loses its high-def-ness and looks decidedly meh. I'm thinking there may be a Blu-Ray burner in my not-so-distant future.

As much fun as it is to see the production, it's also fun to watch Annabelle and her friends celebrating after the show. They sure are a loving, happy bunch!

Opening night: Godspell

2011-11-17T23:42:00.004-05:00

I've decided the only way to get back into blogging is to just dive in where I'm at. I've spent the past 2 months thinking I would get all caught up, but instead I just get further and further behind. I can't think of a better reason to fire up the ol' blog than opening night of Leavenworth High School's fall musical, Godspell.

Annabelle has been a fan of this show for ages and was very excited to be a part of it. I loved Grease last year, but I have to say, I think this show is even better.

I borrowed a high-def video camera from a friend but I wound up not recording so that I could just sit back and enjoy the show. I found a new (to me) setting on my regular camera and took a few shots in each song. They're not great, but they're better than anything I've ever taken before in that sort of lighting condition, and it'll give Annabelle something to remember the show by.

This is Annabelle being tormented by the Village People:

And as one of a trio of rather freaky angels:

Check out my Flickr account for the rest of tonight's photos:

Veteran's Day

2011-11-11T17:56:00.002-05:00

Fun fact: The Leavenworth County Veteran's Day parade is "the oldest Veterans Day observance in the nation and the largest parade west of the Mississippi." Here's the Leavenworth High School marching band participating in this year's parade:

Look for Annabelle and her bari sax!

Central States Marching Festival

2011-10-15T21:19:00.002-04:00

Remember how 2007 was the last time Leavenworth High's band scored a 1 at the Washburn competition? Well, today marks the first time since 2004 that they scored a 1 at this festival, held at Kansas State! And nobody knows the last time that they scored 1's at both, but it happened this year!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Capitol City Marching Festival

2011-10-12T21:16:00.002-04:00

According to the band director, this was the first time since 2007 that Leavenworth High scored a 1 at this festival, held at Washburn University!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Homecoming 2011

2011-09-26T11:37:00.011-04:00

The past 2 weeks were homecoming for the high school. They had a variety of dress-up spirit days. Annabelle participated in a couple of those, such as "generations day," in which juniors dressed as little kids:

And "would you be my friend if I wore this day":

Unfortunately, I didn't get up early and take pictures on "identity theft day," in which she poofed her hair and donned a black blazer and flag pin and went as Sarah Palin. I hear she had some of the teachers in stitches with her spot-on impersonation!

Friday night was the homecoming parade and game. The band performed their show before the game (along with the national anthem and school song) since half-time would be all about the homecoming court. I recorded it with my dinky little camera, but I found a better recording on YouTube (Annabelle starts off on the right-hand 45-yard line, in case you want to try to follow her):

Here's a still shot of part of the band. You can click to make it bigger, the better to see Annabelle standing on the 40-yard line:

Saturday night was all about the dance, which she went to with a group of friends. They met at one friend's house for sparkling cider:

and pictures, first inside:

then outside:

and finally, outside with a touch of crazy:

Then they set off for dinner at a local Chinese restaurant before going to the dance. We picked her up at 11, and she reported that it was a great evening but that her feet were killing her!

Playing tourist

2011-09-13T15:14:00.005-04:00

We had a great time this past weekend! My friends Pat and Melissa came up from Texas for a business trip and planned a couple extra days for hanging out with us.

On Sunday we drove over to Kansas City to visit the World War I museum, which was fascinating. The museum itself is underneath the Liberty Memorial:

After we wandered around inside and looked at all the exhibits, we went to the top of the memorial for some really great views of the city:

We thought this was interesting. We drove past it on our way in, and it looked like a stack of random shipping containers. If you look at it kind of squinty though from a distance, it sends a message:

Here we are up at the top, Fred and me:

Pat and Melissa:

After the museum, we went over to Union Station, which you can see just beyond the green lawn in this picture:

Today Melissa and I were able to squeeze in one last lunch together:

We need to not wait 8 years to get together next time!

I've heard of a guard dog before.

2011-09-13T12:48:00.003-04:00

But a guard grasshopper?

That's just ridiculous.

Brace yourself!

2011-09-13T11:42:00.002-04:00

Braces on:

Braces off:

It's a big day for the Taylor family! I think we've had one kid or the other in some sort of orthodontic treatment for the past 5 years.

Here comes the band!

2011-09-07T09:14:00.000-04:00

After many exhausting, painful, and sweaty hours spent at band practice over the past month, Annabelle finally got her first taste of a marching performance and loved it! The band performed for the first time this year at the football game last Friday night.

Here is part of the band lined up for the pre-game show:

This is a close-up of the same view. Annabelle is the one with the big-ass saxophone:

Here's a video of them playing the National Anthem:

Some sky-divers landed before the game, including the LHS mascot, Pioneer Pete:

Annabelle's friends Ben and Edd accompanied us to the game. Ben is also Annabelle's saxophone teacher:

Lined up on the sidelines, waiting for halftime:

And here is the halftime show:

We lost the game, but the consensus among people who know these things was that we did better than expected. Can't wait for the next game!

Never too old for a first day of school pic!

2011-08-29T21:04:00.003-04:00

Mike had a great first day of his sophomore year at FSU:

Tea party (the good kind)

2011-08-28T11:59:00.004-04:00

Annabelle and I went to a tea party yesterday at the home of our British neighbors. We decided to wear dresses just in case the queen was there (she wasn't, but one never knows). Annabelle looked so pretty that I had to stop on the porch and snap a picture:

The party itself was wonderful, with finger sandwiches and scones (oh, the scones!) and these adorable miniature apple pies. And Pimms! Did I mention the Pimms? So yummy! One of my fellow tea-partiers (again, the good kind) described it as British sangria, which seems about right.

Tally-ho!

2011-08-24T21:23:00.003-04:00

Fred and Mike left at the crack of dawn this morning to take Mike back to FSU for his sophomore year. The last report I heard had them somewhere north of Birmingham, but I suspect that by now they are at or getting close to Fred's parents' house.

They put in a long day on the road today so that they can roll into Tally by early afternoon tomorrow. This will give them tomorrow afternoon, all of Friday, and then Saturday morning to get Mike settled in before Fred flies home Saturday afternoon.

Surprise!

2011-08-23T21:50:00.003-04:00

Annabelle came home from school today, did her pre-calculus homework, ate a quick supper, opened birthday presents, and left for marching band practice, thinking that her birthday was pretty much over. Nuh UH!

Little did she know that we've been scheming to bring cupcakes to the end of band practice. As soon as we dropped her off at the school, Fred and Mike and I went over to Walmart to pick up the goodies. We set up shop at the end of the stadium and enjoyed watching the last 20 minutes of practice. We caught the kids as they were coming off the field, and they stopped to sing "Happy Birthday." One girl even chimed in on her saxophone:

Here are some miscellaneous pictures from the celebration:

Tra la-la-la-la la-la-la-la

2011-08-23T11:47:00.002-04:00

Where have 16 years gone?! I would swear this photo was taken just a few years ago:

But no, it was 16 years ago and marks the arrival of Annabelle and the completion of our family.

We've been celebrating for several days now. Mike gave her the DVD of Tangled on Friday so that we could all watch it together before he left for school. And then on Sunday the 4 of us went to Kansas City (where everything's up to date) and watched a film of Stephen Sondheim's Company, followed by supper at California Pizza Kitchen. Presents this afternoon!

Happy birthday, Sweet Sixteen!

Happy first day of school!

2011-08-16T15:28:00.004-04:00

Today is the first day of Annabelle's junior year! Here are a couple of shots as she left this morning:

She got off to kind of a rocky start. schoolbus procedures changed for this year, and the kids are supposed to have a card that they scan to get on the bus. Somehow we failed to get that memo, and the driver wouldn't let her on the bus this morning. I have visited the transportation office and been assured that she should be good to go for the ride home this afternoon.

I can't wait for her to get home! Mostly so I can hear about the rest of her day but also because I am looking forward to our traditional first-day-of-school cookies. (These are not to be confused with brownie Friday, which is going to be brownie Wednesday this year due to a change in my work schedule.)

Baby Bird is 19!

2011-07-21T22:12:00.003-04:00

Hard to believe that Mike is already 19. Time flies blah blah blah! I spent some time with my scanner this morning and scanned in (in something like 8 separate passes, which I then lovingly stitched together in Photoshop Elements) the 2-page spread I made of his first birthday (click to see it bigger):

Also, I don't believe I have ever shared his birth announcement on here:

Weren't Fred and I terribly clever (not to mention young looking!) back in the day?

A river runs through it

2011-07-19T20:33:00.001-04:00

Sherman Army Airfield, here on post:

Positively Pottered

2011-07-17T22:30:00.002-04:00

Harry Potter entered our family in book form sometime during our Hawaii years (1999 to 2001) when Mike received the first volume as a gift. I started to read it aloud to the kids, but my heart wasn't in it (fantasy is totally not my thing), and we never finished it. Shortly thereafter though, Mike's reading skills took off and he dove right into the series, eagerly awaiting each book as it was released and happily reading them to himself.

Fred and I took Mike to see the first movie in South Carolina when it came out in November 2001, but Annabelle was only 6 at the time, and we decided it was much too scary for her. I took Mike to the midnight premiere of one of the books toward the middle of the series when we were in San Antonio (2001 to 2003), and sometime after that Annabelle hopped on the Potter bandwagon as well.

In August 2005 we visited London shortly after Fred's return to Germany from Iraq. One of the "must see" items on our list was J.K. Rowling's home in London, which I had heard was part of the "Little Venice" London Walks tour. Annabelle dressed a Beanie Baby rabbit as Harry Potter, and the kids took turns posing with him on the wall outside the Rowling home:

We dutifully continued taking the kids to the films as they were released, and I remember seeing one in Germany and another in Kentucky. (You can tell how captivated I was by the whole thing, can't you?) But then they got old enough to start going to the movies with friends, and I was spared the experience for the next few films. In 2005, Annabelle went to the release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with her friend Karen while we were visiting Florida in July 2007. She proudly wore her Hogwarts garb:

That was the same month that the final volume, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, came out. In fact, it was released on Mike's birthday, July 21! We were still in DeLand, and we opted to go to the premiere party at the small used bookstore in town rather than venturing forth to Daytona or Orlando. Mike spent the time waiting for the book's release to go over his driver's license manual one more time to make sure he wouldn't have any problem passing his permit test later that same day (doesn't Fred look thrilled?):

We bought 2 copies of that book, and the kids read them nonstop, even at the Boyd family reunion over in Tampa that afternoon. You can see Annabelle's copy in this picture:

We had to stop at a gas station on the drive back to DeLand to buy flashlights so they could keep reading after the sun went down.

Fast forward to this summer! With the anticipation of the release of the final movie, the kids have been plowing through all of the books in a re-reading frenzy. They also have been re-watching all the earlier movies, and Fred and I joined them for the most recent 2, in hopes of having some idea of what's going on in the final movie. I had booked tickets to the midnight IMAX showing at our closest Kansas City theater well over a month ago. Annabelle and I swung by the theater Thursday morning to pick up the tickets on our way to the airport to greet her friend Katherine, who is spending the weekend with us. We were shocked that people were already camped out in line at 10:30 a.m., including this fellow with a Sharpie-drawn tattoo:

Even though Harry Potter has never been my "thing," I couldn't help but feel the teensiest bit excited.

My original plan had been to show up at the theater around 11 p.m., an hour before showtime. After seeing the beginnings of the first lines with over 12 hours to go though, I realized that that was cutting it WAY too close. Fred decided at the last minute that trying to go to a midnight movie on a worknight was craziness, but I was able to get a refund on his ticket. I and Mike, Annabelle, and Katherine took out places in line right at 7:00 p.m.

Fortunately the line for the IMAX was inside the building. We settled down on the floor to read and otherwise kill time while waiting:

With so many people in costume, the excitement was contagious. Annabelle had her tea leaves read by a fellow movie-goer:

I have to admit that the movie was good. I'm glad I had watched the 2 most recent, because I would have been lost otherwise. Annabelle started crying about halfway through and sobbed pretty steadily until we got to the car afterwards. As soon as we got home (at 3:30 in the morning), she wrote the following, which sums it up pretty well:

Excuse me as I lament the end of my childhood

DEATHLY HALLOWS SPOILERS (but mostly just me getting hysterical)

I actually started out the movie (and got about halfway through) feeling pretty sure that I wouldn’t cry. I mean, I never cry at movies! I’ve gotten a little misty in Edward Scissorhands, but full-fledged sobbing? But then Snape died, and…well, things went down from there. Then there was Fred. Then the Prince’s Tale (OHLAWD THE PRINCE’S TALE), Harry seeing Sirius/Lupin/Mum/Dad, and of course “Not my daughter, you BITCH.” After that, I felt a lot better.

Even the epilogue, I was feeling okay. I mean, it’s cute and all, but I’m gonna be okay…but then they have to play the original John Williams music from the first movie. Like, remember when the trio boarded the Hogwarts Express at the end of the movie and explain that they’re not “really going home” since Hogwarts is home and yada yada yada? With all the second generation people getting on the train with that music, and then Hedwig’s Theme…to put it lightly, I was a mess leaving the theatre. A complete, sobbing, hysterical mess. Kind of all “My skeleton will lie in the theatre forever.”

I know it’s been said so many times, but I really feel like that was the end of my childhood. Yeah, I haven’t been a child-child for several years now, but I grew up with Harry ever since I watched the second movie when it was a new release (and even more so after I first picked up the book in fourth grade). I still remember going to the midnight release of the last book and then spending the entire next day reading. I felt okay at the end of that, knowing there were still three more movies to go. I kind of took it for granted.

I’ve been re-reading the books and re-watching all the movies, and it’s just now occurring to me how, for lack of a better term, magical they are. Just…gah.

Long live Harry Potter<3

It's still so totally not my thing, but I have to admit it has gotten under my skin. I'm feeling very sentimental about the tremendous presence these books and movies have been in our lives over the past 10 years. Ever since we saw the last movie, I've been bugging the kids with my stupid questions: "Who was that chick who was being so mean to Lily in the flashback? Wait, why was everybody so willing to make up with that Malfoy jerk?"

They keep saying, "READ THE BOOKS, MOM!"

I just might do that.

Sad news

2011-05-28T14:29:00.003-04:00

My Grandma Grace died yesterday of congestive heart failure. She had been in an out of the hospital several times this year and had been on supplemental oxygen since last spring. She stayed mentally sharp though, and I'm glad I was able to visit with her 3 times since February. Our most recent visit was last month, when we spent some time going through photo albums I took to Florida with me.

Here's a picture of Grandma and Dave from their wedding in January of 2005:

Dave, thank you for taking such good care of Grandma! It takes a special person to keep up with somebody like her, with her busy schedule and her sense of adventure. I'm glad you're part of our family!

What's next? Locusts?

2011-05-05T21:49:00.004-04:00

Oh, I have so very, very much to blog! My trip to Florida, buying the new car for Mike, roadtripping back up to Kansas with my mom and stopping by Graceland along the way, not to mention sharing some of the pictures Mike has put up on Facebook of his fun times so far in Dresden. That will have to wait until tomorrow though, because first I have to tell you about this afternoon.

You have to keep in mind that on the afore-mentioned roadtrip, we went right through a part of Alabama that had been devastated by the storms of the previous week. One minute we were cruising along, and the next minute there were helicopters sweeping around in the air and houses blasted to smithereens and giant trailers with pallets of bottled water.

Then the following day we went through Arkansas, most of which is a disaster area thanks to flooding. At one point our 4-lane highway turned into this:

Today Mom and I went out to pick up Annabelle after school and to run a few errands. It had been a cold, rainy morning, but when we left the house the sun was shining, and it was starting to warm up. Then all of a sudden huge gray clouds rolled in from the west, and the sky opened up. I made the decision to blow off the rest of our errands and go straight home. When I got to my neighborhood, however, I found the main street blocked by firetrucks. I tried to go around back to the alley, but there was a firetruck there too. Turns out that a bolt of lightening had struck the chimney of a house down the street from me. Everybody there was fine, but the remains of the chimney were scattered along the alley and on and in their next-door neighbor's car.

I took these photos with my phone, so they're not the best. This is the scene from the front of the house. You can see the firetrucks, and if you look at the house in the middle of the picture you can see an intact chimney and then one that looks like it disappears into the glare of the sky. No, it's just not quite there anymore:

This is how it looked out back:

And this is what happens if you dump bricks on an SUV:

Enough with the crazy weather already!

Brava, Annabelle!

2011-04-25T22:53:00.002-04:00

This will be short and sweet, as I have to get up at 4:30 tomorrow morning to get to the airport for my flight to Florida. We just got home though from the Leavenworth High School academic banquet, which recognized the top 2.5% of the freshman class, the top 5% of the sophomores, the top 10% of the juniors, and the top 15% of the senior class. This is what the top 5% of the class of 2013 looks like (Annabelle is on the far left):

And here's Annabelle with her swag:

Housework

2011-04-25T13:04:00.007-04:00

It's been a while since I posted any pictures of the house. As of yesterday, the third floor is done, with the exception of Annabelle's bathroom. Maybe this summer!

When you go up the stairs from the second to third floor, you come out in an open L-shaped loft area. We have taken one part of the loft and used it for storage for games, DVDs, and such:

I keep thinking that it would be a great area to use as a workout room if I could force myself to, you know, work out.

The other part of the loft is what we call the "man cave." This was Fred's post-deployment present to himself, but Annabelle probably uses it the most. We bought a couple of super-comfy loveseats with drink holders:

and a nice, big TV:

Annabelle's room has been done for some time now. Both her room and Mike's are painted a subtle gray. She has chosen to pick up the orange stripe in her bedding to add a splash of color:

Mike's room got pushed to the back burner since he has really stayed in it for only a few weeks since we moved here. We went through this weekend though and put up curtains and hung stuff up on his walls:

Remaining projects are Annabelle's bathroom and the guest room on the second floor, plus I'd like to finish organizing my office. I have made a promise to myself that I will not hang Ceiling Cat up until my office is finished.

Two all-beef patties, special sauce . . .

2011-04-25T10:47:00.002-04:00

Make that 12 all-beef patties and you'll be closer to Mike's triumphant feat on Friday night. He became the third person to complete the Quint Quint Double challenge at the Tomahawk Sports Bar. That's 12 burger patties, each with a slice of cheese, plus a pound of fries. Finish it in 30 minutes, and it's free!

Here he is at the beginning of his quest. Note that the burger is held together with a knife that is almost fully embedded in the beast:

Here he is at the 10-minute mark:

He started with a couple of friends, who bailed out at the 7- or 8-burger mark, but Mike marched on to completion at 29 minutes:

When I spoke to him later Friday evening, the high of achievement had worn off and was replaced by some pretty severe intestinal distress. One of his friends drove all over Tallahassee trying to find some syrup of ipecac so that he could "un-eat" the burger, but apparently you can't get that over the counter anymore. He never was able to throw up, but he found that he was comfiest in this position:

Amazingly enough, he woke up Saturday morning feeling great. Ah, youth!

Successful completion of the Quint Quint Double challenge nets the victor bragging rights only and his photo on the restaurant wall. Some of Mike's friends, however, decided that such an epic feat was worthy of a special shirt and so they had this one made for him:

You never know what you'll find . . .

2011-04-14T16:09:00.004-04:00

. . . when you're walking the dog.

Today, for example, when I walked out the back door, I heard the sound of bagpipes wafting through the air. I followed my ears and found a bagpiper (bagpipist?) in the gazebo in the park:

Turns out that he usually practices in the chapel, but the chapel was locked today. He decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and play outside.

Speaking of beautiful weather, as soon as I post this, the weather will take a turn for the worse, but we have been having some gorgeous days lately. Spring has finally sprung!

Honors, honors everywhere

2011-04-04T11:27:00.005-04:00

When we landed in Dallas on our way back from Europe, I checked my voicemail and had a message from Annabelle's guidance counselor. Turns out Annabelle had been accepted in the National Honor Society, and the induction ceremony was being held that very night! The ceremony started around the time we landed, and even if the timing hadn't been an issue, we were looking pretty weary from the road and not in any condition for a ceremony of any sort, so she picked up her t-shirt and certificate later that week at school.

It's a really active program. They meet every Wednesday at 7:00 before school, and she has already participated in her first service project: helping out with Special Olympics on Saturday morning. It's a great group of kids, and I know she'll get a lot out of it!

Meanwhile, Mike's grades last semester got him into FSU's honors program, which means that he'll have access to some special classes and--the biggie!--get priority like a senior for class registration. That already came in very handy when registering for next year!

Fred and I went down to Tallahassee last week to see Mike inducted into FSU's chapter of Phi Eta Sigma, the freshman honor society. Along the way, we spent the weekend in DeLand where we hit Stetson homecoming. I caught up with a classmate from both high school and college:

and Fred got together with his fraternity brothers:

We also had a lovely Sunday brunch with my grandparents before heading back up to Tally.

On Monday we finally got to meet Mike's new roommate, Chris, who joined us for lunch at Mike's favorite FSU dining facility, which is located in a building on the outskirts of the football stadium:

That night we went to Gordo's for some amazing Cuban food:

After supper we went to the induction ceremony, which was very nice. There were several hundred students there, and I was a bit nervous that it would take forever to recognize each one, but they were very efficient. Afterward, we stopped by the reception at the University Center Club, which looks out over the stadium. You can kind of get the idea here:

We didn't stay long at the reception, because Mike had PT early the next morning, and Fred and I had to get up to catch our plane home. So we stopped for one quick photo and then headed out:

We are proud of our amazing kids!

Spring? Sprung!

2011-04-02T17:28:00.001-04:00

Found while walking the dog

2011-03-22T16:24:00.001-04:00

How cute is this?

Gnome home!

Germany: Auf wiedersehen!

2011-03-20T22:49:00.007-04:00

The first solo trip the kids and I made out into the community after moving to Mannheim back in 2003 was to visit the lovely Luisenpark. It was also one of our last "field trips" after Fred returned from Iraq in 2005, when I took this photo, possibly my favorite one ever:

It felt great to cap off our European adventure by going back to the park on this beautiful day.

Caroline enjoyed eating hot pretzels with Janna and Annika:

Exploring the Chinese pavilion:

Pat and Elke at the Chinese garden:

Pellet and Cheezer took this picture to convince the rest of the rodents that they visited China over spring break:

I had been looking forward to seeing German squirrels again, but this is the only one I found:

We stopped at each and every play area, but the castle ruin was an especially big hit with the kids:

I even got in on the fun at one playground:

It took at least 3 people to get me into and out of that thing! (The video cuts off the tale end of my comment, which was: "This is cheaper than champagne!")

After we left the park, we went to our favorite Mannheim restaurant for a farewell dinner. I almost couldn't find the website for Zur Kurpfalz, because we just always called it "the schnitzel house." It felt so good to be back that I couldn't resist taking pictures of some of the food. This is Elke's salad:

I can't remember what Pat's dish was called, but it smelled wonderful:

And my beloved Schnitzel Wilddieb:

We stopped by an ice cream parlor on our way home where Annabelle attacked her apple strudel with great gusto:

Michelle got the Spaghetti Eiss she has been waiting 20 years for:

I had Spaghetti Eiss myself, which was the perfect end to a perfect vacation!

Germany: Day 2

2011-03-19T22:39:00.006-04:00

Somewhere between Paris and Heidelberg, the beautiful weather we had been blessed with for the first part of our trip turned dark, cold, and dreary, which is why there is no Germany: Day 1 post. We spent yesterday sleeping late and doing laundry, and nobody wants to see pictures of that.

We took the train to Heidelberg on Thursday to stay with Annabelle's friend Katherine and her family. Caroline fit in with Katherine's little sisters as if they had been friends forever, so they disappeared upstairs to play as soon as the girls got home from school yesterday, while Annabelle and Katherine retreated to the basement to catch up on 2 years worth of gossip and giggling.

This morning started off bleak weather-wise, which worried me a little. Our big plan for the day was to meet friends for lunch on the Hauptstrasse and then spend some time shopping. By the time we left the house though, the sun was peeping out, and by early afternoon the weather was back to gorgeous.

We had a lovely lunch at Cafe Schafheutle with my long-time friend Sibylle and my loyal blog reader, Facebook friend, and now real-life friend Heather:

After lunch, we walked up and down the Hauptstrasse, enjoying the lovely day:

I took this picture of Annabelle and Katherine in front of the castle:

They sure have grown up since Katherine moved away from Fort Knox in 2007:

Annabelle also got a chance to catch up with her friend Matthew:

Matthew played Sweeney Todd to Annabelle's Mrs. Lovett for Halloween of 2007:

I can't believe our trip is almost over!

Paris: Last tango

2011-03-16T22:07:00.019-04:00

The tempo of the first half the trip caught up with us today. We slept in a bit and headed out on foot after breakfast.

Our first stop was the Notre Dame cathedral:

We did a quick walk-through to admire the stained glass:

and to light a candle for a friend:

We had planned on stopping at St. Chappelle, too, but the line was crazy-long, so we took a pass. Instead we mozied back to the left bank to look at the Institut de France, home of the Alliance Francaise:

From there, we crossed the river again, this time in the direction of the Louvre. We stopped along the bridge to take pictures of the "love locks" that people place on the fencing before throwing the key into the water below:

At the Louvre, I took a picture of this cute little girl:

Annabelle says she is probably saying, "Free the leash kids!"

We did my usual "Look, kids! Big Ben! Parliament!" tour of the Louvre.

Venus de Milo!

Winged Victory!

Mona Lisa!

Other notable sights in the Louvre included the HUGE painting that is featured on the cover of Annabelle's AP European History textbook:

Annabelle duking it out with a cherub:

And this rather odd painting featuring a monkey, a dog, and a cherub:

I was crushed to discover as we walked back to the hotel that the Samaritaine department store (on whose rooftop the kids wrote postcards to their friends in Texas back in 2003) has gone out of business:

I did get a couple of interesting pictures along the way though. I liked this guy sitting in the window for a smoke break:

And if the leash kids need freeing, the lawn gnomes need it even more:

We got back to the hotel after stopping for a crepe (at a different stand, but don't tell Casanova!) and hibernated for a couple of hours before heading out in search of supper. We wound up in a cozy little restaurant in the Latin Quarter where we enjoyed a pot of cheese fondue. Afterward we stopped at our usual place for one last crepe and a final flirtation with Annabelle's crepe stand boyfriend, whose name turned out to be Laramie.

Germany tomorrow!

Paris: How do you say "yum!" in French?

2011-03-16T01:15:00.006-04:00

We just got back to our hotel from what was quite likely one of the most amazing dinners of my life. We knew Florence and Bruno from our first couple of years at Fort Knox, when Bruno was there as an exchange officer from the French army and Mike became friends with their elder son. Tonight we met them at 8 p.m. for dinner at Les Ronchons, a charming restaurant that overlooks the Seine. We sat for hours, laughing and talking about old times and enjoying a true Parisian dinner.

We started with kir royals for the ladies (except for Caroline, who had a cola manufactured in Corsica). Then it was on to white wine and starters. I had a creamy soup with scallops and mussels, and Annabelle and I both tried a bite of Florence's starter: baked bone marrow with a very coarse salt. For the main dish, Annabelle and I both had a wonderful fish and rice dish, and for dessert, an amazing chocolate-almond cake with ice cream:

After dinner the owner sent over dessert wine, which was a lovely way to end the meal.

The food was fantabulous, and it was so wonderful to see Florence (and Bruno) again!

After dinner we walked together along the Seine. At one point, a couple of people walked past with dogs: a small dog in a sweater and an elderly yellow lab. As they passed, the lab turned around and came back to us. She offered up her paw to us and lay down literally on my feet for scritchy-scratchers and tummy-rubs. Eventually the people and their dogs went their way, and we continued on together with Bruno and Florence until it was time for us to turn off toward our hotel.

We walked past the crepe stand, and Annabelle's admirer from last night was there, so we stopped to say hello.

Caroline continues to amaze me with her traveling stamina and enthusiasm. I am sure that parts of tonight's 4- hour dinner were less than enthralling to her, never mind the fact that she had marched miles across Paris. Yet she remained engaged and well-behaved and was so open and eager to trying new foods. Likewise, I'm so proud of the delightful young lady Annabelle has grown into. This trip makes me nostalgic for my time in Europe with Annabelle, Mike, and Fred, and I wish we could have the guys along to re-live those years.

Paris: The one that got away

2011-03-15T21:14:00.011-04:00

I hate to start off a post by whining, but I'm still processing this and need to get it out. Three days ago, I had train tickets in my shopping cart on the Deutsche Bahn website that were going to get us from Paris to Heidelberg for 147 euro total. Unfortunately, the stupid website wouldn't accept either of my American credit cards (I never have a problem in person overseas, but for some reason websites and automats can be persnickety). Today we stopped by Gare d'Lyon to get the tickets for Thursday and coughed up 350 euro for the same tickets. I don't know if the increase is because we are closer to our travel date or because we were buying the tickets at the train station. Oh, well, at least we have the tickets in hand now. I figure that part of the cost is offset by the commercial bus tour we opted not to do today.

So what DID we do today?

We enjoyed a simple breakfast at the hotel (baguettes with butter, jam, Nutella, etc. and fruit salad, with orange juice and coffee, tea, or hot chocolate to drink).

We asked the hotel owner about the hop on/hop off bus tours, and he advised us that they were a waste of money. Instead, he said, take the 63 bus and get off at Trocadero. From there we could choose from several walking itineraries. So we set off for the bus, stopping along the way so that Annabelle could buy a book of 10 tickets (un carnet--10 tickets for 12 euro) for us.

The bus did indeed take us past some great downtown scenery. We exited at Trocadero and began making our way to the Eiffel Tower. A few steps from the bus stop, we passed a chalk art display that brought out the inner princess of girls of all ages:

We began our tower picture-taking at the Palais de Chaillot:

From there we crossed the Pont d'Iena bridge, passing by a couple of cool carousels and some fancy horse statues:

Once at the tower, we took a pass on going up inside because of the long line and instead walked across the Parc du Champ de Mars towards the Ecole Militaire, stopping long enough to take a group picture (that I can't put my finger on at the moment) and a couple of rodent pictures:

We stopped for lunch at a cafe and then continued on to Invalides:

After that we stopped by the Musée Rodin, where Annabelle recreated an oldie but goodie:

and where we saw some other great thinkers:

We hopped on the metro at Varenne and rode up to Charles de Gaulle—Étoile to take a quick look at the Arc de Triomphe:

We did some shopping along the Champs-Élysées. I'm getting my next pair of glasses here:

When we got tired of walking, we took the metro to the Gare d'Lyon to get the afore-mentioned tickets. We opted to come back to the hotel via taxi, which gave us a chance to see some new sights along the way. We've been spending the past couple of hours taking a much-needed rest, but we will be heading out soon to meet friends for dinner.

Goodbye, London! Hello, Paris!

2011-03-14T22:59:00.000-04:00

We got up this morning and trained into London one last time. We switched to the Tube to get to St. Pancras station and met this handsome fellow along the way:

After leaving our bags at St. Pancras (8 pounds per bag! yikes!), we had a quick lunch in the station and then set out--again by taxi, much to Caroline's delight--to check out the Florida State University London Study Centre:

The facility is small, but it's impressive from top:

to bottom:

We stopped off in the library so that I could say I had been in an FSU library at least once before graduating from there (at the end of next month!) with a degree in library science:

Speaking of libraries, Caroline is a total bookworm, and her eyes lit up when we passed the British Library in the cab on the way to FSU, so we walked back there from the study centre. Annabelle and I stayed only long enough to snap a couple of pictures at the entrance:

We left Michelle and Caroline at the library to look at things like original Beatles lyrics and the manuscript to Jane Eyre while we hopped on the Tube at King's Cross:

and headed off in search of 186 Fleet Street, where the murderous barber Sweeney Todd supposedly had his shop. We got off at Temple and walked past Two Temple Place with its lovely golden weather vane:

and turned left at Middle Temple Lane:

Perhaps one should go "dead slow" when stalking a long-dead murderous barber, but we had a train to catch, so we went quickly:

We found the shop, and Annabelle posed for a couple of quick pictures:

Unfortunately there was no street number on the building, but this is the church next door:

and proof that it is 187 Fleet Street:

From there we sprinted back to the Tube and hustled back to St. Pancras to meet up with Caroline and Michelle, retrieve our luggage, and board the Eurostar train bound for Paris. Caroline and Annabelle spent the train ride with their noses buried in their books:

We arrived at Paris Nord, changed some money (tip for future travelers: the 200 euros that costs $276 through the ATM will cost you $350 at the kiosk 10 feet away AND the attendant will not be very friendly, so save your money and use the ATM), and grabbed a cab to our hotel. Fred and I had stayed with the kids at the Hotel Marignan on Rue du Sommerard back in November of 2003. It was a fabulous bargain then, and it remains a fabulous bargain. For 130 euro per night, we have a room for 4 with a private bathroom, daily breakfast, and use of the kitchen and laundry, should we have the time or inclination to cook or clean, which I doubt we will.

After we dropped the bags at the hotel, we wandered into a nearby restaurant for dinner. Restaurants in Paris tend to give me anxiety attacks, as my French begins and ends at Parlez vous Anglais? I needn't have worried. Caroline dropped a bon jour and a couple of mercis on our waiter, and he was charmed to pieces. He actually applauded when she declined the ketchup he brought for her fries! And Annabelle's high-school French came in handy for asking for the bill in French, which was nice.

From there we crossed the street to Les Délices du Fournil (49 Boulevard Saint Germain) for crepes with Nutella (and banana, in my case). One of the young men behind the counter noticed Annabelle and declared: "She is very beeyooteeful!" Annabelle promptly turned 6 shades of red, and we all cracked up. Then he asked "How old is she?" and when I told him, he said to her: "I will wait for you!" I asked if he would pose for a picture in the meantime and he said yes, as long as I would send him a copy. His name for his email is Casanova--hmm, should I be concerned?

We enjoyed our crepes while we walked over to Notre Dame to admire it at night, all the while giggling about Annabelle's French boyfriend, who is--as she says--"in the restaurant business." Notre Dame was beautiful as always, and I think my little point-and-shoot camera did a darn fine job all things considered on this shot:

We shopped our way back to the hotel by way of the souvenir stands. Annabelle wants to find a rhinestone-encrusted souvenir frame to hold the picture of her French boyfriend (he's in the food industry, you know). No luck tonight, but I found this amazing watch for only 5 euro:

You know what they say: A man with one watch knows what time it is, while a man with 2 is never sure, and a woman with a blingy watch featuring a cat AND the Eiffel Tower knows what time it is in Paris!

London: Day two

2011-03-13T21:47:00.006-04:00

We took our time getting out this morning, which gave Caroline and Annie's little sister Callie some time to hang out. They played with Play-Doh and made jewelry and got along like fast friends:

Once in London for the day, we stopped in Waterloo for a coffee/hot chocolate:

Just like yesterday, we headed immediately to Leicester Square to get our matinee tickets for the day and then took off for some recreational shopping:

Harrod's was amazing, as always. We spent most of our time in the toy and book department and then left in a rush to make it to the theater. Caroline had been hoping to ride in a taxi, so she was quite pleased with this:

Annabelle and the rodents enjoyed the ride as well:

We arrived back in the West End with hardly any time to spare before the show, so we popped into a little Italian cafe for chocolate cake and eclairs to go.

Today's show? Jersey Rodents!

Oh, wait, I mean Jersey Boys! Once again, I was impressed with the intimacy of the theater. Even from our less-than-stellar seats, we had no trouble telling which actor was speaking or singing. The curtain call was unlike any I had ever seen before. After the standing ovation, the actor playing Frankie Valli took the mic and gave a little speech. Turns out that today was the final performance for several of the actors, who are leaving the London production to join the show on tour. Frankie talked a little about each actor and then passed the mic to the actor playing Bob Gaudio. Annabelle and I were shocked when he started speaking and turned out to be Scottish. (I know, it's silly--why shouldn't a Scot be able to do a Jersey accent?--but there you have it. It kind of reminded me of when I took the kids to see a Pippi Longstocking movie in German and the thing that impressed them the most was: "How on earth did they teach that parrot German?!")

On the train on the way home, I saw this ad, which I thought was kind of cool (click to make it bigger):

We had a Girls' Nite Out for supper tonight, as we joined Carrie, Annie, and Callie for peri peri chicken at Nando's. I was glad that Annabelle and Annie got a chance to catch up with each other:

Those 2 were thick as thieves during our San Antonio years, but hadn't seen each other since we met up for a week at Disney during Fred's first deployment:

They've grown into such lovely young ladies!

London: Day one

2011-03-12T23:27:00.011-05:00

I did something yesterday I've never done before: crossed the Atlantic in one calendar day. Every other time I've gone to Europe, I've been stuck on an awful overnight flight that always leaves me wishing for a parachute with an hour or 2 to go before landing. This time though, we flew American Airlines on an early morning flight out of Kansas City, left Chicago at about 9:00 in the morning, and landed at Heathrow at 10:45 that same night. We made it out to our friends' house in the London suburbs by around midnight and got up this morning feeling reasonably refreshed.

We took the local commuter train to Waterloo Station and then switched to the subway. In fact, my very first photo of this trip was of Michelle, Caroline, and Annabelle on the Tube:

We stopped at the TKTS office in Leicester Square and bought tickets for the matinee performance of Phantom of the Opera and then got back on the Tube to start playing tourist in earnest. Our first stop was Westminster, where we did the whole "Look kids, Big Ben! Parliament!" thing.

Big Ben!

London Eye!

Westminster Abbey!

We journeyed by foot in the direction of Buckingham Palace, stopping along the way to pick up lunch at Pret. We had a lovely picnic lunch in St. James park, where we fed the squirrels:

I'm just amazed at how far ahead of us London is when it comes to spring. Everything is so lush and green:

We had to hurry back to the theater district (I guess that would be "theatre district" in this case) for the show. I have seen Phantom at least 3 times before, including once in German, but I think this was my favorite production ever. Because the theaters are generally on the smaller side in London, it's so much easier to see the actors' faces, even from the less than stellar seats. Caroline was just blown away by it, and Annabelle gave it 2 thumbs up:

The challenge was finding someplace to eat afterward! Every place we went up to turned out to either be a chain or a pub, where kids aren't allowed. Michelle and I had split up and were each examining menus on opposite sides of the street when a waitress came out to me and asked if I would like to see the complete menu. That depended, I explained, on whether or not they liked kids. As it turns out, they like kids quite a lot, and we had a very tasty dinner at Il Padrino, where there was something for everyone: a cheeseburger for Caroline, pasta for Annabelle and Michelle, and fish and chips for me. The bill came to 45 pounds ($74) for the 4 of us, which seemed a pretty good deal considering the location.

After supper we made our way over to Tower of London and Tower Bridge so we could see them lit up at night. Here are 2 shots of the tower that I think are passably decent, considering my camera is a little point-and-shoot job:

Here are Caroline and Annabelle, looking out across the river from the Tower Bridge:

I tried to get one of them with the bridge in the background, but it was just too much for my poor little camera. Here is the best of several bad shots:

It's hard to believe that half our time in London is already over!

Try not to miss me!

2011-03-10T16:28:00.003-05:00

Ah, irony! I'm about to embark on my most blog-worthy week in ages, and I'll have limited Internet access. Annabelle and I are heading over to Europe for spring break along with my sister-in-law Michelle and niece Caroline. We'll spend tonight in Kansas City at a hotel very close to the airport, the better to make our crack-of-dawn flight to London tomorrow morning.

We'll be spending the first 3 nights in London with Annabelle's best friend from Texas (Annie) and her family. Then we're taking the Eurostar to Paris and spending 3 nights in the hotel we stayed at when we went from Germany in 2004. (Oh, there's an idea! You can go back and read about that here and here and here and here.) Then we will finish the trip off with 4 nights in Heidelberg with Annabelle's best friend from Kentucky (Katherine) and her family.

I'll take lots of pictures, and I plan on keeping a daily journal on paper that I can transcribe once we're home. I might be checking in occasionally via Michelle's iPad as well, but I'm not going to try to fix my sidebar or answer comments until we're back.

Have a great week!

Putting the "man" in "mani/pedi"

2011-03-07T15:20:00.001-05:00

Happy birthday, Grandma!

2011-03-07T05:00:00.003-05:00

My Grandma Grace is probably this blog's #1 reader, and she is having a birthday today. I thought I would celebrate by posting some pictures from her visit to us in Hawaii back in 2000. That was a terrific visit! Fred was TDY somewhere, and the kids were in school (after 2 years of homeschooling), and Grandma and I just had the best time exploring the island. She turned me on to doing the crossword puzzle in the daily paper, and we tried a variety of restaurants for lunch. We even made strawberry margarita popsicles, 'cause that is just the kind of cool grandmother that she is! What we did NOT do apparently was take a lot of photos, because I have exactly 2 from that week.

Here is Grandma enjoying a lava flow by the pool at the Hale Koa hotel:

And here she is with me and the kids (there were actually 2 shots of that one, but Annabelle looked even more miserable in the other, if you can believe it):

Happy birthday, Grandma! I love you!

Housekeeping note

2011-03-06T22:02:00.002-05:00

I've temporarily taken down the "who I read" list in my sidebar because Google Reader keeps taking blogs that I "follow" and dropping them from my subscription through the reader and thus from this list as well. I keep meaning to fix this, and I hope that this will motivate me to finally do it! Stay tuned . . .

A very low-key weekend

2011-03-06T21:25:00.003-05:00

It's so nice having Annabelle back into bassoon these days. Yesterday we drove over to Kansas State, which is in Manhattan, KS, so she could participate in a day-long workshop with about a dozen high-school bassoonists from around the state as well as the K State Bassoon Ensemble. They spent several hours taking lessons and rehearsing in small groups, and then at the end of the day, they gave a recital, which culminated in them all getting together to play the K State fight song (Annabelle appears to the right of the conductor at about the 20-second mark as I try to move without jerking the camera too much):

Annabelle also enjoys finding cool bassoon ensembles on YouTube. Recently she turned me on to this really awesome quartet who play Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody":

(This probably means more if you're familiar with the original. It's amazing that they are able to take an instrument like the bassoon and carry an electric guitar riff.)

Brush with fame

2011-03-04T19:19:00.000-05:00

Mike flew home for spring break this afternoon. At first he was disappointed when his flight to Atlanta was delayed, but he perked up when he realized that retired Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden was going to be on his flight. He went up to Mr. Bowden and asked for a picture. Although Bobby looks kind of grumpy in this photo from Mike's phone, Mike said he couldn't have been nicer:

The flight finally left, and Mike made his connection in Atlanta (barely)

Curtain call

2011-02-27T20:49:00.005-05:00

I have been the anti-Scarlett O'Hara this weekend. Scarlett took her mother's curtains and made a dress. I've taken other items and made curtains.

First, I took our old bedskirt, which we no longer need now that we have a platform bed and made a valance for our bedroom window:

Then, I took a Polish-pottery print tablecloth and made valances for our kitchen windows:

While we're looking up high, take a minute and check out how we filled the empty space above the cabinets over the fridge:

We knew we wanted to put some of our more substantial German beer steins up there, but even the big ones were just going to get lost in that space. So we took a bookcase that originally came with a set of encyclopedias my parents bought in the dark ages, stripped it down from the blue and white it had been for the past 5 years in Annabelle's room, and stuck it up there. I eventually want to get some silk greenery to add around the base and soften the fact that this house is just not square.

Again with the bullets!

2011-02-21T20:05:00.005-05:00

Once again, I've gone for way longer than intended without updating the blog. I'm supposed to work Tuesday through Thursday at the library, but lately my days have been wonky because of making up for time lost due to snow or travel. Week before last, for example, I worked Monday through Wednesday and then drove with Annabelle to Kentucky on Thursday to meet up with Mike and cheer on the FKHS swim team at their regional meet. Drove back here on Sunday and then worked Monday through Thursday. That Friday was my first day in forever of just being home alone.

So, let's see . . . what's the latest?

First of all, Mr. Stinky has a new house. He was looking so cramped in his old pot, so I bought this nice, new one at Target. I know this sounds crazy, but I swear he looks more relaxed. Also, we added a desk lamp to the plant shelf in the kitchen at the beginning of winter, and all the plants seem a lot warmer and happier:

Kids. They find the strangest ways to make you proud. A couple weekends ago, Mike participated in FSU's Krispy Kreme Challenge and came in THIRD! The challenge is, how long does it take for you to run 2 miles, eat a dozen donuts, and run 2 miles back (all without puking)? For me, the answer would be: at least a week. For Mike, the answer is 33 minutes and 25 seconds:

Check out Annabelle on her way to the Winter Royalty dance at her school this past weekend! Isn't she lovely?

We got SO lucky with that dress. We were striking out online at Nordstrom, Macys, all my usual go-to places. We found that one at [hushed voice]Sears[/hushed voice], but it was out of stock! We were able to track it down at Overstock.com, and when it arrived it fit her perfectly. Seriously, it was like Cinderella's shoe or something. I couldn't believe we didn't need to at least get it hemmed.

She met friends at the dance and had a great time. I've got to say, as much as the high points in Kentucky were really high, this is the most consistently happy on a day to day basis that I've seen Annabelle since I don't even know when.

Catching up in a hail of bullets

2011-02-06T21:24:00.009-05:00

Hi, I'm back! I'm not sure why I was gone so long. Once my momentum has been broken, it's really hard to get it back. So here's the executive summary of life in the Taylor household:

Finishing my sweater gave me inspiration to work on another ongoing project: the kids' socks I started last summer so I could practice color work. I have to admit I am amazed at what blocking with an iron can do for evening out stitches, but there is something funky going on with the ribbing:

I still need to finish the second sock.

Annabelle and I left here on Friday, January 28, and flew to Florida. We were very proud of ourselves for packing lightly enough that we didn't have to check any luggage. I packed in the bag that I bought back in 1986 to hold the souvenirs I schlepped home from the Soviet Union:

On January 28, 1986, my fellow travelers and I were on a bus leaving our Warsaw hotel to get to the airport and fly home. One of the guys on the tour called home (which was a HUGE deal back then) to find out the Super Bowl score. He got back on the bus with news of the Challenger explosion. I remember that everybody seemed to think it was quite sad, but I was unprepared for the shock blast of grief that greeted us when we arrived in NYC that night.

We had a great time in Florida! Mike took the bus down from Tally, and Jenny picked us all up in Orlando and took us back to Mom and Dad's house for the weekend. We had a wonderful visit with my grandparents on Saturday, managed to eat at both Belly Busters AND Bellini's, and then squeezed in Thai for dinner on Sunday in Orlando before taking Mike back to the bus station.

We found some interesting stuff at my parents' house, like the calendars I made for handling planning my wedding details back in 1990:

Most importantly though, we found Clark Gable, who has been missing for some time now. Annabelle is thrilled to be able to add him to her poster collection in her room:

Annabelle and I stayed with Jenny and Jeff on Sunday night and flew home on Monday.

While we were away, the new bed arrived! It is still kind of on the tall side, but that's OK. I can get into it without a step stool, and I no longer wake up with my head in the bookcase headboard:

By the time Annabelle and I arrived home last Monday, Fort Leavenworth had already decided that in light of the approaching blizzard the post would be closed on Tuesday and on a 2-hour delay on Wednesday. A couple hours later UMKC closed for Tuesday as well, and the Leavenworth schools finally made the same call later in the day. That's really all I remember for the next few days. It snowed and snowed and snowed some more. The post and UMKC wound up being closed for Wednesday, and Annabelle's school took Thursday off due to extreme cold, and I stayed home, too. Thursday at noon when I walked the dog (quickly) was the first time I had been outside since coming home from the airport.

Don't you hate it when you set the table, turn your back for 2 minutes, and turn around to find this:

I had a lovely birthday on Thursday in spite of the cold. Annabelle and I watched movies in the afternoon, and then all went out for Thai food that night and had brownies at home. Mike wrote me a song, which made me laugh and cry and laugh some more:

This coming Thursday, Annabelle and I are meeting Mike in Kentucky. We're going to cheer on the FKHS swim team at regionals. Annabelle just happened to have Thursday and Friday off, and Mike has been talking about going to this since he was swimming in it last year. I have ordered the yarn and needles for a new project and am looking forward to 2 whole days of sitting poolside knitting and purling.

And finally Fred is upstairs in the man cave right now watching the Super Bowl. He is wearing Mike's cheesehead in support of Green Bay:

Well, that pretty much catches up on everything worth noting from around here. I'll try to stay on top of things a little better from now on.

Sweater weather!

2011-01-23T17:37:00.003-05:00

This snowy afternoon was just perfect for sitting back with a cup of tea and finishing up the sweater I started over a year ago. I've been within a couple of hours of finishing it for literally months. I think I was worried that after all this time that I put into it, it might not fit right. Plus I always get nervous grafting a seam closed, and I had the 2 underarm seams standing between me and completion.

I finally got motivated though because I'm going to Florida next weekend and will be seeing my grandmother. I wanted to be able to show it to her and also to return the needles I borrowed from her.

It came out quite nicely, if I do say so myself:

Here's a close-up of the yoke detailing:

All in all it was a fun knit!

I got to Kansas City on a snow day

2011-01-23T16:20:00.007-05:00

Snow has been the predominant theme around here for the past couple of weeks, and we spend a lot of time wondering whether or not school will get canceled for the next day. I love a good snow day, but now that I'm a workin' girl, I'm pulling more for clear roads.

I started my new internship 2 weeks ago. I am working at the law library at UMKC. So far it's a lot of fun! I'm getting to do a little bit of everything, although the focus for the rest of the month is getting the basement ready for the big renovation project that kicks off in February.

Here are some pics from my first day at work:

That Saturday Fred and I went out to run some errands. There was ice in the river:

and even the Buffalo Soldier looked cold:

I'm working Tuesday through Thursday, and I managed to make it through a whole week the first week. Last week, however, more snow started blowing on Wednesday, and I left early. This is what my drive home looked like:

This was the view from our kitchen:

And from the front porch:

We don't normally have traffic backed up all the way from the main gate to our house, but there was somewhat of an exodus going on, as the fort declared an early release day for everybody.

On Thursday the Leavenworth schools were closed, and I stayed home as well. We got a little more snow last night, and I'm nervous about the drive into the city tomorrow. (I'm working Monday this week to make up for last Thursday.)

Even though it's a gigantic pain in the butt, I love looking at the snow. It's so pretty and peaceful (as long as I don't have to spend much time in it).

Annabelle and I took the dog for a walk at lunchtime today, and I was surprised to discover that a veritable United Nations of snowmen had popped up on our street!

Speaking of the dog, Ginger enjoys a good snow romp to a point, but then she's glad to go back inside:

Busted water pipeSnow day!

2011-01-11T10:13:00.004-05:00

Annabelle and I spent the days leading up to yesterday hoping feverishly for a snow day. Accordingly I felt almost a little guilty when they called Sunday night to declare a day off for just the high school on account of a broken water pipe. By dawn, however, it had turned into a general snow day for all the county schools.

We've been feeling cheated over the past few weeks, as it seems the southeast has been hogging all the snow while all we've gotten is a couple of pathetic dustings. We made up for it yesterday, however:

I took that one single picture when I took the dog out at noon, and then I stayed inside for the rest of the day, working with my photos and drinking hot tea.

The snow did a number on our cable service, however. The Internet was glitchy all afternoon and gone by evening, which is why I didn't post the pic before I went to bed. But then! horror of horrors! the TV went out early in the fourth quarter of the BCS championship game.

Now this doesn't mean beans to me--I was snug in bed reading a book--but I heard a cry of distress from Fred in the man cave upstairs. We called Time Warner, but the recorded voice informed us that yes, they knew of the problem and don't worry, we'll have it fixed . . . within 90 minutes. Bonnie to the rescue! I found the game for him on my cellphone, so instead of watching on the 55-inch TV, he watched it like this:

Now it's sunny and c-c-cold out there (6 degrees). Leavenworth canceled classes for today as of last night, so Annabelle is enjoying her second unexpected day off. I'm supposed to start my new internship this afternoon at UMKC, assuming I can get there and back safely.

High mileage

2011-01-06T18:39:00.001-05:00

I spent most of this morning at the car repair shop, waiting to find out that they would have to order the part that would make the knob that controls which vent my heat/air comes out of work again. Sigh . . . gotta love car repairs! Last month it was a catalytic converter. The month before that it was a bunch of long-delayed general maintenance. Still, I guess I can't really complain, considering this is my odometer reading from earlier in the week:

300,000 or bust!

Housekeeping

2011-01-05T14:50:00.002-05:00

Now that the kids are back in school and the holiday craziness is behind us, I thought I should do a little housekeeping. Unfortunately, I don't really feel like getting up from my desk, so I figured I could pay a little attention to my blog sidebar. It has been so neglected for so long.

I used to have a list of blogs I read going down the side of the page. This was powered by Blogroll, an application that allowed me to keep a master list of blogs that would automatically update in my sidebar as blogs were added or removed. But then I went through a long period of not adding or removing anybody, and the list no longer really reflected my online reading anymore. And THEN at some point, Blogroll went out of business, and my list disappeared. I wonder when that happened.

I've been using Google Reader on my new phone for most of my blog reading lately. I would love to have a way of sharing that list here and having it automatically update with additions and deletions. Best I can do today though is to use a Blogger widget that imports the names and creates a static list. I'll keep working on it though!

Book report

2011-01-04T19:17:00.003-05:00

I started keeping track of my annual reading several years ago with LibraryThing. I enjoy entering my books read and "tagging" them with appropriate labels (baby librarian, remember). I always include the year as a tag, which makes it easy for me to gather them together at the end of the year.

I thought that using LibraryThing would encourage me to read more, but it hasn't really. I went from 44 books in 2007 and 45 books in 2008 to only 24 in 2009. I was back up to 29 for 2010.

I blame my eyes. Reading seems to be a lot more work than it used to be. I call it "lexile dysfunction" and wish for a little blue pill to rescue me.

I think it's interesting that of my 29 books for the past year, 6 of them were read in electronic format on Annabelle's nook, the e-reader from Barnes and Noble. I love reading on the nook! I can make the type as big as I need it, and I enjoy turning "pages" with the click of a button. I got my own nook for Christmas, and I am thrilled with it. I've also got the nook app for my new cell phone, which is nice for reading in the middle of the night without turning on a light.

Anyway, here's what I read in 2010:

. . . and to all a good night!

2010-12-25T23:35:00.002-05:00

Great Christmas here in Kansas! We slept until a reasonable hour and then attacked the presents under the tree. We balanced out the remainder of the day by eating way too much and plowing through several episodes of Dexter on DVD.

A couple of my favorite parts of Christmas:

The wreath that the kids and I made out of clothespins in Hawaii. We use ours to display cards received throughout the season:

And the stockings my grandmother knitted for the kids:

Each year I love shopping for stocking stuffers. I keep 2 bags going in the weeks leading up to Christmas and toss in goodies as I find them. Then on Christmas Eve, Fred and I wrap what we can of it in special paper (you know, so the kids won't wonder why Santa is using the same paper that we are) and fill up the stockings, which are the first thing the kids head for on Christmas morning. This year's stocking stuffers included some yummy stuff (chocolate-covered espresso beans and a few Reeses products), some sensible stuff (hand sanitizer, pencils, and printer ink, some fun stuff (books and movies I find on sale), and some bizarre stuff (Battle Hamsters).

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T21:12:00.005-05:00

Fred is downstairs finishing up some last-minute wrapping, and the kids are waiting upstairs for us to come up to the man-cave for our marathon Dexter viewing session. I just wanted to pop in here quickly to wish everybody a Merry Christmas!

We're having a low-key holiday and are mostly just happy to all be home together:

I thought we were going to have a white Christmas this year. It briefly looked like this from my office window:

But it mostly looked like this:

And then it all just kind of washed away.

Annabelle just came in to inform me that our friends in Kentucky ARE getting a white Christmas. Hmmm . . . they had one here last year. Maybe I really am bad luck when it comes to weather?

Merry Christmas!

New meaning to the phrase "cat's pajamas"

2010-12-19T22:50:00.002-05:00

Eddie likes to burrow down under the covers on our bed during the night. He hangs out there for a while and then slinks out when he gets too warm. Well, last night he was under the covers between me and Fred. I was lying on my side with my back to him, blissfully unaware that he was even there . . . until he tried to crawl out and wound up crawling into my pajama top. All of a sudden, I had a frantic cat trying to make his way out the neck hole of my top! Somehow I managed to get him out of there and went right back to sleep, and Fred slept through the whole thing.

Hunkered down

2010-12-11T20:20:00.002-05:00

Oh, lordy, it's cold out there! Today has been fiercely windy--right now, for example, it's 24 degrees with 24 m.p.h. winds. Yuck. The kids and I ventured out briefly around noon to hit the commissary for a few much-needed items, but aside from that we've all stayed inside.

Mike got home Thursday night and went shopping with me yesterday. One of the things we did was stop by Oklahoma Joe's, which is this amazing BBQ place in Kansas City. It's in an honest-to-goodness gas station. Fred and I tried it out last weekend--I couldn't believe I stood in line 30 minutes to eat in a gas station, but it was so worth it. Anyway, Mike and I called in a carry-out order yesterday and brought home smoked chicken gumbo for last night's supper and 2 racks of ribs for tonight's. This morning I tossed the ribs in my crockpot with a little bit of water, and they were just perfect by the time we got around to eating them.

This afternoon I sat in the man cave with the guys. They were watching the Army-Navy game, and I was using it as an excuse to sit down for a couple hours with my knitting. I cast off the collar of the sweater that I started a year ago, and now all I have to do is graft the underarm seams closed and weave in my loose ends. I'm hoping to wear it to the library holiday party next Friday.

I had a little excitement after supper, but it turned out to be nothing. I was taking the trash out through the basement so I wouldn't have to go down the back stairs in this horrible wind. Our basement, which is usually fairly toasty even if it is creepy, was FREEZING! And then I saw these glittery flakes floating in the air. I thought for a moment that perhaps I was seeing some sort of supernatural happening, but then I realized that, no, it was SNOWING in our basement. Turns out the wind had blown a window open (the window opens inward like a door). So much for my spooky encounter!

Tawanda!

2010-12-08T21:51:00.002-05:00

Ha ha, you stupid computer, who's laughing now? Me! That's who!

I did it. It wasn't easy, but I did it. I reformatted that sucker (multiple times) and reinstalled the operating system. I am now downloading 5 years worth of Windows updates and will soon start reinstalling the basic software.

One thing that was immensely helpful to me in this whole horrendous process was the Ultimate Boot CD. It is a set of free programs including the Western Digital diagnostic tools. (I tried getting the WD tools from their website, but it was an exercise in frustration, as the instructions and the experience seemed to have little to do with each other.) It was this set of tools, however, that assured me that the hard drive was in fact fine and allowed me to do that one final reformat.

I think the CD drive might be on its last legs. Reinstallation of the operating system hung up at disc 2 (of 16), so I wound up plugging an external CD drive into a USB port and installing from that. Worked like a charm!

Caution: hall-decking in progress

2010-12-07T18:52:00.002-05:00

The big news from around here this weekend is that Fred and Annabelle put up our Christmas tree. We established a couple years ago that Mike and I are not very enthusiastic tree decorators, so it kind of became their thing. They did a very nice job:

That's not the best picture though. If I use my flash, you can't tell that the tree lights are on. So I did it without flash, using the fireworks mode on my camera.

I've spent the past 2 days engaged in an activity I figured would take me 2 hours at most. Now that I have a new desktop computer, I wanted to reformat the hard drive on the old one. Well, I reformatted it, all right. I reformatted it so hard that apparently it doesn't know it's a computer anymore. So now I'm busily tracking down fixes and trying this and that. It's kind of become a point of pride that I SHALL conquer this stupid computer.

Let there be lights!

2010-12-03T22:15:00.002-05:00

Hello, again! I took a few days off to recover from blogging every day in November. I also had to recover from the cold from hell, which hit me like a ton of bricks on Saturday and stayed with me through Tuesday. I slept until 10 Wednesday morning but have felt pretty good since then. Tuesday night I swabbed the inside of my nose with some of the medicine we give the cat when he gets a cold, and I swear I think that's what did the trick.

Tonight was the official kick off to the holiday season here on post. We live right across the street from the park where they were having the big tree lighting, so Annabelle and I took the dog for a walk to check out the scene. I took my camera along to capture some of the festivities and decorations.

This is the Thomas Custer house, which is just down the street from us. It is a DVQ (Distinguished Visitors Quarters), and sometimes you can tell when foreign DVs are visiting from the flags that hang outside. A few weeks ago, for example, we saw the Israeli flag flying there. Anyway, here it is all decked for the season:

They had carriage rides around the park tonight:

Annabelle made a green friend:

We got bored waiting around for the park lights to come on, so we took Ginger and walked around the parade field to see those houses. I liked this one:

Just a little while ago, Fred and I went out to see the lights in the park. Here is the chapel on the other side of the park:

Another nicely decorated home:

And the gazebo in the middle of the park:

Very pretty!

Is it possible that I have a "man cold"?

2010-11-30T21:37:00.001-05:00

This pretty much sums up my current state:

Blah.

Homework

2010-11-29T18:18:00.003-05:00

I still have a couple more weeks to finish up my hours for my library internship, but the final project and supervisor evaluation are all due on Wednesday. For the final project, I had a choice between writing yet another essay or doing a short visual presentation about my experience. I wound up going for the latter and actually had fun doing it. Of course, it sounds like Suzanne Pleshette is doing the voiceover, thanks to my horrendous cold, but I still think it turned out well:

The photos I talk about are both US Army photos from the end of WWII. I had a tough time choosing just those 2 as my samples. It was hard to pass up the picture of the sinking Japanese battleship that was shot through the periscope of the sub that fired the fatal torpedo. And what about the squadron of pilots who commissioned a dog as a major and made him their mascot? In the end though, I loved these 2 the best. Let's have a closer look, shall we?

I like this one because the soldier and the sailor look so young and fresh-faced and the British woman looks so old, but they all look positively, radiant happy:

I was as taken by the back of this photo as I was by the front:

The back says:

LONDON, ENGLAND: Two American soldiers in the London newspaper office of the Evening Standard read two issues of the paper 27 years apart which announce the end of war with Germany. Pfc. Earl V. Moore, Linwood Park, Linwood, Pa., left, reads edition of May 7, 1945, which tells of German surrender in World War II, and Sgt. Eddie H. Green,305 Whittier St., Washington, D.C., a veteran of World War I, reads edition of 11 November, 1918, announcing signing of the Armistice and the end of first World War.

I kind of wonder if Earl and Eddie (or their families) ever even got to see the picture. It's not like the photographer could just post the pic on their Facebook walls, you know?

Is November over yet?

2010-11-28T18:18:00.003-05:00

Today is definitely one of those days I would skip out on blogging were it not for NaBloPoMo. I have been down most of the day with a horrible cold, so most of my activity has been crawling out of bed for a cup of tea. I didn't even go with Fred to take Mike to the airport.

Mike is on his way back to Tally right now by way of Atlanta. He has one more week of classes and then finals. He should be back here for winter break in 11 days--can't wait!

Dude, where's my car?

2010-11-27T22:25:00.001-05:00

These signs in the parking lot at Legends (an amazing shopping center 30 minutes away from us in Kansas City) just crack me up:

Carousel museum

2010-11-26T20:35:00.006-05:00

Having young house guests was the perfect reason to head for the C. W. Parker Carousel Museum in Leavenworth today. We learned all about the history of merry-go-round making and saw carousel horses (and rabbits and even a French pig) in a variety of conditions. Our short visit culminated in a ride on a restored carousel from 1913. Annabelle and I opted to ride in the carriage, but Fred and Mike climbed aboard the ponies:

Mike monkeyed around:

All my photos are here:

After the museum, we took some munchies up to the man cave and settled in for an afternoon of football:

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T22:52:00.002-05:00

We have had a lovely, low-key day. It has been downright frigid outside, so I have stayed in. Most of the day we were busy getting ready for our big meal: ham, regular mashed potatoes, cheesy mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, etc. Michelle and I have gone through most of a gallon of Russian tea.

After dinner, we dragged out some of Mike and Annabelle's old toys. The girls have had a blast putting together the Playmobil fairy tale castle. It has been a long time since we've heard the sound of hands pawing through boxes of plastic bits in search of just the right piece!

American girls in Kansas City

2010-11-24T22:43:00.002-05:00

Fred's brother John and his wife Michelle and their 3 girls are visiting us for the Thanksgiving holiday. Mike and Annabelle and I drove over to Kansas City this afternoon to meet up with them at the new American Girl store there. Mike and John had to fake their enthusiasm:

but the girls had a good time:

Happy birthday to my dad, who missed having a Thanksgiving birthday by one day this year!

Whoa, Nellie!

2010-11-23T23:58:00.004-05:00

My friend Laura is visiting from Kentucky, and she took me to an amazing store today. Nell Hill's in Atchison, KS, is packed top to bottom with really cool home decor items. I managed to restrain myself for the most part, but I did have to buy one ornament--a glittery green frog who is holding a Christmas bell:

We ate in our dining room for the first time ever tonight. Mike had his friend's (from left to right) Ben, Mark, and Nolan over to dinner, and we just couldn't fit in the kitchen. It was a fun dinner with lots of joking around and laughing:

Mike's home!

2010-11-22T23:57:00.002-05:00

Let the Thanksgiving holiday commence! He will be here until next Sunday afternoon, so almost a whole week. Then 2 weeks later, he'll be back again for the better part of a month. :-)

Nothing to report

2010-11-21T22:31:00.002-05:00

I feel like I spent most of today grocery shopping. First Fred and I made a huge commissary run and then a slightly smaller Walmart run. I think I have just about everything I need for Thanksgiving. Mike flies in tomorrow night, and Fred's brother John is coming with his family on Wednesday. Can't wait!

Grease was the word

2010-11-20T23:54:00.003-05:00

The third and final performance of Grease was tonight, and it was the best yet! I borrowed a mas macho camera from Mike's friend Mark and took a lot of pictures during the play. Wow, it's hard to take good pics during live theater! This will give you an idea though of what a fun show it was:

After the show, I persuaded Annabelle to slip into her circle skirt one last time for a picture:

She's at IHOP right now celebrating with her castmates.

Grease is the word

2010-11-19T22:55:00.004-05:00

We just got back from night 2 of the Leavenworth High School production of Grease. It's a great show, and Annabelle has really enjoyed digging in and getting involved right away in the drama department. I took some video, but I'm not sure how good it will be. Annabelle is on stage mostly in act 2, by which point the children behind us were in dire need of a trip to the lobby. I'm afraid probably what you'll hear is a lot of whining followed by a woman stage-whispering, "Hush! It's almost over!" But here she is after the show in her costume from the song "Beauty School Dropout."

Perhaps tomorrow night I'll send my camera backstage with her so that she can get a picture of herself in her circle skirt I made. Oh, I know! Even if the video doesn't work, I should be able to at least grab still photos from it.

Parade rest

2010-11-18T23:02:00.002-05:00

Last week, Mike and his AFROTC detachment marched in Tallahassee's Veterans' Day parade. Mike sent me this picture of a couple of his friends and him:

Lookin' sharp, fellas!

Phoning it in again

2010-11-17T23:22:00.001-05:00

Oops! I almost forgot to blog today. It was a cold, rainy day, and I spent most of it working on an indexing deadline. Looking forward to Fred's office Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Phone blogging

2010-11-16T22:00:00.001-05:00

Wow, I haven't posted by phone in ages! I am riding home from the furniture store now and wanted to give an update. Nebraska Furniture Mart could not have been easier to deal with. They are exchanging the giant bed for a more normal-sized one, refunding the price difference, and comping the delivery charge. We will be devoted NFM customers for life!

New (big!) furniture

2010-11-15T14:26:00.003-05:00

I was going to wait to post pictures of our new bedroom furniture until I had a chance to really make up the room. I'm in too much shock, however, over the height of the bed, so I'm just posting these photos now and will post a shot of the finished product later on.

So . . . if you ordered this bed, would you expect the salesman to tell you that you are going to need a ladder to get in it???

Poor Ginger! I'm not sure how she'll get up there.

Here's the rest. This is my dresser, kind of hiding behind the BIG FREAKIN' BED:

LOL, how 'bout this one for perspective?

And Fred's dresser:

On the positive side, we wanted drawer space, and we do have that.

UPDATE: Oh, look! Put on the bedding, and the headboard completely disappears:

Guys' weekend

2010-11-14T18:50:00.005-05:00

Sounds like Fred and Mike had a great time together in Tallahassee this weekend. I understand that the football game Saturday night was "epic." Here's a pic of the 2 of them, taken on Fred's Blackberry:

It's hard to believe the semester is almost over. Mike will be home for Thanksgiving in a little over a week and then again 2 weeks later for winter break.

Football worth watching

2010-11-13T23:50:00.002-05:00

I wrote last fall about the progress Fort Knox High School's football team had made. Apparently good things are still happening there. Watch the following clip, but you might want a tissue handy for the end:

Girls gone mild

2010-11-12T19:01:00.002-05:00

Fred is in Tally for the weekend, visiting Mike. They are going to a basketball game tonight and a football game tomorrow night. Meanwhile Annabelle and I are living the bachelorette life.

Every Friday afternoon we stop at a cute little local bakery and pick up brownies for a snack. Today I splurged and got brownies AND cupcakes, and we ate chocolate for supper. We also left the plates in the sink for tomorrow.

We were going to go to the on-post theater tonight to see a movie, but it is POURING out there. We walked the dog and came home drenched and decided our PJs were calling to us. So instead of going to the movies, we are watching TV in the comfort of our own home.

The rest of the weekend? Doing lunch, shopping a little, and doing homework (Annabelle) and working on a freelance project (me).

Yes, we are truly wild women!

Uniformly handsome (again)

2010-11-11T10:59:00.014-05:00

I do love me some men in uniform! Here are some photos in celebration of Veterans' Day.

It appears that service to country runs in the family! Here is my grandfather with my father when Dad was just a wee tyke:

Then Dad in flight school in the Marine Corps back in the day:

As you can see, Dad hasn't outgrown his love of planes:

And then we've got Fred's family. There aren't a lot of photos of Fred's dad from his Army days, but he served in Germany during the 1950s. We are pretty sure that Don is third row, third from the right in this one:

In this one, we think he is second row, third from the left:

Then of course there's Fred! I have so many pictures of Fred in uniform that it's kind of hard to choose. These are a couple of favorites though. This was at a drop zone at the Law Day festivities at Fort Bragg back in 1998:

This remains my all-time favorite family photo, the day he returned from his deployment to Iraq:

And then last but not least, we have Mike, who is marching with his AFROTC detachment in Tallahasse's Veterans' Day parade today:

Hug a veteran today! (I know I will!)

Virtual tour: foyer and living room

2010-11-10T16:33:00.006-05:00

One of the frustrating things about getting settled in a new house is how lots of things wind up ALMOST done but getting any one room all the way done seems nearly impossible. We did the impossible last weekend and put the finishing touches on the foyer and living room. Wanna see? Walk this way . . .

You enter our home through a vestibule, really kind of a walk-through coat closet. We put up a quote that seems pertinent both to Kansas and to Army life in general:

Enter through the front door and turn right at the quote, and you will go through yet another door and find yourself standing in our freakishly large foyer:

And here is the living room:

I'm hoping to get the rest of the main floor done by Thanksgiving (except for the kitchen curtains, as my sewing machine needs to go into the shop for some work).

Mr. Stinky tries again

2010-11-09T19:24:00.003-05:00

Mr. Stinky has yet another potential bloom. He had one a couple months ago that I never bothered posting, and it dried up and fell off before it ever opened. Then about a week ago, he popped out with 2 more. One of these took off, and the other one withered away. I'm hoping this will be the blossom that finally opens. Not that I really NEED a flower in my kitchen that smells like carrion; I'm just tired of being thwarted. Also, one of his arms is turning yellow. I'm not sure if I should cut it off, but I hesitate to do anything while he's trying to flower:

Halloween leftovers

2010-11-08T17:49:00.002-05:00

I've been watching one of the pumpkins in our front yard gradually disintegrate and was pretty sure a squirrel was enjoying it. I caught him in action through the living room window yesterday:

Skirting the issue

2010-11-07T19:22:00.003-05:00

I love to sew. Sometimes I wonder why I don't sew more often. Then I try, and suddenly I remember:

Still, I did manage to make Annabelle's skirt for Grease this afternoon:

As you can see, it's a Harvey skirt instead of a poodle skirt.

Jamaica photo book

2010-11-06T20:27:00.001-04:00

I just remembered that I never shared the photo book I made of our trip to Jamaica this past summer. Now that the weather is cooling off, I'm ready to go back!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Weekend to-do list

2010-11-05T20:24:00.002-04:00

1. Replace Eddie's missing claw covers. We need to get back on that now that we've got the new sofa. Speaking of . . .

2. Take a picture of the new sofa to show you.

3. Work on indexing projects.

4. Make poodle skirt (actually a kitty-cat skirt) for Annabelle for her Grease costume.

5. Get to the grocery store and plan some meals. Pizza tonight, Polish sausage last night, and rotisserie chicken the night before that. It's probably time I actually cooked something.

6. Finish painting our room (that's actually on Fred's list).

7. Continue setting up my office. We swapped our bedroom out for my office, and I love the new arrangement. The new bedroom is super quiet, and the new office gets the morning light.

Let's see how much actually gets done!

Lucky cat

2010-11-04T19:02:00.003-04:00

Annabelle called me at 6:45 this morning from the bus stop to tell me that she and her friend Christina had found a cat that had almost gotten hit crossing the street. He appeared to have a broken leg, the bus was there, and they didn't know what to do. I told her to hang onto the cat and sit tight. I hopped out of bed and pulled on pants, shoes, and a jacket and ran out into the darkness to see what was going on.

The girls and I brought the kitty into our house, where they held him in the kitchen while I ran to the basement for our cat carrier. When I got a closer look at him, I could see that he had his front leg caught through his collar, which was why he had been limping. I grabbed scissors and cut the collar off. The kitty didn't need any encouraging to go into the carrier, so we loaded him up and took off.

I dropped the girls off at school and took the cat to the vet here on post. He had a rabies tag, so I figured we had a good shot at finding his people. They scanned him at the vet for a microchip, and sure enough he had one (required for pets here on post), so they were able to call the owners to let them know to come pick up their cat.

It turns out the kitty's name is Tigger. Not the most original choice, but I have a red dog named Ginger, so who am I to cast stones? I hope that Tigger's owners are a lot more careful in the future about making sure that he stays inside!

I promised the girls I would get a picture of him at the vet's:

When I got home, the sun was just coming up, and the holiday lights were on in the park across the street from my house. I snapped a quick shot, but it doesn't do the scene justice:

Uniformly handsome

2010-11-03T19:20:00.002-04:00

Mike has an Air Force ROTC scholarship for college, and for the first couple months of the fall semester it was looking like it was Not His Thing. In fact, when he came home for a visit in mid-October, he sounded pretty certain that he would be dropping it for the spring semester. But then somewhere in the past couple weeks it started being a little more enjoyable, and now he thinks he will give it another semester before he makes up his mind. (The first year carries no payback option should he decide it's not for him.)

So this may be the first of many photos of Mike in uniform, or it might be the only one you'll ever see:

Either way, I think he's a handsome young man with a lot on the ball, and his dad and I couldn't be prouder of him!

Paying respects

2010-11-02T15:43:00.003-04:00

Word went out yesterday asking Ft. Leavenworth residents to line the main road through the post with flags for the funeral procession of SFC Charles M Sadell, who died last week after being injured in Afghanistan earlier in October. The procession was set for 2 p.m., and I thought I would have plenty of time to get home and get my flag if I left the library at my normal time, 1:30. The plane carrying his body was early, however, and they were already blocking off the street by the time I headed out. I took back roads, left the car on the other side of the park, and made it home by foot with just a few minutes to spare. All those flags were an impressive sight:

Back to our regular programming

2010-11-01T18:01:00.007-04:00

Tap tap tap . . . is this thing still on? So, long time no talk to, huh? I'm not really sure what to make of my recent posting malaise, the bloggy blahs, you might call it. I have participated in NaBloPoMo for the past few years though and didn't want to miss it this year. Maybe writing every day will jump start my enthusiasm for blogging, no?

So, let's see, what has been going on in the past couple of weeks? Mike made a weekend trip home from college and enjoyed several days of pampering. Annabelle is in Grease at her school, and rehearsals are keeping her super busy. Fred appears to like his job and keeps normal hours for the first time in forever. And I am finishing up my last month of working at the library here on post and getting set up to switch over to a law school library for next semester. Graduation in May! Woo hoo!

Annabelle's school did a series of novice plays at the beginning of the year, kind of a way for new kids to break into the program. She was in Family 2.0, a one-act absurdist play that reminded me a lot of Edward Albee's The American Dream. I recorded it using the video settings on my still camera, because apparently my video camera is such a dinosaur that the PX no longer sells tapes for it. I'll need to get something better before Grease, but here's what I did manage to get:

You can follow along with the script here, but I warn you that it is raunchy with a capital RAUNCH. They tamed it down quite a bit for the school performance.

So anyway, back to the blog. I am going to post every day this month, even if it is nothing more than my Facebook status, which is now:

"Bonnie Boyd Taylor needs recommendations from her Leavenworth peeps: dentist and dog groomer, preferably not the same person. (Then again, that would be awfully convenient!)"

Wildlife fun

2010-10-12T21:09:00.004-04:00

Last night Fred and I were lying bed watching TV when we heard Annabelle shriek from downstairs in the kitchen. Seconds later I received a text from her alerting me to the presence of an enormous roach. We ran downstairs and found her standing on a chair, pointing at the stove. I hopped up on a chair myself while Fred grabbed a broom and began poking around under and behind the stove. When he was unable to drive the varmint out, he grabbed a can of bug spray and sprayed the perimeter of the base of the stove.

As we went back upstairs, Annabelle kept commenting on its gigantic size, and I asked: "Are you sure it was a roach and not a mouse?" She admitted that she couldn't be entirely sure, as she wasn't wearing her glasses when she was it scurry past.

This morning my mouse suspicions were heightened when Harvey was obsessed with the stove. And then this afternoon I returned home from picking up Annabelle after school and found Harvey on the steps to the basement "playing" with a furry little ball. I hollered for Annabelle to corral the cats and dog and bring me a box. She stood at the top of the stairs armed with a broom to prevent him from getting past her, and I ventured forth with the dustpan and box.

The poor little dude scampered back and forth, and I alternated between shrieking like a little girl and saying, "Oh, he's so cute!" Finally I was able to get him into the box, and we ran for the back door.

Fortunately I had the presence of mind to ask Annabelle to grab my camera, as this is the most blog-worthy thing that has happened around here in days. Before we let him go in the grass, I took his picture:

Then we tipped the box over, and he scampered out and into the tall grass.