I love crockpots

I love them even more when I remember to turn the appliance on before dashing out to work. The food always tastes better when it's cooked.

In the Navy

On the way home we swung by Norfolk to look at the big 'ol ship aka USS Wisconsin or lovingly referred to as Whiskey. Keith was in heaven, being on a battleship is a big deal for the little boy inside. Too bad the girls were not as excited, there was much to see and walk through. If we had more time we would have visited the Hampton Roads Naval museum. Another time.

The Old light house plaque

Winter at the Beach

We headed down the coast to Virginia Beach, which surprisingly is IN Virginia. This was an overnight quick visit. We did the tourist stuff, walk along the beach visit the aquarium and then over to Cape Henry to look at lighthouses.

Keith found his calling as a Vacation coordinator, we couldn't help but take a picture of him at work. He sure does like to help the visitors. Too bad he's just as confused as they are about the area.

Winter Beach siblings

Aunt Sarah with Olivia

Tumble away

The girls officially are enrolled in a gymnastics class. It is time for them to become involved in a group activity and since they like to run and have tons of energy to burn this is the best solution. We needed to select the appropriate attire for the class so off to Target we went. I looked at some leotards and the other dance clothing. I asked Olivia is she wanted a new leotard. She replied, "No. I want an Olivia-tard". Ahh yes of course. So now we must refer to hers as an Olivia-tard.

Olivia had a blast on her first day. She carefully listened to the instructor and took right to the tumbling. A natural athlete. She loves to be active playing, the fact that she has very little fear also helps.

Leah was more timid. She's not very comfortable in group settings with strangers. It took a bit more coaxing with her, actually urging is a better word.

Maybe next week will be better.

Book every mom should read

Why animals sleep so close to the road (and other lies I tell my children) By: Susan Konig

It is such a funny book. Totally true in many ways. Give it a read, if you're a parent you can relate to the numerous daily "lies" she describes.

A Dining Moment

We finally have a grown-up dining room. A matching set, that is nice. All the chairs actually go with the table (leaning in a whisper) and they match. We no longer have to squeeze 6 people at a table for four tiny adults, and force the children to eat at the tiny pre-school table.

The table and curio cabinet arrived and was assembled in about 25 minutes time. Very nice. I was pleased with how quick the process went. The table is huge, it consumes the entire room fully extended. I don't expect that there will be much room for anything other than the table and cabinet. That's good, less reason to pile up stuff all over. I hope I can keep the accumulation at a reasonable level.

What an achievement! Now I need to throw a little dinner party.

A reason to love Maine

A new law in Maine will require manufacturers of TVs and computer monitors to be financially responsible for the safe disposal and recycling of their products. It is based on similar laws in Europe and Japan that require manufacturers to pay for sending electronics to recycling centers. The recycling centers remove the toxic materials such as lead and mercury and the non-toxic parts are sent to landfills. Maine's recycling law is the first to hold manufacturers responsible for the cost of disposal. There are other recycling laws such as in California requiring customers to pay a disposal fee when they buy a TV or computer monitor and in Maryland computer makers must pay a registration fee which in turn is distributed to recycling centers. Two major reasons for this law: prevent toxins from being released into the environment and to encourage manufacturers to design better safer products that can be recycled.

Fun Fact provided by the Natural Resources Council of Maine: "TV's and older computer monitors each contain between four and eight pounds of lead, along with an array of other toxic materials, and newer flat-screen monitors contain mercury. "

Thanks to Jon Hinck of the Natural Resources Council of Maine who lobbied hard for the new law. Good on ya mate.
'E-waste' law forces manufacturers to pick up tab
CNN Technology pages Wednesday, January 18, 2006
as reported by AP PORTLAND, Maine

Badgers and girls

Olivia woke up this morning in a good mood, as usual. She was very ambitious too. In a typical morning I have to encourage the girls to get dressed and ready for school. They of course prefer to play and be in the moment, and who wouldn't? After my morning shower and getting dressed routine I usually have to chase after them and try to get them dressed and hope they will want to eat breakfast.

I have come to realize one thing about little girls. Trying to dress a three year old girl in clothing that she does not want to wear is similar to convincing a badger to put on a pink tutu. When Olivia has her mind set on wearing a dress, a pink dress usually, that is all she will wear without that whole dramatic crying thing. There is nothing I can do to get her to wear anything else. It can be particularly frustrating when say, it's raining and super cold and Olivia has her heart set on that cute little yellow sundress. It takes great power of persuasion to get her to wear something more reasonable.

Usually we have to come to a compromise. So it would be the sundress over a long sleeved shirt with leggins. It's ok, I suppose, it could be worse. So she's not perfectly dressed at least she'll be sort of warm and comfortable. Oh and it helps to be an irresistibly adorable blond little girl.

Hey Dr. K pass the copper pipe

Happy MLK day! Holidays and this house are no good, no good I say.

Today the pb pipe leading from the water heater to the distribution pipe developed a pinhole leak. Nice. Good I caught it in time to call for a repair, otherwise we would have been SOL and in inches of water.

Wet basement again. The Insane cat had been trying to warn us idiot humans about something all day. We just went about our activities presuming that the cat was being silly and feeling unloved. Too bad she's the smart one and we're the stupid responsible ones. She got a BIG treat after that.

$250 later the pb pipe is gone, replaced with copper. We really need to get the rest of the house re-plumbed, pronto.

Princess Glasses

As I stepped out of the shower I was greeted by my lovely little Olivia. Amazingly she dressed herself and was ready to go this morning. She was wearing a nice purple flower shirt and black velvet pants, on her head was a gold crown. To top off the ensemble, pink sunglasses. Her blond hair falling around her face, she looked like a child movie star.

She told me the she was "Princess glasses."

I asked Miss Olivia about this "princess glasses" she claimed to be. She described this girl as having a step-mother that tells her to "be shy" and "she's in a movie, her step-mother is mean, it's a girl story." She proceeded to dance around and sing. Right before she left the room she told me that the girl "wears glasses for her ball."

A nice little story.

It will happen....

Ok, so I am not a perfect mother, I just play one on TV. I was running behind trying like mad to get the girls to agree to wear something, anything, and that took too darn long. After finally coming downstairs for breakfast it was too late. No time to eat and get the girls to school by 9am. So what to do? What to eat?

Ahhh, yes, cookies.

I let them eat cookies for breakfast. They did have some milk too, just for good measure.

I know that they will want cookies tomorrow, I must explain that this is a one time treat, most likely not to happen again. It shouldn't happen again.

Pink scarf

My first attempt at knitting has resulted in success. I have completed my first scarf. A pink beauty for my Leah. She was so pleased and couldn't wait to give it a try. She even slept with it last night. Awww. I'm going to make one for Olivia, need to get more yarn, Leah's scarf pretty much used the whole skein. I am working on another in a brown acrylic. It's going to take a while, and at least another skein of yarn good thing I bought two.

The kitty Gaea loves when I knit. It's the best time for her to snuggle up with me. When she sees me grab my basket she perks up and eagerly awaits the set up. And then jumps up and sits next to me. Ahh. Nothing like knitting with a warm kitty on a cold day.

Forest Kegs

There are two kegs resting together in a forested piece of land near our home. These two species happen to have made a nice nest and most likely will live out eternity there.

Come on people what gives? Every well respected drunken college student (or drunk) knows that "Dude, you gotta take those things back so you can get your deposit." Unless you happened to lift these from someone's party and thus have no reason to return these to the store. Wait a minute I have a thought. Do the liquor stores in VA actually sell kegs? They are all state run so I'm not sure they do. The VA ABC stores are all over and have a limited selection of spirits. And that my friend is no fun. We have a terrible time finding good liquor around here, so don't expect a gift of whiskey, all we can find is really good wine. Mmmmm, wine. I love those Virginia wineries.

These suckers must be out of state kegs. No wonder they will remain in the forest forever.

It like, totally bothers me that, like, you know, someone would allow for such priceless stuff, to like, go to waste or something. How totally un-cool. Losers.

Now where did I put my beer?

Postal special delivery

A New year cometh

Happy New Year's Day. It's amazing how fast this year has passed. So many events. I wonder what this new year will bring? How did we spend the new year? Well, quite nicely. Last night we took the children to celebrate the new year in historic town nearby for their First Night event. Our goal was to do something fun for the children rather than the 'ol stay at home order a pizza and watch a movie thing. That's fun and sure it's cheap too, but yawn, boring, we want something different. The girls are getting older and more tolerant of our adventurous ways. With the mild temperatures it was the perfect night to be out having fun. We expected to be home by 10pm.

 


The whole of the historic downtown district was blocked off for the event, it was a pedestrian's dream. It was free family event lots of fun activities. Nearly everything was free, some of the food was not. These were the free activities to do: ice-skating, old-fashioned carriage rides, music, dancing, theater and storytelling, puppets, balloon animals, caricature artists, face-painting. I heard that the DC Comedy Club some local high school students were staging a TheatreSports Challenge, a version of Who's line is it anyway. There were many bands and a karaoke stage. We started off with ice skating  Both girls were so excited to do this little did they realize how difficult ice skating can be. After a moment of understanding the basics of balance they were off to a good start. Olivia preferred to "Do it alone" and Leah preferred to hold a hand. Maybe lessons in are in their futures. I was impressed with them. I was not pleased with the rowdy little boys on the ice. These little troublemakers were running and sliding baseball style into everyone. I felt bad for the volunteer responsible for keeping the attraction in order. She spent countless hours chasing after those dopes. And of course parents of these charming pranksters were MIA, most likely hitting the bars. The main attraction for us was the "magic playground" an area dedicated to the blown up playthings. There was a fairy-tale castle and a caterpillar to jump and play on, which was the girls' favorites. The line for the carriage rides was long. It was an hour wait. As one of us stood in line the other would take the girls to do stuff. It worked out nicely since just about when we were getting into the last half hour of the wait we jumped in front. The show wagon was not preferred by those people in front of us, and the driver would not go with only 5 people. When they offered the ride to any who wanted to go we took the opportunity. It was just as fun, sure it was like a hayride, still I liked it and we didn't have to stand in that long line any more. After the wagon ride we were let off next to the flower garden. We sipped some hot cider, well at least mom and dad liked the cider, the girls were disgusted by the thought of drinking hot apple juice. They did like to warm up by the bonfire and toast marshmallows. The local Boy Scouts were there helping with this, it was a very popular location. By this time it was 10:30pm, and tons of people were trying to squeeze in to toast marshmallows. The fires were super hot, almost too hot to get near. I let mine catch on fire and self roast. My face could take only so much heat. Leah preferred to eat hers un-toasted. An hour later the girls were too tired, dragging tired, to go on. By 11:30pm we were unable to wait to ring in the New Year marveling over the fireworks display. We decided to head home and have them in bed before the ball dropped, just in time for mom and dad to enjoy it and a bottle of champagne together. Actually we each drank 1 bottle. Two bottles of champagne and two people are never a good idea. I think we were having a little bit of a happy hangover Sunday in church. Ugh. Mental note do not go to bed drunk and then go to church the next morning. It is never a good idea. By noon we were mostly recovered. Our friends were coming over for lunch, the girls told everyone in church about our company. They love them. When the doorbell rang it was madness, girls running and yelling with sheer excitement. It was like we had rock stars on the doorstep. Judith made a fantastic lunch, the best stuffed peppers ever, and muffins my girls will eat. I really enjoyed the time together. And thanks goes to Eric for figuring out how to get the camera to work. He saved us from insanity. Gosh they're the best. What a great way to start the year.