A Little Adventure

This Christmas resulted in a large influx of Lazer Tag guns to our neighborhood…basically every household with younger male children has at least one pair. Today we finally managed to organize a game…kids vs. dads…of course. It worked out to be a pretty even match and was a lot of fun…at least for this dad. If you have boys or just want a simple way to settle spousal disputes I suggest you pick up a pair of the guns. At least everyone around here agrees that they are really well done. They have a nice number of features which add a bit of strategy. Fun, fun stuff!

Milo hanging out in the standard starting point for the kids…our front entry. We have a nice set of low bushes and pillars that the kids like to use as cover. During one game I ended up there and have to admit that it really is nice cover.

Holly joined me for this game which wasn’t terribly effective, but she seemed to enjoy it.

Milo was really excited for Christmas, so we were relieved that he slept well until 5 a.m. rolled around. He wanted to come sleep with us. Milo and I fell asleep. Scott set his alarm to wake us up at 6 a.m. since that was the agreed upon time to wake up. Scott woke up a few minutes early and went to get Holly and change her diaper. Scott’s family wanted to participate via web cam, so we got the web cam ready for that. The look on the kids faces when they saw their toys was amazing.

From Santa, Milo got:

A new blue lightsaber. His old blue one is broken, so Milo requested a new one. Milo also got some new drumsticks.

From Santa, Holly got:

A grocery cart with plastic veggies. Holly also got some alphabet blocks.

From Santa, Milo and Holly both got:

Milo and Holly both love the pink big wheel. The neighbors have two big wheels and so it helps that we have one too. It has already been out on a spin a few times.

From Santa, the family got a Wii. Milo and Scott have been enjoying that the most. We have the Star Wars Lego game. Scott and Milo have gotten pretty far with it. Milo loves playing the Wii and wants to play it every chance he gets.

Milo enjoyed getting into his stocking.

Holly had Dad help her get into her stocking. She had to stop and test out her new toothbrush.

Holly liked that Grandma and the Aunts were on the web cam. She was showing them her veggies.

Milo enjoyed opening gifts. He got them opened pretty quickly.

Milo got a few Star Wars shirts for Christmas. He loves them.

When we were in SLC, we could get these great Star Wars books at the library. When we came to Texas, we couldn’t get them. Milo was so happy to get these books that they didn’t leave his lap the rest of the time he was opening presents. He promptly put them up so Holly wouldn’t get them.

Milo also received a couple of laser tag guns. He was really excited about this since 3 other households were getting them as well. All the boys (and Dads!) are really enjoying playing laser tag. It is quite the sight.

Holly on the other hand, struggled with opening her gifts.

Holly opening a few gifts.

When Holly opened her gift that had a bunch of books, she decide that was enough and all she wanted to do was read her books.

She did take the time to go show her book to the web cam.

Holly squealed with delight when she opened her elephant.

She promptly went over to the web cam to show the aunts her new elephant.

Holly decided to drive her cart up to the computer and park it. We eventually moved it so the Aunts and Grandma could see.

Holly kept getting distracted with the books. She told us “no” when we’d give her a new present. We finally managed to get them all opened.

After we finished opening gifts, Scott and Milo played Wii for a short time. We had our Christmas breakfast. We had almond bread, rice pudding, sausage and hash browns. It was very good.

After some more Wii time and some playing outside we managed to put Christmas Dinner together.

Here are the dips we had for the appetizer. Note to self…HEB dips are NOT fantastic.

Holly loves dips and sauces. She loved eating her chips and dip.

For dinner we had ham, cheesy potatoes, rolls, green salad, peas, chip dip and chips.

We had a great Christmas. Thank you to all of you who gave us gifts and/or talked to us over Christmas.

We decided that we should get out and see the great outdoors for Christmas Eve this year…mainly b/c the weather has been almost too hot here over the holidays. We decided to go to Bastrop State Park mainly because it is pretty close. It was about an hour away. We figured it would be the perfect morning adventure.

We started out at the Bracken Fern Trail because Scott was hoping to see beautiful green ferns in the forest. Of course, it has been really dry around here, so most of the ferns are brown. The park is a forest of pine trees. The light was shining between the trees making photography a bit difficult. We did manage to get a few photos.

At the beginning of the hike, Holly stopped to see what it was all about.

Milo also stopped for a moment for a picture.

Holly started out walking with Dad and Milo was leading.

Then Holly fell behind because she was looking around at the scenery.

We got to the end of that trail. Holly decided that she wanted try and knock the post down, silly girl.

Holly then decided she wanted to go off trail to try and catch up with Milo.

Scott did stop a couple of times to try and get some artistic photos. He got this one…which isn’t awful.

We finally talked Milo into holding Holly’s hand and helping her along. This is an adorable picture of them. It is our favorite picture from the day.

Holly and I started out with jackets. Holly decided to take hers off and then put it on again and then take it off. We finally convinced her to hold it while she hiked. She enjoyed that.

Holly then decided she was getting tired and got up on Dad’s shoulders. She sat there for a bit.

Milo, Holly & Dad also were holding hands on the hike. Very fun!

After that hike, we decided to go on another hike on the Lost Pines Trail. We didn’t make it very far.

Holly decided she was done and plopped down in the sand to play.

Mom and Holly stayed to play in the sand while Dad and Milo went a bit more and then we decided to turn around. We were going to go eat lunch and then head home.

But of course, Holly was tired. A minute or so after we got going, she fell asleep.

We got some shakes and Milo didn’t finish his. In an attempt to keep Holly from stealing it, Scott gave her a sucker. She loves suckers. By the time we got home, Holly was sandy, sticky, tired and dirty.

What a great day! When we got home, we played outside for a while in the spectacular winter weather…you know…65 degrees and sunny. We also worked on getting our Christmas breakfast and dinner ready.

Milo and I prepared our cookies for Santa. Milo was kind of tired, so the note was short.

I like how our fireplace looked with our stockings. Thank you to Ruth for making them for us. Thank you to Milo and Scott for hanging them up. The nativity on top of the fireplace is Scott’s nativity from Spain.

Milo has his winter Holiday Party at school last Friday.  I was able to attend and thought it was a lot of fun.

There were a few stations for the kids to rotate through.  One station was cookie decorating, another was Christmas Bingo, another station was making a craft and then stenciling.

Milo and his snowman.

Milo concentrating hard to stencil.

They then has some snacks and were able to eat their cookies. Milo seemed to enjoy himself.

Milo eating his snacks.

One of the children in the class gave them all candy cane reindeer. Milo and one of his classmates had fun sword fighting with it.

Milo sword fighting with the candy cane.

After that I read a story to the class and the party was over. It was quite enjoyable.

For the past few years, I have created a wallpaper CD to give out to friends. Some of them have been pretty fantastic due in large part to some of the amazing places we have been in recent years. This year we didn’t travel much and managed to move away from the fantastic landscapes of Utah. As a result, I decided to do a wallpaper series this year composed exclusively of images from the Coyote Buttes North permit area. Yes, this is the location of the wave…as well as a number of other amazing formations. Enjoy! And as always if you would like any of the wallpaper sized images let me know. Monica has started lobbying for me to redo the wallpaper from past years in a widescreen format…so that may be coming.

The alcove is an amazing area above and behind the main wave. The next few images are from there.

The boneyard is more correctly called Sand Cove, but I prefer to call it the boneyard for the graveyard like feeling promoted by an odd scattering of odd rocks.

The lace rock area is tremendously fascinating. I had a similar image last year, but I still included this one as a tribute to the area.

Finally, a few images from the main wave area. The longer images are designed for dual screen monitors.

Happy Holidays!

I love music, but this year I particularly loved music as it kept me sane during some LONG days writing my dissertation and continues to keep me sane while attempting to work in the cubicle farm every day. In true year end list fashion I figured I would mention some of the music that I loved this year. I don’t claim that it is fantastic music from an artistic standpoint, but it works for me. While writing my dissertation I went through a Brit pop stage which you will see in the list. In no particular order…b/c that would have required thinking

Here is the list complete w/ youtube links to the songs.
1. The Wombats – Let’s Dance to Joy Division – This song kicked off my Brit Pop craze. I think I grabbed it as an iTunes song of the week and fell in love…I even bought the entire album.

2. The Apples in Stereo – Energy – Just a bit of pep and energy

3. The Fratellis – Mistress Mabel – Another British band with a number of songs I really love. This is one example off their new album.

4. Weezer – Pork and Beans – A catchy little ditty w/ a tip of the hat to youtube celebs in their video.

5. Vampire Weekend – A-punk – A different but catchy sound. I hope they aren’t a one trick pony.

6. The Ting Tings – Great DJ – Pure fun and groovin’ from the British.

7. The Smashing Pumpkins – G.L.O.W. – I love Billy Corgan’s music. This isn’t his best stuff, but it does get in your head.

8. Panic at the Disco – That Green Gentleman – Another song with a beat. Something about those 18 hour editing sessions made me turn toward songs w/ a bit of oomph. I updated the link…apparently youtube and the label are having a bit of a tiff. This new link may also not work in the future…FYI.

9. My Morning Jacket – I’m Amazed – Great band with a nice new album. This is a bit more low key. Monica even likes these guys.

10. Blitzen Trapper – Furr – My latest obsession. I like their latest album quite a bit. Their older stuff seems nice, but I haven’t fully investigated it yet.

A few honorable mentions to MGMT – Time to Pretend, Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal, She & Him – Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?, and Santogold – Creator.

I thought everyone would enjoy these pictures of Milo.

This is a picture of Obi Wan Kenobi in his robe. Milo loves to wear his jedi robe. He wear it in the house to play Star Wars and outside to play Star Wars. It was a great purchase.

Milo rode his bike for a couple days and crashed. He has been reluctant to get on it again. He did try it again a few weeks ago. We’ll keep working with him on this bike, but he does at least have one.

Milo’s aunts send him a water octopus.  We have to admit.  Scott and I weren’t very excited to get it out to use it.  We finally did a few months ago. The kids really enjoyed it.

It took a lot more effort than we realized to get the octopus ready for use. We had to fill it with air and water.

It didn’t take Milo long to get into the fun of it.

It took Holly a little bit longer.

Milo had a lot of fun spraying the octopus all over the place.

He even enjoyed spraying his sister with water.

Holly then got into the action.

Holly would come back see Mom and Dad every so often.

Holly loves this little bench in our back yard. She enjoys sitting on it.

Holly decided to go find out what the tap was all about.

She finally got bored and went to play with the towels.

She eventually got a towel and brought it to Mom. She did go play a bit more and then came back.

Milo and Holly love playing on the playscape in the backyard.  It is great fun!

This is Milo’s picture of the ball going down the slide.

Milo loved playing with this ball.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Milo and Holly. They enjoy going down the slide together.

Milo loves to swing and does that a lot.

Holly loves to swing as well and is always wanting to go outside to swing.

We have a couple of rose bushes in the back yard. They don’t look too bad.

We had our first snow storm last night. It got cold enough that the rain turned to snow. We got a light dusting on the rooftops and slides. It melted by mid-day. Our snow is never going to last long. This morning the temp was around 30 degrees. This afternoon it is 48 degrees. By Sunday we will be back up to 70 degrees.

Milo really wanted to go outside this afternoon. I told him it was cold. He didn’t seem to care. One of our neighbors drove by and stopped to say “I guess you are from Utah. We aren’t even going to venture outside today.” I told them that we won’t be out for much longer. Sure enough, we only lasted another minute or so. The wind made it down right chilly. Crazy weather!

Notice the snow on the slide, the grass below the slide and in Holly’s swing.