Saturday, May 13, 2006
Flintstones, meet the Flintstones...
We went to lunch with Noni, Popi, Uncle B. and his friend Xuan, who was taking him to the airport. After we sent them on their way M. and I went to Costco. We filled our car to capacity and headed back to Noni and Popi's. As we're driving down the street this is what we see...


Noni said they went up and down the street this way for nearly 45 minutes.


Daddy decides to take a turn. Unfortunately for now Emma's "propellers" only act as brakes. Notice the brake slipping out the front.

We're movin' in
The neighbors were away in Williamsburg for the weekend so we took over their backyard. We actually have permission to do such things, but maybe after today they'll rethink it. First, we took their car for a joyride...


Here's everyone actually not posing.


This will be henceforth known as the Swing of Horror. Shortly after this photo Popi's side fell to the ground. The metal hook seemed to have been half cut and it failed. Fortunately no one was badly hurt.


Emma decided to forsake redwood swings and just go for a red swing. This is her first time on such a contraption.

She floats through the air with the greatest of ease...
We're always throwing kids around. Emma seemed to enjoy the heck out of it, and that's all that really matters.

Quality time with Uncle B.
I'm not sure, but I think she's bossing him around.


Noni caught at doing one of her favorite things, playing with Emma's hair. (Just between you and me...it's one of my favorites too!)

The Other Slide
This slide was given to us by a friend of Noni's who knew we were looking for one. It's in Noni's basement right now. Emma and I spent some time practicing climbing it this morning. She fell off the top once. That made her pretty mad. You can see the redness on her forehead where she hit when she fell. Poor kid.

Happy Mother's Day to me...
From me. I've been eyeing this at Costco since before the holidays. It was about $37.99 when I first saw it. After the holidays I think it was $34.99, and I seriously considered whether I could afford the extravagance. I walked away. Today I found it for $19.99! Dude, it practically jumped into my cart itself!

Frog-a-mania
Here you go. Never let it be said I'm not a good sport. Be sure and note the white sunglasses, those were a particular favorite.


Friday, May 12, 2006
Gingey's Germany/Ireland Report!

Gingey is back home with his family in Georgia now. He was a great travel companion (he travels light!). Jamie has his report on her blog so please click over to Glaciermeow and check it out. You have to go see the lederhosen I made him ;)
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Pink Snow
We had a gully-washer this afternoon and afterward the ground looked like it was covered with pink snow underneath this tree. Pretty.

The rest of the story...
So when my brother got to be a teenager and it was his turn to have a car to drive, he got something more like this:


He was a teenage boy. You know what nutjobs they are. The funny thing is that this turned out to be the most reliable car they had at the time. His Escort was named "Sac Atak" or something like that. It was a nod to his ten years of football. Does the disparity in the vehicles that were presented to us show favoritism? I don't think so. It showed a certain sense of practicality, if you ask me. Only one of us crashed our grandfather's truck, I'll let you guess which of us that was.

Now...before you feel all sorry for my brother, consider that today he drives a brand new one of these:


And I drive one of these:

Wednesday, May 10, 2006
This is what I drove in high school


That picture isn't the one I drove, it's just the same model. It's a 1979 MGB convertible in racing green. Yeah, I was a very lucky girl. Dad bought it as the "third car," so it was never really mine. It was hard to convince people of that because the license plate actually had my name on it. This car was also responsible for making people (high school people) think we were rich. Maybe that was part of the great master plan. My friends named the car "The Frog."

Anyway, the sad part is that I had little appreciation for it at the time. Don't get me wrong, I had GREAT appreciation for having a car that had wheels and ran. And that was pretty much it. The convertible top was nice, but the car could only carry two people. Which if you consider teenage drivers, wasn't a bad idea. But I think you lose safety points for the convertible, compact sports car part.

I'm still not much of a car freak. You can tell because I never wash mine. If it runs I'm happy with it; that's the extent of my love for cars.

I love seeing a beautiful classic car, and I'd love to drive one. But I'd still have a hard time babying it or treating it as anything other than a way to get from Point A to Point B.
Twofer



The car I drove in high school had a...wait for it...eight track tape player. So the first thing I did was buy an adaptor for regular cassettes. Back then I was big into mix tapes and compilations. And taping off my friends. I don't even remember how I came by this tape, but it had the Talking Heads "Little Creatures" on one side and "Stop Making Sense" on the other side. I just about wore that tape out. I mean it was the only tape in the car for months. Back then I was a Rolling-Stone-reading Independent who was going to college to study International Relations, specializing in Russian. Sigh. High schoolers don't know anything ;)

Anyway, these albums are so familiar they fit like an old pair of shoes.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Finally got one!
For weeks and weeks I've been trying to decide what to get for Emma to play on in the back yard. She loves to be outside but I really wanted to have a focal point so I wasn't chasing her everywhere all the time. M. saw this at Walmart last week, but we were uncertain if they'd have it in stock when we drove over. On his weekly shopping trip he decided to check, just in case it would fit in the truck with the groceries. It did fit. When he got home he said it was buried in the front of the truck and he'd have to get it out later tonight.

That lasted all of three minutes. He changed his mind and decided he wanted to set it up for Emma before she went to bed. Of course we had difficulty getting it together, meanwhile Emma knows it's for her and it's gonna be fun and she's crying at us for taking so long. I ended up carrying her inside while M. fitted the slide onto it. Finally, it was ready for playtime!



Crayon refill
Her first batch disappeared. One by one they were gobbled up by Beaker. Yum, yum. Today I picked up a box of 64 at the dollar store. I'll let her have them 16 at a time this time; maybe they'll last longer.

Monday, May 08, 2006
A house full of cats
That describes my family yesterday.

Nap, eat, nap, eat, sleep.
Rebel Yell


I'm guessing Allison (NC) was wondering where the heck this one was. Rest assured these albums aren't being presented in order of importance. This one looms large. I loved, loved, loved Billy Idol, from the beginning. OK, not the beginning as in Generation X, but the beginning as in the first time I saw him on Friday Night Videos. It was the "Dancing with Myself" video. I was mesmerized. Idol was the epitome of hotness, and wetness (sweat, sweat, sweat...) His music rocked, and in my mind it has stood the test of time. It still rocks.

This album was the first one of his I owned. I knew it by heart. The only big disappointment was that "Dancing with Myself" wasn't on this one. I had to track down the more obscure "Billy Idol" album to find that. (Found it in Camp Lejeune, NC!) Rebel Yell was full of hits...White Wedding, Eyes Without a Face and Flesh for Fantasy. Of course every song on the album was a hit to me.

I will admit that Billy Idol was a beneficiary of the growing fascination with music videos among the youts, like myself. While I didn't have cable, I would actually stay up till 1:30 a.m. and wait for Friday Night Videos just in hopes of seeing Billy Idol or the Police.

In all honesty, Rebel Yell may have been the pinnacle of Idol's career. He was young and wasted, but he sure was purty. He's made some good music since then, but I really think that was the peak.
The family computer guru
All the gurus in the house...can I get a whoop, whoop?

Whoop, whoop!

Yeah, I'm it. Tonight after work I went over to my MIL's to install her new computer. She doesn't have her DSL set up so there was only so much I could do. We got her printer hooked up and her bowling program installed. She's the secretary for her bowling league, and has been for almost ten years, so it's important that she be up to speed.

The poor woman got saddled with Microsoft's Millenium Edition when she ordered her first computer. Between bumping up to DSL and getting XP she is going to be loving her new computer. I'll probably have to go over again after the DSL is hooked up and make sure she has her virus protection and her email set up.

Emma was with me while I was doing all this and she found the cat bed again. I don't even know if she knows it's related to the cat. She just loves the bed.


Sunday, May 07, 2006
Metallica Black album


July 17, 1992 - I attended the kick off of the Guns n' Roses/Metallica tour at RFK stadium in Washington, DC. Faith No More opened and I think they left the tour soon after. I'm embarrassed to say when I went to that concert I was more of a Guns n' Roses fan and hadn't even heard much of the Black album. So the concert was an eye-opening education. Metallica kicks ass live. I mean seriously. I went a GnR fan and left a Metallica fan. (It didn't help that GnR went on 1 1/2 hours late, a regular trait, apparently).

After the concert I went right out and bought the album. And this is when I was poor, so you can tell it was a priority ;) This album is the definition of a head-banging album. In the Wikipedia entry the writer seems to lament that this album was more or less of a sell-out, that they made themselves more accessible with their ballad. Whatever dude. Up until I was edu-ma-cated I thought Metallica was only for the mean rednecks back in high school. I had no idea that Metallica really rocked.

This is a great album for when you want to blast out the cobwebs.
Maybe not singing in the rain...
but walking in the rain. After supper M. took Emma out in her stroller in the pouring rain. She was dry and cozy. He, on the other hand, declared that 45 degrees in the pouring rain is hard to take.


Mommy's new best friend
We have grass stains on nearly every pair of pants that comes through the wash now. This stuff really works. Thank goodness.

Local playground
This is actually the playground at our K-12 school complex. We went after work on Friday. I let her play and explore for about an hour. We did the two smaller slides and the tunnel and the wobbly deck and swings. You need two adults for the high slides, one at the top and one at the bottom, so maybe we'll take Daddy next time. The only real (bloody) injury she suffered was my fault. I was trying to keep my hand behind her butt to keep her from sliding back down the steep part of the blue tunnel. I accidentally pushed her butt and she overbalanced forward and busted her lip. Oops.

This trip ended like the last trip to the park. She did NOT want to leave. I had to carry her, kicking and screaming and crying and protesting, to the parking lot. When I put her down she refused to head to the car. So I let her walk around the school yard. I wasn't in any rush and it wasn't worth the fight at the moment. Eventually I did corral her and put her in the car, the child cursing me the whole way.






Last minute changes...
After the trip to the park Friday things took an unexpected turn. As we came through the door there was a call from Noni. My brother was unexpectedly free to come see them this weekend, could I come over? Now?

Daddy had a pizza in the oven so I went and hurriedly packed Emma's and my bags and packed the car. We had dinner with Daddy and an hour after the phone call we were on our way. Daddy said he might have been able to make arrangements to come along with a couple of hours more warning. But he'll get a chance to see Uncle B. next weekend.

We got to Noni & Popi's shortly before Uncle B. I let Emma stay up late to greet him. She was a bit shy at first, but he broke the barrier by getting down on the floor and playing Play Skool Castle with her.

Saturday morning we headed out to a giant yard sale in a subdivision across town. Uncle B. bought an entertainment center for his new house and Noni bought a wooden puzzle. Emma was a good girl all morning long. Riding around in her stroller and taking in all the activity around her. Then we all went to Costco. Next was nap and trip home cause we were invited out for a Mexican Night party.

Emma enjoyed the party. She was the youngest by far but they had a few cats, a slide and a trampoline so she had a lot going on. Daddy put her on the trampoline by herself and she got a kick out of running around and falling a lot. 19 month olds aren't quite coordinated enough to jump up and down yet, so she did what she could. The trampoline had the netting all around so it was pretty safe. We did use her as an excuse to leave at a decent hour though. I was dog-tired and needed some rest. No picture, I'm afraid. Sorry.
This is it
A full day and I hardly took any photos. I really like this outfit; it's very "Springy."