Beautiful Repast

Last night we had the Ballet Ladies over to eat hors d'ouvres and quaff wine. This is the before photo taken about 15 minutes before the first guests arrived. Bobbie made all of our favorites from homemade hummus and pita bread on the lower left to blanched vegtables in the center and four varieties of cheeses on the upper right.

Everyone else also brought an hors d'ouvre and a bottle of wine. The food varied from Indian samosas, to lemon and apple tarts. Of course we couldn't finish it all, but heaven knows, we did try.

The wine selection was quite nice as well. Most folks had Chardonnay, but Linda and Rich brought a Zinfandel that the rest of us loved.

This was the second party for us in three days. On Thursday we had our neighbors in the cul de sac over for snacks and drinks too. Bobbie figured that since the house was already clean and reasonably picked up, why not try Saturday too? As the social columns in small town newspapers say, "A good time was had by all."

Botanical Gardens

Just as our membership is about to expire, Bobbie and this kids visited the Botanical Gardens this week. As usual, they had a great time. There were several hands-on exhibits that they all enjoyed.

After the gardens, everyone was hungry for pastrami, so they all had lunch at their favorite deli nearby. They all arrived home late in the afternoon inspired by the gardens, and warmed by Matzo Ball Soup.

Play Day

The day after Christmas is play day here at the Little House. Despite the threat of rain and colder weather, John and I got out his new Air Hogs Rocket. We had a great time (click here for video) until technical difficulties got in the way. Our neighbor jokingly warned us about the prevailing winds, but we didn't listen. Thankfully Sarah helped out by getting the rocket down from the porch roof.

In the meantime, John launched the second rocket which landed on the high part of the roof. I guess we will ask our friends that recently installed our new roof to come by to recover the rocket and clean the gutters while they are up there.

The incessant soundtrack for the past 36 hours has been none other than Disney Channel star, Hannah Montana. Janine asked for the CD for Christmas. Next year all CD gifts will also include headphones because adults do not tolerate repetition as well as children. However I can now watch the TV show with new insight.

The Stockings were hung...

When you have kids in the house Christmas can be a lot of fun. The Little House is no exception. Nana stayed with us for Christmas and Janine woke her up at 5:30 Christmas morning. Nana claims she was up anyway. Janine was very good to stay in her room and not wake up her brother until 6:30. Then the two of them snuck downstairs to peek at the gifts under the tree.

Finally, everyone went downstairs at about 7:00. By 7:30 we had two large trash bags of wrapping paper. I took this photo a few minutes later when it was stocking time. Everyone got the usual stocking items: batteries, Chap-Stick, new slippers, earings for the girls and socks for the guys.

Later in the day we went to an open house. The traditional feast of roast beast ended the day. Happy and thankful...maybe next year John will wear a shirt.

Our Christmas Tree

This year we got a live Christmas tree instead of using our small artificial one. It was worth it just for the wonderful smell. Moreover we are able to use nearly all of our ornaments which made everyone happy.

Click here to see John singing the 12 Days of Christmas. (Don't worry, it's just the final countdown, not the endless procession.)

Tonight after the kids go to bed, we will put all of the gifts under the tree. Tomorrow morning we will get up early, go downstairs and unwrap our gifts, thankful for our family and thankful to the Lord for our forgiveness.

Christmas Eve Meditation

The message of Good News...

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (Luke 2:9-14)

...Later

Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." (Luke 24:45-49)

The purpose of Christmas doesn't end the next day. You can only understand Christmas in the context of Easter. Jesus' death for our sins and his resurrection on the third day is victory over sin and death. When we accept Him we share in that victory.

Santa Visits the Little House

Santa visited the Little House's cul-de-sac Thursday night. It is an old tradition started by one of the families that built one of the first houses in the sub-division 30 years ago. They asked their friends in the local volunteer fire department to dress up as Santa and drive into the circle in a fire truck with lights flashing and siren screaming. After singing some carols Santa gave out presents that the parents had dropped off earlier in the week.

As the years went by their children grew, but they kept up the tradition even for their grandchildren. This year the weather was mild. It as 45 degrees at Santa Zero Hour. Last year was very cold, and several years ago it was raining so hard, we all met in someone's garage. But the original family has retired to Florida and will return to visit their children and grandchildren only after Christmas.

This year a new family took over. The father is in the volunteer fire company and has very young children. The tradition is in good hands.

Christmas Eve Party Scene

This is what Christmas Eve looks like at our house...not really. Here's even more Nutcracker. Kudos to Craig, my friend with not only a good camera, but the skill to use it well.

The top photo is Janine performing her momentary solo as she crosses the stage from one group of kids to another early in the party scene. Afterwards it's a quick change to become a soldier to fight those nasty mice. Sarah was a huge help to Janine for both hair and make-up.

Below is Bobbie outfitted in blue as if she was royalty. She affected a regal countenance too as you can see. After a quick exit, she got to herd her tiniest ballet students who made up the mouse corps. (Bobbie teaches two ballet classes for the very youngest girls, ages four to six.)

Sarah and the Director

...more Nutcracker photos. Here's Sarah presenting Kristi, the director, with the traditional post performance bouquet. Sarah is still in her Candy Cane costume, while Kristi has changed into street clothes after her solo. This performance was the first time I saw a director dance a solo, and she was terrific, something for which all the girls can aspire.

For the Saturday performance I bought each of my four a small bouquet of carnations. Since the performance was in the city near my old apartment, I went to the florist at which I bought flowers for Bobbie when we were dating. The owner did a great job creating each with flowers, ferns and lots of care. In fact they are only now beginning to fade.

John's Moment of Glory

As we said in an earlier post, John got to dig deep as little brother Fritz in the Nutcracker. Here he is playing "All Star Wrestling" with the title character. Recall that this is a key point in the plot as it allows Drosselmeier to once again demonstrate his magical abilities for Clara.

In real life however, it's hard to imagine John doing such a thing. That's his big sister in the deep maroon dress in the foreground holding a doll.

After this scene John made a quick change to become one of the soldiers that defeat the Mouse King...but I'm spoiling the plot.

The Big Dig - December Update

In October the local sewer authority came to our neighbor's house to fix a line obstruction. Thinking the job to be easy, they thought it would take a few hours. Several days later, we were left with this.

The next week a crew came to reseed the area. As it was early November, we expected to have a large patch of bare ground until at least the end of May. But the weather turned out otherwise.

So, here you have it. The grass seed has sprouted and started to grow in the warm and wet weather of the past few weeks. Depending on the severity of the winter, we wonder how well this new grass will survive.

More importantly from Bobbie's perspective, the crew replanted some of the displaced asparagus just out of view on the left of the photo as well as the grass. But we will have to wait until spring to find out the fate of both.

Ballet Ladies after the Show

After the Sunday matinee, the cast and crew had a small party at the entrance to the theatre. Here is Bobbie on the far right with (from left) Betty, Elva, Mary Lou and Kathy. They all danced up a storm and were joyfully tired. They all had great time, and are happy the show was a success.

Bravo ladies! Bravo kids!

Please note that we are working on obtaining performance photos. The low light and fast action of the ballet was a bit too much for our camera. One of the ballet dads shot many photos with a high-end digital camera. As soon as they are available we will post them.

Nutcracker Poster

This year's Nutcracker production was supported by wonderful graphics like this full color post card. The ballet studio also printed letter sized posters that they placed in the windows of local merchants.

Even if these graphic did not generate any audience outside of the performers' families, they were well worth the cost. The posters and cards were very attractive and probably graced the refridgerators of all the performers.

Hangin' with the Guys

John is on the far right above in his Fritz costume. This was taken in the boys section backstage at the Nutcracker. After we took the football awat from them, his friends got set and ready to go. The guys in red were soldiers, while the guy on the left played the Nutcracker Prince. Never mind that his leading lady is a head taller. That's just the way it is when you're nine. But the make-up is creepy at any age.

Below is the cast warming up 30 minutes before curtain.

Flexible Janine

Yesterday was the parents' observation day at Janine's ballet class. After a 15 minute warm-up we all got to watch the girls as they practiced their positions, steps and moves at the barre. This photo shows Janine's favorite part. How did she get that way? By imitating her mother and older sister, that's how.

Then the girls paired up to perform a scene from the Nutcracker in which Clara dances with her Christmas gift. For Janine's performance, click here. My apologies for the resolution. I shot the video using the digital camera in low light. (Hint: Janine is in white.)

We all took it easy yesterday after a weekend full of Nutcracker performances. Here's the recap:

Bobbie- Mom in Party Scene, corps de ballet in Waltz of the Flowers, Mouse kids teacher and supervisor

Sarah- Clara's friend in Party Scene, Angel corps de ballet for the Sugar Plum Fairy, Candy Cane for the Russian Dance.

John- He dug deep into his personal experience playing Fritz, Clara's little brother who breaks the Nutcracker in the Party Scene. Then John made a quick costume change to become a soldier in the next scene, the mouse battle.

Janine- was in also in the party scene and made the change to become a soldier with her brother.

Dad- Helped lay down the Marley dance surface, built a Christmas tree platform (The stand broke and was finally fixed only 10 minutes before curtain after three trips to Home Depot.) ran the video camera, and struck the set Sunday night.

Needless to say, we all slept in Monday morning.

Nice Day for a White Christmas

For the most part this is a blog about our family. We like to talk about family events and personalities instead of making commentary. But we couldn't resist making an exception on this one.

Here is an CD that I guess could be described as the modern day equivilent of the LP album depicted below. Next time I'm in a Firestone store buying tires for my Plymouth Belvedere, I guess I better ask for the Billy Idol Christmas album.

But if you not planning to buy tires anytime soon, click here. In fact the CD is featured in this week's Best Buy Sunday newspaper insert. That's right Billy sings all your holiday favorites and with a rebel yell, he's gone, gone, gone... Too bad Billy isn't wearing a tie made of holly.

Self Portrait

Janine has been drawing a lot recently. Here is her self portrait. Can you guess that she is blonde and purple is her favorite color? The favorite outfit depicted is a purple sweater, jeans and pink sneakers. But you can tell that already, right?

Kids this age seem to love to draw and paint. They have a simple style that focuses on the head and hands. Note the fingers.

This piece scanned very nicely. But some of her most recent work will be difficult to share in a single image because it is larger than my scanner. I guess I could put more than one scan together into a larger image in PhotoShop. It's a great program, but the learning curve is a pretty steep on it. We will share the detail then.

Timber Trim

Pin Oaks are wonderful trees. Wonderful to look at in other people's yards that is. When our sub-division was being built in the 1970s, each lot got two pin oaks. The folks who built our house choose to place both of them at the front of the lot next to the street. As a result we have a very shady front yard which Bobbie has converted into a beautiful shade garden.

But Pin Oaks are maintenance trees. They need to be trimmed to not only look neat, but to prevent them from growing into the ground, as you can see on the tree on the right in the top photo. Thankfully the yard slopes away from the tree otherwise there would be a wall of branches blocking the bottom of the tree. In the 14 years we have lived here we never had them trimmed. Thinking I could do it myself I bought a sucession of failed tools before I gave up and hired a professional tree service. This past Saturday they came with a large truck, a crew of three and climbing gear.

The top is the the Before photo.

The next photo is the after photo, but taken from the opposite angle. I think we got our money's worth. Especially when I looked up a the guy in the top of the tree trimming the crossed branches, clearing out the crown as he said.

The bottom photo shows the extent of their trimming about 15 feet up the trunk. There were branches growing out of the trunk, down at a 45 degree angle, then ending three feet off the ground.

As an added bonus they blew all the leaves onto the big leaf pile on the side of the yard

Gee, I feel just the same way after I go to the barbershop.

School Room Table

This past fall Bobbie rearranged the school room. (Click here for the previous post.) She created a better teaching and learning space with extended storage. The kids seem to prefer doing their school work seated on a comfortable couch rather than desks.

As usual we found most everything we needed at IKEA. Everything except a reasonably sized work surface. The professional office furniture was oversized and the home office items were not practical enough.

These photos show our solution. It's a sheet of 3/4" birch plywood cut to fit our design idea. The top photo shows the basic shape. Combined with an existing piece, it forms an L shaped work area. The end closest to the camera will be the kid's computer work station. The inside angle on the opposite side will be Bobbie's work station.

The bottom photo shows the grain figure of the birch plywood as well as my saw and a shooting board for straight cuts.

Perhaps the biggest challenge in this project was fitting the four by eight foot sheet into the van. For once the people at Home Depot helped me move the sheet from the bin, through check-out and into the van. (No I did NOT try self check-out this time.)

The maximum inside depth of the van is about six feet, nine inches. So we hung out a little over a foot. Thankfully Home Depot is less than two miles away.

We Three - Thanksgiving 2006

After bragging about the kids dressing for dinner on their own, I thought I would share a photo.

Whoops! The goofy one is on top. When I ask the three of them to sit for a group photo I like to allow for a silly one. This time the silly one snuck in there first.

Because it's hard to get everyone to sit still, I usually take the goofy photo last. Going digital is great because I do not hesitate taking extra photos. In fact those sometimes are the best.

Please allow me a brief rant. Blogger switched "Little House" to the new Blogger in Beta uploading interface. Great! I can no longer post directly out of their Picasa photo organizing software. Now I have to sign in online and use the clunky Insert Photo function. Usually when something is new and improved it requires fewer steps, not more. But then again, how much do I pay for the service? Nothing, it's all part of the Google empire.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yesterday's Thanksgiving turkey will be today's sandwiches. So here's a photo of the bird just out of the oven. Once again, this year we got a fresh turkey from our favorite local farm market. But this year we brined the turkey following an Alton Brown recipe.

The brine consists of vegtable stock, salt, brown sugar, boiled with some peppercorns and allspice berries. You have to wait until that combination cools in the refridgerator to use it. For us that was overnight. Then we added a gallon of ice water and the turkey to a clean five gallon food service bucket. We turned it over once before putting the bird in the oven.

Before roasting Bobbie put aromatics such as apples, onion, garlic, cinnamon sticks, fresh rosemary and sage inside the cavity. The recipe calls for starting the turkey on a high temperature for 30 minutes then lowering it to 350 until the bird is 160 degrees at the thickest parts. Because we have an old oven, it naturally took longer than predicted, but we would rather wait then get sick.

The bottom photo shows Nana, Janine and John just before we served Le Bird. Sarah and Mommie are in the kitchen serving up the rest of the meal at this point. Didn't the kids set a nice table? They took care of the table cloth, serving places and the centerpiece. After playing outside in jeans, all three came inside and changed into nice cloths for dinner on their own. (Thanks for bearing with the parental bragging.) This year we bought new dining room chairs that really help make things look great.

But despite all the feasting, we are thankful most of all for all the blessings that God has given to us.

Walnuts!

I had lunch today with my friend Dave in the market section of the city. After lunch we stopped by an Italian market. Dave was running an errand for his wife who was making cookies tonight for the entire Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year's season.

They have quite a selection as you can see. It was pretty busy for a Wednesday because it's the day before Thanksgiving. Still, nothing like the Christmas Eve crowd when the place is packed with women buying food for "The Feast of the Seven Fishes" a tasty Italian Christmas Eve tradition.

The cheese counter seemed busy, but the line was to be moving well. Now, I almost wish I had bought some fine cheeses for Thanksgiving dinner. But I had no idea at the time what we might want to have, so I passed on the idea.

The dried peppers in the bottom photo always look great, but I don't really know what to make with them. I suppose they need to be reconstituted to return to an edible state.

Still, I am glad to live in a city that has such great food stores beyond the usual suburban supermarkets.

Tea Party

Janine had a tea party the other day for her favorite dolls and stuffed animals, or at least the ones she was playing with at the time. Bobbie got the tea set in Toronto a few years ago at a very nice specialty toy store on Queen Street.

Most cities have them, a section of town that once was grand, then fell on hard times, only to be converted to boutiques in recent decades. Queen Street is one of those districts.

As you can see this tea set was designed for small hands and is now almost too big for Janine's growing hands.

Here's the cast of characters. There's Patty, a doll that was one of Bobbie's favorites, the purple care bear with the grape scent that Janine got for her birthday, and one of Sarah's old Cabbage Patch kids. (That's a bag of raisins that Care Bear is using as a support.)

Janine insisted on real tea for the party to which she added several spoonfuls of sugar. Thankfully we used decaffinated tea to minimize excitability.

Hats On

Here's Janine with her friend Grace modeling their new hats. The occasion was a bridal shower for a girl who used to babysit the kids. We know the family through church.

The mother of the bride had a mother/daughter shower and supplied hats and artificial flowers as an activity. The kids then decorated their own hats using a glue gun to attach the flowers. That's one kids activity idea to write down and save for later use.

A good time was had by all. As you can see out the window, it was a cloudy, rainy day but sunny inside.

Warholized

We haven't seen any Warhols lately, so I thought I would create our own. Click here to make yours.

For that authentic Warhol look next time I will do a few things differently. First I will use mainly photos of people. Warhol mostly painted portraits. Other than product packages (Campbell's Soup, Brillo, etc.) I can't recall any Andy Warhol still lifes.

Next, I will make sure you crop the photo very tightly. Again, most Warhol portraits usually include head and shoulders only. Finally I will crop to a square. As you can see the Warholizer service uses a square format.

Now if I can get Janine to dress up like Jackie-O, we will really be in business.

Can you e-mail me now?

Monday morning we got back on line after a week without DSL service. According to the Verizon Customer Service folks, they upgraded the DSL hardware in our neighborhood on Monday November 6. Sometime that night or early Tuesday, the software crashed on our local switch. After spending 90 minutes on the phone Tuesday, we got service back on Thursday morning, only to loose it in the afternoon.

In the course of this travail, I worked my way up the customer service chain to the regional supervisor. She was very well trained and quick on her feet during the course of the conversation. She also put the utmost urgency on the service ticket. But dealing with Verizon late on a Thursday afternoon that means it's too late for the next business day.

So, Monday morning the Verizon tech arrived at 8:30 just after the piano teacher. He had us up and running in about 30 minutes once he got through telephone triage to the technical people who reset the software. Then one of the other techs I spoke with last week called me to follow up! I really appreciated that and told him so. Too bad he had a cold that day.

OK, so I was not particularly happy with Verizon, but with Comcast as the alternative I choose the lesser of two evils.

...now if I could only find my Palm Pilot...

My Office Project - One

Here's one from the "I made it a bigger project than it should have been" file.

Last weekend I spent most of Saturday afternoon creating an extension for the HVAC duct in my office. I wanted to put a file cabinet in the corner but that blocked the duct. So I spent a little bit of money (about $25) and a lot of time (about eight hours total) fabricating sheet metal to fit a 2 by 12 inch duct, turn the airflow 90 degrees to a 3 1/2 x 10 inch duct, extend it 18 inches to end in a 2 x 10 inch diffuser.  Got that?

Naturally after I spent all that time on the project I learned enough to figure out a better way to do it next time! As if there will be a next time.

Nonetheless I now have the filing cabinets in the right place. In the next day or two the files now in old plastic bins will be organized neatly in the file cabinets. The office is coming together nicely. Now the next project is to find a home for all of the old PCs around here. More on that later. 

Trick or Treat!!!

Here we are in our halloween finest.

Top photo is Sarah as a Pink Pirate.

Middle is John as General Griveous from Star Wars.

Bottom is Janine as a rock star.

Mommie took John and Janine up and down our street and one street over. Sarah and her buddies made the candy haul in the next sub-division. I got to man the home front and give out candy.

Everyone came home soaked by the rain and tired from all the running around. But after a hot bath and some herbal tea, all is well. At least it didn't snow like a few years ago.

Only two houses in our cul-de-sac were giving out candy and we are at the other end. As a result we had only a few trick or treaters. Things may change next year however. Two houses are for sale, both are empty-nesters. If two families move in, we better get more candy.