New Favorite Dress

Thanks to James, Ginger and Catherine, Faith now has a new favorite dress!

A New First

Bowling!!! We took the kids bowling this morning. After getting a few tips from James on going bowling with the kids, we braved it. We also brought support from friends Ken and Amanda.

Everyone had a good time even though we only got in one game each. For the amount of waiting between turns when there are 4 to a lane, the kids held up pretty well. But when we finished the first game, it was obvious that it was time to go home. We will definitely do it again.


After bowling, we all had a good rest. Mine was spent watching football hoping to find away to stay in first place this week in fantasy. Looks like I'm heading for a split.
Then the kids were back outside in the backyard.




Afterwards we sat down together for nice dinner prepped by Karen at Let's Dish and cooked by yours truly. We had Italian chicken cutlets over angel hair pasta with sides of butternut squash and asparagus (he veggies are not part of Let's Dish, just entrees). The boys really liked the chicken and pasta, ate the butternut squash, and dissed the asparagus. Faith was coaxed enough to eat most of her chicken and squash. Remembering a story from Scott and his kids, I tried to get our kids to try the asparagus by telling them their pee would smell. This of course got Jacob excited enough to down two spears. Reuben and Faith still wouldn't budge, though it caused quite a laugh. Reuben didn't believe me and thought I was joking. Unfortunately, Jacob's bedtime pee didn't smell, so now they really don't believe me. Hopefully in the morning it will take!

From Shorts to Mittens

The weather really changed yesterday. We went from short sleeves to hats and gloves, but the lure of the climber and the backyard prevailed. The kids were outside about 2 hours this morning, while I was doing some chores around the house. I caulked, changed light bulbs, turned off the water to the outside faucets, as well as a few other things. During this time the kids were great playing in the backyard making up all sorts of games, playing tag, and raking leaves. The climber has really rejuvenated interest in the whole backyard.
We also recently got the school pictures of the kids. This year they wanted you to order sets before seeing the pictures and would charge you $7.00 to return them. Pretty bad deal all around, especially because the school pictures typically stink. Anyway at the last minute I succumbed to the guilt of being a proud parent and ordered to smallest set of prints. I also had the kids practice smiling the morning of picture day. 'Lo and behold, they were the best pictures the kids have ever taken. Now we are ordering many more copies at a cost much higher than if we originally ordered a larger set!!
The photographer also took one picture of the three kids together. It's the best of the best of the lot, at least from the 1”x1.25” preview shot. So we also had to order a bunch of those in various sizes.

Not Your Typical Thanksgiving

In the morning I still had to finish tightening the bolts on the climber, but after that the kids were let loose.

Faith is still too short to climb up to the first the tier, but Jacob and Reuben were all over it.


Shortly thereafter things went South. Karen had a very bad allergic reaction to an antibiotic that required a trip to an urgent care doctor for a shot of epinephrine and a shot of steroids. This quickly stemmed the reaction, but she then wound up sleeping much of the day.

Meanwhile Thanksgiving went on...


And then Karen finally started feeling back to herself. Poor Tipper was really eying the turkey to no avail.

Pre-Thxgiving Project

Grandma and Grandpa came up Tuesday night, so we put them to work on Wednesday ;-) Grandma was working an art project with the kids while Grandpa and I built a geodesic dome climber.

The Matinees

The boys had a movie birthday party this morning. The birthday family rented out University Mall Theatre where they showed Ratatouille. The boys liked it for the second time, though the same intense scene was once again upsetting. While the boys were with Karen at the party I took Faith for pancakes at McDonalds and then to Tysons to see Bee Movie. Faith and I both enjoyed it; lot of good one-liners for adults and visually impressive. There weren't too many laughs from the kids in the theater but I think most liked it.

Afterwards, Karen took the boys to their swim class while Faith and I were finishing our outing.



To round out the day Karen and the kids played an intense game of Thomas Bingo, while I monitored my Fantasy football team. I have a good chance to go 2-0 today.

Day At The Museum

We hit road this morning for the Natural History Museum.

First stop bagels.
Then unto DC. As we approached 15th street and Constitution, traffic began to slow down. In the distance I could see a large mass of people marching (couldn't read what the march was about, but there definitely were a few thousand people) around Independence Ave. Well the whole area was a traffic mess and there was no way we were going to find a place to ditch the minivan. So, Plan B was needed!

Luckily last night I a saw an ad in the weekend section for the National Geographic Museum. With free admission and an exhibit on the new dinosaur just recently making the news, the Nigersaurus, how bad could it be?

Well, it wasn't bad at all, in fact it was very, very good and the kids really enjoyed it. The new dinosaur is being called the cow of its era, for this species about 110 million years ago. Besides the dinosaur exhibit, which was really just the Nigersaurus, they had a large interactive exhibit on critter cam.



Of course the most fun was had climbing the rock in the museum courtyard and having their snack.
So in summary, the National Geographic Museum is a good find in DC.

Small World

http://video.aol.com/video/reuters-quickcut-earth-setting/2023409

She's A Big Girl Now

Today Faith graduated to a real bed. A very exciting day all around. And only one trip to home depot needed while assembling the bed!!!





Our babysitter said she slept like a baby (so maybe she's still our little girl). Karen and I went to an adult social from the pre-school. We had a good time socializing with many of the same people we regularly socialize with minus the kids plus the pina coladas.

To top off the good beginning to a weekend, last night I finally installed a new sink faucet for our kitchen. I replaced our expensive, yet crappy and leaking, Kohler for a reasonable Delta that looks pretty well made. Time will tell.

Kent, WA Holiday Inn Review

Spent two uneventful nights in this hotel about 15 minutes from SeaTac (Seattle/Tacoma Airport) and 5 minutes from Boeing. The place seemed to be in a pretty unexciting part of town, but it served its purpose. On to the review...

Bed: C
Cheap mattress; could feel the springs. Bedding thin, but clean.

Cleanliness: B
Room was clean, couple of subtle stains in the carpet.

Media: B
Average size TV (25"). 45 cable channels, all the basics plus HBO. Free Wireless throughout the hotel, but fairly slow in my room (1 Mbps) and wired LAN jack didn't seem to work.

Breakfast: NA
Free breakfast was offered but we met with colleagues at the DoubleTree for breakfast before a morning meeting. That breakfast had a decent buffet but was about $15.

Towels: B-
Average towels, not super thin, but not soft either.

Overall rating: B-

Beautiful Fall Day

Ode To Our Backyard

Leaf Crew Of One

The Shabbat bag came home with Reuben today. What pressure! You're supposed to use the goods inside to have shabbat dinner that Reuben will discuss in class on Monday. Fortunately, we pulled it off.
Reuben said the Hamotzi over the Challah all by himself tonight. He was pretty proud of himself and rightly so. Jacob is looking pretty good in this photo, about 100x better than he looked this morning. He's finally starting to get some life into him after taking in 30 oz. of fluids today and then some challah at dinner. He still has a low fever but I'm hopefully he'll be better tomorrow. That way he can start to regain the 3 pounds he lost this week (8% of his weight).
Meanwhile Reuben could not get enough play time in our backyard. I came home a bit early to help out with Jacob, but wound up playing with Reuben outside. Reuben was especially good at raking leaves; soon I can cancel the service that does it for me each fall :-)