Movies From Another Cold Spring day

Little League game was cancelled today due to a wet field. Maybe for the best since Jacob has a fever and will be in again tomorrow. So what is there today...
DANCE!!


Later faith and Reuben went outside to play all bundled up. Faith is really becoming a good bike rider. A new bike is in her future as a 7 year old.

Afterwards, Faith and I ride our bikes to and from the park.

School Carnival

Beautiful day for a Carnival. Good thing it was the kids elementary school's annual carnival. Jacob even got to dunk his gym teacher!

Jacob was on a role... first two baskets at the basketball arcade and then dunking his gym teacher.

Spring Hike

This afternoon Tipper, the kids, and I went for a hike on our community nature trail. Very serious hikers... We came prepared with backpacks full of water bottles and of course the all important hiking sticks.

Tipper really enjoyed the hike too.


Its a pretty little trail following a small stream through the neighborhood.



As soon we left the trail, Jacob said he wanted to go hiking again. I said we'll go again soon. His response was that he wanted to go again right now :-)

Spring Fever

We enjoyed a fun afternoon outside, first cleaning up the backyard and doing some yard work and then playing with kids out in the court.

Sorry for the lack of recent posts. I have been very busy working a proposal at the office... and its not going to well! We'll see in a month.

Sunny Saturday

Nice calm Saturday.

This morning I woke up with the kids and took them to IHOP (using my birthday coupon) while Mommy slept in; a belated Mother's Day Gift. We had a great breakfast and then came home to work in the front yard. I trimmed several hollies, my barberry bushes, and then cleaned a lot of dead wood from my laurels. The scale is still taking a toll on them. The boys and Faith actually helped and for the first time their "help" was actually helpful! After cleaning up, I sprayed some horticulture oil on he laurels and my ornamental cherry tree to try and fight the scale.

In the afternoon, the kids opened more of their birthday presents and then played with them outside.

Reminded Of A Poem

Yesterday, WTOP news radio of all places, referenced "Nothing Gold Can Stay", by Robert Frost, in regards to the budding flora in the area. This is a poem and poet that I have always liked and to be honest Frost is one of the only poets I really know.
But, it really is an amazing poem as it so nails the thoughts and feelings of Spring (and of course all new things) so hard to express into perfect succinct poetry.

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

It also got me thinking. Have there been any new poets added to High School English class since I learned about Robert Frost and Carl Sandberg? How does a contemporary poet attain stature today? I suspect maybe pop music and now maybe youtube are the replacements.

Our Happy Family

Before going to synagogue this morning we took a family photo in front of our cherry tree. Its a little light on the flowers this year which I think may be a result of the drought this past summer. At least that's what the gardening newspaper columns have been talking about.

You can see last year's version of the photo (almost to the day), though I was too lazy to take out the tripod then.

Ball Play

With Uncle Steven here this weekend we hit the park for some basketball and then worked off the baseball tee at home.

Reuben had to give Steven some pointers. But then I think Steven got the hang of it.

As for tee ball, Steven was playing with Faith inside while the boys took batting practice. Reuben has a real nice swing and hit pretty well. Jacob can hit the ball hard, but needs some work on his form.



Steven and I went to the Nats vs. Mets game last night but left in the 11th inning. It ended in the 12th. Great game, lots of excellent defensive plays and some really close umpiring calls. Stayed tuned for a couple of pictures from the game.

Rumor Has It Spring Is Coming

The thermometer keeps ticking upwards and yo ucan see in the background of this photo that my grass seed has finally germinated. Its a little spotty I think because of the big storm last week. But, at least its starting to come on; I'll fill in the spots later. My first softball game is this Sunday and here it may be 80. Can't wait!!  

Blow Me Away

Strange day. First, the cold, miserable April continues. This time its cold temperatures and WIND; 60 mph gusts. Karen was walking with the kids and the wind almost blew Faith over in the parking lot. Sounded funny to me, but Karen said it wasn't funny. Later I heard about the VA Tech killings. My office has lots of graduates (including recent grads), parents of students, and other friends or associations. Fortunately, I don't know of anyone whose been personally affected. I got my graduate degree from Tech, but never actually stepped a foot on the Blacksburg campus. I got my degree from their NoVa campus. So, then I get home this evening and I see my garbage can hanging from my fence in the car port. Apparently the wind blew it across the car port and into, and then onto, the fence.

Its actually hanging there. Its about 3” off the ground. The wheel you see is on the fence door, not the garbage can.

Cold Weekend

Cold Spring weekend in Virginia. We mostly stayed around the house this weekend. How cold was it...
This was Saturday morning. Yes that's snow! Sunday morning it was still cold so we went to see “Meet The Robinson's”. Good movie, though our showing was not in 3-D. It was probably better that way, considering that Reuben is still scared of movies in general. The 3-D probably would have ended any hope of him sitting through it. In the end, he “liked some of it.”	By the afternoon at least the snow was all gone.
On a Saturday I had a basement guy come in to evaluate the basement for flooding. We had a plumber in a few weeks ago who said he couldn't help us; he said we needed a basement waterproofing company. I was suspect because, as you can see if you followed the above link, the problem is related to the drain leading to the storm sewer backs up. The water doesn't come in to the house at that location but it indicates that the whole water table has risen and it starts coming at the corners of the house. So it was refreshing to hear from the basement guy that I should first try a plumber before spending all my money with him. He gave me a plumber's name that he works with who could snake out the drain and send a camera in to give a visual inspection. The visual inspection could be used, he told me, if my drain is clear. It then could be a county issue with their storm sewer. So stay tuned for what the plumber tells us. Also, I think the cold weather is inhibiting my grass from growing. So far 8 days and no germination. Here are some miscellaneous pictures from this weekend.
Our cold walk to the park.
Tipper, however, loves this kind of weather. We've hardly seen her this weekend. She's always in the yard.
	Faith is still is rarely ever out of her princess dress. The thing is starting to fall a part. Preemptively, Karen bought a second one which will likely be needed soon. The next faze seems to be this hat, which she insists on wearing all around.
Finally, when Jacob doesn't play nice with his siblings he now goes to his room for an extended period to play by himself. So far, he's spent quite a lot of time there ;-) My hope is that he starts to control himself, because he would want to play in a group. We'll see. Meanwhile, at least he showing some creativity in his room. Here is Jacob's cityscape. Our house is the one with the window.

Farmer Barry

Busy weekend. First off, my fantasy baseball reserve draft completed today so now the final rosters can be announced. This is NL only, 5x5, keeper league (up 6 protected players). My team is obviously under the Barry column. I'm pretty happy overall, though I need another good season from Glavine. If the bold text is visible, they represent the players that were protected. As a result of having a keeper league, certain position players wound up with distorted valuations. At least that's my rationale for paying $22 for Brandon Phillips ;-)
Friday night I bought a “Garden Claw” preparing to take one last attempt at growing grass in an area of my yard that has been bare for sometime. This time I did it all: tilled the soil (with my Garden Claw), mixed in some peat moss, mixed in some high quality starter fertilizer, and got some quality grass seed from Merrifield Garden Center. The seed is for shady areas and is a nice mix of fescues with some rye and bluegrass. After visiting Merrifield and talking with some of the personnel, I will never go back to Home Depot for garden needs. Their stuff and quality is so much better, like night and day, at maybe a 10% premium.
Anyway, here is the now seeded area. Hopefully a week from now it will start to have some hint of green seedlings. You can notice off to the left some blue stuff. I'm also trying out in a small area the remainder of a bag of Scott's lawn repair. I won't hold my breadth for that area.
This morning we went to IHOP for pancakes, our last for the week of Passover. The kids were hungry!!!
Before After	Before After	Before After (Trust Me)
In the afternoon the boys had a birthday party, Karen cooked a lot for the seders tomorrow and Tuesday, and I'm working on our taxes. As always this AMT is driving me crazy, but its looking like a refund may be headed my way :-)

It Should Have Been Obvious

All is explained!! Jacob is sick. He started vomiting this morning and hasn't stopped. I came home early this afternoon to watch Reuben and Faith, while Karen took him to the Dr. Strep was going around the pre-school and we wanted to rule that out. He doesn't have strep, just a bad virus. While they were at the Dr. I played outside with the healthy ones and it was another beautiful day. We watered our pansies and some poppy seeds we put down yesterday. Then played in the backyard.
Later we moved to the front of the house. I'm still working on getting Faith to use her tricycle. She's so stubborn, but we made a bit of progress today.
Reuben was helping Faith by pushing her along with his tricycle. It worked and she then did a few peddles by herself. Shortly thereafter she gave up. Reuben then moved to his now favorite pastime, playing with the street sand dumped buy VDOT over the winter. While playing outside in the front of the house I decided to take a before picture of the house with the weeping cherry blossom not in bloom. I'll do an after picture in about 10 days (my estimate, buds are just starting).
Yesterday Scott asked about my Forsythia. As of yesterday they were just starting to open. Today, much more so; probably about 3 days from peaking. Also, I must also confess a secret. I photo-shopped the magnolia picture from yesterday. Can you spot the change?
Lastly, I hope Jacob feels better tomorrow. Lucky for Karen (NOT!), I'm going to California tomorrow and Wednesday.

Tulip Magnolia's Blooms Survive!!!

False alarm last week, the tulip magnolia's blossoms survived the snow. I guess the buds were not open enough to be effected. Now that the blooms survived we finally get to enjoy this tree's blossoms; probably the first time in three years.

Lots of weeds in the lawn already, so today I sprayed Weed-B-Gone. We'll see how well it works. I haven't been too lucky with Weed-B-Gone, but I have not used it this early in the season before. Things are actively growing, so maybe it will work better. I also started using vinegar instead of Roundup, in the beds for weeds. Today will be a good a test at how effective it is; temperate and no rain.

The whole family jut got back from Home Depot where we got some pansies. The plan being for Karen and the kids to plant them this afternoon after naps. We'll see.