Christmas Carols

Here's a few songs Grace recorded recently. She's been practicing for some upcoming concerts.

Dec 12 update. We added the song "Peace" below with Emma accompanying on a song they did for the children's choir. It's a little rough in places :) If you listen close, you can hear Sophie in there too, singing the Silent Night overlay part.

School Pictures

We got the kids school pictures for this year, and I decided to add all the other school years here too. Now you can track the 'lil rascals' progress. Try right clicking anywhere on the pictures below and select "Full Screen". Then you can click a picture and start a slide show by clicking on the little control at the bottom of the screen. Id'nat slick?

Fun with Toot & Puds

These cats have been lovingly mauled since kittenhood, so they'll tolerate pretty much anything now. They actually like riding in the stroller, but are not all that fond of being dressed in doll clothes.

Backcountry camping

Gavin and I had a great time on an overnight backpacking trip in Rocky Mountain National Park. At least in retrospect it seems great, after we forgot how badly we slept and that nasty dried jalapeno cheese soup that didn't agree with Gavin.

I took some photos with my iPhone which takes really bad pictures (the new 3GS has a better camera) but the kind of cool thing is that the GPS tags the pictures so you can look back on your ramblings in the wild with Google maps, like this.

We spent the night just below Timber Lake and then hiked up Mt. Ida on the continental divide the next morning.

3 Little Monkeys

Cooliris

I just noticed that the cooliris 3D Wall I embedded in my last post does not work very well in Internet Explorer. If you happened to view the post in IE (version 7 or 8), you probably noticed that the pictures are fuzzy and the "Start Slideshow" button doesn't work. I don't know how well it works in Safari on a Mac. Grace won't let me buy a Mac. She expects me to limp along with the 5 PCs we already have.

Well, the easy fix for this is... use Firefox. Try it out. The pictures are sharp and the slide show works great. Don't have Firefox installed? What are you waiting for? Yeah, I understand if you're like most ordinary people, and figure why not just use the browser that came installed? I have no answer to that, having just acknowledged that you may be an ordinary person, not a geek like me. If you are a geek, you probably were not using IE.

But anyway, if you do use Firefox, I highly recommend that you install the Cooliris plugin. Not because you need it to view this blog; you don't. Simply because it's free and it's about the coolest thing I've seen on the web in at least 3 days. It's great for searching for media on the web, but even better, if you have thousands of pictures on your home computer it's the fastest and flashiest way to browse and present your photos. They also have a plugin for IE and Safari.

Summer in New England

We drove to Maine and spent most of the week of the 4th at camp. Then on to Grace's parents in Duxbury. Grace and the kids are still there, living a life of leisure! I had to fly back and get back to work.

Toot & Puddle

The house got a lot livelier lately with the addition of these two; Toot and Puddle. They're sister (Toot the fluffy one) and brother (Puddle or "Puds").



They're kind of like their namesakes. Toot is the more adventurous world traveler type, while Puds would rather just sleep in the sun.

Random pictures from my iPhone

Some old pictures from the last year or so.



Getting a free cookie at the grocery store is always a big event. One must race to the bakery all the way at the back of the store and gleefully extract it from the case all by oneself.



But some days, even a cookie and the race car can't brighten things up.



Pelicans on Windsor Lake. They hang out at the inlet and catch the fish rushing in.









They were still small enough to fit in one bed in a hotel.





Sadie camping last fall.



Sam gettin 'er in gear.



Princess Sadie.

1973

Where were you in 1973? Grace was in kindergarten, and she cut this picture out herself. I'm guessing her parents were a little annoyed with the hack job at the time. Now it just makes it even cuter. I'll try to remember that next time one of our kids mangles something.

Yet another ski video

Here it is, the anxiously awaited 3rd annual kid's ski video! Ok, so no one was actually waiting for this, but I have fun making them. Sophie is snow plowing down some blue runs now like a little bug. Emma would rather read a book, but she graciously accompanies us anyway. Gavin tackles the whole mountain now. That's him hiking up to Breckenridge Peak 8 summit at 12,998 ft!

A little harp music

In the spirit of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusic, or a Little Night Music, here's Grace with a little harp music. I was looking around for a simple way to share her recordings, and it looks like this will work ok. Please let me know in the comments if it doesn't work, or the sound is choppy, etc. I believe you can even click on the DivShare logo below and download the mp3 file if you want. I'll move the player to a fixed place on the blog later, and we'll add to the playlist occasionally if I can get her to record any more songs. Our "recording studio" consists of a laptop, free software, and a microphone in the living room, but I think she sounds pretty good!

April 4 update: Moved the player here
We had a few workers over today, Lorraine Lerwick, Dorlene Cross, and Jana Printz. That's Jana on the violin on those 4 songs; Carrickfergus through Ye Banks. She's amazing; just walked up and played those, never having seen the music before. The recording is pretty informal, what with the page turning and talking mixed in.

Parade!

Happy St Patrick's Day

Emma marched in the St Patrick's Day parade with her baton group last Saturday. She's the one with the long blond ponytail, marching on the right side of the group. Performing for 3 miles through crowds sounds like a nightmare to me, but she said it was "lots of fun" and nonchalantly carried out her "head loop whips", "double to the rear march", "chasse", and various other moves she rattles off.





Front row, 3rd from right.

Check out this newspaper article that mentions Emma and her group practicing.

Baton Practice

Emma has been taking baton twirling at the rec center after school. The group is practicing for the St. Patrick's day parade this Saturday. (She's in the pink striped shirt). She has really worked hard at this, and takes it very seriously. She also managed to sell 150 boxes of Girl Scout cookies over the past few weeks.

In memory of Aunt Delores

My Aunt Delores passed away last Thursday, March 5th. She would have been 76 next month. She and Uncle Joe were married 57 years. She was the oldest of mom's siblings.

A few of the fond memories I have of her;

She was an extremely kind and gentle person. I never heard her speak a harsh word.

She was always cheery and optimistic. She never complained, even though she had not been well for a very long time.

She lived for others.

She was a fanatastic cook. I mean like gourmet chef good cook. Her son Joe is a chef, maybe she was his inspiration. I loved her homemade donuts.

She was a card playing wiz. I always felt intimidated playing with her. My slow brain couldn't keep up.















50th Wedding Anniversary with their children; Kathy, Nancy, Joe, Uncle Joe, Aunt Delores, Cheryl, Marie, Delores.

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Primus nuncio.

That's Latin for "first post". Well probably not, actually. I don't remember any Latin from high school. But I have decided to start a blog, which is a big step for me. Why you ask? Because as all who know me would agree, I'm not a chatty person. You know those silences that some people feel are awkward and need to be filled? They don't.

On the other hand, I am a very opinionated person, and occasionally am forced to break silence in order to bring some misguided soul around to my way of thinking. It never works, but at least it provokes a debate.

But the real reason I'm starting a blog, is that Grace won't do it. Relatives demand pictures. Prolific bloggers like our sister in law Stacie have been telling her she should start a blog. I agreed. Grace made a few starts, but when it comes to things like that, she has the patience and attention span of a rabid squirrel. She doesn't share my appreciation of computers. A typical conversation might go something like this;

Grace: (2 seconds after she powers on the machine): "Oh for pete's sake! Why does this thing take so long to boot?"
Me: (Mistakenly thinking she actually cares): "Well there's a lot going on. The boot sector code has to..."
Grace (Minutes later): "Oh sorry, were you talking to me? I sort of tuned out."