School Christmas Party 2009

The 2009 Spanish Schoolhouse concert cut to show off the girls. Enjoy!

How far does the apple fall?

We pulled out an old photo of when Tracy was about the same age as the girls. There's no hiding who their mother is :)

I love being married to a teacher.

Sometimes she comes up with the coolest things. This beats the cheese out of powerpoint! Though this presentation is not completed yet, it certainly was fun to make.

I hope all is well with everyone!

A trial run. I've been so bad about updates. Enjoy the piccies!

Just a couple of pictures to make you smile!

A leap of faith

Hey regular reader(s). Not sure anyone reads this. I've hit a break between summer and fall semesters and figured I'd better get this blog updated. The girls are growing like crazy.... both mentally and physically. Claire has outgrown her fear of water and is now half fish. She's learning airplane, soldier, chicken arm movements and kicks well. She's just short enough where she has to constantly bounce off of the floor of the pool in the shallow end to take a breath. Oddly, this is comforting for her and she'll cruise around bobbing her head making her way towards the wall.
Genevieve is also doing extremely well. She loves doing flashcards in an attempt to expand her vocabulary. She's definitely a girl who likes to figure out physical problems. Truly enjoying making towers, chasing the dogs, being chased, and eating. OMG this girl can eat.
Tracy and the girls visited the grandparents this summer, and the kids had a week long stay with Grandma J that was a hit. Claire keeps bringing up a reference to a "really old sidewalk" when talking about Grandma J.
We also had a little help here in TX with a visit from Grandpa Joe and Grandma D. I think all parties had a great time. We regularly get asked now if the produce we have is from Grandma D's garden, especially cucumbers.
Hopefully everyone has had a great summer. Hopefully Scott wasn't swept away by the recent typhoon. Take care everyone!

Toddler/preschool justice.

I turned around this morning to find Claire stamping Evie on the face with a Hello Kitty stamper... both girls giggling so hard they were having trouble standing up. I helped make it an even exchange :)

Kayaks, fishing, and fun.

Claire and Evie are growing fast. Claire is cautiously soaking in the world. Looking for reasoning behind every move. We went out on the lake today in a kayak (and taught Claire what a palindrome is).

I truly felt Claire would be scared, but she loved it. It was a windy day on the lake, making us take water every time we faced into the wind. She loved getting wet, helping paddle, and looking at mommy and Evie "way out there" on the beach. It was a blast. We're so thankful we live in a community that has so many family friendly, free events.

Sometimes I swear I look just like my grandfather...

We also tried our luck at fishing. Claire and Evie were a great help. Unfortunately the only thing we caught was a snag on a rock and an old piece of fishing line.

It was fun either way.

Sorry, no new pictures

So, my personal pledge to keep this blog up to date is waning. Falling victim to the times. Crazy that the only recent time I could spend to update this is at 0122 on a weekday morning. I'm going to bed. G'night all!

Ever had a zebra bite your car mirror?

We took a day trip to Glen Rose, TX to visit the lesser known Fossil Rim Wildlife Center. We all had a blast. Tracy spent a lot of time fearful of how close the animals were, Evie loved to wave and say "bye bye" while Claire and Daddy tossed pellets of food out the windows and shot pictures out the sunroof and side windows when opportunity arose. On arrival, we found the fee to be charged per person and not per car but the rate was quite reasonable. We purchased our tickets and a bag of animal food, listened to a short lecture about what you can't feed and where you can't go, signed a damage waiver, and headed off on a truly unique experience.


You slowly drive through over 9 miles of rough paved road on a private, 1800 acre non-profit wildlife area. Our first visitor was an Ostrich. The guide pamphlet emphasizes that these birds have eyes larger than their brains and they can run up to 40mph... hmmm.... we're limited to 15mph on this drive... better keep the windows up for a while.

As you continue through grassy prairie you come upon many Blackbuck, Axis deer, and other deer-like animals.











Though not caught on video, our best experience was being able to get so close to a herd of zebra, a normally timid and easily scared animal. They're so used to being fed from car windows that they just come right up and wait. If you don't throw food out in a short timeframe, they will take a nibble on the side view mirrors on the car. We now have the zebra slobber and scratch marks to prove it.


This short video clip (click here for low resolusion version) is one of many similar experiences we had with the animals. This happens to be a Aoudad, native to Morocco and other areas of northern Africa.


There are several more higher resolution photos of our intimate animal experience (stop laughing you pervert) including wildebeest, sika deer, southern white rhinoceros, giraffe, emu, cheetah, and other grrrrranimals.