Long Weekend

Jack woke up 11.30PM Wednesday night throwing up. He threw up the rest of the night and on until the next morning. Friday morning, his Mom, had the same kind of thing. Saturday morning, Madeline got it. Then Sunday morning, Mom got it again. Or something new. It's a good thing I don't get sick.

Today, with both of the kids at home feeling reasonably well, we went outside. Madeline bundled Jack up along with herself and we kicked the ball around some in the backyard. I have been clearing a tree out from the corner of the yard, and I stepped back there to view my handy work. Two trunks remain on this tree, down from about 13. The last two lean over my neighbors fence and I've been considering the options for cutting these hold outs. However, in between now and then, it has several foot holds and Jack likes peering over the privacy fence. "Cars," which he says like "hires" and "Trucks!" with a grunt right from the gut pointing out the miscellaneous toys in the yard and on the deck. "I can climb higher Daddy," Madeline says.

She only gets so far, there aren't many branches to hold on to anymore, and so she ran to her old favorite, Terra and Madeline have climbed this tree for the last several years to daring heights.

"See Daddy!" I acknowledge how high she is in this tree. Very high. Jack's demanding a little more attention as he's taking new steps on the other tree, and looking more intently at all the neighbor's yard has to offer.


I hear Madeline say, "I'm scared," which I've heard before, too. I say, "I'm keeping a hold of Jack, he's not so good at this." Then a dozen seconds a loud "SNAP," echos from Madeline's direction, clearly a limb broke. I quickly turned my head to the left to see the scariest thing I've seen with my kids. Madeline falling from about 15 feet.

Terra was bucked off a horse once, and it's amazing how the eye and brain can process all the stimuli. Everything moves so slowly. The limb that's cracked is above her head. It's about as long as she is. My girl's body is in a position that looks like an extended jumping jack in mid-air her arms in a V and her legs in an upside down V. She closed her legs, her arms still flailing around. Then the inevitable, a loud "THUD," as her feet hit the ground. She landed and then fell backward on her bottom and rolled over on her stomach.

I pulled Jack out of the tree with one hand, set him on the ground, and raced over to Madeline. She's groaning, low grunts, no tears. "STOP MOVING!" I exclaimed, and I tried to do the triage questions, but she won't have any of it. Mom comes running outside, she heard the drop on the ground and knew what happened.

Madeline has a huge bruise on her bottom, but other than that she's unharmed. No broken leg, arm, back . . . thank the Lord. That girl is 97% muscle and I'm guessing between that and the adrenaline she avoided breaking any bones. The bruise on her bottom was when she fell back and landed on one of the tree's roots.

They don't get younger

My girls picked up the downstairs, that included my office. Before I learned they picked up my office, I declared, "I hope you didn't mess up my office." They did, and it looks great.

Included in my office is a sweet, sweet poster. It has all my girls' pictures on it, with their little brother. It has "1# Dad, from Madeline" and "To: DAD, from: Terra, Madeline." What a treasure. Misty has a HUGE poster in her office, Madeline taped together a 3x3 sheet of 8.5 x 11" papers and wrote how much she loves Mom, and a portrait of the two. In a few years, this will be the last thing on these girls' minds.

Then you hear Jack crying, because the girls are trying to carry him around the house like a sack of potatos and you think, "THAT'S IT!!! I've had it, he's old enough to walk and he's not an American Girl doll, he wants to walk." Then halfway to the location of the screaming, Jack is laughing hysterically as the girls chase him and you think back, they won't get younger, this won't last long. Treasure it. at least until the next time someone screams (hopefully that's not me).

Movies

Terra had a favorite movie. I watched "Tarzan" a million times, no lie. She would just sit down and watch that sucker. I'm so fed up with the movie, I can't watch it anymore. Psychologically, I wonder if that says something about me, like I should have feelings of nostalgia instead of loathing. Now, I hear the Phil Collins stuff, and I'm like, "ZOMG, no more. Make the bad man go away!"

Jack has selected his favorite movie. "Watch Buzz." That comes across much different in "Jack Talk," but it eaks its way out nonetheless. Toy Story is his favorite. Now, the movie has not usurped fire trucks, cars (in jack talk this is "kires"), or going to down a slide. Buzz is parallel to these, just his favorite one in a new track.

Does anyone else hate iTunes complete FREAKIN vanity!! "There's a new version of me out, download me!!! I love myself." I hate you, iTunes.

into the garage we go . . .

Yes! We can still fit both cars in the garage. It's getting cold in America's Midwest. I can still fit the two cars with the saw horses, the bandsaw, the jointer, the planer, the work bench, and the table and miter saws. It's come such a long way.

Halloween

This Halloween we had all three kids. Terra was little red riding hood (befitting), Madeline was a Pink Pirate, and Jack was a Elmo. It was a great Halloween. We remembered the best houses. On one cul-de-sac, a guy decided to grow some gourds. I have no idea why, but somehow, he managed to get a 147 lbs. pumpkin out of the ground. That's heavier than my wife.

My favorite story from this Halloween starts with our neighbor. Prior to leaving on our adventure, our neighbors' kids stopped by, dressed as a pink pirate and a kitty cat. The dad (Dave), arrives wearing a Grim Reaper tunic, carrying the scythe, and painted on his hands are white lines pointing to metacarpals and phalanges.

His youngest daughter is very proud of the costume. "Look at my dad's bones," she exclaims, holding her dad's hands. "He's a boner! Dave the boner!!" she repeats, laughing at her joke, oblivious to any other meaning. I laughed hysterically.

Awards

Kids can be the sweetest thing. Sometimes I am reminded that isn't true, but not tonight.

Waiting for me on my pillow was a pink envelope with some writing, what looked like a candy wrapped in a bright yellow wrapper, and a ribbon. The ribbon says "Awarded to Dad, for: the best dad in the world." The candy wrapper is yellow paper with little smiling lady bugs all over, carefully drawn and colored. Wrapped in the yellow paper is a worn, smooth rock for a lucky charm. The pink envelope has three screws in it with a note inside, "For working on something" and on the outside of the envelope it says, "To: Dad, from: madeline."

I think there's a couple little things that make this so tender and beautiful. First, the red ink on Madeline's hand when she came in and gave me a huge bear hug, and told me how much she loved me. There were little ink blotches on her fingers, and I could picture her coloring the little lady bugs studiously. She later told me she worked especially hard on the lady bugs. One of them almost looks like it has three dimensions.

The screws are sweet, because I've been doing some work out in the garage and she of course knew I could use them. These are just some random screws she picked up from somewhere. It couldn't have been my garage, my garage is immaculate (I do have a Ridgid 6HP, 16Gallon Shop-vac/blower). She's thinking of me when she sees something as simple as a wood screw melts my heart.

But the real tender side comes from yesterday. As a "punishment" for not listening, I had her help me in the garage sanding a few things down, and I had her use some citrus cleaner to wipe dried glue from some clamps with a wire brush. She was so mad at first, but she really worked hard. I had to go inside once and she asked when I would be back. By the end of both chores she was completely into it, and I dare say even liked it.

So a couple things are coming out of this bright spot in my evening. One, Madeline and I are going to Dunkin Donuts tomorrow morning for breakfast before school, and two, I've got to stop cursing all these "lady bug" beetles that are everywhere in the Midwest. At least in front of Madeline, I'm going to stop cursing those things. I can't stand the @!#$* beetles. I squish them every chance I get.

Funny words

Two funny stories about Jack with words.

After dinner one night this weekend we played a game. We went around the table and tried to get Jack to repeat the word. I started, "Jack, say 'Daddy.'" Slam dunk, Jack says daddy all the time. Then it was Mom's turn, "Jack, say 'Mommy.'" Another slam dunk, of course Jack says "Mommy" all the time. Madeline goes next, then Terra and back to Dad. We started with Jack's favorite words, Cookie, truck, fire truck, train, airplane. Jack is eating up the attention and we are laughing hysterically. Jack's into it now, he's rolling. More words come out, airplane, apple juice, rain, tree, cracker, milk, everyone's scoring and the game is tied.

Eventually it got back to Mom, and she pauses. "C'mon Mom," Madeline says and Mom replies, "I'm thinking..." As if on cue, Jack comes right back, "I'm thinking!" Everyone laughed so loud. Jack loved it, everyone did.

Then on Sunday night we were playing Uno with our neighbors. I was down to my second to last card, played it, and Mom gets me, "You didn't say UNO!!" Ohh, I was so aggravated, I picked up my two card penalty and repeated "UNO, UNO, UNO" several times. Then Jack screams out, "UNO!"

Teeth News

Madeline had some braces for orthodontia (I spelled that write the first time!) work and we are looking at the results right now. Her teeth are so straight.

Sick News

Madeline was deathly ill the first week of school. She went for two days then was home for three days. I haven't seen her sicker. Terra was sick last week. She thought it was the flu, turned out to be strep throat.

Now, when you go to the hospital with flu-like symptoms you are going to get a surgical mask handed to you. I thought it was a trip. Like MJ out on a trip in the town, the girls gets to wear a surgical mask to not infect us others.

Trains

"Choo-choo." Misty found out about a reading session at one of the book stores. I've got one thing that I think a book store would be able to give to the reader of the book, and that would be a book, right? But evidently, the book store didn't have the book, the lady was reading from a photocopy of the book. A photocopy?! What the heck, man.

So Jack listens to the story for a little bit, screams out "truck" every chance he can, then goes off to find a train set in the store and falls in love. Little did Jack know we have a storage box filled with trains. I got it out that afternoon after Misty told me his joy over the trains. It's setup now in the TV room. Jack loves it.

So do the girls. They are all over it, the train set is everything that they wanted and didn't get in . . . wait, uh, I think they have everything they wanted. I remember with Terra, my biggest trap was setting up the train track so it was too complex. Now the girls are ready to setup the complex mazes that are possible with the tracks, but Jack gets overwhelmed and the trains get frustrating for him when he can't make a 270 degree right turn on a Y shaped track.

Alea is over and has put together a nice track with bridges, circle's, curves, and all the goot stuff. Jack is ramming his train head on to her train.

No Shirt, No Shoes . . . fun

Jack's new thing is no shirt. He doesn't like to have a shirt on, especially when he is outside. I think this is a phase every boy goes through. This is how the no shirt rule started out; he got something from the ice cream man, it melted and created a mess all over himself. When it's all over the boy, then the shirt needs to come off, and the next thing you know he's trying taking his clean shirts off that we just put over his head three minutes ago before going outside.

Truck Fixed

Truck finally fixed. It wasn't the catalytic converter, thank heavens. I tried to remove the catalytic converter just to see if that was a problem, but the bolts are rusted on there so bad, it was going to have to come off the hard way.

Travis brought his OBD, connected to the truck's computer. I'm not sure that's what lead to the fix though, it though the neutral safety was an issue. Real problem turned out to be the fan clutch. Bought a new one and replaced the old busted on this afternoon.

Jack's words

Jack's day care teacher at the hospital told Misty, "I love how he says Truck, and what."

Jack's filled with words now. He's bursting with them. It's so hilarious to listen. He's always been the strong, silent type, but now he jibber jabbers like nobody's business.
"I want down."
"Don't want down."
"Mamma's jack"
Both his sisters' names
"No." one of his favorite's
"Apple"

There's a ton more. The really funny part is he will just jack jabber for ever and is very serious about what he's saying. I know this because I can play respond in different ways and it's obvious from his reaction that I completely missed the topic.

"Yeah, Jack, the truck is white." Jack replies, "Jibber jabber,jibba jabba...." and goes a mile a minute.

"Yeah, Jack. Red is my favorite color when the maple's are turning, too." Jack's response, " . . . "

But his teacher's favorite words are my favorite words. We are going to get a video of it. Jack says "truck" with his mouth contorted on one side. And he says "what?" with the best emphasis, like, "I'm busy, what do you need?!"

Clean Truck

The truck had a few mouses [sic] that made a comfortable home in it for a little while. Not the funnest thing in the world to smell, it's not like it has a great bouquet or anything. And believe me, it's hard to think of Mickey Mouse or Jerry while vacuuming mouse turds with a shop-vac.



Now, the truck is relatively clean. My allergies are like a punch in the face right now so I can't smell a whole lot, but I can say, it smells a lot better than before. Nothing a little bleach can't help.

Then the engine started acting up. It loses all power after 2000 RPM, so if you're behind a '88 Ford truck in Kansas, don't expect to pick up speed very fast or go over 55mph. I called Travis, he thought, given the history, this was a problem in the air box with a mouse nest. Sure enough, that was a problem. The breather filter needed replaced. Still didn't fix the problem.


Called Travis, "Try the fuel filter." Replaced the fuel filter, which needed to be replaced, still no go. Now we (aka Travis) thinks the issue is with the catalytic converter. That's past my skill. I can't even see how to get in there.


Also, look at this bandsaw, it's from Atlas (built in USA!). I got some arn (see Old Wood Working Machines). I'm trying to figure out the date it was made based on the serial number, I'm guessing the 1960's. This thing has no plastic, no aluminum just iron (arn).

Gerbils

A little bit of background story here for everyone at home. Terra and Madeline begged for gerbils, Terra a lot more than Madeline. Finally, after literally an entire weekend of begging, Mom and I caved in to the request. Actually they wanted dwarf hamsters but after a few hours of searching on the Internet, I found the pet qualities of a gerbil to be greater than those of a hamster. I nixed the dwarf hamster request. However, gerbils are not as popular with the laymen out there and it's not easy to find them at pet stores, at least compared to rats, guinea pigs, mice, or hamsters.

The girls got some money from Grancy and Big Daddy for their birthdays and while Grancy visited we went to a few pet stores to find gerbils. The first didn't have gerbils and Terra was devastated. While we were driving away from the store back home to regroup, she convinced herself that I wouldn't take her to any more stores and she wouldn't get a gerbil, and she sobbed. Madeline sobbed, too, but it sounded so half-hearted. I asked, "Madeline, are you crying." She pulled her hands down from her face -- no tears. She laughed. "No, but I'm just trying to fit in back here." Grancy and I could barely hide our laughing.

We found a pair, finally, and got them. I built a cage for them and the girls love putting scrap pieces of wood for them to play. They quickly became proficient at getting out. I put some netting, the kind to cover a screen door, over the top and weighted it down, I meant to get some more wood and build a second tier to the cage this weekend with the girls. It was going to be slick. Mitred edges, panels using plywood, then the second tier would clip on to the first level of the cage. I wanted to get those suckers out of the garage and downstairs so the girls would tend to them better. However, the gerbils gnawed their way out of the screen netting that easily secured them for the last week. To make matters worse, they did this while the garage door was open.

I found one of them under the compartment in the deep freeze that houses the motor. He usually hides there. The other one though . . . gone. Probably out the garage door and hiding in some bushes. Maybe we'll find him, I doubt it.

The girls are taking it well. According to them, it is Madeline's that made the great escape.

New truck

New truck, new to me that is, it's not a new truck. This is a 1988 Ford F250 2x4. It smells a little like a field mouse lived there, but other than that it's in great shape. The clutch might need some help, too. But that's going to be my fault. I seized that thing a lot, rocked it, oh heavens. The first couple days were rough. I rocked the car so bad while trying to get the clutch out the tail gate shot down. That was a loud noise.

Pictures. Pictures. Pictures.

Best Bands

Misty has really taken to running. I try. She's really good. One of the things she received for her birthday is a Nike pedometer. Highly annoying is that you have to have a 2nd generation iPod Touch to get this freakin' thing to work. Well, maybe not so annoying.

See, I bought the iPod touch deal a while ago for Misty. This time, we upgraded to the newest "Second Generation!!!" (completely sarcastic) iPod touch system, but I get the first generation. Which is slick as anything for me. I can't take any of this cool stuff to work, so I've never paid much attention to it, but this thing is so sweet. I get to listen to my songs, or at least build my playlists of my thousand favorite songs. That doesn't mean I get to listen to them.

Back to the original thought for the post. Bar none -- Dinosaur Jr. and Catherine Wheel are the best bands. I'm totally diggin' on "Whatever's cool with me," "Get Me," and "Black Metallic," "Show me Mary," right now. It's been years since I jammed out to these things.

The Madeline Show

On a new note, now that one of my girls has a camera that takes video. They are collecting episodes of "The Madeline Show," loosely based on an iCarly show.

0.66 Done

When I sign-in to the Blogger thing I'm always presented with the option of adding a post to my Virgina Beach cohort's blog, or to this one. The former is at something like 679 posts, I think mine is at 69. I am jealous really, I wish I had that stamina.

SIXTY-NINE!!

That's an homage to my Bingo days from assignment in to AOR in Saudi Arabia back in the desert storm days. Those days are long past, so am I.

Two birthdays down. First my wife (my beautiful wife). We "celebrated" her birthday Tuesday. Two days before her birthday but our middle baby (actually almost 9 years old), was going to camp on the real birthday. We opened a few presents. This has reinforced my hypothesis that the perfect birthday order is Mom, Madeline, and then Terra. I don't think Jack's order matter a great deal, but this is still in scientific exploration mode.

Following my wife's birthday is Terra's. Determined that the whole family had to get heartburn, she wanted to go to Chili's for dinner.

This reminds me of an excellent anecdote. While I was trying to convince my wife that only she was able to eat the delicious weight watcher's meals (the rest of us needed more -- ok ME!) I was on a "Let's always go out to eat," modal. We went to eat Mexican.

"I eat enchilada's all the time at my Mom's," Terra says while she is looking at the menu (never mind that Dad makes excellent Enchilada's). "Madeline, you should have some."

We placed our order. The enchiladas arrive. "Terra. Where is the meat? There is no meat on this!! You said there would be meat. There's only cheese." This was followed by several groans from the oldest. "OK! OK, I'm sorry Madeline. I made a terrible mistake!"

So, back to the storyline, Chili's wasn't so bad. Order from the "guilt free" menu if a kid you own begs you to go. However, if you also have a baby that is supposed to eat 1,200 calories a day, anything with "Crisper" in the menu title is going to be an ace!

Terra got what she wanted, she got a "digital camera, with zoom, that takes movies, and the pictures look good." Plus a ton of money from Grancy and Big Daddy! She's spent $10.00 so far.

My son is crying. One of his sisters will not let him play with one of the girls' toys. "Mine! Mine!" Jack's favorite words.

One and two liners

• The diversity of sizes in our plastic cup population is killing me. There isn't enough order in the cabinet to keep me sane.
• Jack is a killer kicker. He squares himself with the ball, takes between three and eight steps backwards, then concentrates, races forward, and nails it with his right foot.
• Jack's going to be right handed, almost positive.
• Terra wants an iTouch iPod; trying to convince her she wants something else, like a nice purse.
• Madeline's going back downstairs by herself again. Terra told her a vicious rumor about robbers and she wouldn't go downstairs for ever.
• I gave a presentation at the DOE Cyber Security Conference on "Federating a Wiki."
• The pool is freezing, I don't know how Terra and Madeline can stand it.
• While I was cleaning out our side garden, poison ivy attacked. I was miserable, spent like $50.00 on meds to try and fix it. Yesterday, I gleefully sprayed twice the strength necessary of Roundup on the plant. It's great to watch it wilt in demise.
• Jack loves his "Silly Christian Songs" video. I think his favorite song is "I'm in the Lord's Army."
• San Marcos whole jalapenos are a must with tacos at home. You can cut the jalapeno and let the juices drip on some chips, in addition to putting the pepper in the taco.
  
• Madeline and Terra are having a blast with frogs from the creek this summer. They've captured at least five and keep them in a five gallon paint bucket in the backyard, nourishing the creatures with crickets.
• Only a few of the frogs have passed on, there's only one in captivity presently.
• I did not like the new Star Trek movie, although I'm glad I was able to see it.
• Terra and Madeline both performed in their respective talent shows for the end of school. I could never have done that. Both danced.
• The backyard looks fantastic with all the grass. I removed two huge bushes in March and it's really opened things up.
• I'm trying to break Jack from the habit of throwing his plate filled with food when he's finished with a meal. He looks very seriously at me when I scold him, "OK, I won't do it again," but he never wants to remember.

New things to come?

Madeline could be an artist. Her art teacher in school loves her. She is always drawing at home and working on craft projects that she comes up with all on her own.

A few weeks ago, both girls put together a Card Company. "Let's make greeting cards!" They both were downstairs for an hour working on the cards, then I setup the foldout table at the end of the garage, the girls made a few large signs and started selling cards.

My favorite was a black and white card with the "Good luck . . ." on the front and when you opened up the card it said, " . . .with something." How perfect! It's a card for any occasion.



Madeline came down this morning with her new painter art program from the netbook and I think it looks great. She figured out all the buttons herself. I'm positive we will still have our conventional cards and projects, but I'm curious how much more of these things on the computer the girls will make.

Easter

Squirrels will eat plastic eggs when they are left out too long . . . just in case you didn't know.

This weekend the girls got their own Netbooks. Tiny, little things; there is no way I can type on one for very long. My fingers aren't that small, but the girls love them. I'm just nerd enough to get them hooked up on Ubuntu Linux for the distro, too. No XP, here. I figured these computersare still susceptible to extreme Spyware and virus attacks, despite the mitigations of OpenDNS, given the beginner status of the operators.

I spent the weekend setting up chat, mail, web browsers, wireless networking, transferring music, installing software, etc. It was fun.


I built the boy a sandbox. As I was driving home with 600 lbs. of sand I considered the following: Jack will grow up with a sandbox in his backyard and will want nothing to do with it. The girls will have grown up thus far without a sandbox at all in their backyard, and they will think it is the coolest thing in the world. and guess what? I was right.

Jack doesn't like to get his feet in the sand box. He'd rather stand outside, and flick the sand out of the box and on the ground. Meanwhile, the girls are having a blast burying themselves and playing with the toys

What kind of a world is this??

The Trusting Game

What a fun game the Trusting Game is . . . drive your parents crazy. That's the funnest part about it, I'm sure. Jack plays this game the best. The girls and I play it to a lesser degree of "trust."

It starts with one of the girls standing in front of me with her arms across her chest. She's standing straight and willfully starts to fall backwards toward my arms. If her knees buckle in order to steady herself, she doesn't trust me . This is just the game. I can get it so one of Terra or Madeline's butt touches the ground before I grab one by the arm pits and lift up fast so she doesn't touch the ground and crack her skull. "My turn!!!" invariably is the next words from the girl not playing the game.

Jack has taken the game to the next level. His trust is implicit. Jack and I started a version of this game in my bedroom. I lift him up over my head, exclaim, "Ready!" and then Jack falls flat on his back on the bed. He laughs, he loves it.

Another version of the game is for Jack while standing on the bed, inches his way to the wall. He then slams his fist on the wall three times, and falls straight back.

Jack has decided the game is so much fun, he likes to do it whenever he can. Mom carried him the other night, passed by the bed and Jack instantly shifts his center of gravity backwards toward the bed and begins the fall. Mom starts hyperventilating, "What if didn't catch him? He's so big??!" and becomes paranoid that he's going to do this all the time.

I tell Mom, "He'll tell you when he's ready to play the game. He always says 'Ready.'" Now, mind you, Jack's version of ready at 19 months comes out like "Dah." Nonetheless, that's all the warning you get with this boy.

BTW . . . I finished making the nightstand, now there is symmetry in my room.

Mischief

I had a few hours of work I needed to do at home today. I went upstairs to get by fob for work, that has the token I need for remote access, but it wasn't on my chest of drawers. "I worked from home Monday morning", I thought, "it must be downstairs. "

I looked everywhere but couldn't find anything. Jack's trying to help me. Jack's version of help is letting Daddy carry him around while Daddy walks around the house, not on the mantle, not on the cusions, oh, there's Jack's ball, not in the tv room, not under the couch, there's Terra's phone though . . . it's no where. nothing. Think, Mike, think. I was getting ready for work one morning this week, I grabbed my billfold, keys, and phone from the dresser, and clink, the keys fell on the floor.

My little helper and I walked back upstairs, except now he wants to get down and play. The keys aren't anywhere in the bedroom, but Jack has found the trash can and thrown one of his toys in there, "You're not getting that thing back, Jack. That's gross!" Back downstairs, I can get a new fob, I'll go into work if that's what needs to happen . . .

Later, we're all upstairs and I recall the time Terra threw my keys in the trash can. Then a quick flash back to the toy jack threw in the trash can. Oh, no. This trash can has Jack's dirty diapers in it. Sure, it was emptied a few days ago, but Jack's a healthy boy, and there's nothing worse than poopy diaper smell . . . I pulled the trash bag out, and sealed it shut as fast as I could. A waft of something gross hit my nostris, and I shook it, like Santa Claus might shake his bag full of toys. There's something that sounds like the clinking of keys. I feel around and there it is, my keys! I opened the bag, holding my breath, and there they were.

Next time, I won't be so lazy when I drop the keys on the floor.

Christmas '08

Christmas 2008 was great. Misty found so many deals; the girls got everything they asked for. I heard Madeline say, "These are the best two days ever." That's quite a big red letter day.

The Christmas started Friday. Terra had a recital with the other classes in her school. After the recital we all went out to eat, because there was nothing at home, since we were heading out of town for a week. Mom and I decided the girls could open their presents from us that evening before we traveled. Terra's wearing her pajamas because that the the costume for the play that night, but they both got jammies for Christmas that they changed into post haste. There were so many excited faces.

The next morning Santa arrived with a few presents. Following Santa, Grandma and Grandpa arrived with a Ford truck bearing plentiful presents. Then in a few hours we left for almost a week in Virginia.

Christmas in Virginia wasn't long enough. We went to see the capitol a couple times, explored the woods, saw all of the other Alexander' clan . . . the last was my favorite part.