Xmas in the OC

As promised my recap of our holiday trip to visit Uncle Bump in Orange County.

Sorry for the long entry, but we took a lot of pictures, and the kids were at their cutest, so it's hard to leave things out.

At this point I should recognize that a number of the readers of this blog have asked to see/hear/read more about the rest of the family. The Uncle Bump's and the Grandpa Gene's in particular.

There's a good reason that we don't see as much of those guys: Jake and Lily are far cuter than they are. Honestly, I can't remember the last time (if ever) somebody saw a picture of Coley and said "Awwww. That's adorable".

And when I tell stories about Gene if they say "Wow. He's at a great age" it's probably referring to quantity not quality.

Uncle Bump's (aka Coley, aka Hermano) kids on the other hand, Riley Logan and Katie Chase, ages 3 and 1 respectively - definitely cuter AND are at greater (quality) ages then their dad and grandpa.

But give the people what they want I say. I'll throw in a few pictures and words of the oldsters.

Uncle Bump and Auntie Amanda hosted us for more than two weeks while we did little day trips and lounged in their ginormous house. Good thing it was big since they were hosting 14 for breakfast lunch and dinner everynight.



We arrived at John Wayne direct from Honolulu (highly recommended) Xmas eve afternoon, so the kids didn't have long to wait till that BEST OF ALL MORNINGS.



Grandpa Gene's early present this year was retiring after fourty bazillion years of listening to people kvetch about their goddamn problems, how their wife/husband/kids/boss/dog doesn't appreciate them and yadayadayada and on and on and on....criminy. SHUT UP ALREADY ! Now he can finally do what he's always wanted.

Birdhouses:



Orange County has great public parks. Period. It's nice that the kids are still at the ages where a trip to the park is (almost) as good a one to a theme park. Fast slides, high swings, zip cords, soft places to fall, plenty of fun physical activity things to move/push/pull/climb and all.

Of course, maximum capacity still means something.


The kids got their first taste (literally natch) of snow:


Also their first trip to a themepark - Legoland:


Our second trip to the Aquarium of the Pacific, where ironically we probably had the most fun in the lorikeet aviary:


Jake, Coley, Riley and I wen tup to Chino to the Planes of Fame Aviation Museum.

Awesome. It was P-40 day and we got to see them start up a genuine Sharkmouth and then taxi and take off. Way cool. Jake wants to be there for P-38 day, and I want a returm visit when a Spitfire flies.

I threw in a picture of a P-38 that I made for Uncle Jim as a Christmas present. Compared with the real thing I did a pretty good job IMHO.

Another return visit for us was a little petting zoo just down the road from Uncle Bump's in San Juan Capistrano. And afterwards, just like two three years ago, we went to the Ruby's and had MASSIVE burgers in a cool train themed restaurant.




Speaking of food, Kim and I managed to sneak in two trips to In-and-Out Burger. Heaven.

And Lily and Jake got to have their best New Year's Eve evar when we took them out to the movies. Saw "Enchanted" which really was great. Good, clean, silly, wholesome fun (I'll rave later about "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" - also quite good, though not as wholesome).

Couple more fun/cute pics to round it out:

Just a great vacation. U. Bump, A. Bandit, Riley Logan and Katie Chase were great hosts and forgave us (I hope) for all the chaotic craziness that upset and challenged their family's balance/sleep schedules/eating habits/sharing abilities and other things I'm too obtuse not to apologize for.

In front of a Legoland version of my birthplace

quilt inspirations

For christmas I got Amy Butler's Midwest Modern book. After Kaffe Fasset, she is my inspiration for quilting. Her fabric designs simply make me smile and gets me excited to make more baby blankets. And it's a good thing too because I have a list of friends and family members who are pleasantly expecting in 2008. Most of the time I do simple 4 block patterns which is why I depend so heavily on the beauty of the fabric designs to carry the gift. To Amy and Kaffe whom I've never met, thank you and your team for providing me with great material.

Oh and of course the photos of her design studio just makes me drool. I can't wait to get my act together and actually go to town with my sewing space in the basement. My dream life would be to have an inspiring sewing space with great light and music and I could wake up and put on jeans and make blankets with Lily and Jacob for hours. And of course go to the beach to teach them how to surf and go to hula and pick flowers and make lei. Ah...I love it when a good book gets the juices flowing.

****By Kim of course

Catching up

Wow it's been a while. A busy couple of months. I took a new position at the Museum and spent most of November freaking out about it before the job began the first week of December. One of our exhibit designers left to join an exhibit design company in Vancouver and the head of the department asked if I was interested.....just means more:

• meetings


• schedules


• management


• stress


• budgeting


• emails

What it does NOT mean is (this being the Bishop Museum) more money. Sigh. Good thing I like working there.

So now instead of just helping on on pieces of exhibits like DVD's or computer interactives, I'll be in charge of planning the whole shebang. Carpet, painting, electrical, carpentry....kinda daunting but there's a very supportive and committed team down there.


Right around Thanksgiving we took our traditional surfing photo for the seasons greetings cards. Took plenny pictures of the kids playing about in the surf and it was hard to pick which one would be the winner. Here's a couple of the rejects. If you didn't get a seasons greetings card, it's probably because we don't have a real street address for you. If your refrigerator needs something to stick to it next winter, email us with your snail mail address and we'll add it to the Master List. We won't sell your information to anybody. We'll give it for free. Not really.

Lily's kept on doing keiki hula, and while Kim occasionally has to drag her to practice, when she performs she has a great time. I'll be getting a dose of that myself soon.

Next month Jake begins soccer with Keola, Alika, and Calvin. So there goes my Saturday mornings for the next fourteen years or so.



The kids came by the museum one time last month and got to help Uncle Dano prep the pili grass that will be used to reconstruct the hale that was disassembled last year during the Hawaiian Hall renovations. Some of the posts that came out may have been in use in houses on Kaua‘i since the late 1700's. The materials were moved to Honolulu in 1905 or so (IIRC) and the house stood until we took it down (Lily and Jake helped in that too). Took it down very carefully I should say. Anyway, in the next few months Dano will be leading the team that will reassbmle the hale using as much of the materials as possible, and gathering new materials as needed.

My proud accomplishment in early December was to rebuild our embarrassingly ugly/lame/rotten front gate. When we moved in 6 years ago now (YIKES) it was held together by paint and baling wire and had only degraded since then. So I finally got up the nerve to plan, paint, cut, construct, and all that good stuff. And best of all it actually works! I might get over my phobia of home improvement - I always have a sinking feeling that I've gonna do something stoopid and screw up more than fix things, but the gate's still working so I'm considering new projects. Hmmm.....new roof?



I'm especially proud of the Batman latch pull.

Next update I'll recap our great trip to Uncle Bump's house in the OC. Still working on compiling the list of things we did...long list....great pics and fun trip. Stay tuned.

Halloween & the Carhole of Scariness, Mk. III

Lily and Jake scored make up for Halloween from Grandpa Gene. So much for the Word Girl plan, but they had a great time. Lily exercised extreme self control by waiting until the 31st to stick on the snake tattoos - we went to two different parties before that and I'm sure she was dying to bust them out, but she held on till the big day. They're still on three days after and don't seem to be worse for wear.

Jake was Spiderman, reprising his role of two Halloween's ago, but this time he used makeup for the mask, which I think is pretty cool . While the kids costumes weren;t the most original or creative ever, they loved them, so thanks Grampa for the supplies.

We spent more energy quite honestly on the

Best...Carhole....Ever.....


Everybody got involved in the setup.

We worked overtime on the CHoS this year and tried for some tricky special effects - a Pepper's Ghost and a Bottomless Pit/Hellhole were the highpoints. Take a look at Dave and my post scare wrapup walkthrough of the CHoS below.

Here's a work in progress picture of our Pepper's Ghost: we call her Lisa.





And here's still more pics from the Lemmonds'



Best...Carhole....Ever.....till Friday (<----!!!!) October 31, 2008.

New work - name the plane....

Any guesses? I had never heard of it till Kim gifted to me.....

Email me or post a comment with the answer and you'll win something meaningless, probably just bragging rights.

OK. Maybe I will play soccer

Jake reconsiders - after he hears that his friends Keola and Alika are hitting the pitch.

Buh-bye baby seat !

 Jake is totally excited that he's gotten out of the baby seat and into a booster. Over the last few months the only way to keep him happy was to tell him that baby seats had 5 way restraints like race cars....

Jake - "I click in like a RACE CAR? OK !"

We went to Kmart and he picked out a Diego booster seat. While we don't catch much of the adventures of Diego (he's not on PBS - don't tell my kids) Jacob still has a soft spot for him since they share a name Jacob/Diego = Enlgish/Spanish in case you didn't know. Every once in a while Jake even tells us to call him Diego (which was my plan before he was born anyway...at last ! My plan is coming to fruition! BUWAHAHAHAHA!)

Now Lily tries to sit in the Diego seat. Finally Jake has something she wants, but he's cool about and actually let's her. What a guy.

Blues on the Bay

Went to the other side of the island to an air show with the most rabid plane-friends we have, the Brooks'. The kids (Jim and I) had fun and the little boys and girls had a blast as well.

Happy Anniversary Jim and Laurie!

Double thanks to moms/wives to indulging our obsession.

Stay on target......stay on target

In previous generations parents would stress about when to introduce their children to the important things in life: the birds and the bees, mortality, what really happened to dad and why he lives in that big house outside of town with the bars and all those other scary looking men.

Now, generally speaking we can leave a lot of these to the Internet (thanks YouTube!) but there comes a time in any parents life when they need to help their children make an important passage:

When to watch Star Wars for the first time?
And perhaps more importantly, which of the six movies to begin with?
How young is too young?
Can a 6 and 4 year old be expected to handle arms getting hacked off, planets full of people murdered....the whole Luke and Leia thing (shudder).....

These weighty questions were brought into sharp focus in the last couple of weeks because Jacob saw the presents that I had chosen for Jack's birthday party - a Star Wars sticker book and a Darth Vader Halloween candy bucket (super-hyper cool).



(In case you don't remember, Jack is a major SW fan as recounted here from last years party. Plus he's strong enough to pull the ears of a gondark. Jake and I worked on a special SW wrapping paper, which actually wound up in the Lemmonds collection.....but I digress.

The questions started flying fast and furious:

Who is that? Darth Vader.
Is he a good guy? No.
What is that? That's an X-Wing.
What is that? Wookie.
" " " ? C-3PO
" " " ? R2-D2
ad nauseum.....

Well, over the weekend I realized that my anxiety over when to let my children watch a movie that, while arguably the most influential bit of cinema for my generation, was still a movie for kids and that obsessing over it was classic Gen-X nerd foolishness.

I said enough already.

Popcorn. Lights out. Comfy blanket. Stereo loud.....

Episode IV of course.

I couldn't subject them (or myself) to I - III.

They were entranced....

enchanted...

until...

Five minutes left in the movie...Death Star attack...X-Wings ! T.I.E. Fighters ! Darth Vader ! Luke ! What ever happened to Han?

and...

the DVD craps out...

frozen...going nowhere....#&@*#%@ !

"What happens ? ! ? Is Luke OK? What about the Princess?"

I say, well, it's a cliffhanger, you'll find out tomorrow when we get a new disk at Costco.

Putting them to bed that night (we had let them stay up late watching it) I asked both kids, "so what did you think...?"

Lily: Is the princess pretty? Does she like Luke more? Does he love her? Does she like Han?

Jake: I liked the fighting.

Mission Accomplished.

Well mostly. We did get a new DVD the next day and they did learn that Han saves the day, Luke is OK, the Death Star blows up, and that Darth Vader gets away.

Course then Vader has to make that call....poor guy.

I told the kids that everything you need to learn, you can learn from Star Wars. Kim said "He's just kidding"....

Nope.

Lily Evans - Hula Dancer

Since we have a big screen tv, I film in widescreen. But YouTube and iMovie aren't really set up for that. So Lily gets a little tall and skinny, but it's still pretty cute nevertheless.

Word Girl !

Our new favorite TV show.

Has to be seen to be believed. Some of the funniest writing this side of the Simpsons and old Loony Tunes. Go to the Adventures of Word Girl on the lowerish left to see some episodes.

In one episode, mild mannered 5th grader, Becky Botsford (secret ID natch) meets one of her nemeses (nemesises? nemesi?) who mentions that only a family of imbeciles would own a television. She angrily replies that she does in fact know what imbeciles means and that her family are certainly not. Besides, they only watch PBS.

We're so deep in that Lily's planning on being Word Girl for Haloween. Jacob wants in too, so he'll be Captain Huggy Face, WG's monkey sidekick.

I'm psyched too since I'll be to be the COOLEST villain - The BUTCHER.

IL-2

One tough WWII plane.

Wanted to make this one pretty banged up.

My first Soviet plane.

Pretty blue

Visit with Dr. Jake

Scene: Morning, dad is putting on clothes, getting ready for work. Dr. Jake arrives for a house call with his big plastic stethoscope.

Dr: Time to check you out.

Me: OK. Do I have to take my shirt off?

Dr: No just lift it up. (Puts stethoscope on my stomach)

Me: OK. How's that?

Dr: OK. Hmmmm

Me (DEEP BREATH)

Dr: HMMMM

Me (DEEP BREATH)

Dr: HMMM. (Shakes head)

Me: Are we done?

Dr: No. I've got to check your piko (bellybutton).

Me (thinking) pleasenolint pleasenolint

Dr: Uh oh

Me: Sounds serious...AM I ok?

Dr (stage whisper) : CAVITIES !

No....way.

WAY!


Follow link. Too funny.

A Good Day

Yesterday may go down as one of the best days of my life. No exaggeration.

1. Played hooky with my son.
2.Went to the beach.
3.Watched jet fighters zoom by 100' off the water.
4.Watched perfect late summer swell at the best south shore spots.
5.Went for a swim and played with my boy.
6. Ate tacos.
7. Repeated steps 2-5.
8. Picked up Lily from school
9. Afterschool/Dinner/bath/bedtime/bookreading routine
10. Hour or two of Half-Life2
11. Hour or so of Patrick O'Brian reading
12. Lights out

Totally happiness.

My X-Athlete Children

So we were heading over the Pali Sunday to plan this year's Halloween Garage of Terror (aka the Carhole of Scariness) at Dave and Kristen's house. We didn't go on Saturday since the Lemmonds were at Waimanalo for 3 hours of kids soccer between Olivia and Jack's games. This was 24 hours too long for my kids since the Lemmonds now have everybody's favorite rodents as pets: guinea pigs.

Lily: Why didn't we go to their house yesterday?

Me: They had soccer games....I wonder when you guys are gonna start playing soccer....

Lily: I'm not gonna play soccer...

Me (momentarily crushed): OK. What sports are you gonna play?

Lily: Well....I could play dodgeball.

Me (aside): *snort*

Jacob: Or we could ride our tricycles upside down !

Me: Um....

Jacob: NAKED !

Dad and Lily Racing

Lily and I racing at Ala Moana the other day. My handicap is that Jacob is behind me in a floatie ring attached to the leash. Actually a very close race. She won the first heat.

And yes. Those are nice waves in the back out at Bamburra's. I took Lily on my board out to Tennis Courts and caught a couple. She was totally stoked.

Librations

OK. I've been a nerd for a while and seen all sorts of cool astronomy pictures, but this one made me say WOW.

This is an image sequence that shows how minor wobbles in the Earth/Moon system allow viewers on Earth to see about 59% of the Moon's surface, despite the fact that the moon is synchronously locked in orbit about the Earth. Which is to say, we SHOULD only be able to see exactly 50% of the Moon's surface, but in fact there are wobbles that allow us to "see around the corner".

Better explanation here.

Such a month!

Lily's princess party - Slideshow above

Three birthdays, an anniversary, the beginning of school, graduation parties, weddings,and visits from the mainland friends and family...all in less than 30 days!

July and August are always exhaustingly fun, and this one is no different.

First Day, First Grade

 

Only...let's see....28 more years of school to go...