Delicious

We did go to the stock show today but I only took one picture! I was chasing the boys everywhere. Mady helped a ton. She pulled the wagon and since we had one of Mady's friends with us Niki stuck close by. We went with a couple local unschooling groups, so I had help chasing the boys too! It was nice to be able to chat a little with many different moms today and the kids said they had fun petting all the animals and talking with some farm folks.

I wanted to write a little something for my other half. (This is a Christmas pic. I had a great pic I wanted to post but I must have transfered it to the big hard disk already.) Some people call their significant other their better half. In Dom's and my case I say...we must be one another's better halves. Like any other couple who have been together for some time we have been through quite a bit, I think it's called life. Anyway, I wanted to write something to remind myself...well let's just say to remind myself and leave it @ that. Dom is my everything. It seems strange how one can miss someone so much when that person is right beside you.

Cotton, noodles, and 71 picture day

Last night we played Blokus and then got everything ready to venture over to a local cotton farm. We were all pretty excited, I mean after all, we have never seen cotton actually being grown! We loaded up work gloves, lunch, and the new wagon for it's virgin outing and trekked over to the cotton farm. Many things happened to make this a difficult trip today, none the less, we made it, after going back to the house twice and 3 stops along way!

The strange part about this cotton farm was the fact it was right in the middle of the city. In fact the partial city block of cotton we were picking is the remainder of a 110 acre farm originally established in 1859 to grow cash crops as well as some livestock. The girls liked picking the cotton. The boys loved playing on the tractors, go figure. We live in the country so we are around animals a great deal and we live near farms, but we have never seen cotton growing in Texas, even on a small scale like this.

After our adventure to the cotton farm we ran over to see Aunt Jessie and sign some papers for her. The boys played with their dinner and the girls, along with a friend from our unschooling group, played on the computer. We tried to teach Jessie and Kaylee how to play SET, it took them a bit to catch on. It took me and Mady a bit to get it all too, but it is a fun little card game.

Hopefully the boys will learn to sit in chairs one day. They will not sit in highchairs-they must stand in them, which is far to scary for me. We did away with they highchairs a couple of months ago after trying them out again only to find Luke and Ezra still enjoy standing in them more than sitting.

I have a couple of pictures of Niki with a pantie liner on her eye I want to post. I am sure anyone reading this is wondering, what the hell is Niki doing with a pantie liner on her eye. Niki is our storyteller, very imaginative kiddo. She was in the bathroom when she found the liner and unwrapped it and stuck it on her arm, sticky side on her arm. She told me it felt like an arm massager. Then she went on to stick it on various parts of her body, one of which was her eye. Once the liner, er, I mean patch, was on her eye she was transformed into a pirate captain. Of course everyone in the room had to get in on the action and soon we were all pirates. It was a 71 picture day on my camera. Don't you just love watching your kids?

Niki and I are watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and trying to go to sleep early so we can get up early for the Stock Show!

Deeply and importantly talented

or maybe more like amusingly and superficially talented. Our family does a little bit of everything and this weekend is a clear demonstration of our family doing a little bit of everything. I submit, we are amusingly and superficially talented and I think we like it that way!

The girls played XBox 360-the game is Ghost Recon, the new one, whatever it is numbered. Dom taught them how to work the controls and Mady and Niki are truly having a blast, pun intended.

I know in the boys baby books there was a sticker for "Ate with a spoon!" Everything in our house is a finger food to them, that is until now. They are using utensils now. Why just tonight when we were enjoying our Pomegranate tea, Ezra used his fork! Luke did use his spoon though and once we managed to pry the fork from Ezra's cute little hand, he was happy to use a spoon as well.

My sister and dad built supports for the 4 walls of the future east Texas cabin. Soon after watching the supports being built we watched Mady drive Niki, Luke, and Ezra around on the mower. It was a warm day and I am so thankful we were able to be outside. Our family loves to be outdoors, so being inside on any day is not as fun as being outside.

We also made it to watch the band play this weekend. This was the first time the boys have gone. Ezra examined every move Bill made while he was singing and playing his guitar. Luke seemed slightly overwhelmed but by the end of the night he was running around and dancing.

Mady and I went to hang out @ the bookstore this Saturday for a bit. She found a computer game in which you take care of horses in a stable and we bought a book with some nice illustrations of various animals.

We bought the board game BLOKUS @ a local comic book store. I have only played this game with Mady one time so far but she loves it and best of all Niki is able to play it too. The rules are easy to understand and the pieces are all kinds of neat shapes so it is fun for exploring with. It is a fun strategy game to aid in logic and reasoning. We also found these fun websites this week for mathy stuff. If anyone else has any math suggestions or ideas please pass them on. Math is one of my biggest concerns for Mady. She has struggled with it in PS so I want to make sure she is well prepared.

This week we are going to the Fort Worth Livestock Show and Rodeo and I think we may travel a couple hours north to visit a cotton farm!

Just another day

Mady and Niki played Big Daddy's XBox most of the morning, er, early afternoon, a war game. Dom showed the girls how to play last night and they have been waiting to find there way covertly through the rough terrain and blow stuff up since we made them log off sometime around 2 am.

Ezra and Luke played with blocks and shoes all day. They think it is hilarious to hide from each other and when the seeker has found the hider the hider runs wildly down the hall screaming. The only problem with it today was Ezra felt the need to wear Mady's clogs while playing this little game and kept falling in the hall. He just wouldn't take the shoes off. Once they laid down for a nap I put the shoes away so he wouldn't break his ankle!

Mady and I played Set for a bit tonight. I was beating her pretty badly so she decided she only wanted to play one game. Last night she was all over it, I think she just wanted to be on the computer. Since she was bored with me I let her log onto Club Penguin and play what she wanted. The Set game mysteriously disappeared after I cleaned my room tonight. I thought Mady misplaced it but I think I may have misplaced it!

The plan for tomorrow is to take Mady out for the day. We had another book store gift card to use but it has also been misplaced. I think I have one errand to do then we can go hang out @ the books store and do whatever Mady would like after that. I want to go get another board game!

Here are some pix of the kids playing in cornstarch. These are a few weeks old but I thought the site needed some more pix.

Haircuts!

EZRA THEN & NOW

All I can post about this is...I felt sad and happy. As I type this I say to myself, it was just a haircut and I am being entirely too sappy, which is totally out of my character.


LUKE THEN & NOW

Remember the movie Patch Adams?

We watch our fair share of movies around here. I think it is a pass time we ALL enjoy as a family, frequently. Tonight we watched Patch Adams. If you have never watched, the shortest summary I can give is the movie is about an aspiring medical student, Hunter "Patch" Adams, who dreams of changing the sanctimonious attitudes of doctors and the bureaucratic red tape of the health care system during the 70's. It is based on a true story. The movie is of course ended with a short paragraph or 2 about what was happening in the main character's life as the filming ended. Patch did complete his Ph.D and went on to found the Gesundheit Institute.

After clicking around the website I found Designing a Society. The entire organization sounds completely unschooly to me. I can only begin to imagine the kind of brainstorming that goes on in a place like Gesundheit.

This gives me an idea to talk with Mady and Niki about what their thoughts on a perfect society are. What would you have if you could have anything? Every idea would be different. One of the first things that comes to mind is how could everyone reach a consensus? Design my own society...this could be scary! I read The Giver by Lois Lowry and it is one of my favorite books from a unit we did in school on utopias. One of the most memorable portions of the plot for me has to do with twins. A good read, and easy for young readers too.

Happy almost Friday!

When you go back to work...

Happy Sunday!

Niki and I stayed up late reading some of our new books and doing about 10 elementary chemistry experiments. We had a blast. Niki almost always picks a favorite step of something, a song, a movie, a science experiment, to repeat randomly whenever the mood strikes. You never know what step in the process Niki will choose, in other words she is unpredictable. I love that about her! We did an experiment using balloons and in the process of tieing one of the balloons after blowing it up, I let it go, on purpose bc I thought it would be funny. Yes, I am as equally easy to please as my children. Anyway, out of all the experiments we did with the water and salt, and sand, and sugar and tasting and the balloons, her favorite part was the balloon spinning wildly out of control around our kitchen light fixture. I think that spinning balloon is the only reason she remembered this morning the discussion on matter, solids, liquids, and gases @ midnight last night. If she were in a regular brain numbing classroom, I am certain she wouldn't have had that experience, but maybe she would recall the teacher and a different experiment.

It is moments similar to last night leading me to believe I will unschool my children as long as they are interested. Today though, a few members of the family (we eat Sunday dinner @ my mom's with the whole family) commented about when I go back to work...why does this keep coming up people? I hope I never have to work full time while the kids are small. Maybe one day I will go back to work full time. Honestly, I hope not(again while the kids are small.) If I do HAVE to return to work, while the kids are small, I hope it will be somewhere I feel as thought I can be myself. I no longer believe I can work in an office. I have an insatiable love for the outdoors. I am missing it a great deal since the last few days it has been too cold to go out. If I had to go back to work I hope I could find something outside with plants or animals maybe. I cannot predict the future but I can tell you what I know. I know everyday I fall more in love with my family and I know I could not place them in a daycare the same way I know I could not place my parents in a Retirement Center or Nursing Home. I also know my family all my family, parents, aunts, adopted grandparents, support me and will love me no matter if I go back to work or not. I suppose I just don't like to hear words that cause me to even contemplate leaving the little ones right now. The same way I didn't want everyone to continue talking about the boys needing a hair cut...

Book finds & ice cream

This is the weekend Mady has to go stay with her dad, or @ her dad's house as the case maybe...which it usually is. Her dad travels for work and is rarely home. Mady doesn't always enjoy going, but then, she doesn't always like being here either!

I actually got Dom to spend the afternoon with the boys and I took Niki to Border's and to Cold Stone Creamery. I am a book...addict? I love books. I am trying to grow our classics collection. I never read most of the well known classics. I am enjoying reading them to the kids. Normally when I shop for books I will buy on Half.com or Amazon or go to Half Price books. Today we purchased books @ Border's bc we had a coupon. I think we did alright. I purchased 3 hardback books by EB White some wooden toys for Niki and the boys, Mad Libs (one of my favorites!) and a couple of beginning reader books Niki thought she may like to try after I showed them to her.

We attempted to ride the train near the zoo but it's closed for the holiday! I don't think we will ever get to ride that train. We have zoo passes yet every time we are near that area I never have any cash, the train station only takes cash. Sometimes we are on a time limit and we run out of time, sometimes we are too tired after we have been to the zoo. However, I have made it our goal for Wednesday to ride the train! We are headed over to another attraction in the area and we are going to ride that train around the city and catch the gorgeous view of the river! Ummm, actually, I haven't watched the weather, so I suppose I should add only if weather permits.

Oh, we got a book of science experiments cheap too. I am sure I could have pulled them from the web, but sometimes it is nice just to have it already printed out and ready to go whenever the mood strikes. It came with a few odds and ends to perform the experiments as well. So, I am off to work on an experiment of Niki's choosing since she has watched her new movie and probably some Mad Libs!

To my lil' sis

My lil' sis (aka: Aunt Jessie, aka: Jessie Poo-Poo Head!) had her physical for the police academy entrance process this morning. Of course she passed with flying colors and has moved on to the next stage of the process. There will be a psychological review and credit check and if all goes well, no doubt it will, she will begin the academy in March. Yeah!
Jess was describing how the day progressed to me and when she got to the end of the story, I was amazed @ how many people she said actually showed up to the physical unprepared. By unprepared I mean, people obviously did not "test" themselves and assumed they would pass the physical requirements without any practice.

I know I ramble often, but see if you can follow me here. Sometimes when I am reading others writings, I am conscience about how lackluster some of my posts are and possibly, how riddled with errors my writing is. Like I said in the beginning, this is kind of a diary for my family. I am not concerned with how impressed or unimpressed anyone is with my writing. After all I didn't attend high school, so I am far from being any kind of a writing expert. I mean, in order to be an expert doesn't one need to practice, or @ least posses a passion? So, if one has a passion to become an expert police officer, one must practice? Why would these police officer applicants show up to the physical unprepared, unpracticed, without passion? I certainly do not want police officers watching over me without passion, even if security is only an illusion. We grant police officers powers beyond the realm of regular citizens and with that comes an immense responsibility and I hope anyone even contemplating applying for a position with such responsibilities would take every detail seriously.

This led me to another thought, must one be an expert if one has a passion? I think if one truly has a passion, one would inevitably become an expert. We cannot all be experts from the beginning stages of all our endeavours. Should we all become experts @ one thing or another? I would hope as living, breathing humans we are all passionate about something and therefore by default be experts in our passions.

I have no passion for grammar, but I adore my family. I hope that by providing my view of our daily lives in this blog, our family will appreciate it later and perhaps learn from it. Maybe my kids will read this and say, "My mom's grammar is atrocious!" and be inspired to learn to write more effectively than I. While I am practicing my grammar skills and learning more about our language and reading more to improve my lacking vocabulary, I hope my family will continue to hear my voice in their heads as they read these mundane words to themselves and smile.

No doubt my sisters' passion has already inspired others in our family and will lead her on a journey she will not regret taking the first step of. Congratulations Jess.

Fun with words...

We had some of our friends over this afternoon to hangout and play with the girls. Since Mady is almost 10 and most of the friends she normally hangs out with are friends she made @ school she usually ends up talking to the grown ups. Mady often pops up with random statements in the middle of a conversation. I am glad she feels comfortable enough to join in. I am easily distracted though and with all the little ones around, I often loose track of what we were talking about!

Something I found entertaining was when Momma Duff and I were talking, while the kids were climbing on the parallelogram playhouse, we had some questions about the word moose and its plural form. Just for anyone that maybe curious, the plural form of moose is moose-spelled and pronounced the same for each form, which is what we thought. Meeses??? Not a word momma!

Here's to toy firetrucks and wagon rides on sunny January days in Texas!

You want me to what?

The last few days Dom has been talking to me about going back to work...ARE YOU CRAZY, I ask.
I don't want to leave our kids with strangers that could never appreciate them like I do, let alone love them.
Secondly, doesn't he remember I was only working to pay for day care for 4 kids and fuel?
Is school really where the 2 eldest children need to be learning? I don't like what they are teaching in those buildings.
Dom is also talking about going on another deployment. Which, once again, apparently I have no say in.
It is hard enough on everyone with him being gone let alone for me to have to go back to work.
When he was on the last deployment and the twins were born, I was a wreck. I was screaming @ the kids, never sleeping, and I gained 25 lbs after I had lost all the baby weight! My family helped when they could, but come on, people have a life. Mady had 2 hours of school work after being @ school for 7 hours plus after school activities and I was breastfeeding. Niki is almost school age and I cannot imagine having to sit down and force her to learn to read plus help Mady with homework and take care of the house, bills, yard, an outside career and the kids! While I am telling Dom all this, as if I need to justify not having a "paying job," he sits on the sofa shaking his head.

It all began, I think, when he visited a friend he rarely talks with these days. The "friend" in question had just purchased a new street bike. First of all, how old are you? Secondly, this friend has no children and a girlfriend that makes an average salary contributing to bills as well. Dom's friend also owns a new home and a few vehicles. They are in debt up to their...well frankly over their heads. If someone doesn't get paid something will be repoed soon.

Dom mentioned that it would be nice to have extra money. For me it would only be nice to have extra money if I can come by it without having to leave the kids. I do not believe there is anything the kids can learn @ school that they cannot learn from living day to day life. Then Dom says, "What if you screw them up more by keeping them home?"
I have confidence the kids will grow to be well adjusted contributing members of society...and if they don't, I will love them anyway. I am their mom. My head is spinning just trying to think of some way to earn a little money from home to offset some bills so we can have some "extra" money.

When it comes right down to it though, will that really make us happy? I don't think so. I am so incredibly tired of outside sources defining how my family think and behave. I feel I have very little influence on Dom. I read constantly and when I mention something I am concerned about he seems uninterested and can only regurgitate things he has been told (military) or heard on the news (censored.) I suppose the only answer is to look for a part time job on the weekends.

I have a picture in my mind's eye of how things will be around here...but I suppose we all have to compromise sometimes.

Tea & Crazy facts?

Ok, we didn't really do anything today. Since Daddy was home we chilled with him and just played around the house. Niki and I had a tea party. We love tea. We do an entire little ritual with little tea sandwiches. I got a second tea pot as a gift for Christmas so we made 2 pots of tea. One was a lemon herb tea and the other was called Mambo tea. I just enjoy smelling the tea leaves. Loose tea is so much more rich and aromatic than tea bags-definitely the only way to enjoy a cup of tea.

Cheshire Cat: Those who say there's nothing like a nice cup of tea for calming the nerves never had *real* tea. It's like a syringe of adrenaline straight to the heart!

History of Tea

Crazy Facts

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

In the 1400's a law was set forth that a man was not allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have "the rule of thumb".
(I heard that in the movie Boondock Saints-another assassin movie. Gotta love 'em.)

In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase "goodnight, sleep tight."


It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month, which we know today as the honeymoon.

I just thought these were funny-I am not completely sure they are all true.

Random Strangeness #1

Random as defined by Webster's

Strangeness as defined by Webster's I prefer the second definition.

Does anyone else ever find themselves vacumming while holding one baby on one hip and pinching a string from the carpet between their toes, in order to "pick it up," while telling the second baby to stop throwing everything back on the floor so you can vacumm? Or is that just me?

Thank goodness

for friends. We invited some of our friends out to the house today to play and hangout. Everyone had a great time. I especially enjoyed being able to stay @ our house and play since that meant I didn't have to hunt the boys and keep them out of everything. Even when we go to the park Luke and Ezra are all over the place. It makes it difficult for me to have any kind of time with adults. Which brings up another issue. I do still have interests aside from parenting, but why is it whenever I get around other parents all that seems to come out of my mouth is a stuff about the kids? I rarely get to hangout with adults and no kids, which is fine but why can't I stop rambling about the kids and education, what food to feed them and safe toys?

I suppose I need to begin reading something of interest to me besides topics related to my kids (maybe I should begin with samuari swords. Is fencing like samuari fighting?) I know my kids are my number one priority. I also know that I am still the adventurous person I have always been, I guess they are just different kinds of adventures now. Shorter and with naps...and somehow I feel as though something is missing!?

I did have fun today. I love our friends that visited. I am not sure she knows that. My mom friend is so accepting of everyone and respectful. Never rude or stand offish. Whenever we go anywhere and anyone approaches us with meaningless chit chat, she always responds politely. She has respect for everyone. I have been around other groups of people @ parks where someone outside the group has tried to speak to us and they were given a nod and a smile. I am not saying one should tell one's life story to every complete stranger approaching but I personally would rather be around a group of people that accept everyone. Accepting enough to be respecful to all people all the time.

Anyway, everyday's a new day, right? Time to find something I am interested in and go for it. Is that selfish I don't think so.

Wagons and skeletons

We have been busy this week even though we tried to chill @ the house and relax. Monday Niki and I put together a small plastic skeleton! Actually, it came in the mail, Niki retrieved it and was excited for 2 seconds and I spend 20 minutes putting the thing together and the rest of the day trying to use the proper Latin names of the bones to tell the kids to do things! I had fun anyway!

Mady blew some giant bubbles with some toxic smelling goo she received in her stocking. Bright and early Tuesday morning, Papaw brought us a new wagon! Everyone had to try it out. We talked a little about covered wagons and prairie life but that didn't last long since the kids wanted to pull each other around the house in the wagon.

Today I tried to get the kids to do some schooly stuff. I tried to get Niki to take a look @ some of the Hooked on Phonics books that Mady used...that went over like a ton of bricks! The afternoon was spent in debate about how we spend our time. Sometimes I doubt this path we are on. I read all the time but Mady only reads when I bring it up and Niki wants nothing to do with it. We do manage to read National Geographic together when it arrives in the mail. National Geographic always gets some conversations flowing and the globe gets brought down from its shelf. The girls like to play Brain Age on the Nintendo DS which is a good thing.
I guess maybe I am jealous the kids have so much time to do just about anything they want...the problem is they never seem to want to do much. Mady is still going to her art class but I rarely see her draw. We do crafty things together once a week or so.I know plenty of people that unschool locally. The parents of the older children are reassuring. I suppose when they get older they will want to be more involved and more interested...?

I wanted to write about Samurai sword fighting after watching Kill Bill 2 last night but I have not had time to do any searching or reading on that today. Do you think I can find someone locally to teach me Samurai sword fighting? LOL

What's up with MySpace?

Do you use MySpace? I joined it bc my cousin uses it and it is convenient for us to chat using it instead of phones. Did you get on there and then get e-mails from long lost friends? I haven't been on the damn thing a week and I got a friend request from an old school buddy (we will call "L" we have actually know one another since we were 11!) I approved it bc I was curious about what L wanted and after all, you can block them later if you wish. What I got from the e-mail was L wanted to apologize to me for something L had done 8 years ago! Something I didn't even recall. The first thing that went through my mind was "Are in you AA?!" I had to laugh while I was reading. After L apologized, for the apparently blatant disrespect which was displayed toward me, and if you knew L you would know L does not behave that way @ all, ever, L proceeded to tell me about life since then. It made my heart happy to know L is doing well and is in a good place.
One has to wonder though, why did this old flame contact me? He was (maybe still is) a truly virtuous boy and if anyone should apologize, it should be me. My behavior was far less than virtuous toward this young boy. So I will take it @ face value and let it go. L recalled a bizarre memory he had of us for me in a message he sent which in turn led me to think of past times we had.

To L I would like to say thanks for the bowl of popcorn with M&M's and Pulp Fiction. To this day I love Quentin Tarintino films. I am watching Kill Bill Vol 2 on my new flat screen in bed with Dom as I type.

Good times.

Do you let "others" determine...

things for you? Do you let others determine what your kids will learn, what you read, eat, how you should run your household, what career you will have, even where you will spend your day and when you will go somehwere? I mean someone besides your close immediate family of course. I do not make New Year's resolutions so I have a chance to start something I want to any time. For that matter, every moment is new, so why wait until a day some ancient people designated as a new beginning to try to make yourself who you think you want to be.

I made a decision today to make sure I speak up for myself more. If I do not speak up for myself how will my needs be met? I get bogged down by trying to be "nice" and eventually I almost (or do) burst into a complete fit bc I feel no one is being considerate of my feelings. How can you accuse someone of being inconsiderate of your feelings if they never knew what they were? So if you are straight forward and maybe a little sarcastic about it, is that considered snarky?

Today's internet reading

consisted of increasing traffic to your blog. I was reading posts from a couple of web rings and I found it interesting to see how many people visited the blogs I read today. Some of the suggestions were: keep your posts short and to the point, making them timeless, with links to other's blogs as well. Food for thought for anyone looking for feedback on their blog or wanting to chat it up with more people globally.

C'est la vie!

New Year's Eve

I know some of you are curious to see the pix from New Year's Eve. Let me just say, I didn't take many pix and if I had they would have been blurry...if they weren't blurry it wasn't me taking them bc I was slightly inebriated and honestly I had a very enjoyable night. What did I learn? When you take a picture of blue silly string stuck to the ceiling, unless you have an awesome camera, you can't really see it in the pic! What did Niki learn? I hope Niki fell asleep before she learned too much!

C'est la vie!

Niki's Sleeve!

ICE 2007

We're back!

OK, we didn't actually go anywhere but we have been too busy and too tired to post lately. From Christmas until tonight has been one big blur! We had a blast @ our girls night New Year's Eve Party, though we missed Mady terribly since she was with her dad.

Our cousin Danielle just left on the 3rd. I spent the next day trying to recover from taking her out and then Dom and I were able to spend a little time this evening alone.

I think I will try to post a slide show of the "ICE" exhibit we went to see with Aunt Jessie, Aunt Julie, and Danielle. It is an indoor exhibit of nothing but ice sculptures. Last year Jess and Jules took Mady and Niki so this year we took the boys. Mady was with her Dad and Niki stayed with Brother Bill and Pam. Luke and Ezra were over stimulated from the moment we walked in the door of the Gaylord Hotel in Grapevine. The line for the exhibit was loooooong. Fortunately there was a plethora of entertainment for the boys along the way. Once we finally made it into the exhibit Luke and Ezra were ready to go home. The company running the exhibit provides warm coats to wear while you are inside, Luke and Ezra didn't want anything to do with them. Jules had to take Luke out after about 10 minutes inside with the ice sculptures because he was shivering. This was the first year I have seen Ice, as well as Danielle's and we loved it. We talked about how much work is involved in an exhibit of this magnitude. First a good portion of the Hotel is set aside for the Ice exhibit. It has to be kept @ just the right temperature for the ice. The hotel is cooled in sections. As you move in the line closer to the exhibit there are curtains drawn to keep the temperature cool, as you move through each curtain the temperature drops a significant amount. The ice is brought in as blocks and then the artists go to work stacking, chiseling, torching. The ice sculptures have to be touched up every day. I can't begin to imagine how long all this takes to set up. In the slide show there are pix of the boys on the train outside the exhibit. The Alamo and the little train village are not ice. The pinguins in the pictures are ice. I think most of the ice pix are slightly darker since any excessive lighting would melt the ice. Jess and Jules enjoyed it enough last year they were willing to pay the slightly pricey fee to experience it again. On the way home from the exhibit we stopped @ Taco Cabana and ordered 3 dozen tortillas so we could cook breakfast burritos. I think the kids working inside thought we were high! We were all talking in the truck and we couldn't get the drive thru person to take our order.

Apparently Danielle is allergic to...EVERYTHING! Jess has 2 cats and a short haired dachshund in her house and I thought we were going to have to take Danielle to the hospital! She was a good sport and stayed for dinner. Jess and I are so excited we have a cousin. We have many cousins but they are all Yankees living in Yankee land! We are already making plans for Danielle to join us for the summer trip to Galveston.

So did we learn anything? Me? I learned plenty about our family. As far as the kids go, I hope they learned something about what Christmas means to our family. They received so many presents I had to give some of them away. I also stashed some for surprises later in the year. They didn't seem to mind that I gave some of them away since they received so many. I love the holidays and I am sad it is over. Danielle and I can play XBox on-line and we have MySpace too but I wish she were here! Move soon Danielle! Can't wait for summer @ the beach! Aw, memories and good times.