Give me a [winter] Break

Riding the mechanical horse at the Stone Zoo- I only had enough quarters for one ride, so they all had to squish onto the one-seater pony.
Reading, reading, reading


Bowling- Ivy had perfected the happy dance by her second frame.

We Fish you a Hairy Chris-Moose

And a hippo moo deer.

Christmas Eve

This was our first Christmas Eve entirely on our own as a family (no friends, no extended family, etc.). We missed our loved ones, but besides that the day was wonderful.

We went to the Museum of Science, and it was surprisingly uncrowded for a Saturday and a holiday. We meandered through exhibits, and ended at the gift shop where the kids used some money from their grandparents to buy gifts.

We ate a candle-lit dinner, watched a movie of Luke II, watched a slideshow of Christmases past, sang songs around the piano, read a Christmas story, opened sibling gifts, and ate holiday cookies. It was a textbook recipe for magic, and it worked.

We put them to bed with sugar plums in their heads, and after an hour Calvin came in and asked, "Is it Christmas??? How much longer, now?" I can tell it's going to be a long night and an early morning.

Massacre of the Trees

The Lorax would be sad with us today. After the last hurricane and then the awful blizzard, we decided with our neighbors that eight of our giant oaks had to go.

They (the trees, not our neighbors) had grown very large, were not healthy due to overcrowding, had lost many major limbs during the storms, and, most importantly, were leaning ominously over one or the other of our three houses.

Before:

After:

Before:


After:

And here on the left is the crane they brought in- BIG:

It was amazing to watch the entire process. The woodchipper they brought along could swallow entire trees whole (although not these trees- it ate only the top 60 feet or so). For example, can you spot the whole branch being chipped in this photo?

Here is most of it, highlighted in blue:

This guy was pretty amazing. This is a hard enough job:

But he had to do it perched like this:

When he was finished, the crane hauled the section away (it floated eerily to it's chippy doom).

And he then caught a ride to the next tree top. Sometimes he was perched over 100 feet above the ground in the tops of these diseased leaning trees.

As with most good shows, this one had gleeful spectators:

But alas, at the end of the day, it is gut-wrenching to look at a pile of murdered tree carcasses.

Song for the Fallen
Sentinels of the woods
Proud and serene
Highways of small things
Storing away goods.

Shelter and shade
Providers of homes
But you leaned toward ours
So plans were laid.

In silence you sprouted
Soaking up light
But then harboring blight
We wanted you outed.

whzzzzzz, grhghghghgh, whzzzzzzz
With careful tools
Man wreaked out a vengeance
Limbs dismembered
Hard wood like snowflakes
Corpses stacked
Giants destroyed
So that we can sleep at night.
ZZZZzzzzzzz

And we're sorry.

Here She Comes to Save the Day

Christmas Brunch

Dueling Nativities

I put Bryn in charge of arranging the Nativity sets this year. It seems the "fakes" and the "reals" have developed quite a feud. In Bryn's words, "they're enemies."

The turf war this morning involved a nasty game of Memory, in which the fakes schooled the reals. This could get ugly.

Incarcerated Cousins (see, 'cause they're behind bars)

Sometimes on a rainy Thursday it's fun to turn the crib into an indoor trampoline. I drew the line when Ivy tried planking over the rails. It's not the first time she's tried, but I didn't want her teaching Squiggles bad habits. Exhibit B:

Bryn's Baptism

We let Bryn plan the program for her baptism. She assigned all the adult family members roles (parents, both grandparents, Laura and Tim, and Lance and Dani), and was especially pleased with Peter's job description of "dunking her under water."

Bryn chose the speakers and decided to go with just one: herself. She wrote and gave a great talk about being baptized and confirmed. And even though she's very confidant about her many skills, she's still nice as all get out and we wouldn't trade her for the world.

Thanks to EP for these photos:

Somewhere WAAAAYYYY Out There

Put away your tuning forks and just enjoy the earnestness of this one.

Ivy quickly volunteered for the next spot in the spontaneous talent show:

Cat and Mouse

Another treasure I picked up off the floor courtesy of Bryn and her spare time:

Kayaking in November

70 degrees out? Lance playing hooky from school to let Dani sleep after a sleepless night with Mason? Don't worry, we know what to do.




Lance took the above photo. I love it so much.

What did zero say to eight?

Nice Belt.

Happy birthday to Bryn!

Halloween- the postponed edition

Our town officially had Halloween last night (the downed trees and power lines put a damper on things for the actual date). The kids made the rounds to a few of our neighbors. Bryn was delighted to trick or treat on her special day and told each person that is was her birthday. Just as she predicted, they all told her to help herself to more candy. Clever girl.

It Rains Trees

We had a Nor'easter last Saturday that knocked down all trees and all the telephone poles in the neighborhood. And I'm only slightly exaggerating.

It was one of the worst nights of my life- listening to all the trees and branches popping and cracking and crunching all night long (I didn't sleep), and knowing that our little house is surrounding by giant looming trees just waiting to come down and crush us all to oblivion. Adding to the ambiance, the transformers were exploding in green flashes everywhere and buzzing and popping.

At 4am, I woke up to a rather loud electrical buzzing. It was a fire and downed lines up the road (about 150ft away). I called 911 to report it- I've rarely seen anything so bright or so scary. But they couldn't get firetrucks to it due to trees blocking all 3 of the access roads, so it fizzled and burned for another hour.

I never thought dawn would come after an apocalyptic night like that, but come 6:30am the sun rose and we had survived. I had massive heartburn from all the adrenaline attacks, but we were okay. And despite what it sounded like, most of the neighborhood was intact (albeit without power). I can't say as much for the trees.

Here's a link to some pictures. I took the first one that night (at 4am), but the rest are from 4 days later, so things had been cleaned up a little by then.

You Tubing the Cement Canal

Last summer Lance and I took a literal trip down memory lane- with our bikes- to the Cement Canals (that's just a decorative pluralization- there's only one canal).

Millville had many exciting attractions and options for entertainment, but this had to be my favorite. If you were lucky, you had a tube and could spend the day floating the short stretch of canal again and again. If you had no tube, you brought a pair of cutoff jeans from the D.I. and threw them away at the end of the day because they were completely shredded from sliding along on your behind.

There are four parts to the Cement Canals:

First, there is a leisurely stretch floating above Hollow Road. In my head, this lasted about 2 hours. I was surprised to see it was actually only a couple of blocks long.


Second, there is the waterfall of death and destruction. This roaring behemouth was rumored to have swallowed goats and bikes whole never to be recognized again. I mean, just look at it!!!
Here's another shot, but I don't think Lance is to scale.This is more like how I remember it:

After the waterfall, a rush of shorts shredding-paced water emptied you out into an eddying pool where if you caught the right current, you could circle indefinitely. But alas, if you found yourself continuing your journey down the canal, you would surely meet your end in Spiderville, a place where spiders ALWAYS laid web upon web of child-sized traps. And if you didn't get snared in the spider's lairs, you would surely meet your doom on the class 1 rapid directly below the webs.Lance made an action video that will make it seem as if the viewer is actually floating the canals, so if he ever sends that to me (hint hint, Lance), I'll post it.

Good times.


p.s. I can't legally recommend this activity.