Earlier this week Quinn got last minute invite to a build-a-bear birthday party for this Saturday. It was his first drop off and he's in the care of others till we showed back up to get him party for him. Everything went well for the most part except for the fact he didn't actually eat anything since he "didn't like" the cheese pizza because it had sauce on it and it was just plain white pizza. I got stuck at the mall for a bit waiting out the tornado watch / warning storm , but eventually I made it back home just fine.
When we went to pick up Quinn we found that instead of a bear he had made a turtle, and then dressed him in a Spider-Man costume. We got told by he supervising parents that apparently he had picked everything out and finished making the turtle in about three minutes (meanwhile the other kids took much longer deciding on stuff). Add to that he decided he wanted to have it talk so he added in one of the voice boxes and, well, you can see the results for yourself in the short video that follows.
This is yet another photo of a photo. I took this one while I was in Waynesboro for Will's going away party on Memorial Day. Personally I'm not seeing the resemblance (see photo below for comparison purposes). I'm pretty sure my Uncle Frank took the original photo ages ago because back then he was really into photography. I guess he still is, but he's also trapped in the stone age and is only reluctantly going digital. If you'll remember he sold me his D200 because he didn't know how to use it (after having owned it for over a year), so I was more than a bit surprised this past weekend when we were there and I saw he had gone out and gotten the D300. I tried to convince him to sell me the D300 for a couple hundred, but he wouldn't go for it.
Ginger and I have been married for thirteen years now. Honestly, it feels like it's been longer. And I don't say that as some mean spirited joke, although I could see how one might think that was where I was going, but rather I can barely even remember not being married. And sure, a large part of that might be because I'm over 40 and I tend to forget things, but .... Wait, what were we talking about? Oh, right, being married. Looks like taking pictures of photos at night in the dark with a flash just isn't the way to go here to reproduce these wedding shots. I may try redoing these at some point over the weekend or something (I suppose I could try breaking out my scanner).
So how did I celebrate our anniversary? I went all out and stopped by KFC and got a couple biscuits and popcorn chicken. Who says romance is dead? Actually the biscuits and chicken were for the kids because my lovely wife Ginger had already prepared a meal of scallops and pasta for the two of us.
So you're saying, I'm sure you bought her a fabulous gift. Well, not exactly. What are you suppose to get for thirteen? I mean we already have a black cat that pees where she shouldn't. So I ended up getting her a hard drive for her Mac and I'm planning on getting her a decent flat screen monitor also. Ginger also bought herself a new pair of sunglasses (which I'm sure will show up in photos sometime soon). I know, it just makes your quiver with how romantic these gifts are, doesn't it? Just so everyone knows, one of the gifts I got from her was an optical mouse (which trust me I really needed since I constantly move the one I have back and forth between the laptop and my computer downstairs).
And how could I improve on all this you ask? Well, the very next morning as I took the kids to school I accidentally locked Ginger out of the house. I was really tired and on auto pilot and locked the door as I was going out and Ginger was outside buckling the kids into the car, obviously there was no reason for me to lock the door at that point, it was just habit I suppose. Apparently Ginger waited outside for almost half an hour because she was positive I was going to realize what I had done and come back home (spoiler: I didn't). I mean, had I realized what I had done I wouldn't have done it, so there was no way I was going to just suddenly recall what I did. Eventually she had to start knocking on the doors of neighbors to find someone home so she could call me at work (Ginger said the woman who eventually let her use the phone seemed skeptical of her story, obviously this woman has never met me before). It wouldn't have been that bad except Ginger was suppose to meet Misty (one of the moms from the kid's school) for breakfast and was late because of me. I tried saying I was sorry to Misty when Ginger was explaining things to her on the phone, but our story was so unbelievable that Misty thought we had made the story up and that we were "being lovebirds".
So over the weekend when we were down on the farm between one of the rides up and down the driveway Ginger and I had a conversation about Quinn driving the golf cart. It went something like this:
JamesF: "He's doing pretty good. Still has some problems turning, but otherwise not too bad. He really wants to try it by himself though."
Ginger: "No."
JamesF: "No?"
Ginger: "No."
JamesF: "Why ..."
Ginger: "Because he's only seven."
JamesF: "not? Ok, I can see that, but..."
Ginger: "Only. Seven."
So of course that resulted in the following a couple rides later:
Quinn was suppose to stop and pick me up since I had planned on keeping it somewhat on the down low until I was more confident in how he was doing. But noooo, he keeps on driving so we got busted pretty quick. Now I will admit that first time I let him go solo I was a tad worried myself since I kept envisioning all the stuff that could go wrong, and once he was moving by himself I could totally see where Ginger was coming from and even briefly regretted my decision. But I had him pointed in the right direction and had run down the lane to supervise him and he did fine (as is evidenced in the video). Luckily he eventually stopped since I was a bit worried about him turning around in the area where people were parked. After that I always made sure I was there when he was turning in the parking area since one time he kept gunning the gas instead of hitting the brake and could have potentially run into Jo Beth's new car had I not stopped him.
I tried to get Catherine to drive the golf cart but she simply wouldn't have any of it and was content to merely be a passenger. That meant there were three of us on the cart when she was riding since while I was confident in letting Quinn ride by himself (feeling if he got a bit injured he would be fine and it would teach him a lesson or two), but I was nowhere near comfortable enough with him driving to let him drive it with Catherine as a passenger and no adult supervision. I felt I needed to make sure Catherine didn't fall off the side. On top of that I needed to be in the middle to be able to hit the brake if necessary. All this made riding awkward as I had to sit in the middle with an arm around Catherine.
Ginger pointed out that I didn't put up a video of the Quinn's second performance in the opera where he was a snake warning people away from the evil sea witch. This was the actual performance versus the dress rehearsal (which is what I put up for the penguin performance). Quinn's the second snake from the left. Ginger also pointed out that the intro is a bit long, so feel free to skip 45 seconds into it since that's where Quinn's group actually starts performing. And I used the mini point and shoot for the video, so there's that annoying constant humming sound in the background too.
Because the last thing we want to do on a three day holiday weekend is actually take it easy and rest, we decided that today we would all make the trek to Waynesboro in order to attend the going away party being held for Will down on Frank's farm. This is no small trip clocking in at 120+ miles and two and a half hours of travel time (and yes, that would be one way).
We got there just after noon. There were already a lot of folks there. It was like a mini family reunion, but one where I actually knew most of the people versus the family reunions we normally have with so many people I don't know. I got to catch up with some of my other cousins, one of which made me feel decidedly old by informing me she was going to be graduating high school soon (and she was just in diapers when I graduated college). In addition to family there were friends of Will's there like Wayne.
While the purpose of the visit was to see Will before he left, you wouldn't have known that if you were watching the kids. Quinn and Catherine both were fascinated with the barn and took great joy in getting into all the equipment.
After much cajoling Quinn was able to convince Frank to get one of the loaders out and take it for a spin. He was more than a little disappointed afterwards though because we was sure that we was going to be able to convince Frank to let him drive, but that (luckily) never happened.
While Quinn was outside working on Frank to start up more equipment, Catherine was inside torturing Mary's bunny. Ginger commented that she's never seen Catherine take to any pet like she did the bunny rabbit. Having had a rabbit when I was just a wee lad I know how destructive they can be, so I'm hoping we don't end up with one anytime soon (although I doubt we could until the cat's are gone anyway).
For Quinn the highlight of the trip was probably the golf cart. Frank has an old golf cart that he uses to get around the farm in and he offered it up for Quinn to drive (with adult supervision of course, at least initially). But Ginger and I sensing an opportunity told him he wasn't going to be allowed to ride it without trying a new food. He initially got pretty upset about this, but eventually caved as his desire to ride overrode his reluctance to eating something new. The new food was a grape (a white one). And after the first ride up and down the driveway (the driveway is about a quarter of a mile long) we told him he would have to eat one for every subsequent trip, but after that first ride he was hooked and was downing grapes with no complaints (I'm pretty sure he ate more than 10 total). Mind you he was still making some faces while he ate them (even the latter ones), but you could tell he was becoming more and more accustomed to it as he went on.
Eventually it was time to leave though and we said goodbye to Will. We also made plans for Jo Beth to come up and see us sometime, but a lot of that will depend on her schedule (she said she wants to come up and see Catherine's ballet recital). Will leaves on Wednesday and will be driving a U-Haul across the country to his San Francisco destination where he'll be spending at least the next couple of years. We all wish him luck on that journey and with his classes.
We didn't end up leaving until almost five, which was way later than we wanted to leave since the kids needed to get in bed and get a good night sleep for school tomorrow. We had the kids eat dinner in the car on the way home, and we took a couple minutes out of our trip and stopped at the scenic overlook at the top of Afton Mountain. After that it was a smooth ride home, which given how much traffic is suppose to be out there on Memorial Day surprised me that we didn't really hit any traffic to speak of (not that I'm complaining mind you). Overall the kids seemed to have a blast, and Quinn is already talking about when he could possibly go back. Add to that we got to see Will one last time before he took off and I would call the trip a success.
Today we went to the National Zoo. I had made plans earlier in the week to meet Ben and Katylin there. In retrospect I think I planned this one wrong. Getting to the zoo itself is a time consuming effort if you take the metro in (which we did). So after church, lunch and the metro we didn't even get to the zoo until about three thirty. And that only leaves a couple hours. And frankly the zoo is big enough that there's just no way to see everything in a couple hours.
But just because that means there isn't enough time to see everything that didn't stop us from trying. We had both the kids list their two high priority animals to see. Quinn picked the pandas and the monkeys. The pandas were inside. Which means no good pictures since you're shooting through glass and basically in the dark. Mind you that didn't keep just about everyone in there from trying anyway though (myself included).
Catherine picked prairie dogs and a cow. Yes, that's right, of all the animals she could see at the zoo she picked a cow.
The cows are in the newer farm exhibit which is on the far end of the zoo from where we entered, so we never made it there. We tired to tell her she saw a hippo, but even we had trouble with saying that was the same thing as seeing a cow. So we told her at some point we would go by Frying Pan Park and she could see a cow with all the farm animals there.
The elephant area is currently under construction where they're expanding. So there was only one elephant on site that I saw.
The small monkey house was entertaining, but after we got out of that the kids were getting tired. I'm pretty sure that was fallout from going to the Vienna fair yesterday since I know that wore them out.
We did manage to get through the great ape (not to be confused with Grape Ape, a TV show from my childhood) exhibit before the kids were too wiped to continue. Most of the great apes were fairly lethargic and sleeping with only really two or three sitting up.
We had orinally planned on doing dinner, but with the kids as tired as they were and the long trip home ahead of us we had to bail on that since there's no way dinner would have gone well. On the metro trip home we were packed like sardines and had to stand for almost the entire trip back until the last two stops.
Today we met up wit Ken and Amanda to go to the Viva Vienna celebration. It's basically a mini carnival in the middle of Vienna. We've gone to this with the kids for the past couple of years now and the kids always seem to have a blast and it let's me take a crap load of pictures.
The only bad thing about this time was that we were there during the day, so the non kid picture taking opportunities aren't are all they could be. And when you add in the fact that for the better part of the morning the kids didn't have sunscreen (and neither did Ginger or myself) then there are definite negatives to going during the day.
I think we're at the point where the kids are soon going to be too old to really enjoy some of the rides. A lot of the rides are designed with younger kids in mind, so on some of them I would think the kids might get a bit bored. But even though I personally thought they were too old for some of the rides this year, they both seemed to have a blast running around to the various rides (even what I would call the very young kiddie rides). This year we splurged and both the kids the unlimited ride wristbands. I think we just barely ended up having that be worth it since I think the break even point was 12 rides and both kids went on about 15 rides.
Catherine and Amanda were inseparable most of the day. They even started referring to themselves as sisters. The downside of this was that Quinn got a bit excluded from their constant planning, but he seemed happy enough to be able to run off and do his own at times.
As an added benefit the model train exhibit in Vienna was open. And this year in addition to having a Thomas the Tank Engine model train on the tracks they also had James and Gordon. All the kids really seemed to get excited by that.
A couple of the rides required an adult to be present with them. So Ginger ended up going up in the ferris wheel while Ken took the kids on the scrambler. We eventually ended up leaving for home around five. The kids were completely wiped. I think the combination of getting up a little early, the constant running around all day and the heat got them good and tired. I know the mild sunburn I got ended up making me feel wiped out too (although that also could have been from lack of any significant sleep).
We got the Wii Fit. It wasn't easy. Since earlier in the week I decided I wanted to get it, Ginger's response was something along the lines of "You have to wait until 2 days before it's released to decide you want it? You couldn't have decided that sometime in the past month when I've been offered to pre-buy it about three different times?" Ok, so she's got a point and I should have made that decision a tad earlier.
It was released to the general public on the 21st, and everywhere we checked in the area was sold out. It seems Wii Fit is shaping up to be quite popular. Ginger checked a bunch of local stores, and eventually called down to Richmond to have Grammy be on the lookout for it, but it sounded like a lot of the stores there were sold out also. So I had the bright idea to call Nana and have her check in Waynesboro. Having grown up there I know for a fact that people there aren't typically what you would call early adopters. And luckily for us I was right. Turns out the Wal-Mart in Waynesboro still had five of them left. So Nana bought it and brought it to us when she came up to see Quinn in his opera performance on Thursday.
After playing around with it a bit last night, I've discovered that according to the Wii I am not overweight. I am however pretty darn close. The Wii labels overweight are having a Body Mass Index of 25 or greater. I slide in at 24.87 just under the wire. Now I'm pretty sure this isn't a completely accurate BMI measurement, but it's probably close, which means I really am just on the edge.
I set my trainer to be the female trainer. Before I get too much grief I did initially pick the guy trainer, but he didn't sound macho enough since I was expecting him to sound something like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but instead the guy's voice creeped me out a bit. So I went with the female instructor (and Ginger rolled her eyes), then when given the option during the exercises I viewed the instructor from the back (and Ginger rolled her even more). I was actually surprised at how difficult some of the strength training exercises were given the low number of reps I had to do. My initial impression is that it may actually help me get back in shape, but I'm not convinced it will yet.
The games that come with it are pretty amusing. I like the skiing, even though I'm not that good at it. And on the body test the first day I got my Wii Age to be 32, but then today I completely botched the stability test and ended up with a Wii Age of 58.
Today was the day Quinn's opera. Grammy and Nana were both planning on coming up, but fate conspired so that Ginger's Mom wasn't able to make it. At one point I thought I might be driving down to Richmond to get Grammy, but that didn't happen (but not before I took the day off in case it did). Luckily Nana was still able to make it up and even showed up well before the performance started.
The dress rehearsal was this morning and since I wasn't going to Richmond I was able to go. And I was absolutely amazed by what I saw. I shouldn't be surprised since he did pretty well during the Christmas concert, but this was the first performance that I've seen him do that he was really enthusiastic during.
The opera itself was the story of the Little Mermaid. The original version, not the Disney version. He had two on stage performances, one as a penguin (pictures up above) and one as a snake. The penguin act occurred when one of the mermaid sisters swam up to the surface and saw them.
In both performances he did really well. He knew all his song lines and seemed to have all the motions down also. I've got a video of the penguin performance further down below. Fair warning though, in going from quicktime to avi to youtube the resoltion on the resolution of the video seems to have taken a serious nosedive.
The snakes were telling the Little Mermaid not to go see the evil witch. Plot spoiler: she goes anyway.
This is the dress rehearsal penguin performance. It's under 2 minutes, so it's not that long. Quinn's the fourth penguin to show up on the stage.
Random musings of JamesF. More than likely stuff in the blog will be about what's going on with the kids (Quinn and Catherine). Let's face it, they're a lot more interesting than I am, but that's not to say it won't contain other updates pertinent to what's going on here in the household.
