today's tip

walk in the deep snow. it is very good exercise.

reflections on ice

i'm still here! all of you fairweather blog readers who only check in when you think there's going to be something to read... well, here you go. and for the loyal readers who don't mind seeing the same post everyday for weeks on end... thank you especially.

actually, i'm not going to have much time to write. our office, which doubles as a guest bedroom is occupied this week by greg's dad--currently though they are talking chemistry or some sort of core-of-the-earth stuff, however, it's getting later, so i'll probably have to turn the office over soon.

our westwardly vacation was very nice. it's always so nice to see my family and my family's family and significant others and family's friends, etc. and especially nice when that happens at christmas time. because let's face it, christmas is such a nice time of year. and sad when the tree has to come down, as it did this weekend upon our return, and la la life gets undecorated and turned back into routines which are much less fanciful.

now, more so than before christmas, even though it snowed buckets and the immediately surrounding world was frozen, we must really, finally put our heads down and get to work getting through winter, until everything unfreezes and the sun comes back in the evenings and we can go to our gardens and we can play outside without sweaters and snow pants and mittens and scarves and hats and coats and boots, in that order, and it feels festive, like christmas, at least for awhile.

but i'm not dreading this winter so far. i feel well equipped and i think that william understands that in order to get outside we have to go through this very long exercise of dressing up and also we have decluttered somewhat so that life feels a little bit less disorganized than it might otherwise feel and that it likely will feel when we fall behind on things as we inevitably do-- but for now at least, i'm ahead of winter-- i think it doesn't hurt that we spent some time apart from it... but if that's what it takes, so be it. then i am happy that this year we were able to take that time apart from our northerly existence.

well, the chemistry talk is still going on but now i am getting tired, so i'll end here and hope to update again soon. until then...

hairstyle past...

we are going to have a warm christmas this year. i am happy about that. it's hard to be sad about it really when we are going to experience so much of winter-- and already have-- around 17 inches of snow so far this season.


i don't have much access to recent photos, so i'll post one from christmas past...

Early Christmas

A cute Christmas gift moment...

we're here!

you are probably tired of looking at the bat picture huh? well, i wish i could say i was doing something really productive with my time, even just finishing that book over to the right that i've been reading for so long, but no, i haven't even been keeping up with scarlett all that well. just keeping things going and going to sleep.

we aim for this kind of evening whenever we can get it... although we are probably both getting a bit tired of 'mouse soup'...


this november has been really abnormally wonderful! this was a few weekends back now, but we were out at governor nelson state park on a beautiful day. i think william's sweater was overkill as i definitely recall actually feeling uncomfortably hot at one point.

confidence kid...

no, we did not put him up to this. he hugged the tree all on his own...

playing with a stick...

back at home, driving around...

serious kid...

and, of course we did go up north for thanksgiving which is probably the most fun we've had since i last updated. william got to meet his cousin for the first time (and us our nephew). that was a great event. here is william dancing at grandma and grandpa's house.

and here's a video of william and his cousin dancing. it's a bit inconvenient for the last 2/3 of it because being the brainiac that i am, i turned the camera, not realizing that it wouldn't "right" itself or that i couldn't just rotate it. sheesh! sorry. but it's still cute enough that i decided to put it up.


that's all for now!

bat redux

you may recall that last year, william was a bat for halloween. well folks... looks like we may be seeing the beginnings of a new tradition-- see william the bat, the second...
really what happened is that we did not have our acts together regarding a halloween costume for william... not much of a surprise given that we are often scrambling to keep the bare minimum of daily life from succumbing to entropy, but it doesn't help that he is only a year and a half and therefore has no clue what halloween is and that he should be donning a costume for it. which is all to say, i'm sure that as he gets older, we will plan things out further in advance. but as it goes, we were fortunate to have a bat costume in the closet which fit him quite well. we got it from a neighbor who got it from a neighbor, and we completely forgot about it until halloween eve. he enjoyed wearing it. he learned how to flap his wings. and we pretty much kept him in the dark about the other, rather significant aspect of halloween-- the sugar. we'll see what the years bring in that area as well.


anywho, the next day his uncle geoffy came to town to run in a race. here they are... one of whom is acting silly...
more later!

why isn't the last half of lost season 5 online?

i'm putting that question out there because it appears no one else is. why doesn't abc.com or hulu have episodes 10-18 of season 5 available for viewing? it's not fair! how am i going to know what happens!?

quick picture update

i have been reminded by some siblings that it has been 3 weeks since updating the blog. everything is going well and w.t.'s seen lots of his relatives. awhile back his aunt beeeeki came to visit. that's not what he called her. he was pretty good at pronouncing her name correctly. here they are after a cold outdoor adventure...


and here, a few silly pictures of him...


climbing the walls... something he requests to do on a weekly basis...


then to michigan where greg ran a marathon. w.t. in his cowboy pj's...


and with his grandma kathy...

and with grandma and grandpa q... i took a few pictures here but i couldn't seem to get william and his grandpa smiling at the same time, so i've captured the moment here in two shots...


thank you to gma q for cooperating throughout! =)


some great shots, from his uncle geoffrey, at the lake...








on the way home from the michigan trip... in good spirits...


and later on... tuckered out...

then, with his cousin (2nd cousin?) stewart this past weekend. there are lots of great pictures from this trip, which i don't have yet, but hopefully will have sometime soon!



and i think that's it for now! time for sleep!

newest hobby

encore

filmed the same day, a little earlier than the previous...