In the deep mid-winter

We've had tons of snow and tons of cold in the weeks since we got back from our Christmas holiday...


Ben has been participating in an after-school program of XC-skiing Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the after-party always includes pasta and a bath...Penny loves bathtubs and the water that goes in them...she helps out any chance she can...she likes to bite the water, eat the bubbles, lick the soap off of the boy...


I went out camping on Polliwog Pond with a friend on Friday night after school...it got down to about -16 degrees according to 2 of our 3 thermometers (the 3rd registered -23 degrees, but was probably just bragging)...


The campfire kept us alive, I dug out the firepit a little, put down a layer of logs, and then built a fire on top of them...the fire melted and dried out the firepit by the time that we left...


The morning was cold and windy, but beautiful...lots of hot drinks and oatmeal helped start the day off right...


Polliwog Pond is a really pretty place to camp at any time of the year, but is especially nice in the winter, when nobody else is around...

I got home Saturday afternoon and we helped Ben get ready for his first-ever sleepover at a friend's house...he had a great time...


We picked him up this morning, tired but happy and full of stories of fun and fooling around and running and snowballs...we've kept this afternoon low and slow and been downstairs by the stove playing with lego and watching episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" that I got from Gail and Ben for my birthday...


We all built some fun stuff with a mix of lego pieces and kits, which Ben is really getting into these days, including some interesting puzzle-boxes with treasures inside of them...

We've got another day of this long weekend, and are thinking about going to see the movie, "Hotel for Dogs" tomorrow...

Playing inside during a cold day

It was really cold on Saturday morning, so one thing that we did was play with Ben, which with geeky parents usually gets a bit science-y...



Yellow-colored water and blue-colored water mix to make green-colored water...


Red and blue mixing to make purple, with Penny-terrific in the background, making plans to eat the straw connectors...

Turning 40

I turned 40 on January 5th, but had (as tends to happen with people born at this time of year) been celebrating my birthday for awhile...

The night of the 5th was the night of cake, which is the centerpiece of any civilized culture's celebration of your birth, and we had a fun time leading up to the cake-phase of the supper...with both Gail and Ben showing off the cake to me, but wanting me to keep it a surprise from the other (as well as promising to act surprised at the official unveiling)...birthdays, like funerals, are often as much about the people attending as the person being celebrated in the ritual...


They had gotten me a carrot cake, my favorite, complete with buttery icing and the inevitable carrot decorations (which carrot cakes seem to sport quite often, as if to proclaim the carrot-ness)...


I managed to blow out the 4 candles without assitance...40 candles was deemed a fire-hazard by everyone involved...


Penny thought that I needed help though, or she was worried by the cake and decided to help...once she got close enough, she tried to unhinge her jaws like an anaconda and swallow the cake whole...


It was moist and flavorful and sweet and had a wonderful texture...if Shakespeare has missing sonnets out there, buried by the sands of time, they may well be about cakes like this one...


I opened a present from Muz and was dumbfounded (emphasis on dumb) as to why she would have sent me one fruitbat mitten...in my defense, it had been a long first day back at school, and I was pretty tired from staying up late the night before...


Penny was intrigued by my brief lesson on the various fruitbats of the world, and decided to eat this particular one after a closer examination...


Eventually we figured out that it was not a single mitten, but was a wine cozy (and given that it was from Finland, was more likely a bear than a fruitbat)...once I knew what it actually was, it was impossible to see it as a fruitbat mitten anymore...and also nearly impossible for me to stop laughing at myself everytime I looked at the thing sitting on the table, mocking me...


Gail's new camera is great, and this is the first reach-around picture taken with it...TADA!


Ben has grown up so much in the last few months, he really isn't a little boy anymore...but he was very snuggly and Daddy-lap-centric during my birthday (and I loved it)...


Penny has grown up a lot in the last few months as well, but she still thinks and acts like a tiny puppy...she'll always be a lap dog...