So, maybe I'll start doing that here. Record the events of my life, and those of my children. Add a few pictures, maybe throw in some of my artwork as it becomes available. Then maybe in a year I'll publish it for the kids to have.
Plus, it'll be a good way for me to let the in-laws and other relations know what's going on because I'm dismal at e-mailing them pictures, or posting the stuff on facebook. Next thing they know the kids have grown three inches and haven't a clue what we're doing.
Right now I'm at my in-laws' house, typing on their computer. We came down for a couple of days while the kids were on Spring break. We're heading home tomorrow, because the day after that (Thursday) I have a board meeting to go to. But right now things are quiet. Kay is teaching the kids to play pool in the basement. Mike is staring blankly at the smiley-face ceiling lampshade. He's asking if one can have parody without irony? He's so deep. Or weird. Or both.
Earlier in the day we went out to dinner at Abby's Pizza with Mike's folks. It was not the best of eating experiences, sad to say. Kay ordered a ton of food, which wasn't bad, but the food itself wasn't all that great. It made DiGiorno's Pizza seem like gourmet cuisine. There was some ruckus over the bill. The staff insisted on shrieking and throwing their feces at us. In revenge for my father-in-law's tirade, they're now using his credit card number to order "the Best of Hee-Haw" on e-bay.
The highlight of the meal, however, was when I turned to face my oldest boy, Jared, only to see he had shoved a straw up his nose, either end in each nostril, making an absurd "U". Makes me glad we're not at the piercing stage. My eldest daughter, Maia, got into a burping contest with an imaginary hippo. She won by default but we were slathered by river planton by the imaginary hippo. So...budget isn't the only reason why we don't go out to dinner more often.
Other highlights from our trip to Roseburg. We went out to see "Alice in Wonderland" in 3D yesterday (Monday March 29, 2010). Colin (my youngest) sat next to me and whispered at the top of his lungs that he was firsty (thirsty). Being 3 1/2, he doesn't yet have the capacity to understand that whispering doesn't require the full use of his vocal chords. But there it is. He was scared a couple of times and buried his head in my arm calling out "oh my goodness!". The audience thought that was particularly amusing and were good sports about his outcries.
We got to see my sister-in-law, Krista, and her husband, Dave, which was nice. They came down from Eugene for the weekend to see us and take Mike fishing. It WOULD be the one time that Mike didn't bring any of his fishing gear. How's that for irony? But he managed to put together something to fish with (go figure). Mike caught a nice little trout which my mother-in-law, Marilyn, promptly ate.
I'm glad he went fishing. Mike's been needing to go for quite some time. He gets kinda of...strange if he doesn't go fishing on a regular basis. Believe me when I say this. He NEEDED to go fishing. Now that he's gone, he's much more reasonable. I can't explain it, but it grounds him.
Other than that, it's been a nice visit. Marilyn made Mike the apple pie she'd been promising him for five years. She also taught Maia how to make her (or rather Kyla's) chocolate pie. Actually, they call it "Chock Pie" which everyone thinks they're saying "Chalk Pie", which is amusing in a Bjornson kind of way. (I find it funny, too - but then again I've been assimilated into the hive mind.)
Maia and Jared and Erin and Colin have had a really good time playing with all the toys here. There's Legos and Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys and some kind of contraption that you build into a marble track. The kids figured out how to make crossbows and arrows out of the Tinker Toys this morning and have been shooting the hound out of everything. They are inventive if nothing else.
OH, and I forgot to mention the chicks. The baby chickens. Kay and Marilyn disappeared one day, early in our visit. They were gone for something like two hours. We thought they had just gone to the grocery store, but it turned out that there was much more in store than a 12 pack of Coke and bacon. Imagine our surprise when they came in with a container of no less than 15 baby chicks, all squawking and scrabbling. Maia was immediately in love with them and adopted one as her own. Colin named no less than two of them "Baby Colin" and one "Kid Colin". Jared was reticent, but he enjoyed holding the chicks in his hands. Erin kept her quiet distance, plotting ways to turn them into something edible, I'm sure.
Kay and Marilyn set up this huge cardboard box in the living room where the chicks would live until the weather warmed up and they grew up enough to handle living in the chicken aquarium. Kay set up a heat lamp to keep them warm. The kids hover over the box, for the first two days its in the living room. At this point, however, the box and the chicks have become innocuous, as slaying one another with Tinker Toy arrows is much more entertaining.
Personally, I think Kay and Marilyn bought the chicks just to drown out the sound of the frogs croaking in their backyard swimming pool. Those frogs are extremely loud and only are slightly quieter than the chicks. It's a different story when the chicks are asleep and you can really hear the frogs then.
Oddly enough, the first night we were here, the frogs shut up when Mike mentioned making frog legs. True story.
