Happy Halloween!

Gone is the purple panda of yesteryear, replaced by this adorable little kitty who likes to chase her tail. This time around, it's all about the candy...

Finally, some pictures again!

I used to try to attach at least one image to entries, something to catch the eye you know. But then I turned into a lazy slacker. And kept forgetting to find the camera and grab the pictures off of it. To make up for months of neglect, I'm going to spend a long time waiting for Blogger to upload each and every one of the following images. Enjoy!


Job and the lovely Sarah came to visit. It was awesome. Elise got to hear stories as read by Job which was even more awesome. Better still, Sarah might come out this way for school, so we could potentially be luring them both out here in the future.


Astronomy camping in style. As you can see I didn't camp alone. Here's one view of Chez Dan's

And, my campsite. Of which I was proud. This was before I installed a makeshift rain shelter in the form of a tarp bungee corded to the tree and the picnic table.
Our latest trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Elise's favorite part-the waves...

Also, creating art in the new otter exhibit
We got home to discover that Grandma Char had sent a cool new sweater, apparently to remind us of our trip. (Now is that advanced planning or what?)
That big smile on Elise's face pretty well sums it up. We'll keep the camera a little handier in the future!

Aftershocks

This afternoon, we got another quick shaking to the tune of 3.7.

This evening, we had a protracted shaking of everyone's nerves as we tried to put Elise to bed. (Well, as Andy tried. I was a lazy slug and stayed downstairs handing out candy to all of the cute little munchkins.) Elise was convinced that the only way to keep earthquakes at bay was to sleep with the lights on. Grrr.

Stupid earthquakes.

For those of you out there who have experience with very real kid fears of very real and uncontrollable threats, what do you do? Obviously we'll be installing metal detectors by Elise's bedroom door and making sure she doesn't carry any liquids or nail trimmers with her. But that only works for terrorists, so now I need something for earthquakes. And really, any serious advice is appreciated.

Quaketastic

Wouldn't you know it, we just had our second quake that we could feel here and it was a doozy. The USGS says it was 5.6 and lasted about 30 seconds. That seems about right in hindsight. It woke Elise, freaked Beaker, and sent us skittering for doorways as the house wiggled around. An hour later, Beaker is still shrieking and Elise is having trouble getting back to sleep.

Apparently, the risk of a similarly large one of these on this particular fault is elevated for the next 72 hours, so we'll be making sure we have our various ducks in a row "in case."

Badge of Honor

I like being at the top of the dogpile. I'm pleased to report that if you google "We're taking back the dinosaurs" my post about that is the top return. Spiffy!

So, the next time some crazypants goes looking for the latest Answers in Genesis crusade against humanity, they'll get my rant instead. Mwahahahahaha.

Also, for what it's worth, a lot of people seem to find me while looking for how to take their Samsung refrigerator out of "demo" mode. Nobody expects the Samsung refrigerator demo mode!

My direct challenge to the people at Answers in Genesis:
Use Genesis to explain how my Samsung refrigerator gets into demo mode, and what is the biblically correct thing to do about it?

Together, with the help of google, we'll tell the world...

Games

We've entered a new era of game playing at our house. Elise has discovered board games with a vengeance. She doesn't quite get Memory, likes playing with the little plastic cherries in Hi-Ho-Cherrio a little more than she likes counting them, and loves Candyland with an undying passion.

Not that many months ago, I relegated the games to a cupboard because they were a constant source of frustration. Not only did Elise refuse to acknowledge that there were any rules about how to play with these things, but she'd throw fits if such things were suggested.

All of that changed last Thursday. Now, she wants to take turns, wants to compete, wants to see everyone who's playing be happy. So, while it breaks her heart that anyone else would ever have the audacity to draw the gingerbread card, she understands that it's traumatic for us to have to go back to the beginning and the tantrums have abated.

It's funny playing board games with a kid, because I definitely don't want to teach her the same trash-talking I use when playing cribbage with Andy. But that's how I tend to be competitive. How do you model appropriate competitive behavior? Dunno. I'm trying to keep the "neener neener"s to myself, and end with a handshake and "good game." Hopefully, that modeling will help keep her from getting run out of preschool on the first day. Whenever that will be.

There are some other games going on here lately that are slightly less fun. We now have the "stalling at bedtime" game as well as the "burst into tears at the drop of a hat" game. We're shaving time off our bedtime game and will likely be ready for the pro tour sometime in the next five years. It's hard to resist getting that "one last" hug from someone whose serve is so great, but that's generally where we've lost time so sacrifices have been made.

My biggest fear is getting stuck on the amateur circuit for an extended period of time, never quite escaping that last hug, last story, last trip to the potty, last drink of water, last really last trip to the bathroom, last nightlight complaint, last last last... We're working on it. Last night, I thought we had it, and then 45 minutes later I hear a loud noise from Elise's room followed by, "I'm warnin' yeh!" Flapjack had cleverly managed to re-start the game by hiding under Elise's bed and then clawing at the door to get out of the room. Hilarious!

The game with the crying is a bit harder. It involves tears every time something doesn't go Elise's way. She wants a kid laptop every time we go to Target. She wants the brown tights that match nothing we own in this world. She wants to play another round of Candyland before dinner. She wants to carry her stuffed animals to the mailbox and doesn't discover that until we're half-way down the sidewalk from the sofa upon which she left them minutes before. If Mommy is not on call and present 100% of the time, the world has ended. Nobody can fill the gaping void while Mommy has a small task to complete sans child, and woe be it to any fool who tries.

This has become a little less harrowing with the extensive use of time-outs to distract from the weeping. A quick cool-off when a tantrum over (name of molehill) begins tends to put things back on an even keel.

Normally, I'd be all worried that we messed something up horribly and that we have somehow permanently damaged our kid. This time, I have watched her acquire new social and fine motor skills in one giant burst, and the perpetual upset follow immediately. Just like when she was a baby, these brain re-wirings are unsettling. For all of us. For right now, I'm hoping to get through this one with some humor.

Monterey

Today, we saddled up the Subaru and headed south to Monterey to see the aquarium. For one reason and another, this is the first family adventure we've had in awhile, and it sure felt good to be out and about together.

I'm a little sleepy at the moment, but would like to report that we had a great time. Elise's favorite part is a glassed-in room that has artificial waves washing over it every few minutes. (For the Chicagoans out there, think the wave thing at Brookfield except bigger and with no chance of getting so much as a drop of water on you.) We spent a lot of time with the waves.

My favorite critters to see were the octopi. They are so neat to watch move. Unfortunately, they were not Elise's favorite at all, so I'm going to have to get my cephalopod fix elsewhere.

Our favorite part of the aquarium as a family was looking at the "deep reef" exhibit. Elise got so into the fish and the sharks that we spent a nice long time there. She managed to name "Spotty" and "Whiskery", and was also the first among us to see a flounder hanging out down in the sand. It was fun to have the rays swim above us because it looked like they were flying. Those minutes of perfection were worth all of the other hazards that attend a long day out with an almost four year old.

The new otter exhibit was a lot of fun, and we got to watch the otters eat right up close. The "outer bay" exhibit has a great white shark right now, and that was fun to see.

Because the place is kind of spendy ($25/head), we figured a membership was in our best interest. One more visit this year and we'll more than break even on the deal. Realizing that the drive isn't that long, we'll no doubt be spending more time there.