Slice of Life

Muppet Madness

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:32:15 -0500

I grew up watching “The Muppet Show” and each of the movies. I watched Sesame Street and “The Dark Crystal” and “Labyrinth” and pretty much anything Muppet-made. It is therefore a natural conclusion to presume that my own children would enjoy at least some level of Muppet exposure. We even purchased seasons 1 and 2 of the original “Muppet Show” on DVD to watch together as a family. I was pleased to discover that the Muppets are creating new content in an online-only format. I shared these with my parents and with my children.

We’ll start with the least funny:

Gonzo merely whets the appetite. I miss Jim Henson’s voice when I hear the two hecklers, Waldorf and Stadtler, now. They don’t sound quite the same without Jim. Moving onward:

By this point I had my mom, dad and youngest sister laughing out loud. It gets better though...

Before continuing, I must warn you – my children are stuck in a rut because of the last one, the Ode to Joy (perhaps more accurately, the Meep to Joy). I have but to start, “Bork...Bork Bork Bork,” like the Swedish Chef in the next one and my children start Meep–ing like Beaker. You have been warned. Don’t click unless you are certain you know what you’re getting yourself into.

You had to do it, didn’t you? I don’t blame you. I still can’t get enough of this one and neither can my children. Perhaps I’ll include footage of the meep-ing in the next DVD...

Ruminations on our return to Utah

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 16:38:36 -0500

We had an enjoyable trip, for the most part. It’s taken us 2 weeks to recover from the stresses and strains of our travels, hence the belated post. Even though it was meant to be a vacation it was a journey filled with thoughts, reflection and realizations.

We realized – and not just Diana and I, but even our children – that Texas is home now. We wondered whether we would arrive in Utah and be home sick. Well, we were, but not for Utah. That was strange and somewhat unexpected. Utah had been our home for our entire lives. And yet here we were back “home” and it felt like anything but home. It was truly surreal to be so completely familiar with all of the geography of a place but to feel like a stranger in a strange land.

We thought about all of the good times we had in Utah and all of the growing experiences. We miss our extended family. It was great fun for our children to meet with their cousins. The above photo is of Emma and Hannah with their cousin Lincoln Cook.

Brick Oven is still the place to go for family get-togethers

For more photos of our trip to Utah, check out our Gallery.

Drum roll please

Wed, 4 Jun 2008 20:54:52 -0500

Without further ado, we introduce our latest addition to the family. It is no small thing that we have been so fortunate that our doctor’s practice has one of the new 4D Real Time ultrasound machines. The footage may appear a bit halting, but that’s the way this works. It’s not super-smooth yet.

And please, if you do leave a comment, don’t give away the secret the movie reveals (the baby’s gender) in your comment. We did it this way for a reason, even if my mom does want to spank me for it. :-P

Butterflies!

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:18:29 -0500

We enjoyed quite a trip yesterday. We drove all the way to San Antonio (around 100 miles) to visit the San Antonio Zoo & Aquarium. It was a lot of fun. We’ll take anyone who comes to visit down with us. We bought an annual membership. You see, it would be $62 to pay for a single trip for our whole family, but an annual membership costs our whole family only $65. $3 well spent, if you ask me. In our short time there we only saw perhaps as much as one third of the zoo (if that) and the children are begging to go back again already!

One of the highlights of our trip was the butterfly exhibit. It costs an extra $1 per person to get in, but it was well worth the price. The children and Diana and I each got to have a butterfly on our fingers at least once apiece, sometimes more. Emma was queen of the butterflies. They seemed to like her more than the rest of us. Here’s a sample of what went on:

More footage like this will be in this year’s DVD. Here’s a few photos of our trip. Enjoy!

In which I Channel Elmer Fudd...

Sun, 6 Apr 2008 20:21:35 -0500

I did a terrible thing yesterday. I mowed the lawn.

Yes, mowing my lawn was a terrible thing to do. Do you know why? I killed a baby bunny. I’m sure it didn’t suffer. There wasn’t enough left to actually tell there was a rabbit there at all except for what might have been some innards with traces of blood and a few tufts of fur. I didn’t even know I hit anything until I saw another baby bunny run like the devil himself was chasing him...out from under the mower.

It was at this point that I moved the mower farther and saw the remains (if such a small amount of evidence can in fact be called remains). I chased after the little bunny, fearing that I either orphaned it or killed a sibling. I had no idea what I was up against, so I thought I had it cornered against the wall. I left to find a box in which I could keep it while we figured out what to do.

When I returned with a box, the rabbit was nowhere to be found. I didn’t think it could have gone far, but I looked very hard and could not see it.

When I returned to survey the scene of the crime, I discovered the hole they were in. There were more bunnies. I fished them out and discovered there were 3 more besides the one I had just lost. I put those 3 in a box for safe keeping. They were so little. No more than about 3.5 to 4 inches long. I brought Diana and the children out to see what had happened. Of course, my children were immediately taken with how cute and small they were. The poor, helpless little dears didn’t even have teeth with which to bite us yet, and one of them shrieked the universal bunny distress call. No help came, however.

Worse yet, as I resumed mowing I made a sad discovery. Yes, I killed a second bunny, the one I thought I had lost. He’d been right where I’d looked four separate times: between the relatively tall grass and the foundation of the house. I either crushed its poor skull or broke its neck, or both. I ran right over it 3 or 4 times with the wheels of the mower and then I saw its tiny body twitching in the now shorter grass. I had been taken back by my commission of negligent bunny-slaughter the first time. This second one just tore me up. I felt truly horrible inside. “I killed the wabbit!”

Aubria did some quick research on the internet and found out some quick and vital facts. They wouldn’t have bitten us even if their teeth were ready. They might still be nursing age. The mother wouldn’t mind human tampering at all. So we brought the poor scared little bunnies inside for the next several hours. All of the children got to hold them. They actually preferred to hide in the leg of Diana’s pants.

After more research it became clear that these were cottontails, and that the mother was out patrolling the surrounding area. She only comes to visit her babies around midnight every night when she nurses them for only 5 minutes. She has to stimulate them to get them to eliminate (keeps their burrow clean) and then they go back to sleep for another day. They live like this for a month or two before striking out on their own. If the mother were to come back and find the burrow empty she would be extremely distraught. It was at this point we determined to return them to their burrow and hope “mommy” came back to care for them.

The guide we read suggested that we dust the surrounding area with odorless baby-powder or with some unscented thread or dental floss. If either were disturbed we’d know that “mommy” came back.

The children went outside first thing this morning and indeed, “mommy” had been there. She had noticed the lack of 2 of her babies and decided that this location had been compromised. The baby rabbits have gone with “mommy” to what will hopefully be a safer location.

All things considered, it was a privilege for our children to learn and experience this, not to mention ourselves. It was devastating to me to kill poor, defenseless bunnies though. I still feel terrible. I should have been able to have saved that 4th bunny. So, I give you the following video clip. Elmer Fudd will be playing my part in this brief clip.