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Showing posts from February, 2007

The Lexicon of Sebi

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Here is some of the latest Sebi-speak: bweckfwest: "I want some muffins for bweckfwest." oping: "Can you oping this fow me?" Peterjelly sanwich: "Cai have a Peterjelly sanwich?" macawoni, the other favorite lunch Legdichhin, which is his German for 'to lie down' Dinglydumbhead: his favorite name to call people Peter Pans: tatertots. We don't know how these wires got crossed.

Goose Eggs and a Delicate Arch

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This weekend we decided to hike to Delicate Arch with the Oscarsons. Chip and Marie-Laure are far more seasoned hikers than we. They have been known to throw two kids in backpacks and take off up Y-Mount or in Yosemite, and so their kids know what hiking is about. I had to try to market it to our children as "You know that time you climbed up to the castle in Fuessen? Hiking is like that only longer and with no castle at the end. People do it for fun. Especially in Utah where there are lots of great places to hike. Understand?" We drove down on Sunday after church and stayed in Moab, where we walked through the downtown, had Mexican food for dinner, and tried out the motel's hot tub. We watched ice skating finals on TV, and Rob attended a very entertaining evening of cowboy poetry at the Moab Art and Recreation Center. As soon as he left, I told the kids to stop jumping on the beds. Maddie saw Sebastian launching off, and so she grabbed his feet, thereby swinging him lik

Valentine's Day and New Stuff, Part II

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Yesterday was V-Day. I made the kids heart-shaped grilled cheese sandwiches. Maddie had dance class and Will made Pretend Soup for their dinner. Then I set up dinner for me and Rob downstairs. This is a woebegone kitchen island covered with a tablecloth, but our new table came today. Pictures will follow someday. I just figured that we had all of this space downstairs that we weren't using, and we might as well eat down there as go out! We had a roast and salad with pears and blueberries and gorgonzola cheese, and asparagus with white balsamic vinegar and pine nuts, and because I overcooked the rosemary new potatoes, we had tatertots with it, served with Navarro gewurtztraminer grape juice. For dessert we had a Mike Christenson Hazelnut Truffle Torte, which was a great thing for me. When we were newlyweds and didn't know how to cook, the Christensons would invite us downstairs to try whatever exotic dish they had just slaved over all afternoon in their wee kitchen. This was o

New Stuff, Part I

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Since we've taken over our basement (after renting it for five years), we've rearranged a lot of furniture and bought some more. Here is my new cabinet, which we've put in the kitchen (as you can see from the pictures, we're still figuring out what we want to do with it). It's not a great quality piece, but both Rob and I liked it so much that we didn't care. It holds the dishes, which means that we can display the china and crystal instead of hiding it in a dresser where it's been for the last several years. Here is Will's new bedding. It took a lot of negotiating with that kid to get to this point. I'd show him a picture and he'd want the twelve foot ceilings and the boat-shaped bed and the hardwood floors and the . . . on and on ad nauseum. He has some good taste -- I'll grant him that, but he is a terrible stinker to shop for. This is why usually I buy something and make it a surprise instead.

Science Fair!

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Will's science project was called "How does a Tarantula Change its Clothes?" and he investigated tarantula molting. He and Rob not only used lots of great color pictures, they also dressed up two RC tarantulas in doll clothes and Will had a great day explaining his project and freaking out unsuspecting students by making the spiders wiggle. Maddie and her friend Kenzly did their project on Winter Snow where they learned all about the formation of snowflakes and how studying them helps us (did you know that snowflake study helps meteorologists tell airline pilots where to avoid so that their planes don't ice up? and that snowflakes catalyze the change from ozone to breathable oxygen? Mama learned a lot). Both kids got lots of ribbons and are all fired up to do it again next year when Maddie will move ahead to the actual experimenting part of Science Fair.

January in Utah

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Transitions to the homeland were made easier by the backyard in general, and the trampoline and scooters in particular. Our aluminum deck cover kept things dry so the kids could roll around on the patio. Rob and I have determined that the "tin can" as we so lovingly refer to it, is going away this year, so I'm trying to justify a better looking backyard against the decreased play time in it. I'm open to suggestions if you have any! Here is Sebi on his SpongeBob scooter which he got from Jen and Eric. And Will loved the snow. We hadn't had any in Berlin, and there has been a ton here since our return. Mama loves that Will is out shoveling the walk. That's my favorite part!

Christmas (Reprise)

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Then we flew home. All three flights were uneventful, on time, with pleasant staff and no problems except us. We were pretty hammered after 27 hours, and we were grateful to have Uncle John, Grandma and Grandpa Shumway come and pick us up and take us home to our house, where they were staying and had already filled the fridge and kept the light on for us. Karen and Betsy decorated a Christmas tree for us and someone even organized all of the Christmas cards. Jeff and Saydi, Hazel and Charlie were downstairs asleep, as normal people are wont to do in the wee hours of the night. But we all woke up the next day and had another Christmas with lots of gifts and wrapping paper for all. Here is Grandpa in one of his most characteristic moves. He is in the kitchen and has just flung a kitchen towel over his shoulder. Whenever he's in the kitchen, he keeps one here in order to wipe his hands with a little fluttering cleaning motion after he has stuck something in his mouth. If he were do

Farewell to Berlin

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So you thought that we were never going to post again, and so did we. But we're up and running again in the US, so we thought we'd finish our story. After Christmas we said goodbye to Berlin as best we knew how. Mostly we ate. Here we are at our favorite Doener shop, eating our Doener Kebaps and drinking Uludag. We took one last ride at Breischeidplatz, to empathize with the airplane pilots and [evidently] get out some aggression. Will worshipped at the altar of technology (it's an airplane engine) at Templehof airport. The hunger rake, or the sculpture that commemorated the Berlin Airlift. Planes landed every minute or two at Templehof airport to give the people of West Berlin food to eat while they were under siege from the Soviet Union. Good Cold War sightseeing which we did to get some photos for Rob's sister Betsy, who has her students perform plays about WWII and the aftermath. We packed up. I told Rob he hadn't done much packing. He said "You're