A cute conversation from a few days ago

We had just finished dinner.

Me: “How are you doing, Elena?” Elena: “Uh na na na buh-duh.” Me: “What did you say, sweetie?” Elena: “Uh na na na buh-duh.” Me: “You want bread with butter?” Elena: “Uh na na na na na na buh-duh … buh-duh.” (She said it slowly and deliberately, tilting her head forward a bit and widening her eyes a bit to add emphasis.) Helen: “Oh, you’re feeling better?” Elena: “Yeah!”

(Comment from old site:)

your vacation

Submitted by George A. Town on Sun, 06/03/2007 - 10:43pm.

Mom Glad you are having a wonderful time-we love the pictures! Hope weather is getting better for you, too. Enjoy the excitement the girls experience…they’re this precious age for such a short time. Love you all!

Vacation, Day 3: Sesame Place

C is for collapse

(Photo album: Sesame Place)

Sesame Place was a lot of fun despite the rain. We skipped all the water-related activities (which are quite numerous) and did other things instead. We all played on or near the rope bridge, rode Big Bird’s Balloon Race, saw a parade, saw a show, and met all the characters at an insanely expensive dinner.

Katrina and I also rode a roller coaster called “Vapor Trail”. We rode four times and she was still sad we didn’t ride it more. The fact that Katrina loved it made her roller-coaster–loving mother very happy.

The last three times we rode “Vapor Trail” were around six o’clock when most people had already left the park because of the rain. For all I know, some of the workers had left, too — the four teenagers running the coaster had trouble getting the ride to start each time. (“Everybody [take your hands] off [the button]!” (pause) “Everybody [put your hands] on [and press the button]!” “What’s going on?” “It didn’t go!” “Okay, let’s try again …”)

It sprinkled a bit throughout the day. The first significant rain fell after the parade while we were watching the Abby Cadabby show; the second, while we were at dinner meeting the various Sesame Street characters. We were pretty lucky.

We’re hoping that tomorrow’s weather will be better. If not, we’ll probably find other things to do in the area so we can go back to Sesame Place and do the water activities.

Quote of the day: “Dada, if we move faster, you’ll get lither.” (Katrina in a rope-bridge tunnel with me)

Vacation, Day 3

We’re in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. Yet again, the hotel doesn’t have The Disney Channel, and to make matters worse, there’s no breakfast, continental or otherwise. Regarding breakfast, Katrina was “very disappointed” (her words). We also had to switch rooms because our non-smoking room reeked of smoke. Then the Pistons lost. Grrr.

Yesterday we realized shortly after getting onto the highway that we had forgotten our AAA guide book for Pennsylvania. This was particularly unfortunate because we were planning on relying on that to find a place to stay. Helen called AAA and found an office open on Saturdays and that was only about half an hour off our route.

Helen needed to get instructions from the AAA office so we could find them. They had a pretty hard time finding someone to give her directions from eastbound I-80, and even then, the instructions weren’t correct. The irony was delicious.

Helen wanted to note that Elena said her first five-word sentence on Friday. We can’t remember what it was.

Vacation, Day 2

We’ve made it to Richfield, Ohio, which is near Cleveland. (Go Pistons!) We left when I got home from work yesterday. We could have gone farther, but the girls don’t do too well sleeping in the car.

We’re at a Hampton Inn. It’s nice — Helen loves the beds and the pool is a nice size. There’s no Disney Channel, but Katrina hasn’t seemed to notice. (Of course, since we use an antenna at home, we don’t get it there either, but it’s nice when the girls get a special treat like watching Little Einsteins in the morning.)

Helen took Katrina and Elena down for breakfast. I’m penning this before I take everything down to the car. After breakfast, we’ll be off to Sesame Place.

Indy 500

Rain, rain, go away

I prefer seeing 200 laps and a finish under green to seeing 166 laps and a finish under yellow, but hey, at least we didn’t have to drive down there a second (or third, or fourth) day. Plus, our seats in the Paddock are covered so we didn’t mind the rain (except when we had to walk back to the car).

Now to figure out what to do for next year. Request Paddock seats closer to turn 1? Camp overnight? Decisions, decisions.

Playdate at Leslie Science Center

Today we met Angie and Sofia at the Leslie Science Center in Ann Arbor, MI. Twice a month, the center has a special set of activities geared toward 1-3 year-olds. We went on a nature “hike” and explored stuffed animals in trees with the provided binoculars. Katrina really got a kick out of that! Then the kids got an opportunity to dig into huge piles of mulch and search for bugs using a magnifying glass. Normally Katrina loves digging into our mulch around the house and spreading it about, but once the tour guide mentioned “bugs,” Katrina lost interest in inspecting the mulch.

She’s recently developed a terrible fear of bugs. We’ve tried to talk nicely about them in our home as we gently scoot them out to our front porch, but now that isn’t working anymore. The other day along came a spider and krept up to Katrina and she screamed bloody murder. Maybe the fear of bugs is just something that occurs naturally for some kids.

Another big hit for the youngins was the sandbox. Surprisingly, Katrina was willing to play with the faux bugs - no problem! I must have turned my head the second that Elena decided to “drink” the dirt that she had placed into a plastic cup. She’s played in sandboxes numerous times without experimenting with sand’s edibility. Why did she have to pick really nasty, most likely poop-infested dirt?

After looking at the critters (hawks, owls, turtles, fishies, etc.), we drove over to a really nice park in Ann Arbor. Unfortunately, since it was near a river, there were many Canadian geese ready to engulf our meals as we innocently ate our picnic lunches. As we were eating, Katrina screamed out in terror because one of the geese snatched the hummous sandwhich right out of her hand. Poor Katrina! The tears and the crying made me feel horrible for her. I think the goose expected that she was going to feed him since EVERYBODY feeds the geese at this park. I was able to get her to stop crying by having her sit on my lap and eat my breakfast bar. Then we walked over to the goose and said, “NO, NO!” That seemed to help a little.

While the goose fiasco was occurring, I noticed that Sofia had COMPLETELY stuffed her tiny little mouth with cheese. We hadn’t noticed what she was doing because we had been so distracted with Katrina’s epidsode. So, poor Angie had to pull all of the cheese out of Sofia’s mouth so she wouldn’t choke!

Thank goodness there was a great play structure located at the park. All was happy and good with the world again. :)

Katrina and the Tigers

Katrina’s First Baseball Game [Helen’s public gallery at Picasa]

On Sunday, I took Katrina to the Tigers game at Comerica Park. (The Tigers beat the Twins 4-3.) We got there a little late because we took our time at WalkAmerica that morning, but neither of us were bothered by it.

We had great seats — I chose a section near where I sat last year for a coworker’s bachelor party. Katrina mostly wanted to take pictures and eat her piece of pizza (she didn’t want the cherry Icee I got for her), but she did enjoy doing the wave and cheering when everyone else did. (She got confused a couple of times, putting her arms up in the air when the crowd cheered for a good play. I thought that was cute.)

For a few innings we walked around, rode the carousel, visited the store (where I bought her a white Tigers hat with a pink D), and bought cotton candy. After the game, she said her favorite part was riding the tigers on the carousel.

Another Critter!

Last weekend, an animal set off our outdoor live squirrel trap. I’m suspecting it’s the same creature that’s been digging holes under the ground for the last couple of months. Squirrel Guy came over on Monday to reset the trap. By Wednesday morning, the trap was once again set off—-and the peanuts were gone!

Once the rain began pouring this week, our scratching squirrel noises began as well.

There’s no hope!

(Comments from old site:)

The cute little squirrel

Submitted by George A. Town on Mon, 04/30/2007 - 4:02pm.

Have you ever considered, not a live trap, but a DEAD TRAP! Remember he is a RODENT. His brothers are mice, rats and beavers. If he ate his way into your attic, can’t he eat his way into your bedroom too? I don’t know if they’re too small but I have a couple of rat traps that you could use. And, if they’re not too small, they would be quick, deadly, and, most important, PERMANENT. Dad Town

Traps

Submitted by Helen Town on Mon, 04/30/2007 - 7:03pm.

We have a live trap outside so we don’t unintentionally kill or hurt another animal. The lethal (“dead”) traps are up in the attic, but the squirrel doesn’t ever get caught in them, although he sets them off. In general, squirrels don’t want anything to do with humans; they just want the benefits of a warm, cozy place to live. So, I’m not worried that he’ll try to get inside the house. I’m just annoyed about the noise he makes!

No more batteries for the Fisher Price aquarium

Frankenfishies

Brad “fixes” the Fisher Price aquarium [Helen’s public gallery at Picasa]

Elena loves her Fisher Price aquarium. In fact, she loves it so much, she turns it on several times a night. As a result, the aquarium, which takes four D batteries, goes through batteries like I go through grapes. (I like grapes. Note the nearly empty bowl of grapes in the pictures.)

We’ve got rechargeable D batteries, and they work fine, except for a couple of issues. First, they only last a couple of weeks on a charge. Second, when the batteries are run down, the aquarium goes from “works fine” to “sounds scary” pretty quickly.

Enter Brad, the guy with the electrical engineering degree. I found a power adapter, formerly used for an old Palm, and rigged it up to the aquarium. I checked voltages to ensure everything was okay, and voilà! Now she can turn them on as often as she wants.

My favorite fonts

You can get several of my favorite fonts by installing some free-as-in-beer software:

• Candara: Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack (as of this writing, only available for Windows); if you have Windows Vista or Office 2007, you already have this font

• Consolas: Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack; if you have Windows Vista or Office 2007, you already have this font

• Constantia: Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack; if you have Windows Vista or Office 2007, you already have this font

• Frutiger Linotype: Microsoft Reader (as of this writing, only available for Windows)

• Minion Pro: Adobe Reader (font files are located in the installation directory for Reader under Resource/Font)

• Myriad Pro: Adobe Reader (font files are located in the installation directory for Reader under Resource/Font)

Some of my other favorites aren’t available with free-as-in-beer software (or at least I don’t know that they are), but are available with other software:

• Helvetica Neue/Neue Helvetica: Apple Mac OS X

• Hoefler Text: Apple Mac OS X

• Optima: Apple Mac OS X

• Palatino: Apple iLife

• Zapfino: Apple Mac OS X