Food Network, here we come!

Listen at the end for Evan to describe what these kitchen tools are used for! What a nut. Do you think anyone would watch a cooking show hosted by a 3-year old? How about if he wore an apron on the front, a "super-guy" cape on the back, and an Incredibles shirt?

Traitor

Evan planted seeds at school several weeks ago and today we brought them home. He told me, "Mommy, these will be beautiful flowers for you for Mother's Day!"

I thought this was so sweet, I told Will about it later. Turns out that Evan told Will, "Daddy, these will be beautiful flowers for you to put on your desk at work!"

He is already working the angles. We are in for it.

Helmets, Berries, Sticks and a Swingset

We had fun scooting and picking mulberries at the Byron's yesterday. Grace got her own scooter, so the "races" have begun! Grace even convinced Evan to wear his helmet! ( I wonder if she can work on Alex and his aversion to vegetables, next? The boys like to follow her lead.)

Ellen and I were commenting on how gender differences have started to emerge. The ways in which Evan and Grace play on the scooter are totally different. Evan likes to smash berries and make destructive noises. He jumps off the scooter and fake falls into the yard, rolling around in the dirt and sending his scooter flying. Grace does nothing so uncivilized! :)

Here are some shots from the last two times the kids got together. Thanks for the extra pictures, Ellen!

"Peek OOOhleeeeah!"

Happy Birthday, Mom / NeeNee / Gramie!

Happy Birthday!

"hooray, hooray! to you!"

Land Sails

Buddies

As soon as the familiar Byron family van pulled into our driveway, Evan met Grace on one side of the car, while Alex repeatedly crooned "Jooooleeahhhh (Julia)" by the other door. These boys are smitten.

Evan and Grace pretend to cook hot dogs over the campfire.

Julia loves the swing!

I can still hear her giggles as I look at this picture.

Alex loves sticks.

He especially likes to find little holes for sticking his sticks!

Grace got the tractor up to 2-3 mph!

Thankfully, she is very good at steering! :)

Later in the afternoon, Alex awoke from his nap calling, "Julia! Julia!... I love you!"

He has been talking about her all afternoon. "Where are you? Julia!?"

Strawberries

9:19. NO WATER. We were promised water by 9:00 PM.

NOT HAPPY.

Will just got off the phone with the "report a leak" hotline. We were not on the list for service! Can you believe it? Thankfully, someone will be here within 25 minutes. MAN I'm mad.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

On a happier note, we had fun picking strawberries at the farm.

anyone have some good strawberry recipes?

H20

Still no water. It is 8:07 PM and the Water Authority customer service line closes at 5:00. I am going to blow a gasket if water is not flowing into this house in the morning.

Thank goodness for fabulous neighbors. We used the Mann's hose to fill the baby tub. Although I boiled some water to warm it up, the kids were not happy. Maybe I should send the picture of Evan's face to the manager over at MWA. (click on the image to see it larger) Poor little kiddos. Poor Will's back.

Earth Day - one day late

My friend Ellen powered down her life in honor of Earth Day yesterday. We are "celebrating" in our own way today. We have not used any water all day.

NO; this was not by choice. And truthfully, we are hardly celebrating.

Macon Water Authority has our account crossed with someone else... someone else who doesn't pay bills. I was clicking away on the computer this morning and I saw MWA turn the crank in our yard! I didn't realize what had happened until I went to wash up. GRRRR.

I thought it best to get out of the house, so we all went strawberry picking for the last few hours. Unfortunately, we are now covered in dirt and red stains... and still no water. Evidently, they came by to restore service, but the meter indicated that one of our faucets was on. We suspect that Evan, in his effort to be helpful, turned on the tub faucets to see if they worked, but didn't turn them off. Lets hope we see MWA again today. I'm very irritated.

On a more positive note, watch for strawberry pics soon.

another photo book

Winkflash.com is still having their flat-rate photo book sale. People, this is a great deal. Their templates are terrible, but when combined w/ photoshop, you can't go wrong. I just finished another 100-page book (the last one was from Maui). This book was from Easter through yesterday, with the majority of the pics from the trip to Evanston last weekend.

Scooter

While we were in Evanston, Evan learned to ride a scooter that belonged to a neighbor kid. He was a natural! Earlier today, Gramie and Bapa surprised Evan with a scooter of his own! I am sure his quads will be sore tomorrow!

Now if only we had a sidewalk... and yes. He will wear his helmet next time. :)

Our Trip to Evanston

The kids and I had a wonderful, but quick, trip to Chicago this weekend. In three full days, we managed to do and see a ton of things, including the Museum of Science and Industry, Lincoln Park Zoo, haircuts at Kid Snips, a trip to the bakery, playing in the yard, playing in the basement, and more! In true Williams fashion, we took over 150 pictures per day. I'll put the highlights into a slide show.

Now, we need to recover! All five of us are exhausted! I'm back on my weight watchers restricted diet again, too. I wonder how many points are in an Italian Beef sandwich? How about Chicago style pizza? Shrimp with lobster sauce? Heaven.

Thanks for a great time Nee Nee and Bapa/Mom and Dad!

Happy Birthday, Erinn!

Happy 21st Birthday

to

Cousin Erinn!

We love you!

Happy Haircuts

Gramie and Bapa took the kids to get haircuts today. Afterwards, the boys selected lollipops from the haircut treasure chest.

Quake

Yup! I felt it. The quake that originated in southern Illinois earlier this morning could be felt in Evanston! Asleep on my side, I was awakened as I rocked back and forth! I remember feeling another quake as a little girl. It was strange deja vu. Both times I was asleep in my light blue childhood bedroom! No one else in the house felt it and I was too tired to be alarmed. Good thing it wasn't a real emergency!

bath time

more travel-day stories and lessons learned

As we were passing through security, Evan stopped to tell TSA that we were going to Chicago. The woman gave the appropriate amount of nod, acknowledgment, and move-along-now, signals. Evan kept talking:

"Mommy, Alex and Evan are going to Chicago. Daddy is at work. We sneaked away while Daddy was at work."



I had some explaining to do.

- - - - - - - - - - -

As soon as the plane began its descent, Evan leaned over his chair and started yelling -- and I mean yelling -- "Nee Nee and Bapa!!! Here we come!!!" Alex joined him. Thankfully, we were in the last row of the plane.

I told the boys that their grandparents could not hear them. Evan asked me what was under the plane. "Air," I said. "What is below that?" he countered. "Earth." He looked at me with a duhhh-mom look and recommenced his communication. Clearly, I should have thought about Earth being right under the plane. Of course my folks could hear him!?

- - - - - - - - - - - -

No matter how much your kid loves escalators, and no matter how great he is at moving on and off them, never send him down on his own. Not even if Grandparents are waiting at the other end of a short ride. I'm waiting to see my picture on a bad-parenting tv special someday soon.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The vonTrapp Family Singers...

saved us yesterday. If it weren't for 4 rounds of musical-numbers-only on The Sound of Music DVD, we might have been kicked out of the Atlanta airport. Our flight to Chicago was delayed about 90 minutes -- during nap time. The kids were bonkers. Luckily, we found a bench near an outlet and were able to watch the special features on our travel DVD player.

Picture Evan twirling around a crowded airport, bumping into people, with his arms outstretched like Fraulein Maria, singing, "the HILLLLLLLS are alivvvvvve..." Pictuture Alex strapped into his umbroller, with a pacifier hanging out of his mouth, yelling, "Mo-Mo Maria!"

Thanks, Rodgers and Hammerstien.

Fuzzy Wuzzy

The scene: Will, Evan and Alex are watering plants on the back patio. The back door is open and I overhear the following conversation:

Will: Look, guys! A caterpillar!
The kids scurry over to see
Will: Say hello to the Fuzzy-Wuzzy!
Evan: Metamorphosis is about to occur!

So much for fuzzy-wuzzy talk.

No cavities!

Evan and Alex visited the dentist this morning. It was the first time for both -- and both did really well. Evidently, Alex relaxed in the chair and let them polish all his 12.5 teeth! Evan did a nice job, too, until it came time for x-rays. These pictures were provided by the office (no parents are allowed in the back until the end). Note that the face Evan is making is exactly the same face that Will makes while brushing Evan's teeth! I love it.

Reckless Hammering

The boys made ant houses at Lowe's this morning. These pictures and videos should give you an idea of why adult supervision is necessary. Will still has all his fingers, but it was a close call.

Reckless Hammering




One hammer at a time!

Got it!

Thanks for the new Jordan Jamboree header, Ellen!

More softball

Cherry Blossom Pics - better late than never

I just figured out how to move pictures from my camera onto the new computer -- so now I have to play catch-up! Here are a few additional pictures from the festival last week. I'll also add more to the slide show.

Cherry Blossom Festival: Annual Pink Pancake Breakfast

Evan and Grace watched the firemen test the hydrants.

CBF Art Fair

I'm baaaaaack

The new computer is here. The Internet is now connected (thanks to a visit from Cox and 75' of new cable wire soon to be buried in our backyard), I've checked on my pictures and everything seems to be present on the external hard drive, and I've loaded new software onto the new CPU. Unfortunately, I can find quicken in the "old drive" data, but I cant find any files to migrate over. I also can't find any of my contacts that were in outlook. I will definitely have countless hours ahead of me to rebuild all this lost information.

Most importantly, though, the kid-pictures and baby-book journals are back. I am so, so thankful.

The saga continues

My computer didn't arrive yesterday as planned. In fact, it didn't even leave the distribution site until last night. I'm less than pleased, to say the least. I'm sure the kids have learned some new words in the last week. (I'm currently typing this from Will's office with Alex strapped into his stroller behind me!)

Hope to be up and running by Saturday. In the meantime, Will retrieved our new external hard drive from the computer folks. I haven't been able to look at it too much, but from a cursory overview, much of my data has been recovered. Most importantly, I've found and printed 35 pages of baby-book journals. Talk about a second chance....

More to come.

The worst possible outcome

The capacitors on the motherboard are blown. In turn, this blew the hard drive -- at least that is my non-IT interpretation of what they told me. The last hope to salvage anything is "ghosting" the hard drive. This is currently underway; we hope to know more on Monday afternoon. There are only a few other times in my life when I have felt such a personal loss. It is indescribable.

On a more positive note, Uncle Gordie and Sarah helped me pick out a new CPU tower last night online. It will arrive on Tuesday so I can move on.... In the meantime, I'm losing a lot of sleep and spending Internet time at Will's office.

computer-less

I am so upset, I don't even know what to say. My computer crashed yesterday. I fear I've lost everything, including kid pictures from the last 3-1/2 years, all my quicken data, and worst of all, the kids' "baby books," which I'd saved as word documents. Unfortunately, I do not have backup copies of any of this (except some pics). The CPU Tower is at Quality Computers in Macon; I hope they can recover most of our data. Will's grades, course syllabi, my masters degree projects, etc etc etc. I can go on and on.

Obviously, postings will be limited in the meantime. (I'm currently in Will's office). If you need to reach us, use the phone. Email is out for now, too. I feel so isolated!

Special thanks to Uncle Gordie, Sarah, and Ellen. They helped me through the problems yesterday. I would have really lost it without their guidance (not that I didn't cry most of the day and night...).

keep your fingers crossed.

Cherry tree, very pretty

Since it is still Cherry Blossom Festival week, I thought it appropriate to post another picture of our most mature cherry tree. It is now "at peak." (We have three trees total, but this one we planted in autumn 2003 after we moved in. The other two were planted for my birthday last March.)

Who wants visit next March/April? We have room! This is the best time of year to be in Macon!

Chuck

Chuck made the move from Evanston to Macon with success. He arrived this afternoon and the boys could not be more excited. Evan is scared to push the accelerator, but he loves the scoops. Alex, on the other hand, will be driving around the backyard in no time! Thanks, Mom and Dad!

The Life of Chuck the Tractor was a long, long one;

He plowed through fields of cotton in the hot, hot sun...

-- YAMO, 1989

For those who don't know YAMO, it was my high school's student-run annual production.

Post-Interview Summary

Today I met with the Director of the Career Center, the Interim Dean of the Stetson School of Business and Economics, and one of the marketing professors. I think it went well. In the next week or so, I think I need to meet with a few more people, but initial signs are very good. I wont say more, less I jinx myself. I'm very excited about this new opportunity. Lets hope everything falls into place.

IF this all works out, I'd be teaching one course per semester (online in the summers). Students take this 300-level course their junior year in conjunction with a an internship. The course is meant to help students make meaning out of their respective internships and introduce them to the corporate world. Goodness knows I'll have many stories to tell. I'm also excited about the more academic side to things too: selecting readings, classroom discussion, and individual advising.