armlessbear.com

Western Vacation

Our vacation out west photos are now up here.

I may try and turn some of the shots I took into panoramas. If that’s successful, those photos will go up there as well.

Back from Vacation

In 7 days:
Badlands
Black Hills (incl. Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse)
Eastern Montana
Beartooth Pass (a road climbing up to 11,000 feet – a scenicly terrifying way to get into Yellowstone)
Yellowstone
Sleeping outside under the stars (no tent, long story)
More Yellowstone
Eastern bits of Idaho (incl. Victor, ID which is on the west side of the Tetons)
Jackson Hole, WY
Grand Tetons Park
Yet more Yellowstone
Return to Eastern Montana
Back through South Dakota and terrifying but brilliant storms.
Home.

I love mountains and the west. I haven’t been out west since 99 and really forgot how much I love the fresh smell of pine forests. I even enjoyed our second night of camping that actually involved sleeping in a tent.

The Drive From Hell

Ordinarily when the authorities say things like “avoid unnecessary travel” I do just that. Oh, sure, in the middle of winter when there’s just been a huge snowstorm it’s fun, no it’s mandatory, to put on the winter clothes and test your driving skills in ridiculous amounts of snow.
Saturday, unfortunately, I HAD to drive, up north to retrieve Adam from his week of camp Grandma and Grandpa, Spooner site.
I left home at 9:18am on Saturday and finally hit the opened portion of 90/94 at 12:20pm. It was bloody awful. And it wasn’t just the stop and wait bits. No, it was the idiot guy in front of me driving his teal Honda civic with a really loud, huge muffler. So everytime we got to inch forward, he of course, had to make a loud, annoying vroom vroom noise.

Head Winds Suck

We bought a tag-along bike a while ago with the notion that I could bike A. to school in the morning and bike us both home at night. It’s a short distance – about 2.5 miles one way, and on a very pleasant bike trail.
This morning we bundled him up with a hat under his helmet, mittens, and a light winter coat to keep him warm. The ride was surprisingly easy and despite the fact that this is only my 2nd bike ride of the season, I wasn’t in any sort of pain in my legs or butt after the ride.
As I scoped out the weather for the next few days it said “WINDY” with 23mph winds from the SW. How bad can that be, I wondered to myself.
Well as “luck” would have it, I found out tonight on my ride home.

Busy Weekend - Saturday

Saturday was an incredibly busy and fun day.

We saw the trains at Olbrich Gardens, the giant festive pine tree in the Capitol building. and we bought a Christmas tree. Yes, we’re tree killers. We know. I can’t quite bring myself to buy a fake tree yet, though.

After our full day out, we came home and had the Rupperts over for a delicious dinner of Picasso’s pizza. Then Erin showed me how to knit. I was doing OK for a beginner until Sunday morning when I completely forgot how to do half of what she taught me. Fortunately, she was able to point me to a great link and talk me through some of the bits I’d forgotten. Yay!

Busy Weekend - Friday Night

Friday night we went down to the Essen Haus to meet up with some of Mike’s co-workers for dinner and drinks. Bringing Adam to a restaurant/bar with a live Polka Band and adults drinking large quantities of beer from glass boots or steins that look like Thor (God of Thunder, not Derek’s cat) should be drinking from it, not mere mortals with puny, human-sized livers would not have been in my top 5 list of places to take a 4 year old. But there we were…
So at the Essen Haus, Adam had his first indoctrination into Wisconsin culture.
Polka band? Check!
E-I-E-I-E-I-O? Check! (I had totally forgotten about that right up until the band sang it at us, and like some sort of pre-programmed freak, I knew how to respond)
Massive loads of beer? Check!

Overnight Success

We tried bribery, cajoling, temporary loss of privileges, big boy privileges, begging, pleading, ignoring, and just plain old blind hope that someday we would not be sending our son to kindergarten in pull-ups.
One day a few weeks ago I said that I’d make him a potty chart and if he got 10 Xs on the chart, he could pick a prize. His desired prize was to visit that pizza, birthday, rides, games and noise bastion known as Charles E. Frommage.

I don’t know why it worked, but within 2 days of instituting the poops for pizza program, Adam was done with pull-ups and was using the bathroom all by himself.

Growing up with Mythbusters

A little over 4 years ago I was lying in a hospital bed, drugged to the eyeballs and enjoying fledgling motherhood. I watched hours of the Newborn Channel on the hospital cable and reveled in all the baby stuff.
After a day or so I was sick to death of the Newborn Channel and went channel surfing looking for something interesting to watch. Thats when I found a brand new show with a couple crazy guys, one named Adam no less, who tried out crazy myths. The first one I ever saw was the jet-propelled car in the desert myth.
“This is so cool! Mike will love this show and if it lasts, Adam will love it too.” I said to myself.
We immediately started to TiVO this show because it really is awesome.

Rockin' with the Wiggles

Last night I took Adam to his first concert ever – The Wiggles. We arrived early to find our seats and get settled. I was fortunate enough to get floor seats so that Adam could join the other kids in the impromptu pre-schooler mosh-pit you see on the Wiggles TV show. Really, the seats at these shows are only for the adults, the kids barely sit down for the 90 minute show.
OK, so it’s a kids show, but these guys are great performers who can sing, dance, and keep this hard to entertain age group incredibly entertained.
The red Wiggle, Murray, brought his guitar out and played the opening notes of Stairway to Heaven which amused the adults and, I’m sure, confused the kids.

Caught Blue-Handed

Around 3:30am Adam decided to come upstairs and join us. When he decides in the middle of the night he always brings something along with him — his “squishy pillow”, a blanket, a stuffed animal or two are his usual choices. Last night he brought up a book and crawled into bed between us laying on his book. I pried the books from his fingers, set it on my nightstand, and tried to go back to sleep with his face smooshed into mine on my pillow.