Recently in Family Category

Today’s encounter was a bit unexpected. I was off to drop off the recycling this morning, than what should I find but a nice, big snake in the middle of the road. Nothing poisonous or anything. And it hung out for a while. I had enough time to turn around and get the rest of the family, so the kids could see a live snake up close for the first time.

No, they weren’t allowed to touch it. (One of the kids — I think it was Daniel — did ask.) But it kind of went back and forth, without ever getting off the road. Made for a nice conversation piece with some neighbors and others driving by. I think my neighbor eventually came back with a bag to move it to another, more appropriate location. (He’s a Scoutmaster — I trust him to find a proper home for it to continue living out its life.)

Definitely not something you expect to see every day.

And yes, that’s 3 postings in 1 week. These are short enough to pull off. I need to catch up some more.

Well, the boys are still waiting for this snow storm to accumulate on the ground. Today was supposed to be our first significant snowfall of the year — 2 to 4 inches is the final estimate. Flurries started over 4 hours ago, sometimes getting heavy, but it’s still not accumulating on the ground. It’s on the cars, but the ground won’t hold it. The snow is probably a little wetter than normal, but I guess it’s closer to rain than anything.

It’s supposed to be all snow tonight, so maybe that’s where the accumulation comes. The boys won’t even get a snow day out of this one, as tomorrow is a school holiday.

Now last Sunday, we got a surprise snow squall blow through, and it actually put a layer on the ground (though didn’t technically count, as it wasn’t measurable at the airport, apparently). I was actually out running when it blew through — quite an interesting experience, as it got really heavy. It only lasted about 45 minutes (last Sunday’s snow, not today’s snow), but as you can see below, it gave enough for the boys to briefly enjoy.

There were a few small snowballs, but nothing major. And definitely no sledding. We’re holding out higher hopes for the current storm, but we shall see.

I’m starting to think that maybe we should be calling her HIllary instead. You know — Sir Edmund Hillary?

She’s shown quite the penchant for high-risk adventure. There was the time (witnessed by the kids, but not Kellie or me) that she was supposedly hanging from the stair landing on the second floor, by her front paws — like a rock climber. (We think she lost her balance while walking on the outside of the banister.) She was able to get herself back up, apparently. There was no crash.

But she has also enjoyed herself, climbing inside our Christmas tree. Until this morning, she didn’t go more than halfway up (at least, while we’re around). But this morning, she started scaling to the heights of the tree, as you can see in the photos. Not sure what she is after - she doesn’t knock down the ornaments (though occasionally one may fall off from the shaking). But getting that high up, the ornaments were removed quickly. Don’t want them to come with a tree falling over.

She is a frisky little kitten, without much fear. Hopefully, she’ll mellow out as she gets older, like most cats do. She certainly is one-of-a-kind.

We have a new family member — Gigi. (Pronounced GeeGee.) This is actually a birthday present for Kellie, though in reality, she’s loved by everyone. You can see the butterscotch colored fur, but the eyes are really interesting. There’s almost an orange hue to them — very unique. We’ll try to get better photos of them.

She’s a really sweet cat — loves to be petted, even by the boys (now that they know not to act so excited when close to her). Tonight, as I finished reading a book I got for Christmas (Hunger Games — a good read), she would meow at me and eventually wedge herself into my lap for some more scratching. She knows what she wants. But she is gentle and adorable — should be a good match.

Where did the month of May go? 31 days, and no blog posts. There aren’t a huge number of pictures to share, but a lot did go on. There was someone’s 42nd birthday (mine), someone’s 12th anniversary (mine and Kellie’s), a first birthday (my niece), another birthday (no age provided, Mom!), weekly Blastball games for the twins, Cub Scouts and swim lessons for Will, other birthday parties to attend (kids), a vacation (to the Outer Banks), a 5k race (placed 3rd in my age group), and the pool has opened up (Sean and Daniel are now kicking themselves around the pool with arm floats without Mom and Dad holding on, and Will is swimming all around on his own).

Here are a few of the cool pictures from our vacation earlier this month. The weather was great (lows in the 50s, highs around 70), the crowds few, and just enough wind to fly the kites, like this evening on the beach.

We did take a trip to the Corolla Lighthouse, and all 3 kids made it to the top without a problem. It was windy (~20 mph), but it was kind of cool to let the kids see in all directions. The sky was clear enough that we were probably seeing up close to Virginia in the north.

Even cooler was the shot I got at the bottom, while Kellie and the kids visited the gift shop — an upside-down rainbow appeared behind the lighthouse.

The surprise of our visit? It would have to be the raccoon that decided to hang out next to one of our sliding doors. We have no idea why he thought we’d be a good place to hang out. The only reason he left is that the maintenance staff (with a little assistance from me) almost caught the bugger (he escaped the fish net they originally snagged him in). He ran off after that, never to be seen again. Not to say we weren’t paranoid he might return.

Here’s hoping everyone has a great summer planned. May you not be visited by uninvited guests — like our racoon.

OK, maybe not exactly fashion models, but still part of a national ad campaign.

Here’s the backstory. My youngest sister works for Cole Haan in their NYC headquarters, and as part of their Mother’s Day advertising, they asked for staff pictures with their mothers. My mother probably does a better job explaining from here.

Cole Haan corporate advertising in New York went to staff and asked for pictures of mothers with their daughters to use for this program. So Emily emailed me and I sent her a couple of shots which she actually passed on. … The second picture I actually didn’t expect her to pass on, as it is a close-up of me holding her the afternoon after she was born. I am looking into the camera with a big smile on my face and she lying in my arms, eyes closed, with a little attempt of a bow put in her hair by the nursing staff. My hair is very brown in the picture, and the glasses are real ’70s look….large brown frames! I still have the robe that I am wearing in that picture…

So, I went by the Richmond store for Cole Haan at lunch today, and what do you know — right in the front window to the store was that second picture, as part of a full collage. (It’s on the top row of the collage, near the right corner.) It was on a panel that is plugged in and can be backlit at night (I’m guessing). The staff let me take a picture of it.

So, there you have it. A couple of nationwide fashion models. Congrats on the “fame.” It really looks nice. (I’ll try not to say anything about the glasses.)

Yes, the kids are growing up, so they’re wanting to see movies in the movie theater. With Sean and Daniel now being 3 years old, they can almost sit through a movie in the theater. So we’ve taken them with us to see a couple of movies recently.

Today, we saw Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. OK, not the best quality movie in the world. And we hadn’t seen the original until this morning (we rented it). But the kids had fun with it, and it kept their attention. The second one felt a bit more forced, and the music just didn’t do it for me (the classics they remade for the original were better, if one can call them that). But this was for the kids, so it was a moderate hit. Still, if you can divert them from spending the money on this one in the theater, do it. (And the original was better than this one.)

Last month, we saw Fantastic Mr. Fox. Personally, I don’t see what the hubbub was about. I actually found myself rather bored by the story. Sean and Daniel certainly weren’t into it as much. We actually went to this one as part of an after-school activity with Will’s second grade class, as they had read the story in school. I have not read the book, so maybe there is more depth in there than was shown in the movie. But the movie didn’t invest me in the fate of the characters, despite me not knowing what was going to happen, so I felt rather let down on the experience. I guess it means different things to different people. (Personally, I think the Hollywood hype, given who was involved in the project, has invested a certain aura-you-should-not-question to the project.)

Anybody with any other kid movie recommendations? We’ve heard good things about The Princess And The Frog.

Yes, we did wind up with a White Christmas. OK, technically it’s not snowing now, and the snow on the ground is almost a week old. But there is snow still there, so I think it counts.

The kids were wild this morning, tearing into their presents. They were really happy to see what Santa and family gave them. But things have now settled down a bit, though you certainly wouldn’t know it by looking at the floor.

But let’s also remember what this season is all about. And Linus and Charlie Brown really seem to have it down. (Yes, this is a repeat from last year. It’s still as relevant.)

I finally got the video and pictures straight from last weekend. After a heavy snowfall on Friday night, we awoke to more snow throughout the morning. But it stopped right before lunchtime, with only scattered snow that afternoon. Sunday morning was brisk, but clear in the sky. And by the afternoon, we started to get some melt on the parts of the road/driveway/sidewalk that had been cleared off.

The pictures cover the full range of the snow. All 3 kids got out on Saturday before lunchtime, but Sean and Daniel napped later in the afternoon when Will and Kellie went out to finish the snowman. Will spent Sunday with Gwama, so our time outside later that afternoon was spent with Sean and Daniel.

As you can see from the pictures above and video below, Sean and Daniel largely confined themselves to the sidewalk. They just didn’t like walking in the deep and uneven snow underfoot. But this afternoon, we got them home before sunset and spent some time outside, and they finally started wandering around in the snow on their own. Sean, in particular, was making fresh snow tracks. And we finally got a toboggan track going that all 3 kids went down a few times. We’ll see if the snow can last until Friday, for a white Christmas.

We shall see how significant this winds up. I have lived in Richmond for 10 years, and this is being predicted as possibly the most snow that I will have seen in my time here — 8 to 12 inches. However, I just found this winter storm warning bulletin, as I was writing this entry, and it looks like they’re predicting at least 12 inches.

Should be an interesting time. In the meantime, just to give you a sense of how fast it is falling, here’s some video shot an hour after the snow started, and then three hours after it started. The snow was already as thick as it typically gets after just 3 hours. (When it snows here, we usually don’t get much to allow sledding or building snowmen, though we did back in March.) And we’ve probably got another 24+ hours of snowfall ahead of us.

11:45pm update: Heading to bed now. The winter weather advisory now reads 16 to 22 inches for the region. And I only checked 90 minutes ago for the image above. I currently have 7 inches of snow on the front stoop, and it’s been snowing slightly less than 7 hours so far. Yes, this one will be a doozy.