Back at work

So obviously I'm surfing the internet.

Here's how Miku feels about me being gone:

Off to DC

I'm leaving for a week in DC tomorrow so there might not be so much content updated during that time. Here are a couple videos to amuse you until I get back, at least.

Part 1


Part 2

Me and Emma

There are so many problems with this photo but I really like it. One of the best parts of our last trip home was befriending Emma.

Simple pleasures: Sledding in BabbaJo's backyard

Here's a matching pair of videos from last March.

The Playgroung Gang of Girls

A Lion in my Entryway

When snowangels attack

Movie Recommendations

I've recently watched Cloverfield and Michael Clayton and recommend both of them. Clovefield is a monster movie but its very well done, kind of like Godzilla from the street. It's filmed with a home camera and it can be kind of shaky at times; I've heard some people complain about motion sickness. But its a lot of fun.

Michael Clayton is a much slower paced drama but its very good. I enjoyed it, but there isn't any action and I'd advise against it if you are feeling sleepy

What a sight...

Oh the sight of the girls..they all had such a good time with each other. Taylor really misses Miku, and when she came up for her spring break, we got to play with Emma one night. She said that was one of her favorite parts of her visit.
I can't wait for her to come live with us.
This picture makes me laugh...with little Emma in Miku's sweater that is too big for her..trying to keep up.

J-Rod...how are your pictures coming along? I would really like to see them. =)

A Grim Commute

Yesterday my train hit somebody, undoubtedly a suicide. I sit in the front of the train and clearly heard (and kind of felt) the impact. The train didn't stop as fast as I would have expected but thinking back on it, it doesn't make sense to slam on the brakes. The person is already dead and no reason to risk injuring passengers or damaging the train.

I was close enough that I was able to go up to the front of the train and eavesdrop on the conductor giving reports. They were pretty fast in announcing to us what had happened, and people not in the first car probably didn't hear it. We were delayed for about 20 minutes while they settled things.

When I got off the train I couldn't resist looking at the front. There wasn't any gore. There were some broken headlights and the windshield was cracked pretty bad. The person had stood right between the tracks and hit the train right in the middle. There were some panels broken and caved in and I think they may have been designed that way. There is a cattle guard and the break-away panels would reduce gore and maybe even bounce the body off. They didn't end up under the train and oncoming trains weren't stopped, so the body was thrown clear.

It was a strange incident. The sound was very clear, kind of a deep metallic "SNAP!", kind of like a rock that hits a window but doesn't break it. It was clear that we'd hit something and the mind races, first think we hit a rock (but then we aren't derailed) or a car (but that would have been louder and there would have been a bigger crash/screeching metal), a bird or rock on the window (too small of a sound). I didn't feel bad, really, as I wasn't responsible or anything, but I felt a little more involved than if I'd just witnessed it. I suppose witnessing it would maybe be even harder to deal with; I didn't see anything.

Anyway, just a weird event that marked my day.

I hav teh powr

Home improvement

We were very fortunate to discover that a friend of Yuzuru's family was getting rid of their old piano and were willing to give (that's right, GIVE) it to us. We had to pay for delivering and tuning/cleaning, but it's a nice machine. Miku loves to play the piano at her grandparents' houses and she play s it every day. I even was playing it the other night, reading from some music I printed out. Not concert quality, surely, but we had a good time.

This weekend is was in the mid-70s, just beautiful. Lots of chalk, barbecue, and fingerpaints int he Dora house. Yuzuru has given me 6 of 7 chapters, of which I'll proof this week. She hopefully will be done next weekend then. YAY!

"Do You Love....."

Emma was in the bath tonight playing with the green bubbles, not her favorite but better than nothing. We like to laugh and sing in the bath. One of Emma's favorite games is "Do You Love" we ask her if she loves someone and she always whispers back "yea"

This is how it went tonight in the bath.

"Do you love Daddy" instantly she responded with a soft "yea".

"Do you love Mommy" same thing "Yeeaa"

"Do you love Cassius", "Yea"

"Do you love Lewis" "Yea"

"Do you love Tigs" "Yea"

"Do you love Miku" "Yea" with a smile

"Do you love Uncle Jerrod" ".............."

"Do you love Uncle Jerrod" head down with no expression "mmmmyyea"

"Do you love Yuzuru" immediately "Yea"

and so on with everyone else that we know. I thought it was kind of funny.

Future partner at Chiro Health?

edit: There are so many funny lolcat pictures and I'm resisting putting more up, but this one has obvious relevance:


see more crazy cat pics

You all suck

Actually I include myself there too. We suck for not posting!

We're home and getting back into the swing of things. Miku had her first day of preschool yesterday. She was stoked to find that her first year teacher is also teaching her second year class. We marked her height on the wall before she left for school and she grew over 3 inches between the first day of first year and second year. 3 inches isn't all that much overall, I suppose, but when you are only 36 inches tall, it's pretty big!

I'm at school today, writing and printing syllabi and getting my office cleaned up. Yuzuru interviewed a new teacher for the Japanese school and is very close to finishing her dissertation.

The trail mix is all gone. I should have bought an extra box of those little packages. Sure glad I got those pistachios though. I fell asleep on the couch last night reading a back issue of Harper's and snacking on nuts after working all day.

We miss you all and are looking forward to getting back to see you as soon as we can.

I'll let you know when I get around to posting pictures and videos. In the meantime, you can post too. Tiggs, this means you!

Less than 48 hours...

What's up with the lack of posting?

March 21-April 2

I don't know the specific times but they are likely in line with the past, which means we'll arrive at GEG on the evening of March 21 and have to be back there early early on April 2. That's a Friday to Wednesday, giving us two weekends. Should be fun, eh!

Japan Fam coming home...

I know Yuzuru is in the middle of her work and all that, so I am waiting patiently to find out your visiting dates.
Does anyone have an idea of stuff to do? The weather isn't going to be as nice as it was the day we came over to RiverFront Park, but maybe we can do something as a family in Spokane. I talk about my nieces enough, my co-workers really want to see them again!
I would love to do something fun on the days I have off work. I understand if we end up not doing anything but hanging out at mom's, though.

I am hoping to take a couple days off to spend with the family, I already have March 24th off to take my Josh's daughter back to Tri-Cities after Easter. We'll be doing driving on the Saturday before and the Monday after...so not sure if you guys will be here then. =)

How do you know you've been away from family for a long time?

Today, at lunch, without provacation:

"I don't remember what Tiggs' face looks like."

'Nuff said

Snitch

I thought she may have got hurt at the end but her reaction to the fall proved me wrong.

What A Night

Emma and I decided that it was time for the dogs to have a bath tonight. We got the towels together, found the dog "Oap" under the sink and headed upstairs. The two of us have never given the dogs a bath before, usually its the whole family. One dog at a time while the other waits impatiently outside the bathroom door.

Cassius was nominated to go first because he's got a rash under his neck and inside of his legpits. Cassius likes taking baths once he is in the tub, getting him in the tub is the hardest part because he is so damn heavy. I got him lifted in and set the temperature for the water. While I was doing that Emma took the initiative to flush the toilet next to the tub. We usually don't let her flush unless she actually goes to the bathroom in the toilet so while I had my back turned she took advantage of the opportunity while she could.

Emma was delighted to see Cassius get rinsed just like she does when she is taking a bath. She thought that it was important that she help pour the water as well. If I could get her to fill the jug up completely she would only dump 1/2 of it on Cassius then start refilling the jug turning the quick rinse job into a long process. About two minutes into the ordeal Emma lost interest in the rinsing and found it more entertaining to stick her hand into the faucet spraying water in every direction.

We eventually got Cassius rinsed and ready to be sudsed (is that a word?). I started scrubbing his face while Emma went and flushed the toilet again. I had to give her some dog shampoo to get her back over to the tub. She worked on Cassius's chest while I did the rest of his body. In the middle of the scrubbing Cassius thought it would be cool to shake with all the soap on his body. Emma was extremely impressed with the water and soap all over both of us. It was time start rinsing again.

I did my best to make sure that Emma didn't see how to turn the faucet on. Its different than the tub that she takes a bath in so she was very intrigued about how I could get the water to start and stop so quickly. As soon as I started rinsing Emma realized the toilet wasn't running anymore so she went back and flushed it again. If there was anything in that toilet when we started it surely wasn't there anymore. After a few seconds of Emma spraying water all over the place she learned that she could stick her fingers into the faucet and push the shower stick up blocking the water and forcing it up the water pipes and thru the shower head, Cassius wasn't impressed by the water coming from a different place at all and tried jumping out of the tub while I was working on getting the shower off. It would have been a good picture. Me leaning over Emma trying to get the shower turned off while trying to block a soaked 75 lb dog from leaping out of the tub. While I was getting Cassius contained in the tub Emma again took the liberty of flushing the toilet one more time.

Eventually all the soap was gone and we started drying Cassius off. He gracefully jumped out of the tub landing on his wet feet causing him to crash across the linoleum. Emma missed the show because she was trying to put the dog shampoo in her own hair. We kicked Cassius out of the bathroom and brought "Min" in.

Min is quite the opposite of Cassius as he doesn't like taking baths at all. When I lifted him up he did his best to stay out of the tub by stretching his back legs out straight towards the floor, catching them on the edge of the tub which then scared him even more than what he already was. He started flopping like a fish out of water kicking the tub with all four legs as I got him in. It was loud and pretty frightening for Emma, she started crying and had to give him a hug and a kiss before we got started.

Everything was pretty much the same for Min's bath. Water spraying, fights over who got to pour the water, two more toilet flushes, and one shower head demonstration. I had to lift Min out of the bathtub. For some reason he is too scared to jump, just like I have to lift him out of the truck when he goes for a ride because he is too much of a wimp to jump two feet onto the ground.

Emma didn't get as wet as I thought she would. Her sleeves were soaked from rinsing her hands in the faucet and her face was wet from the dogs shaking during and after the bath.

We headed downstairs and found Stephanie making cookies. While we were gone Steph went to Ron's house to borrow some butter for the cookies. When we were done cleaning the dogs Steph realized that we needed two sticks of butter rather than one so she loaded Emma up in the truck and headed back to Ron's house.
Emma has really enjoyed helping us cook lately and over the last week or two we have made a few batches of cookies. She likes snitches the most, what kid doesn't? On the counter where we make the cookies we have a spice rack sitting next to the stove. We made the mistake a few weeks back of letting Emma entertain herself by making a spice potion (Phaedra?)while we finished dinner. Now every time she gets to cook she thinks we need to add some spices. I was in the living room resting after the workout I had wrestling with the dogs and heard "EEMMMMAAAA GRAAAAACE" I knew right away what had happened. It was kind of like the toilet flushing upstairs. While Steph wasn't looking Emma grabbed a jar of Dill Weed and added a teaspoon to the cookie dough.

What makes the entire story worthy is the amount of effort that took place to get the butter to make the cookies only to have dill weed added to the mix. Steph ended up scraping out the weed and using the little bit of butter we had in the fridge to finish making the cookies. Emma was happy, she got her snitches and a beater from the mixer. Video coming.

Something to pass the time

While we wait for me to get my pictures and videos in order, here's something that is sure to amuse you.

A week without posts!!

What's going on with everyone?!?!

I've got a few videos incoming. I think I've become addicted to Call of Duty on the XBox: I don't really want to keep playing it but I keep doing so, just trying to improve. THat's how I'm spending my days off, mostly. Take Miku to school, drop Yuzuru off at work, then I've got a few hours of open time till school's out. Lame, I know.

We haven't locked in our travel but it will fall sometime in the window of March 20-April 6. It might be just me and Miku depending on a few things over here. Yuzuru is almost done with her dissertation draft: I've got to read it for her as she finishes it up over the next month and submits it to her advisor. Assuming it is g good enough, she'll defend in July.

That's the update for now. Peas!

The Valentine's Day Package

Huge thanks to Babba Jo for the wonderful package.






BEST KEYCHAIN EVER.

Duckfooted Stiltwalker

One of Miku's take-home prizes from her sports day was these stilts.

From the frontlines of 4 years old

hf ueu utrhbbmkkgymvm virov 8vh itkrrkmm


miku

EDIT by J-rod: After the first entry, written all by her, she wanted to add some pictures. So we have one of a lasagna elf (btw I made that lasagna) and the second of a demon, made in honor of setsubun, a ritual observance bringing good luck in the house and banishing the evil spirits (demons!) outside.

Clean that Room

Its hard for me to do anything anymore without Emma wanting to help. It usually takes my twice as long to get the dishes done, make a make a cake or vacuum the floor but I don't really mind. Hopefully she catches on to it and someday will do it all on her own. Then I can play xbox 360 more.

The absurd reversal associated with a consistent stance

I realized today the source of a point of confusion for me. You see, I was against the war in Iraq but now I'm against the withdrawal of US troops. But I realize that these apparently contradictory positions are entirely consistent with a single moral premise: The state of Iraqi society and the life of its citizens.

I was against the war because I thought it would make them worse off (and sadly I was correct). However I firmly believe, based on the same sort of evidence and consideration I used to be against the war in the beginning, that a withdrawal would make them worse off, again. So by considering the effect of our national decisions on the people who actually pay the price for them, I've gone from peacenik to hawk.

Funny world we live in.

(PS: I'm sorry if anyone thinks I'm spoiling the blog by bringing up this kind of topic. I hope that we all feel free to talk about anything here, but you are also free to ignore me.

Making Christmas cookies

Here's one from a few months back.

Current reasons to visit America

"I want to go to Babba Jo's house. Because I want to take Penda for a walk."

"and see Emma."

We got snow too.

We got the most snow in a decade the other day and rushed out to build a snowman and play before the rain washed it all away. We really were blanketed with about 3 inches but it was so wet that we rolled up everything down to the grass when we made the snowman. Miku loved it.

Did you see all the videos?

Not trying to pimp my own posts here, but I'd uploaded videos of Miku playing the Wii Fit, dancing on the Wii, singing and dancing in her sheep outfit, and then at the sports day. I saw comments for the first two but not the middle two and just wasn't sure if they go lost in the shuffle.

I'm working to keep more videos coming on a regular basis.

more snow in North Idaho

I believe I have found one of the most profound spots on earth. This view taken right before you get to the mission looks up the river from the freeway - I always drive slow and look at this site - most days you see the mountains or the sky reflected in the water - today it just says a lot.

Grandma White is staying close at home. I delivered her a few requested items - eggs, milk and a disposable camera....Stopped at the fork in the road on the way to the mission and took this picture. Cracker is out runing around and having a good time in the snow. Sad to say - Cracker has a tumor growing in her jaw/tongue and even though GM has had it removed twice and one chemotherapy - it continues to grow. It might be her demise soon. Sad - but in the meantime she eats, sleeps and seems to be okay......

This is a great shot of the Grandma house from the road down below. Do you remember when the story of when Grandpa's mail car dropped out of gear, rolled down the bank and went into the slough? Those were exciting times for us -

Just a house on the side of the hill as we came back home. This is the lake with little dock and dock house - lots of footprints going out onto the ice.

The mission - I love this picture because it shows some of the trees to the left and don't orget to look at the sky and the clouds -

I can't wait for you guys to come so we can barbecue on this deck.....after the snow leaves of course!

More snow - is predicted. I did get my emergency supplies in order - which I always do every winter but this one ---

One might never notice the state highway buildings directly at the foot of the 4th of July Pass - eastside. They store sand and some snow removal equipment there. Each summer they spend a lot of time filling up the sand building... Didn't the snow make these trees profoundly beautiful?

Yesterday when we were in Kellogg we took these pictures of the new "Wellness Center" formerly known as the Hansen estate....Notice the snow almost to the windows -

When you open my patio door and go to the right of the deck is where you will see all of this snow. Barkly loves it! - he rolls in it and jumps around. Even better yet - the terrorist squirrels are back - a little harder to jump through the snow but he keeps them up in the tree....

A slow start on sports day

Here we see the Peach class of the pre-school make their entrance and then they run their first event. Miku is in the first row, red pants and white shirt. One of the boys in the third row bumps a boy in the second row who bumps Miku right before the starting gun, which explains what you'll see.

Personally this video just makes me tear up with joy. My little girl out there, running the event as best she can. I love it.



I also like the little half-jog she does afterwards.

A singing sheep does the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer dance.

Miku was one of the 4 girls in her class selected to be a sheep in the Christmas pageant this year. She has her costume on and sings some of the songs they sang as they did christmas caroling around the downtown. She also shows the choreography for Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. I'll work on getting the video of the pageant up sometime as well.

Dancing Fool

This speaks for itself, really.

Snow Pics

Here are a few pics from from the snow storm, none really show how much it snowed but they are still good.

Video test!

A couple videos of Miku playing Wii Fit.

New content coming soon!

Went to watch Miku's PE class today and took some video. Will try to get it and some pictures up soon.

How about some of the winter wonderland you are all experiencing these days?

If it was Uncle Bunker, did my dad work at Sister Sunshine?

NYTimes travel piece on the outside interest in the Silver Valley as a getaway destination.

Emma's Rendition of the Bird

This is how Emma expresses her version of the finger. I told her that we were done cleaning and this is what I got in return.

What in the heck????

Can someone please tell me how Miku got a picture doing this???
LOL

Template adjustments

I made a couple changes to the template (the main text area is a little wider now). I think it's okay but let me know if there are any problems with display.

Everyone is encourage to test out other templates (when posting, click the Template tab, then the Pick New Template sub-tab). We can then decide if we want to change it.

Also, we can come up with a new URL if we want. Currently its jjmapj.blogspot.com but we can try to get something easier to remember. I don't know if we really need it though.

Some recent photos

After looking at Emma and Tiggs's pictures, Miku and I took a few of our own.

kljjj k bukkkm i0=]c-ppd-e;'c;phw7wys-f
plpdmocjhkf9-=f=-09fhnfkh b98io='=uhe-f=][[hhhby7dyegvdgw

tiggs

hello!








this is my first blog under the name 'TIGGS" lol








im excited to get on this almost as much as myspace!!

















a couple of weeks ago i had a wondrfully fun birthday party at beverly in the couer d alene resort!!

these are the best friends a girl could have!!!

Savannah,Kenzie,Laura

o yeah and moms in there too.!.

BUT WAIT THERES MORE!!!!
i also had abirthday on my actual birthday.

(there would be pictures here but our cameras being stupid!!)











(one here too)



















(and probably one here)



But ill try 2 get those pictures upsoon


Increase the peace
Antigone<3

When I grow up I want to be...

Miku and I were practicing letters today and I noticed that Miku's "L" and "R" pronunciation isn't all that great. Don't get me wrong, I'm not being a huge stickler for it, but it's important to pay attention in a bilingual environment. For example, she says "L" without touching her tongue to the roof of her mouth, which reduces the overall strength of the sound.

But the bigger problem was "R". If you say it slow, that letter almost has two syllables "ah-err". Only problem is that Miku doesn't really have the second part and it sounds kind of like "ahh(r)". To encourage her, I really emphasized the two parts and said (now you say it with me): AAHHH-ERRRRR.

She cocks her head and looks and me and responds with "pirate"?

Yuzuru about fell off the couch.

Big League Cheese

I was watching Napolean Dynamite with the Director Commentary last night and the rest of the family settled into the couch with me as well. At the dance, Napolean gets ditched by Trisha and goes to the bathroom where he puts in a big mouthful of Big League Chew (which he later swallows). The director mentioned that when he was a kid, his parents had outlawed chewing gum so he never got have Big League Chew, but he'd wanted it so bad he use to grate cheese and stick it in his lip.

This brought back memories to me and I pointed out to Yuzuru what he was talking about it. She thought the idea of a dip of grated cheese funny enough, but when I told her that I used to do it too, she broke up. I'm sure I remember Josh also sticking a pinch of grated cheddar in his lip too.

1, 2, 3....

Miku has been able to count to ten for a while now and while she's got a sense of the 'teens, she hasn't quite pinned them down yet. "12" is a tricky one, apparently, as she tends to skip it, sometimes going to 13 but occasionally even jumping to 17. We've gone to 20 and through the 20s a couple times, but the other night we went all the way to (insert Mr Evil music) one million!

We counted all the way to 100 to start with. She caught on to the pattern of the 20s-90s (forty-ONE, forty-TWO, etc), then after 1-hundred, we went quickly through the 101s, 110s, etc. She started to grasp the pattern of the 10s and their relation to the basic 1-9 numbers. When we got to 199, I pointed out that the last time we had 99, we went to ONE hundred, so this time.... Her eyes light up and she smiles and says TWO HUNDRED! And so on and so forth up to 1000, then the 10-thousand, 100-thousand, but then 1 million, 10 million, 100 million, etc.

We probably talked about number patterns for at least 15 minutes, I'd say. Quite fun, actually.

As an aside, did you hear about George Bush's response to the Iraq War casualty briefing a couple years ago? It was reported that a suicide bomber had killed 3 Brazilian. The president's faced blanched and he clearly looked to be in shock. His advisors and aides weren't quite sure what to make of that response so they just stood fast for a few moments until he began to compose himself. As he took a deep breath, he looked up at Rumsfeld and asked "How many is a brazillion again?"

Schnauzer memories

Last night when I got home from work Penda was in one of his playful moods. He is usually right there to jump around and get attention from me as I walk through the door. Pretty much like you guys used to do when I came home. I try to play with him a little by stomping my feet and acting like I am going to touch his butt - or get his tail. He then does this spin out on the wood floor which sounds really funny now since there is no carpet on it, actually he does sort of spin out at times. Then he hops from side to side and when I bend to get his tail he runs very quickly under the table - under the chairs where I can't get him. If I take the game to the next level I bend down and try to get him under the table and then he runs around the table and shoots up the stairs or down the stairs and around and around the furniture -usually hoping from side to side and doing his little barking. A lot of noise, spinning and Baba jo stomping her feet - he normally wins the game by running past me as I come down the stairs and he runs upstairs - knowing full well I am not going to reach under the bed to get him. All of this reminds me of a story Grandpa White told me about his dog when he was a kid. His story stemmed from watching Freeway playing outfield at the Cataldo house as we played basefall with those rubber balls... more of that story later. Do you guys remember Freeway playing ball with us in Cataldo?

Followup to the glasses incident

Quick update. I ordered new lenses but they'll take a couple days. I don't mind the public shame of wearing cracked lenses so much but the crack went right across my field of vision. I stopped by this gimmicky "$30 frames!" shop near school that one of my colleagues had used before. He said it's not as good as a "real" vision clinic but it isn't all that bad either. As a backup pair, I think these will do just fine.

And of course, Miku noticed the change in less time than it takes to say "Hi Daddy!". Literally she stopped midway through the word "Daddy" to exclaim "Ah! Your glasses! You changed your glasses! I noticed that the middle part was darker than before!"

Emma Bug

Emma decided that she wanted to be a lady bug for Halloween this past year, actually she didn't get a chance to decide it was her choice between two different costumes that we had. The other was a bumble bee. After halloween the bug costume she wore got tossed into the closet and now when ever she sees it she points and says "Buu Buu". Sometimes we have to get it out so she can hold it up to her chest and say "oohh buuuu ewwww" with a big smile. One time when she was done the costume was left on the bathroom floor which turned out to be a jackpot for Lewis ("Min" and Emma would say). He grabbed the costume and nonchalantly galloped out of the bathroom and straight under the bed. The sloppy chewing sound gave him away instantly and we were able to save the costume for the most part. Now its in a box, not sure why just to take up space a guess. I should have let Lewis munch on it for a few minutes so it wasn't worth keeping and that way I wouldn't have to keep moving for the next 15-20 years.

America's most interesting hidden places

I don't know if the rest of the family would find this as interesting as I did, but check out this short image gallery of hidden places. The photographer spent about 4 years visiting some of the most interesting yet unknown places in the US. She has a book out that is probably pretty cool too.

So that's why they call them glasses

So my glasses fell off the short shelf in the shower yesterday. They landed in a way that made me wince, but they looked fine. I finished my shower, dried off my glasses, got dressed, brushed my teeth, shut down the house, and then crawled into bed to read for a bit. Just as I settled in, I heard the crinkle-crackle of a crack edging across the lens, like a high pitched ice crack out of a movie. Sunuvabich!

Can't touch this

Hina came over to play this morning and a few minutes ago I heard her shout with excitement as the mechanical sounds of a dancing frog wafted down from Miku's bedroom. That frog is still alive and kickin', yo.

We <3 Spiderman

Over the Christmas holiday I downloaded "Spiderman 3", which I'd not yet seen but had long wanted to. I like the series, having collected Spiderman comics in high school. I thought Spiderman 2 was outstanding from both cinematographic as well as story perspectives: the fights with Doc Octopus were very exciting and well done.

So I'm watching Spiderman 3 on my laptop after Christmas and you know who crawls up in my lap to see what I'm doing. Spiderman isn't all that violent and so I let her watch it, explaining what was going on. For those that haven't seen it, it's rather complicated (which I realized as I was getting her up to speed). There are at least 4 plot lines running concurrently, two of which have roots in the earlier movies. I won't cover them here, but suffice to say that in spite of the complications, she got into it and understood. She recognized Peter's struggles with the identity, the lure of the symbiotic alien life form (Venom), the animosity between Harry and Peter (Harry wants to kill Spiderman based on the mistaken belief that Spiderman killed his father, but then he discovers that Spiderman is actually his best friend), and so on.

She ends up watching most of the movie with me and then the next day, she wants to watch it again. Once she understands a movie (be it "Over the Hedge" or "Spiderman"), she'll watch it by herself. Only after this viewing, she astutely observes that since this is Spiderman 3, she needs to watch Spiderman 1 and 2. I then downloaded these for her and we watched them together too. She really got into the whole series and character!

Of course, since they are downloads, they are only viewable on my computer, and I like using my computer for other things. So I had to order the trilogy (props to Amazon.co.jp, which not only had the trilogy for about $30, it delivered it next day for free, and each disk had extra commentaries to boot!). I let Miku click the "Order" button and then of course she was totally stoked when the doorbell rang the next day. (One side story: About an hour after we placed the order, a different Amazon order showed up. Of course Miku thought that the DVDs had arrived.)



So now Miku's favorite movie is Spiderman 2. She loves the first scene where Peter tries to deliver some pizzas but has to drop them on someone balcony for a second while he saves some kids. A resident finds them and takes a single piece out just as Spider takes off with the pies, so he yoinks! the piece out with a web. She laughs and laughs. Someone also witnesses Peter Parker run into an alley with a stack of pizzas followed a few second later by Spiderman swinging out with the same pies. "Whoa, he took that guy's pizza!" also makes her cackle.


The pictures I've included here are pictures she took with her camera of the movie. We've got Peter Parker, Mary Jane, and Doc Octopus.

So that's that.

Saturday night...

And I am playing on Josh's computer cuz he got the wireless internet thing so we can be online wherever, whenever. Whoohoo!
I just have one question to ask all of you...

"How did the pig tracks get on the ceiling?"

That is a new ringtone AND my myspace song...if anyone knows what it is from.

Our old t.v......

Does anyone remember our old tv that didn't have a remote control and we eventually had to start banging on the side of it for the picture to stay on..??

I am visiting my friend Stephanie in Tri-Cities and one of her t.v.'s is exactly like that one.
I had a flashback of little 2 year old fro-head in her footie jammies watching one of her movies with her buddy up her nose, and the screen would go out, she would 'hop' off the couch and go up and starting slapping the hell outta the side of the t.v.

I started cracking up with that image in my head...

Did anyone else see that happen?

Self Portraits

Miku took a picture of herself and then I took one of both of us.

Taking advantage of the snow

After the big storm a couple days ago I took Emma out to pull her around in the sled hoping to get her to go down the pile we made from shoveling the driveway. For some reason she always has to start with a friend on the sled with her, like she's scared to do it by herself. This time it was Tad. After 10 minutes or so Emma realized that she couldn't hold Tad and drag both hands on the ground at the same time. I ended up having to hold Tad (Emma didn't think putting him in the house was a good idea) and pull Emma at the same time. She thought it was cool to gather snow on the way, scoop it up and "nack" on it during the ride.

Once we had gone back and forth in front of the house at least ten times I lost interest and decided it was time to add some excitement. I pulled Emma up the snow bank on the side of the road and into the yard. Immediately I got the squinted eye and shake of the head in disappointment that we had broken off the familiar path that we had already traveled.

I talked her out of the sled when I realized that she wasn't going to be happy with anything but going back and forth. Emma took off down the road in her tractionless snow suit booties. On the way she discovered that she could pick up snowballs much easier without gloves than with them so I end up carrying to mittens and Tad. Two blocks later and near what I thought was going to be hypothermia I had to convince her that the dogs were outside and getting very cold. She had no interest in the fact that she was cold but Cassius and Lewis getting cold had her concerned enough to head back to the house.

I would like to take her to Cherry hill where we both could go down a hill to get some real sledding speed. Unfortunately the next day was rain which turned most of the snow into wet slush that was no good for sledding. Hopefully we have at least one more good storm before the season is over.

There has been a lot of snow here this past week - On Monday Tiggs had a snow day - which is like the second coming of Christ or something - the way the news traveled between Antigone and her friends...via c-phone...at 6:20 a.m. on the snow day - she was on the phone talking to her friends - wide awake talking on the phone - she doesn't even get up at that time....just the same "I remember...." a snow day we had when I was a 1st grader at St. Rita's in Kellogg...we went outside to play DUCK DUCK GOOSE GOOSE in the snow - built these extended paths through the front lawn of the house at the old house and the mission lawn around the little tiny willow tree and played all day out in the snow - what I do remember is having to jump up and look over the top of the snow paths - through the DEEP snow to try to figure out where everyone was - I being a little short was at a distinct advantage except I had this wild ass hair that stuck out and was a dead give-away to everyone.... coupled with a good vertical leap of about 2" I was a serious loser.

Miku's request

Today she says to me (in Japanese) "You know, I want Babba Jo to come to Japan."

'nuff said.

All the way to Kapuskasing

Yesterday Miku and Hina were playing with chalk on the street in front of our house. I had them lay down and hold hands, then traced their profiles. We then drew "300 hundred" balloons and connected them to their hands. It looked pretty good. I was going to get a picture but it started raining and washed all away.

I also drew a Doozer but I'm such a terrible artist that Miku insisted (repeatedly) that it wasn't a Doozer. I was crushed.

Haha

Nevermind...I just invited myself.
Wow...I feel cool.
Lol.

Hmmmm....

P DOG here~

Seems like everyone has my gmail account...or so I thought. I had to sign into this one just to post. Psh. I even have a couple blogs on this site.
I think this is a GREAT idea! I know the brothers have some classic stories from when I was little...
They were 50/50 brothers. 50% great big brothers and 50% meanies. lol

So please ask me to join so I can post normal things.

Shanks.

~pdog

Tiggs signs in....

hello there!!!! this is my first blog..... im glad we all can get on this one. this should be interesting. If y'all were wondering from the weres tim? blog it was 4 years ago he left (still havent found him) SHHHH dont tell mom. lol( not like shes not going to find out)

but i had 4 hamsters. i for each year tim was gone.

Neti Pot

TOday I was teaching a patient how to arrest his sinus infection - which immediately brought to mind when I sent Jerrod one in Japan - his response was "is this a joke?" More on this topic later.....

Teaching mom how to use the blog

"Jesus" Ray...you will never get how to use this computer.....thoughts I had as I tried to teach Grandpa White how to use the computer years ago....I could sense Josh was thinking the same thing tonight as he tried to get me onto this site...this is cool...thank you Rocky for making this happen - I am so happy to see the old blog with Tim revisited....

I found the other blog..

Where is Tim?, named after Tigs's hamster that was missing at the time. It was exactly 4 years ago, actually.

Setting up accounts

I sent invites to Josh, Mom, and Tigs but didn't know what email account to invite Phaedra at. You'll need to register a GoogleAccount if you don't have one, but once you register, you can post under your own name and we can tell who posted what.

Also, I had trouble writing this post in a Safari window under the "Compose" tab but it worked fine under the "Edit HTML" tab, FYI.

I may also set up an account for Miku.

The use of labels is also cool.

Great idea and I hope it takes off. I set up one of these a couple years ago for me and Tigs but having everyone on it is better.

The 5 of us...

This is P-Dog's first post. I think the title sounds good to me. Better than the White/Hansen/Washington/Takigawa/Regis clan.
lol.

First one

Just the start of many, Mom had the idea to get this thing going. We can share memories of Real Baby flying out windows or knee checks downstairs playing hockey, upcoming events like Jerrod coming home or vacations we will plan in the future. I'm sure we all have stories that everyone would love to read. We can change the name of the blog if someone has a better idea. Since this title was my idea I'm sure its the best.