The Zoo

Yesterday found us escaping the 100 plus degree heat of Antioch in favor of the 56 degree lovliness that is the San Francisco Zoo.

Not only did the girls have a blast, but not melting at home was a niec change of pace.

It's baby season at the zoo and every display with a new baby had a sign and a picture with description.
Morgan seemed most interested with the map, asking for one while we were still standing in line. She would consult the map each time we left one exhibit and point to another one. "Where's my map?" was a common sound this trip.
Eliza saw most of the animals from her perch at the bow of the double stroller, pointing at animals and saying "Dhere!" She was first to pet the snake in the kids' zoo and the last to pet a goat in the petting zoo. She was also keen at finding hidden animals.

The big attraction these days is the baby gorilla. We were able to see him latched onto mama's back and enjoying the ride. the silver backed male in the group looked to get aggressive at one point and she grabbed the baby in one hand and ran. The big male just wandered into a corner and sat, bored.
More pictures are coming soon in a slideshow, along with some video from that day, but wanted to give you a taste of the day we beat the heat at the zoo.

Paparazzi aplenty

These girls are just too much fun together. If you ignore everything you want to get done and just jump head first into their world, it is a BLAST!

Kim posted a bunch of new stuff on You Tube, most specifically, Morgan and Aiden kissing at the beach. It was not easy to type that just now. Her teen years will be trying.


This from the new camera we got. This new one has no view finder and takes the nice 720 video in widescreen format, fitting the TV and youtube format nicely.

Here is Eliza trying to avoid Morgan taking pictures of her cheese today:

All Done

At least as far as I can go. I'll admit the crown moulding idea I had didn't look nearly as good as I had hoped and was like putting a cheap hat on a nice suit, so maybe another day if we find something we like.

Here it is, cabinet and window seat:

Almost done

The girls are coming home soon and I can't wait!

I'm also just about finished with the build. Here it is from this afternoon:
The can lights are in, the pieces have been attached and thanks to Mr Reinhold, we were able to tie into the dimmer for the lights in the kitchen, making for a very nice built in effect.
It has indeed been a learning experience, with me learning how builders of tract homes cut corners and run wires into empty cavities. It also taught me that when you don't have to keep a 3 year old from tackling a 1 year old, you can do some pretty neat stuff.

Yes that is almost former governor Sarah Palin on the screen. I waited a commercial break to get her picture on there.

I also learned a new phrase the other day that got entered in the Urban Dictionary: Pullin' a Palin. It means to up and quit something you claim to care about for no apparent reason and then lie about it. Or something like that. I think she got it from when McCain suspended his campaign to fix the economy. Remember that?

HA

I'll be finishing the crown piece tomorrow and getting the house ready for the little ones to return. Kim too.

There will be many more posts from Kim about the trip, I'm sure.


hint, hint.

That was just a pain

The whole invited readers only thing was a pain, and since the England project is moving slower than expected, I think it's "safe" to open it back up. So there.

In other news, Kim and the girls have been away for a few days giving me a chance to get to work on our built in entertainment center.

I've been wanting to do a build like this for a long time, so I'm going all out.

It started with pulling the drywall and quickly became a fun project.
This picture is from the end of the first day and shows the area I'm working on. I had to remove a number of studs as well as bad drywall and insulation. That silver tube is the chimney stack and the dark area behind it is the chimney enclosure. I was able to reclaim some of this space and sink the unit into the wall a few inches as well as adding some space behind the component area to your hand doesn't get stuck all the time moving cords around.

The most annoying part so far has been running all the cables, wires and what not through multiple studs, past a gas line and down under a window where a custom built cabinet will house all the components. What a chore.

I have had 3 full days work on the project and despite some minor injuries I am slightly ahead of schedule.
This is the dry fit from the middle of day 3, yesterday. Everything is coming along and after this photo I took a long break, then found myself in the garage painting and staining, trying to get farther ahead of schedule. I HAVE to finish this before the girls get home or it will never be finished.

I'll post more when I do more!

I'm sorry, your camera has passed

He seemed healthy for so long. Occasionally doing something odd, sure, but everything seemed fine. Now he is dead and we don't know why. It looks like everything is fine, but there is no picture. It looks like just the cover is closed but, no, it is open, and nothing.

The video camera is dead.

It was shaky when I was transferring the fire helmet videos, often pixelating and going green in some places, but I assumed it was the old tape, not the camera.

It was the camera.

So now of our 3 cameras, only 1 is functional, my nice DSLR. So pictures and video of the girls will be halted until we can get back into the store and get a new camera, hopefully that can pull double duty.

Anyone want to buy a video camera cheap?

Fun with Fire helmets

Adorable is defined as...

Boomp-Beedle-ee

This the sound Morgan has been making as she and Eliza navigate the line of couch pillows now in a straight line on the floor. Morgan arranges them and Eliza watches, occasionally shrieking what can only be interpreted as approval.
With the carefulness of a mad dash for free food, Morgan runs down the line of pillows and shouts,
"Boomp-Beedle-ee" and falls diwn onto the pillows, causing Eliza to erupt in laughter.

Where did she learn such a strange word? From Jeana of course. This was the sound she made when someone would trip or fall, or make as though they were about to. Apparently I learned it and use it often enough that Mona has picked it up in common speech.

So the game of Boomp-Beedle-ee continues until Eliza gets involved on the pillows, blocking Morgan's running path. Eliza crawls up, lays down on the pillow with her head to one side, arms down near her hips and smiles and laughs. We call this a "bing." Not sure why.

This morning they are playing with the Winny the Pooh Fire Engine riding toy that makes all the sounds. Eliza enjoys sitting on it and being pushed, she has yet to master the art of riding it alone. Morgan, on the other hand, will car jack her every chance she gets.

So back to the coffee, Kim back to her paper and the girls back to pressing every single noise making button on the fire engine toy.

EDIT - Kim says, "and Eliza stood on her own yesterday."

A quiet day at Carriage House

A quiet day for us begins at 4 AM with Cleo crying to go out. She refuses to use her litter box in the garage.
Then on to 6:45 when Morgan awakes announcing she has wet the bed.

The new garage door went in this morning, he arrived just before 830.

830 was when the producer of the BBC show I'm going to be on called to get background info and ask me a ton of questions about the fire departments in the USA. I told him what I hoped to accomplish with the project and he sounded very excited.

930 was when I called Mark in England to relay how well the meeting went with the BBC and Kim and Morgan left for story time around 10.

1130 Had us eating lunch and Morgan and I deciding last minute to grab a train and head into the City for the big rally at City Hall. we were a little late, but got to make it into the rotunda with the others and show our disgust with the budget cuts the supervisors were trying to make.




Morgan passed out asleep on the car ride back from BART and we came home around 4 to Kim making dinner for a Mom's club friend.

So there it is, a standard day at Carriage House.

Ballet

Morgan sings Popular

The volume is low and she doesn't sing much but she LOVESto watch clips from the musical on YouTube. Thank goodness she likes this instead of the Wiggles. Drives me nuts listening to that stuff.

Updates, updates

Well, it was coming sooner or later, we all knew it.
Not Morgan's 16th birthday (shudder) or Eliza's prom (double shudder) but the time to close public access to the blog.
The exciting news we've been hinting about for awhile is becoming a reality.

I will be participating in a Paramedic exchange of sorts. I will travel to England to see how they run things first hand and a UK medic I met through the work blog will come here to see how we do things. and all of it will be filmed for a BBC documentary. That documentary will then be used as a kind of "pilot" episode for a more in depth series to be filmed some time next year.

And since the names will be out and the documentary shown all over the world, the words from Carriage House will need to be protected from looky loos.

So one day before too long when you try to access the blog, you will be asked to sign in with a blogger.com screen name and password. then you'll need to be invited to read, but you can request that from the same screen as the sign up I believe. Sorry ahead of time, but security is about to become a kind of issue.


In other news, Eliza has 7 confident teeth and is still flirting with the ideas of talking and walking. Morgan is becoming more of a handful each day and, like a trapped T-Rex, is constantly testing the boundaries of our patience.
The girls do play well together now that Eliza can hold her own against the Mona. when Eliza gives chase as Morgan leaves a room Eliza gets excited and starts to talk, which makes Morgan shreek and run. But when she runs she calls Eliza "Fafazu." We don't really know what that means either, so don't ask. But it is hilarious to hear "Run! it's fafazu!" see Morgan go flying by and hear the thunk thunk shuffle that is Eliza on the wood floor.

And Eliza now knows how to turn on the alphabet singing toy. It's still cute for now, try me back tonight and we'll see if I feel the same way.

And that is the news from Carriage House.

Slowly returning to 'normal'

The house is slowly returning to what we would call normal. The snot isn't flowing from tender noses, the coughs are fewer and farther in between. Sleep is returning to regular and only Cleo cries in the middle of the night.

In the midst of all the sickness, Morgan has gone a few nights without a diaper. It is still a challenge to get her to potty before bed and she often simply says, "I don't want to potty, I want a diaper." But she awakens in a good mood and has even awakened before Kim and I go to sleep to potty without a diaper.
She's getting there.

Justin is at work for the weekend, paying back a trade from our trip in May.

The Department is so screwed up when it comes to EMS service, it really makes my head hurt when they make suggestions that make absolutely no sense at all. The new suggestion is to limit the number of paramedics on fire engines in an effort to save money. This means virtually the elimination of overtime for paramedics, while hiring firefighters on overtime to fill the empty paramedic spots.

It is likely to change on Monday and if it does it will make San Francisco one of the least safe cities to get hurt in in California, possibly the United States, when actually implemented.

But then again, what do I know, I'm not an expert in these things or anything.

I'm going to go get a smile back on my face by looking at pictures of my girls.

The plague must have sucked

The whole house is sick. Morgan has pneumonia, Eliza an ear infection and deep cough, Kim and I both have similar symptoms to both girls and feel lousy. It really stops us in our tracks since we enjoy going places and doing things together.

But instead we're all mostly stuck at home.

Eliza has a cough and is congested which makes her very unhappy, but she's being medicated and is feeling OK when awake and fed. Right now she's wandering around pushing her walker. She stops to look at herself in the mirror, then moves a bit forward and looks again. She has 6 teeth now, 2 up, 4 down. She's on antibiotics for the infections, her first course ever.

Morgan is feeling better on her first course of antibiotics as well. We were so proud to avoid them this far, but to hear Morgan's cough and how miserable she was, something had to be done. She was well enough to go with me to Costco today and coughed only 1 or 2 times.

So we'll be medicating and waiting for this to pass along.

Sick Sickly

Morgan is recovering slowly with a diagnosis of pneumonia. 10 days of antibiotics should clear up the infection that had her exhausted, with no appetite, for almost 3 solid days. Her fever broke yesterday and she's still warm, but the tylenol seems to be keeping it in check.

Eliza awoke this morning with a cough, but in a good mood. Often she just wants to wander the floor looking for food, but this morning she sat next to me cuddling on the couch watching the news. From time to time she would see something she liked and point to it, look at me and try to say something.

Now at the table, feeding her breakfast, she refuses to let me feed her, she wants to do it herself. Very little food is actually reaching her mouth, most is falling quite short.

But they're both smiling and Kim is getting some rest.

That was weird

No, not that.

Earlier today I was out washing the cars in the driveway. It was hot today, but nothing like it's going to be in the summer. I had the sun in my eyes when I started so I grabbed an old hat off the shelf and got to work.
By the end of the second car I felt like I was going to burn up from the inside. Not a heat stroke moment, not even a heat exhaustion (yes, they're different), just a "fear" of the sunlight. As if I developed a sudden case of photo sensitivity. For the next few hours I was drinking fluids, Kim got me a wet cloth for my head and neck, but I just couldn't shake this feeling of overwhelming heat from the sun.
Even after a shower and a popsicle I felt a little off, getting out to the bar-b-q with dinner was a challenge, but then I felt a bit hungry and had a snack. Keep in mind I already had dinner with no change in condition, even a snack right before.

It was an orange chocolate stick that made it all better. Almost like a switch got flipped in my hypothalamus under the tag "Orange Stick."

Maybe it was the standing infront of the fridge, or the fluids finally kicked in but, well, that was weird.


In other news not of the Justin feeling odd variety...well let's stay there for just another minute. I grabbed my phone out this afternoon to call and wish my mother a happy birthday when the date on the phone said I had missed it. *smacked head*. We were just there and their birthdays are easy to remember (5,10,15 Morgan, Meadow, Jerry) and 5 25 52. No guessing needed. Somewhere in all the Eliza standing, Morgan remarkably smart, yet unable to calm herself down, I missed an entire day.
So Happy Belated Birthday, Mom. I am a retard for missing it, no argument there, I just wish there weren't so many distractions these days. TV, cell phones, blogs, more blogs, facebook, flickr, upload the pictures, download the files, go here, go there. Oregon was so much calmer.
We do indeed look forward to pulling off at the Merlin exit and going through the woods to that house. It is indeed another home for us.
But I digress.

Eliza, as I said, stands well, walks with asistance, but isn't scooting along the furniture quite yet. At this age Morgan was not only already walking, but at 11 months had mastered crouching down to pick things up.

Speaking of the Mona, she has an amazing ability to make us forget she is only a new 3 years old and not 6 or 7. Her deductive skills and ability to change verb tense is not only neat, but she also introduces new words to us. The other day she found Cleo's comb, a small tight grouping of stiff metal brushes. she brought it to me and explained that it should not be located somewhere Eliza might find it, it is too sharp. She turned to walk away, stopped and turned back, "No Daddy, it's too prickly."
Prickly? As opposed to sharp? Briliant that one.

Then onto the after dinner time tonight and Morgan had a complete nuclear meltdown. Heat rash around her neck and arms, muffled crys and whines, screams when anyone but mommy tries to comfort her, and even then. Like a different girl. then after all the drama and the bath, she seems to smile and calmly get her PJs on. After repeated requests, of course.

It's been one weird day here at Carriage House. Let's see what tomorrow has in store.

Back from Camp

We're back home after a long week up at Camp Gray Wolf in Grant's Pass, Oregon.

We always enjoy leaving all the pavement behind and running for the hills, especially with two ready and willing babysitters wishing we'd leave them the children.

Kim and I got some much needed relaxation and the girls a good dose of life amongst the trees.
I'd love to post a ton of pics, but someone already has.

Head over to the Gray Wolf site HERE and see what we all got into while on our little "Vay Cay."

Instead of a bunch of paragraphs, I'll just leave you with some of the more memorable lines from the week:

"Morgan, why do you have a piece of bacon and a cookie?"
"Grandma said I could."
"Mom?"
"She said please..."

"Where's Eliza?" Morgan whispered after Eliza woke up and was "removed" from the room. The girls shared and it worked rather well. At least the last 2-3 nights anyway.

"That cash register on the floor..."
"Yes?"
"It says 'free' what does that mean?"
"It means it's yours!"
So now we have a 1930s cash register. Looks really cool.

"Since my usual salutation seems oddly self serving I will leave you with this. Good luck."
A line from Star Trek. We actually got to go to the movies. $6 too. Gotta love Oregon.

"Bahoooo"
Eliza learning to start her own game of peek a boo with my hat. She pulls it off my head and says a muffled form of 'boo.' Adorable.

So there you have it. Combined with Grandma and Grandpa's picture diary over at the Gray Wolf blog, you have most of the story. But the best part by far, I think, was when we went to see the horse and Morgan was so scared at first until Eliza climbed up with grandma without batting an eyelash. Morgan went from scared to confident and wanted up onto Sugar right then and there. Just as mom got Morgan situated in the saddle and the reins into her hands Morgan says, "GIDDYUP!"

Priceless.

Thanks mom and dad for a great week, as usual.

Photography 101 with Morgan

I never would have thought such a gift would be so exciting for her, but for Christmas Linda got Morgan her own little digital camera. It is specifically designed for kids and burns through AA batteries like nothing.

We recently replaced the batteries and tonight Morgan brought it to me and told me to sit in the middle of the floor, she was going to take my picture.
And it was on. We spent the next hour taking pictures in and around the house.
And now, Morgan will tell you what each picture is and I will do my best to type it the way she says it.

Picture 1.
That's Eliza my baby sister playing in the libing rooms.

Picture 2
That's my park.

Picture 3
Those are rocks. i took a picture of that flowers cause I want to take a picture. I want take a picture now. It was fun. I'm tired.

I thought this would last longer, but now she is more interested in drawing than describing her photos.

More soon, I promise.

Wicked

Kim and Justin took the opportunity with Ken and Linda in town to go see Wicked again.

We left the girls in their care and took the train into the City. It's always neat to go into the City when not on duty, I can enjoy it more.

Kim did a great job getting us a room at the Westin St Francis Hotel, the only building in Union square to survive the great earthquake and fire.
We got the room on Priceline, of all places, and for a steal. Almost 70% off regular price.

We had a fantastic dinner at a place called First Crush, a wine bar and restaurant. The only folks eating dinner in the City before 9 PM are parents and folks going to the show. All three of the tables in our area were headed to the Orpheum Theater for the 8 PM curtain.

The show was fantastic. When we saw it pre-broadway we loved it and when we got the soundtrack there were new songs we hadn't seen, so this gave us a chance to see the numbers that go with them.
The leads were both played by their standbys and I can't imagine the leads doing any better. A few of the songs were tweaked a bit and they changed the ending (I want the big hat back) but all in all we are glad we went.


After the show we went back to the hotel and had a cocktail in the grand lobby of the St Francis. In my great grandmother's day, not just anyone was allowed to do that.
There was a time, long ago, when certain places excluded people based on certain reasons. Some were unfair, others made perfect sense. Kim and I were dressed to the 9s. One step below formal, I'd say, and we wanted to fit in with the theater and hotel crowd, since this is one of the luxury hotels in the City. This photo is a few years old and there is a large seating area where the table and benches are, but the rest looks the same.
When we got to the lobby bar we were almost overdressed. As Kim sipped her wine, and I my scotch, a man in basketball shorts and a t-shirt drank a draft beer. This is not your average hotel lobby. This is the original lobby, the grand lobby, from the 1860s. Back then it was about who you were, now it's about how many people they can get in the doors.

Oh well. We slept in and loved it.

When we returned from our adventure, the girls had been perfectly happy without us, meaning any time we feel like we need a weekend away, we'll just fly a grandparent or two out and we're all set.

Following the Leader

One of the songs from Morgan's new favorite movie, Peter Pan, is Following the Leader.

It's catchy and fun to sing. Even more fun is listening to Morgan sing it behind Eliza in the stroller and Eliza shaking her arms and trying to sing along.

A few mornings back, however, I realized just how long this song has been sung by children.

Peter Pan first appeared in a 1902 short story, later in J M Barrie's novels and in the 1953 Disney film Peter Pan.
The film version has some fantastic songs along with the classic animation and a peak into life at the turn of the century.
But this song's chorus, the "De-dum Dee-dee," has to be the most recognizable part.

At Target the other morning, Morgan and I were wandering the isles, holding hands when she started into the following the leader song. Most of the other children might sing a Hannah Montana song or the opening theme of their favorite cartoon show, but Morgan likes her Peter Pan.
As she was singing and skipping along, an elderly couple was walking past us. That tune must have sparked their memories because as we passed they stopped dead in their tracks to watch her go by. No doubt their minds raced back to when their children did the same thing dressed as John and the Lost Boys oh so long ago.
Morgan has sung and skipped past folks before, but never has someone stopped and watched with a smile on their face, let alone 2 of them.

I can only assume it was this song that did it. And that was pretty cool.