Success

I bought the bulbs 2.5 years ago. I planted them 1.5 years ago. They finally blossom to bid us farewell. Or one of them does anyway.

What Disney would be doing today

The sequel to "Donald Duck in Mathamagicland"

Making Lemonade, Carping Diem, and Improving Shining Moments

Joy and Hyrum were talking to Grandma Boo via webcam when I texted them that I was done with my seminar and could they please come pick me up from school so we could have some family time before I left again for home teaching and got back to our job market. (This all was planned and FHE was Sunday). Joy excitedly said goodbye and raced out the door with Hyrum ... leaving her keys inside the locked house. Oops.

It was chilly and neither of them had sweaters. She decided they would stay warmer if they walked out to meet me along the way. So she encouraged Hy to jog along beside her up the hill and down the road to meet me.

I had also started walking home as I usually do so we can meet each other all the sooner. Last night it was a good thing too! We met up outside the school and decided we might as well have family fun time on the move. Hyrum wore my sweater as he rode my shoulders and we talked and made merry. We paused at one point to admire a noble buck in a grassy field just at the crest of the hill, with autumnal trees and a rising moon in the background. It was quite impressive.

Normally we read the scriptures, but none were at hand, so we told Hyrum about the scriptures we were reading. Joy told him about Enos and I told him about Peter blessing the lame man at the temple. A good time was had by all.

Then this morning I went to wake Hyrum. While we read his scriptures, he paused to tell me "Peter goes to the temple." Why, yes he did, Hy. What did Peter do at the temple? "Blessed the man who couldn't walk." And what happened? "He stood up and walked!" Was he happy? "Oh yes!"

A good time was had by all.

Hy Meets the Beach

Hi there. Hy here.

After all the fun at Disneyland, Mom and Dad took me to the beach to finish off our sunburns. At Disney the sun mostly hid behind fuzzy clouds, so we only had very little burns. After two hours at the beach, though, we were nice and toasty.

My job at the beach is to find rocks and bits of wood. I then return them to their oceanic home. Throw throw throw throw. Walk a bit with Mom and Dad. Throw throw throw throw....

We walked along the beach until Daddy saw a large flock of birds - seagulls, pigeons, and some other friends. Daddy told me that when he was my age, his favorite thing to do was try to catch a bird. What happened next was unexpected. Is that MY dad?

That does look kind of fun! I spent the rest of the afternoon following in my noble daddy's footsteps chasing birds. While we were on the pier, Mommy noticed one bird I was standing near but hadn't tried to chase yet. She asked why I hadn't yet. I tried and Daddy made a video.

Cutest line of the day: "I can't catch a bird." Daddy showed me how it's done. He got to stroke one of the birds' wings. Some day when I'm big, maybe I can catch birds like Daddy.

The advantages of a home office in Ithaca

One of the things I enjoy about working at home when the weather is nice is taking some of my endless reading for a walk. There's a delightful shady trail along the brook not far from the house. I can walk and read and breathe the air and hear the water and let nature just slowly osmose its way into me.

A few times I took Hy with me. I'd keep him within eyesight once we got to the park but otherwise leave him free to pick berries and toss pebbles as his heart saw fit. We'd park ourselves by every water feature along the way so he could splash or stir up the little fishes or toss rocks into the water or just charge right through to the next outcropping. At the end of one such visit, he discovered that his neon orange shoes were now dirty and told me and everyone about his "brown shoes."

I'd tell him about whatever he was seeing. On one trip he asked his very first question: "What's that?" as a plane flew overhead out of sight and as a chainsaw buzzed near some homes. We talked about them and woodpeckers and trucks driving by and all sorts of things. Wasn't perhaps the most efficient reading environment, but was Time Well Spent. (I would get through 2-3 papers along the way and figure out how to incorporate them, so it's justifiable.)

If I really wanted exercise, I'd cross the bouncy bridge (Hyrum likes the bouncy bridge) and I or Joy, Hy, and I would hike up a gorge trail to a horse ranch at the top and walk around the track looking at the horses. It's really a wonderful way to spend an hour.

So one of the best things about a home office in Ithaca is not being in it.

Stawberry Picking - a Joy post

[DW says: you all are so lucky to get 5 posts from the Mommy tonight. Let's hear it for Joy!]

I am so glad that Hyrum and I finally got to go strawberry picking. When Vicky left she lamented about not ever having gone strawberry picking before. Up to that point I had never thought there was a lack of it in my life. Now granted, I am not planning on going again, necessarily, but I am way happy that we went this time. A friend Katie and her son Richard O. were going to a place that had pretty good prices and wasn't an hour away. She was looking for someone to go with here, so Hyrum and I volunteered.

Hyrum has still not forgotten the experience and still with mention it when ever he sees a strawberry. He and Richard started by being helpful and picking strawberrys and putting them in the buckets, but time wore on and they got into running down the isles together or after each other, sometimes they even would hold hands. But the end was worse than the beginning, because when my back was turned not only was Hyrum throwing out individual berry's from the picked bucket, he also upturned the whole thing on the ground. Which I mostly enjoyed the sport of the most. They were both ready to go when we left, but it was a great experience and I was glad I had remembered to bring lunch for Hyrum since it took a few hours. Hyrum has tried strawberrys in their natural form and I blame much of it on that experience. I felt like a good mom that day :)

So it's not a unicorn - a Joy post

I've always liked horses. From afar anyway. Used to draw them, like the unicorns. I thought it might be nice to ride a horse someday. Last year when I got some birthday money from Grammy, I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do more than get some horse riding lessons. That's the first time it ever happened. (Thank you, Grammy!) So I planned on it.

I didn't get around to it until July. I'm doing English style riding. It was kind of weird the first time, though I wasn't scared of the horse. Second time was okay - learning a little bit more. The third time I started feeling a little bit comfortable riding. That's good.

When I get there, I groom the horse: I brush its face and legs with the soft brush, and with the coarse brush I brush its mane and its back and its tummy and its tail; then I have to pick and brush its feet (this picture) - it only has shoes in the front, so I don't pick the feet that don't have shoes, but I brush all of them - you only pick around the shoe and not the inside of the foot (called the frog); and then I put on the saddle and my helmet; and then we put on its bridle - I put the bridle on on my own for the first time. And then I ride the horse. I lead it out, walking on its left side, holding the reins with my right hand because all their horses are trained as if people are right handed. And then I ride the horse. And I bring it back and groom the horse again, clean up after it if it poops (which she hasn't let me do yet: if he pees you have to bleach it and all this kind of stuff). And then I give him treats! While I'm grooming him the second time, sometimes he sniffs at me cause he expects to find a treat, but I don't give it to him until after I'm done grooming him.

The biggest problem I had last time I rode, my feet kept trying to go farther into the stirrups and you're supposed to keep the balls of your feet on the stirrups so your heels can sink down as far as possible - helps with balance.

I'm learning that you have to look where you want to go, not at the ground or at the horse - keeping my arms at an obtuse angle. And I'm kind of excited that next time I will get to ride a different horse - not the gentlest one.

After having horse riding lessons three times, I would counsel anyone who has horse riding lessons to not skip a week. It's been going well. It's interesting: it's not all dreamy and floaty like I thought it would be; it's some hard work. And that's the reason you shouldn't skip any lessons because every week you gain some more muscle. I could see progress between my second and third lessons because I hadn't skipped a week, and didn't between my first and second because I had to skip one. When I tried posting, I actually got my bum off the horse this time. It was amazing. This time I could almost do the half-seat ride while last time it was ridiculous.

It was funny - this list time when I was done riding the horse, I felt like I was trying to get my sea legs back. I didn't feel like the ground felt quite right, like there should have been a horse beneath me instead of the ground. Does that sound like a convert? I dunno. I'm probably not going to have any lessons beyond my fourth for a long time.

So it's nice to have a little dream come true. It's nice to have Derrill and Hyrum come and watch sometimes. And I don't know if I'll get back to it or not. Might be kinda nice to know a horse all of its life and then ride it, might be kinda cool, but ... I never know if I'm in for that kind of work. Maybe once I've had all my kids I'll know.

Italy Random 2

Italy's pizza was remarkably disappointing. A disappointing pizzeria in Murano put us on our guard. We saw many pizza shops, all with very uncheesed, lack of sauce, lack of toppings, lumps of dough. Other than the good one we found in Verona, we had one other good one. Saturday night with DeWayne and Mari we had a big ol' feast with some cheese and jam, lots of sugary treats, and this pizza: half ham, half fries and sausage. The sausage was a lot less spicy than American "Italian" sausage. Joy remembers it being pretty good and we ate it pretty fast. We also played Thurn and Taxis several times.




"Hi there. Hy here, briefly. Italy was one of the first times I climbed into a toy car and moved around in it. I only drive Ferrari.







"On our way back from Venice, I opened my eyes just a moment from my nap and this is what I saw from the water bus.







"My favorite Venice memory, though, was Mom and Dad coming back from their gondola ride. Here we were in the restaurant that put the fear of running out of money during our first week in Dad. He vowed to go out to eat as little as possible after that, but didn't tell anyone. ... If he didn't tell anyone, how do I know? First sons just know these things. The rest of Italy wasn't as expensive, though, so he recovered soon enough. My poor dad."




That'll do, Hy.

Here's another shot of Venice from the bus boat.








Remember that old bridge we found while exploring in the Dolomites? Here's Sammy crawling across it with his dad looking over him.





Later on in the Dolomite National Park, another beautiful waterfall.







The front of Miramare castle. Man, was that place impressive. I may have taken extra shots of the outside to compensate for not having enough of the inside. You can find a couple over at Wikipedia and view Google Image Search but there really aren't many online either. They do a disservice to their own tourism not posting some.






The mysterious albino ostrich. That zoo really specialized in albino livestock.

Random Italy 1

And so with full hearts, we returned to the States. It was a really rough set of flights for Hyrum, who slept a total of half an hour during the almost 24 hours until the last flight into Ithaca from NYC. We had one sad, miserable boy with us. But I finally got him to sleep on that last flight and KEPT him asleep through the airport, into the car, and back home into his bed. Now THAT'S Dada Magic! (Speaking of Hyrum, he is currently sitting mesmerized by Grandma Boo's screensaver of an aquarium with noisy air bubbles and some swimming fish.)

If you want to know more about anything from our trip, you have only to ask and I can put up a lot more. Here, as is my wont, is a random set of pictures from all over the trip - the kind of images that might flash before our eyes as we go to sleep, dreaming of our wonderful once-in-a-lifetime trip three months ago.



Little Anna, the fairy









Cameos displayed in Venice.








St. Mary of the Miracle Church in Venice, another view.



A road through the Dolomites. On the other side on the left is the start of the waterfall trail.







The cafe of Castle Grad, Lake Bled, Slovenia







The Old Man and Lake Bled. From the top of the castle. Go, camera zoom!







At the Salburger Dom, there's this giant golden ball with a mannequin standing on top of it. From here, it looks very real.






A bird pond at the zoo near Verona.

Trieste

We spent our last day in Italy at Trieste. We visited the Grotto Gigante (The big grotto) and Miramare Castle ... both of which had rules forbidding taking pictures. Bummer for a blogger.

You descend (and later ascend) about 500 steps into the grotto, which is beautifully lit. The tour guide stops you at strategic points to play a recorded message in as many languages as your group needs. It's one of those breathtakingly beautiful places that manages it physically as well as emotionally. Should you visit, do remember that it's really cold down there: they close it during winter because it's wet down there and all the steps become covered in ice. Either bring a sweater in summer or else have a 30 pound baby in a backpack to keep you warm. Make sure the baby is well layered.





This shows you the path you travel. You start in the upper left corner, go down the stairs and enter the large cavern. You climb back up on the right and out again in the center-right.




The Miramare Castle was owned by an archduke who was annointed Emperor of Mexico, where he was promptly assassinated. We already commented that this was the most impressive, luxurious, well-furnished, "gee, it might be nice to actually live here" castle we've seen in Germany, Austria, and Italy. The fellow apparently made his wealth in shipping, so there are pineapples carved everywhere. His bedroom and study were designed to resemble his rooms aboard his ship with a portrait of his lovely wife, the princess, above his small bed. The entry hall featured an unusual skylight: it's actually an aquarium with real fish in it. The royal bedrooms above were the most sumptuously appointed in gold and burgundy, gold statues, expensive gifts from the Pope, decorative tables, heraldry from nearby leaders .... very wow. He also had a second entrance crafted so that visiting dignitaries could disembark from the port next to the castle and walk right in. The throne room included 10+ foot tall paintings depicting the royal line (including demonstrating that the princess and the archduke were umpteenth cousins and linked to the same royal line).



We got to take little Anna with us through the castle. She was most interested in finding the baby princess' room, but we never found her quarters. We found Maximillian's room, and his wife's, and the servants' ... but no rooms for kids. It seemed very odd.






On the outside is this strange statue looking down on you. Don't jump, man! It's not worth it!







The Victory Lighthouse was built after WWI in commemoration of their fallen. Gorgeous edifice, really dominating across the harbor from the castle.

Hy at the zoo

Hi there. Hy here.

Sure, Dad told you about the animals we drove past, but we had a much better adventure than that.

Oh yeah, that's my cousin, Sammy. He was with us too and shared my daddy's lap. He's been wondering all these weeks when a picture of him would finally show up on the blog. He and Anna were a lot of fun. But back to the story.










They have this "petting zoo" at the zoo. We passed by a giant tortoise and some other animals I didn't care about too much to get there. At the petting zoo, I found exactly what I most wanted:







ROCKS!

Oh, what a wonderful collection of gravel.

And Mom and Dad let me play with all of it I wanted.




Then suddenly, I was attacked! Mom put me on her lap and opened a granola bar. These furry creatures called "goats" swarmed all over me. They tickled.







Then I started exploring the goats. I liked this one the best because it stayed right there. I played with its mouse and its head and was very excited.






This is me petting the goats.

I had a lot of fun.







Oh yeah, Dad and Sammy had a lot of fun too with the hippo statue on the way in. Dad tried to get a picture of me in the hippo's mouth. I didn't think it was very funny.









Hyrum Watson, adventurer.

We're Going to the Zoo. How about you?

Near Verona is a really cool safari zoo. There are two parts, one that's a zoo and one that's a safari. In contrast to DisneyWorld's Nahtazu safari where you're on a preprogrammed bus ride, here you drive your own car through the enclosures. The animals are right there, and some of them (as you will see) get quite close to your car. Like at Disney, please keep your hands, arms, and children you want to see again INside the car at all times. We had an attendant very angry at us 5 feet past the toll booth entryway because we let everyone out to go to the bathroom.






The noble, enigmatic, silent giraffe strides across the field.






The obnoxious, blatent giraffe strides into our car.

This is why they tell you to keep your windows closed. The giraffe said hello to Mari, to me, then came around and attacked Joy to try to get her carrot. It was really something.





Answer: Zebras are white with black stripes. Notice the underbelly.







We figured the llama would be one of Hyrum's favorites, since his favorite story at the time was "Is Your Mama a Llama?" Maybe he didn't recognize the similarity. Maybe this one should brushed its matted fur. I got to pet its head, though.





Albino peacocks.








Albino lioness. They have extra guards around here to keep the cars moving and to make triple sure your windows ARE rolled up. Oddly enough, their windows were rolled down the whole time and the guy kept his arm out the window....




I admit I lost a lot of respect for the impressive male lion when I learned the women do the hungting. Now they remind me of beer-bellied couch potatoes who used to play football. Not that I rolled down my window or would ever make one mad, though. Respect and fear are different things.







The ever-adorable meerkat.









Black swans have amazing, python-like necks so they can scratch anywhere. This one seemed to need to do a lot of grooming, a lot more than any white swan I've ever seen anyway.






I think this would make a great cover for a fantasy book. You step through the wardrobe and see this.







But really, white swans are too refined a creature to go craning their necks to scratch back there.

By the way, I get extra credit for a lot of these shots: taken through glass in a moving car.








Don't mess with me, man.







This bird is part of the Witness Protection Program. They do a pretty good job. You'd never know it used to be a parakeet.








What's a zoo without monkeys, right? Very boring monkeys, overall, but we got to see one of them moving.








We took two or three laps around the rhino and hippo enclosure because the hippos came out of the water for feeding, so we had them about 2 feet from the van.





What'll it take, friend, for me to put you in the driver's seat of one of these babies?







And now, hear the sound of a hippo. 2 points if you can identify the video game character based on that noise.



Part 2 will be inside the zoo part, part 3 will be the kids.