Gingerbread house

From a kit, but hey, I squeezed out the quick-drying cement, er. . . frosting.

Smily Louisa

 

Ward Christmas Party: a Night in Bethlehem

 

 

 
Louisa refused to keep her headdress in place. Something about stereotypical racial profiling, or something like that.

 

 
You can see that Jenna had to hold it on to get this picture.

Happy Birthday Mom!

I almost went the whole day without saying happy birthday. And since you are probably already asleep, I send this birthday message out into the ether.

We love you!! See you in a couple of weeks.

PS - the photo is a PhotoShop montage of mom at the pulpit at the Conference Center. I put it together when she was called as RS president last year as part of a prototype magazine look family newsletter. It's never seen the light of day . . . until now. 

Oh Christmas Tree

When Jenna called me this evening to see if I would stopping home for dinner before bishopric meeting, Abby yelled into the phone, "Daddy!! When are you coming home?! We need to go get a Christmas tree!"

So bishopric meeting convened a little early to grant Abby's wish. I headed out to the nearest tree stand, and the girls all got in the car and met me there.



Once we picked a tree, we plopped it into the back seat of the convertible and brought it home. Then I had to remind myself again how to use the tree stand we pull out once a year.



Abby was so giddy she kept listing off all the people she loved, each time concluding that she loved everyone. Tomorrow we will decorate.

The Juice is José, and the Milk is Maaay-ree

Our wall heater isn't working, making our apartment a tad chilly in the morning. This morning, Abby took to wrapping inanimate objects, like the gallon of milk, in a scarf and hat, because "they're freeeezy". Riffing on the theme, she created her own nativity scene using the breakfast beverages. Hence her proclamation that the juice was Joseph and the milk Mary. 

New IDEO Book

Tom Kelley's new IDEO-based book, The Ten Faces of Innovation, is out on bookshelves starting next Tuesday. His first IDEO book, The Art of Innovation, was such a success he decided to do it again, this time documenting some of the things we've learned as a company in the interim.

A preview of the book is in the October issue of Fast Company magazine.

IDEO Daycare

My "boss" took a month off for paternity leave, so in the tradition of IDEO, we took the opportunity to redecorate his office. We went with the daycare theme, installing an oversized playpen and apholstering everything in a clown bedecked fabric.



The grey walls weren't exuding the proper juvenile mood, so my current project manager and I took it upon ourselves to create a custom wallpaper based on the clown print apholstery but featuring his mug.





I also scored a childsized Elmo mouse and matching keyboard at Fry's, one of my favorite touches.

Exhaust tip spinners

Bling on the cheap.

Voisins, NPR and Hurricanes

My brother-in-law was featured in a 15-minute story on NPR's Weekend Edition last Sunday. I had missed it, so I did a search for Voisin and also found two interviews with Kevin's dad: one right after hurricane Katrina, the other right after hurricane Rita.

The photos are of Kevin showing us around Motivatit Seafood during our visit in the summer of 2001.

IKEA Trip

Jenna is hosting a baby shower this afternoon and I am in charge of the girls. My "boss" is returning from several weeks of paternity leave, so we are turning his space into a daycare. I bought a Elmo keyboard and mouse to replace his fancy wireless jobbies and made some nice clown wallpaper, featuring his mug, to cover his cube walls. The finishing touch would be a roadscape carpet to cover the floor. Hence, we are at IKEA in search of one. The ballpit is our first pitstop.

Great America Update

For some reason, the last chapter of the Great America saga didn't post with the rest of them. Click here or scroll down to read it.

Great America 9/17/05

Above: Waiting for the first ride, a rotating platform that climbed a tall, tall tower

Last Saturday Abby and I spent the day at Great America. The park is only 20 minutes away, but in the five years we've lived here, we've never been (probably due to Jenna's acute suceptibility to motion sickness). I thought we'd only last a few hours, but we ended up staying almost eight. Abby had a lot of fun being the center of attention, and I enjoyed watching her enjoy herself so much.

While it's hard to get decent photos of action rides when you are on them, some are show-worthy:

This had to be the most vomit-inducing ride we went on. I can handle rides that thrust your stomach into your throat, but keep the ones that just spin around away.

The requisit circular river rapid boat ride. Abby and I didn't get too wet, but the same can't be said for our boatmates.

Great America, cont'd: Kidzville

In Kidzville there was a denser selection of 40-44" rider approved diversions. I was surprised (and mildly alarmed) to see that they were allowing 4-year-olds to discover the fine art of offensive driving (via bumper cars) without parental guidance. Turned out my concern was unnecessary, as none of the kids could find the magic combination of wheel turning and throttle application to extricate themselves from the perpetual traffic jam in the middle of the floor.


Next we hit the little rollercoaster, which wasn't so much scary as violent (at least to me as the seatback reached almost to my third lumbar vertebrae).


Up . . . down Abby and the rest of the rider chanted in true Mr. Miagi fashion on the airplane ride.


Up . . down, again.


This, I think, was Abby's favorite "ride", floating toy boats through the Scooby Doo graveyard. We did it like five times in a row.

Great America, cont'd: Riding in buckets

The line for riding the "buckets" was long, but worth it, as we had to trudge back across the park to our locker at the entrance to fetch Abby's swimsuit. We were happy to wait in line to hitch a ride back.


While mulling about looking for a place to change Abby into her swimsuit, we ran across Blue from Blue's Clues just finishing her? public appearance. Abby was a little bummed (OK, not really), but excited to hear that Dora would be arriving a short time later. After waiting in a line of rabid (and mostly Latino) fans, Abby had her time with Dora in the lens (I don't think she knew who Diego was).


One of the things that surprised me about this whole outing was how fearless our timid little Abby was on these rides. If only I could get her to be more fearless in swimming lessons . . . . She loved the log ride and pronounced it to be "scary", with a big grin on her face.


Perhaps the biggest letdown of the day was the coconut ride. This line had a line at least as long as the buckets and just went up a 20ft tree and spun around. But hey, it was a ride Abby could go on, so we checked it off the list.

Great America, cont'd: Runaway Raptar

We made it to the real kiddy coaster, the Runaway Raptar, later in the day.


Here is Abby sitting in trepidation waiting for the ride to start. Let me insert at this point that where the last kiddy coaster was a back breaker, this one was a knee crusher. I couldn't get the safety bar over my folded-up knees without some serious acrobatics.


The first "big" hill got a reaction out of Abby. Unfortunately, the sun hogged the shot.


Down the second, smaller hill.


Spinning back to the platform.

When we got off the ride, Abby kept repeating with and ear-to-ear grin, "That ride was scary!"

Great America, cont'd: Home stretch

Abby was game to get wet again so we rode the other log ride.


Thoroughly drenched from the log ride, we spied a bunch of bungee-assisted kids jumping on trampolines to the tune of 20ft high, and got in line. Lucky for Abby, she was wearing a windbreaker at this point, so she wasn't chilled to the bone sitting in the shade of the setting sun, wind blowing, waiting entirely too long in line. I wasn't so lucky and was freezing by the time Abby's turn came up. About that time I realized that this was a pay event, so I had to shell out $5, but since we had waited so long . . . what the heck?

Abby loved it, but I think she was a little too light (~30lbs) for the bungees and the spotter had to keep moving her back to the center, as she kept ending up swinging back and forth.



We ended the day on the double-decker carousel (second level, of course). After the ride, Abby asks, "What fun thing can I do next?" I was thinking, it's about 40 minutes till closing, we've been here 8 hours, we're going to escape before the parking lot starts looking like the Kidzville bumper cars. So we called it a day. To make it the perfect Abby day, I made a last concession and put the convertible top up for the drive home. Abby was fast asleep soon after we pulled out of the parking lot.