Alight people, fess up!

Emmie recieved her 1st mail-order catalog today.  That's right, a mail order catalog addressed to her.  On the front it said, "Here is the Catalog you Requested."  

"A catalog for what," you might ask?

Wigs.

Which one of you was it that ordered this for her?!  Fess up people!

You had just better be glad she wasn't the one to check the mail today.  She is veyr sensitive about her toddler pattern baldness. 

In any case, thanks, but no thanks.  We have already taken this into consideration and are pursuing a different solution to her hair-needs.  Namely, Baby Toupees.

The difference between Juls and Ems

Julianne is a true Arizonan.  She loathes going out in the cold.

Emmie, on the other hand, regularly throws a fit if we don't let her go out in the cold. 

Yesterday we just left her out there.  Here she is having fun.

That's so Emmie

Thirsty? I don't know how or why she has all these. Brenden says she pulled them out of the fridge herself. Greedy.

This is her favorite place to play. I know, weird. And yes, those are her boxes.

Family Pictures

A friend came into town Thanksgiving weekend and took some family pictures. They turned out wonderful. We posted some of Emmie a while back but just got these.

If you are ever in Pierre, SD and need your picture taken, give her a ring.

http://tsanderson.zenfolio.com

Want a ride?

I tried to get Brenden to give me a ride too but he refused.

What do you do when it is 23 degrees out?

Well, we take a bath.

We take naps. Ok, so she isn't sleeping in this picture, but she did however just wake up. She is often her happiest after a nap while still in her crib playing.

We paint with pudding. This was not a success. Looks like this girl is just like her mom . . . she doesn't like getting dirty.

Fleet Foxes + Airport Security

Going through security at the San Diego ariport a few minutes ago was made much more pleasurable by Fleet Foxes' "He Doesn't Know Why" playing over the airport speakers.  How fortuitous!

Surfing in January . . . I could get used to this

After my interviews I thought I would treat  myself to a little day at the beach.  Corbin was kind enough to take me surfing at La Jolla and it was fabulous.  There was a high surf advisory, and the waves were between 3-5 feet.  Doesn't sound big, but man, when you're floating there and it is bearing down on you - a 5 ft. wave looks terrifyingly enormous.  Especially when you don't know what you're doing.  I only fell a couple times, and only got really hammered once.  I had better luck riding some of the closer in whitewater or late breaking waves.  We went on a romantic walk down the beach to see some tidepools, but the tide was in too high.  All in all - a great way to spend a January day.

So this is what it is like to live in North Dakota . . .

I'm sure real North Dakotans would say this is nothing . . . but this is impressive for Nebraska.

Some pics of our lovely weather.

Our car buried at the airport when we flew in.  The entire back end was covered.

Snow removal in our parking lot.  That's right - they have to pile the snow into containers and haul it out of the city. 

The temp gauge on the car this morning.  1 degree.  It was -24 with the windchill according to the Weather Channel.

Snow on campus.

A nice touch - snow banks slowly creeping up to cover my office window in the library. 

FLOOD!

We arrived home to a veritable scene from the closing track of Led Zeppelin's seminal Zoso album - When the Levee Breaks.

"Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good, Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good, When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move."

Led Zeppelin - When the Levee Breaks

Let us explain:

Apparently, while we were away in Washington, a large amount of rice was shoved down the kitchen sink of one of our upstairs neighbors. If ever there was an example of ignorant bliss - that was us up in WA. On the last day of our vacation, we recieved a call from the university housing people informing us that someone had noticed water seeping into the carpet of the EXTERIOR hallway. That's right - every time our friends upstairs used their sink (which was now plugged with rice below our drain) our kitchen sink served as an outlet. And, over the course of WHO KNOWS how many days, it leaked all the way out into the community hallway. Oh joy.

Upon arrival home, we found that the maintenance staff, who in all honesty is crazy awesome, had ripped out all of the carpet in our entry and bedroom hallway as well as the ENTIRE dining room. This necessitated the removal of a large amount of furniture to the corners of our living room, bedroom and Emmie's bedroom.

Worse, the apartment smells a bit mildewy and a bit like the strong disinfectant they used to get rid of smelly bacteria.

Worse yet, a bunch of stuff - cook books and hand-written recipes - got wet.

On the bright side, a portion of our carpet upon which we had spilled a large amount of hot red candle wax and subsequently hidden with our piano, is now gone. Phew! Looks like we just might get that security deposit after all.

Here are some pictures.

We hope you enjoy them. We submit that they are best experienced to the crooning of the aforementioned Led Zeppelin track.


The ubiquitous dryers blowing our apartment dry at an estimated 5,000,000 decibels.


Sample of junk strewn about the apt. On the right is a bunch of stuff that got wet under our sink.


Notice the utter lack of carpet. Nothing like walking on cement with exposed tack board for Emzilla to investiage. Maybe we'll break out the sidewalk chalk or four-square. (Actually, the maintenance staff was nice enough to put rubber stripping over all the exposed tacks - very thoughtful).


We used to be able to use our living room to relax and stuff. No more.

Weekend trip to Seattle

Brenden's parents were nice enough to watch Emmie while Brenden and I took a quick trip down to Seattle to visit Brenden's best friend Ken. Thank you Pete and Linda!

We started out our trip with a visit to Pike's Place Market. We explored all the strange trinket shops, watched Brenden eat every free sample he could find, and devoured some delicious croissants. I even got to go shopping downtown.

This is a wood burning stove that Ken's friend Christian built in his parents back yard. I want one. We cooked home made pizza which took only minutes to cook. Later we ate some delicious smores. The mallows were perfectly cooked all around.

We needed something to do after dinner so Ken suggested a long board ride around Greenlake. I do not long board so I just rode a bike around. I didn't know at the time it would turn into me pulling Brenden and Ken around the lake. If you are wondering, yes, my legs are sore today.

My idea was to experiment with some night photography so we went to Gas Works park and took some pictures of the Seattle skyline. After about 30 minutes we could no longer feel our fingers so we decided to call it a night. This is the best shot we got.

Thank you for the fun weekend Ken!

FYI: A few of these photos are courtesy of Ken.

Happy New Year

What is better than a guitar hero party for new years? Well, a guitar hero party with everyone dressed as rock stars. We knew we had to dress up so 30 minutes before Linda started pulling out all these wigs and costumes. Brenden was a cross between Rod Stewart and Burt Reynolds, in a gospel choir robe. I went as a singer on the Lawrence Welk Show. Everyone looked great. Even Brenden's grandparents dressed up. Our good friend Ken came up from Seattle and spent the evening with us as well.