In the skating rink

Woke up this morning to find the world a bit warmer, with a gentle rain falling. That could mean only one thing of course: WICKED ICE AHEAD. By 2pm, the world was a huge skating rink, and even Mister Marshmallow the 4x4 had his share of slippage. But I get ahead of myself...

I'm very fortunate to have my dad's wife Karen in the picture: She has decided to make sure that Bella has a rich physical activity life: She was instrumental in getting Bella swimming, and still takes her every week. (side note - bella got a gold medal last week for swimming 32 laps straight, a mix of different strokes... she's a MACHINE). Now she's decided that Bella should learn to Skate as well. So Friday, Bella went to G+G's house for the night to help decorate the tree. I saw her at swimming (I brought Isaac, of course), and then she went off to learn to skate with a family friend. She spent over an hour on the ice, learning with a folding chair for support... and apparently took to the ice pretty well!

We got her back around 5, and she was nearly catatonic, but we went to a neighbors for a Punch Pizza party, and she played with George and Theo and watched Rudolph.

While Bella was out and Isaac was napping, we watched Wall-E in the afternoon and had pie (me) and icecream (Pamela): Pamela had never seen Wall-E, and I thought it was maybe important for her to see the cutest robot movie ever. Now she understands, I think. I say the 5th time is the charm. EVE's little laugh is an endless source of warmth for me.

You'd think that with such a busy weekend that people might sleep in a bit on a Sunday, but no. Isaac was up at 6. At 3 he was hollering, so we brought him into bed (when he hollers earlier, we try to keep him in bed, but in the 3-4 window, it just doesn't make sense. Plus he's cuddly). At 6 he was up asking where Mommy was... and indeed she was not in bed. Insomnia plagued dear Pamela and she was zonked on the couch downstairs (after reading, surfing the web, and eating at 4am).

In the late morning, we went to see Santa at Bachman's (our annual tradition). There were some minor changes this year - a new Santa, a different set, but it was still a great time, and even the new Santa was wonderful (a different vibe from "scatterbrain Santa they've had in the past, a bit more mellow and peaceful seeming)... and of course we got some pictures. No screaming, either!

Now the kids are asleep, and we're continuing our effort to clear out the crap from our house... operation "be able to use the basement" continues apace.

On a media note, now that I'm caught up on Terminator (and naysayers say that it'll probably be canceled soon), I needed another show, and looks like Fringe will do the trick. It's sort of like an X-Files, but with an ACTUAL, PLANNED conspiracy as opposed to "whatever Chris Carter thinks of this week". Sorry, I really felt burned by the inconsistencies in X-Files. I'm sure I've written about it before. Anyway, Fringe is totally gross and a bit intense, but also very funny - so it's great headphones stuff. I bet if I was watching it downstairs, I'd get a lot of "turn that DOWN" from upstairs.

Anyway, I'll be caught up on Fringe this week: One more business trip for the year - Portland OR for one more night to see my team out there... and welcome one more - an emergency request came through at 5pm Friday, which led to crazy email and cellphone wrangling well into the evening, but we got the right person, and would have even got her there by start of business Monday if not for this crazy snowstorm... (She's in Duluth which got whited out today). And we're back to the ice rink. GOOD NIGHT!