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Did you know that dogs can laugh?

Yep.  That's all I have to say today.  Good night!

::oldie but goodie::

Today I was working on some semi-old photos that have been languishing while waiting for me to have a little extra time.
They're from our trip to California this last Feb. The trip was so fast, and things were so crazy I hardly got a chance to post anything about it, so I'll probably be posting some of it soon--maybe backdated, maybe not. We'll see.
But here's something awesome.
Taken in the redwood forest in northern CA. (The GIANT redwood forest that is.)

I put together I think about 9 photos to make this composite. It's obviously not totally true to life because the tree looks like it's curving funny, but it gives you a better feel for the immensity of the old trees than any of my other photos.

Kris is there at the bottom, could you see him?
If you click here you can see a larger version of the composite.
Crazy, isn't it?
If you want to feel insignificant, I can tell you where to go....

::fingers crossed::

Our sweet friend Rachel offered to babysit for us tonight so Kris and I could go out. Of course, as usual he's on call! So I need everybody to cross their fingers and wish really hard that no kids will get hit in the mouth, fall on their mouth, catch a baseball with their mouth, get hit with brass knuckles or fall on their mouth from skates or bikes.
We're going to see the Star Trek movie, finally. And I think the below person DEFINITELY deserves to see the movie uninterrupted.  

(I'm the tallest one)

I worked really hard on that halloween costume.  I got the nose putty for our ears from Taylor Maid in the University Mall.  You can't see it, but I also embroidered a little star trek insignia on cross stitch fabric and sewed it onto my sweatshirt.  The eyebrows included a liberal use of mom's make up. Sorry mom!

Anyway, that kind of dedication is worth something, right?

Kris hadn't seen any of the old Star Trek movies (or didn't remember them).  In fact, he was a star trek scoffer.  So me, having been a serious fan in my tween years, but later growing out of it, figured it was something we would never share, and I was ok with that.  

But then he said we should watch all the old movies before we went to see the new one.  And we did.  Kris even borrowed a projector while Kelly was here and we watched three of the movies on the big screen (and by that I mean a big blue bedsheet hanging on the wall).  It was awesome.  And both Kelly and Kris have been enlightened.  So now at least they're not so rude about Star Trek.  That's progress.

Anyway, wish us luck that we get to see the whole thing.  I'm sure we'll need it!

::fun, food and (fond) farewell::

We had so much fun with Kelly here. Thanks to his wife Lechelle for sharing him. We hadn't seen them since last year, before we left Kansas City. It's been a while, and Max has grown quite a bit. Thank goodness for blogs and stuff that let us share photos and keep each other posted on life.

We ate some really good food with Kelly. After our kite flying fun on the coast we went to a little "crab shack" kind of place in Narraganssett, right by the beach called Iggy's. Kris and I had been there once before and we knew it was tasty.
Kelly got the fish and chips he'd been dreaming of. Kris joined him. Max got a hot dog. My fish sandwich so was big I hardly made a dent in it. It was really good though.





They also have these things called "doughboys" at this place. These are not WW1 soldiers, as you might think, but are like deep fried scones covered in cinnamon sugar. They're strange and quite scrumptious. We also found out while there that there's one of these places really close to our new house. So next visit we'll take you there.

We bar b qued. How do you actually spell that? Anyway, we did it.

We didn't get to eat outside because although it looks really nice and sunny in that photo, sunday was a thunderstormy day.

We got ice cream--this involved a broken credit card machine, a lot of driving around to get cash, and five dollars worth of ATM fees. The ice cream wasn't worth it, but the company was.




One of the best things (as far as I'm concerned) done over the weekend was the bathing of the stinky Sultan. He was SO so so stinky. And the guys all got together and cleaned him up. It was wonderful. And he's much shinier now. And less yucky.

He sure looks hangdog.

He thought I was going to save him from the crazies with the hose, but NO.


Then of course, just before Kelly left we made the Bad Max movie. (as linked to in the post below). Production was quite fun, as you might imagine.

Wardrobe change--bad max to good.

Action shot--you get an idea for some of the production magic that goes into these films.

BAD MAX! Look out, he's scary.

Now we're just trying to remember how to get back into real life--between moving, visits and weird weather it's been a strange month.
Max is also hoping that the sun will remember to come back out. It's been cloudy, rainy and under 60 degrees for the last few days. How are you supposed to use squirt guns under those conditions?

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Do you want to see what we were up to yesterday while Kris was at work?
Check it out. It's awesome.



(and for more stuff like this go here)

::happy memorial day::

**we're just hoping the rest of our celebration doesn't include Kris getting called into the hospital again. He had to go in at 3:30 last night, and he's TIRED!

::kites part 2::

Get ready for a bunch more kite flying photos. I had a really hard time deciding which to post, they were all so fun. And Kelly's actually in some of them this time.

Max basically just ran as fast as he could around the field the entire time. And when he realized he could try to run into the other kite and tangle it up in his, he tried for that like crazy.





Kelly looks like some sort of crazy pagan sun worshiper here, but really he was just throwing the kite up to get Max going. At least I think so anyway.

Same here.

Max keeps growing out of his shirts. I love how not only this shirt is too short, but it's also unbuttoned at the bottom. Silly goose.


It was so fun. We're definitely going to do it again. Anybody for a kite party in Newport?

::kites part 1::

We went out to the coast to fly kites with Uncle Kelly today. I don't have all the pictures ready, but I can't help but post a few--they're so fun. So there will be more to come.

We got a couple of super cheap little star wars kites from Benny's. They were pretty flimsy, but perfect for Max.

Max could just run fast and drag the kite behind him and it was light enough to fly if there was a bit of wind.

We had good wind right at first, and then it kind of pooped out and we couldn't get the kites to stay up anymore. Well, at least we thought the wind pooped out until we looked over to our left and saw some big old "real" kites way up in the air flying away. Oh well.

Kris is cute. We all shared the kites around and took turns flying them--and crashing them into the ground. It was fun.

To be continued....

::mowing buddies::

The real purpose of the bubble mower is so that the son can feel cool and helpful to the father during mowing time.
I can't resist posting this old picture of my brother Cammon and my dad.

Cammon looks so businesslike and serious, doesn't he?
As does Max:

Obviously working way way hard.



And very proud of himself. I think it's adorable.

The mower we have is an old one from my parents. At one point we had 3 or 4 (? I think it was three...) mowers, and we would all mow at the same time. For those of you that haven't been to my parent's house, the yard is really big--two big lots worth. So 3 of us would mow at once and it would still take us a while.
We must've named the mowers at some point, and dad wrote their names on the front of them. So when Kris and I moved to Missouri and had a yard that would need mowing we got to take one with us. I picked my favorite, which was "Blue Sky."
Blue Sky almost didn't start--we hadn't used him for over a year. But after some serious coaxing, and warming up, he fired right up.

When Max realized he was named, it was all over.



Blue Sky, meet Bubble Sky.
Cammon, Char, Dad, Mom--does anybody remember the other mowers' names?