Best Bath Ever

Fact 1: After bathing together for years, a few months ago the girls decided to take separate baths. Mostly because Audrey is getting so big that she takes up more than half the tub.

Fact 2: When the girls get their hair cut the woman finishes up by giving them a streak of temporary color. Audrey got hers cut a few days ago and had a pink streak on each side.

Last night Carol washed Audrey's hair in the tub before Audrey's first day of school today (1st Grade!) and it left the bath water all pink. Audrey stayed in the tub to play. Charlotte went upstairs to visit with Audrey and soon called down, "Dad, can I take off my clothes and get in the tub with Audrey?"

"Of course you can!"

The next thing we heard was infectious giggling and laughter. It went on for 20-30 minutes and Carol and I were thoroughly enjoying the sound. When they got out and came downstairs in towels Audrey declared, "That's the most fun we've had in the tub ever!"

Stop Motion Animation

Click the image to go to the video

Being a professional geek, I want to introduce my children to the wonders of geekdom as well as creative endeavors. One of the many hobbies I daydream about is stop motion animation.

I've done it before with still cameras and laborious work in software to stitch the images together into an animation. That would be way too tedious for young kids. But it occurred to me the other day that there's probably an iPhone app for making stop motion animation with the iPhone's camera.

Sure enough, there are several. I read the reviews and chose StopMotion Recorder. It's dead simple to use and has a timed shutter release (5 seconds is about right) so you can get in a rhythm of repositioning the "actors" in the time slot you have to work with.

I made a couple of test animations to show Audrey and Charlotte how it works. They got it right away. So off we went to the kitchen table to have them make their own. Charlotte lost interest pretty quickly (although she liked the concept), but Audrey was really into it. Click on the image to see the results.

I have ambition to get them interested in film-making in general. I hope to entice them to write scripts that we'll then shoot and edit together to produce shorts. They might be live action, or stop motion or flip book animation, or a combination. Instead of just watching movies and TV, I want them to make their own!

It's Great Being a Little Kid

A conversation last night after dinner...

Charlotte: "It's great being a little kid because little kids have servants."

Carol: "Oh, ya? Who are the servants?"

Charlotte: "Mommies and Daddies"

Seattle Vacation 2010

Seattle Vacation July 2010

The hardest part of making the decision to transfer to Boston was moving away from family and friends. So one of the things we committed to as mitigation was for Carol and the girls to spend a month in Seattle in the summer. This year that was the month of July. We all flew to Seattle on June 29. I returned to Boston (and work) on July 13, but Carol and the girls remained in the west until July 28.

I was worried that people would be busy and we wouldn't end up seeing very much of friends. But that was completely wrong. We had play dates almost every day with former preschool mates of Audrey and Charlotte. Plus we saw many of our old circle of Seattle friends. We hosted a party at Gas Works Park on a Sunday and about 50 people showed up. It was great to reconnect with them.

We also have good friends who have lived in Ecuador and Indonesia for years. They happened to be in Seattle for visits that overlapped with ours, so it was great to see Kathy & Mark and Jeremy. Kathy and Mark were in the process of moving from teaching jobs in Ecuador to new teaching jobs in Myanmar.

Audrey and Charlotte got plenty of time with grandparents and with aunts and uncles.

While in Seattle Audrey and Charlotte had a couple of sleepovers at my parents condo, and also several evenings of babysitting so Carol and I could have date nights.

After dropping me off at the airport for my return home Carol and the girls drove to Richland to spend a week with Carol's parents at their house a block off the Columbia River. Just about every day they took Grandpa's boat to "Car Beach" across the river to build sand castles and just hang out. They had a fantastic week at the Guettler house.

We also got to visit some of our favorite haunts in Seattle like Dick's Drive-in and Pegasus Pizza at Alki. We drove by our old house which hasn't changed a bit.

We were fortunate to miss the hottest weather of Boston's summer (so far). It became quite pleasant a day after the girls returned. We're in the middle of our second spell of pleasant temps and no humidity. The sticky weather will return, but it sure is nice while it's gone.

A Usable Kitchen

Kitchen Before and After

Right after I returned from the Seattle the granite counter tops were installed. Within a couple of days I had installed the disposer and plumbed the drain. Once I got the granite sealed the kitchen was suddenly usable!

I moved a bunch of the food back in, and the day before Carol and the girls came home I moved the table and chairs back in. After several months eating in the living room, we could live in the kitchen again. Very nice.

There are still a bunch of tasks left to do: install the backsplash tile (just ordered) and trim the window, door, toe kick and ceiling and install the over-the-range microwave. But I feel like I've already dedicated too much of this year's good weather to the kitchen so I'm taking the rest of the summer off from the kitchen and I'll get to those tasks in the fall.

We are loving our new kitchen.