Easter

We had a nice "quiet" Easter. We wanted to get both kids ready and get photos in their Easter outfits, but realized that just wasn't going to happen so we did one at a time.

After Jennifer got Alison into her dress, Alison did a little dance and said "Daddy! I'm a princess! And you can be my prince!" Awww....

Eli is just a bundle of energy and doesn't want to stay in one spot for very long. Any future pictures may require either a high-speed shutter or an elaborate rigging system to keep him in place.

After church we went to a brunch, then came home and dyed Easter eggs. One note - Easter egg dye is NOT color fast. Strangely, the dye comes off an egg much easier than it does off a little boy's lips.

Good Friday

Good Friday was a travel day for me. Since we had a little time before my flight left, we wandered around Arlington National Cemetery for a little bit. We managed to show up right before the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

As we were walking back to the car, the Old Guard came rumbling past on horseback with a funeral caisson in tow. Makes for a somber morning.

St Patricks in Gettysburg

I spent last week in Emmitburg, Maryland for training. It's about 8 miles from Gettysburg, so we spent a couple of evenings after class walking around the battlefield.

I took a bunch of the standard tourist photos, but also tried some of the "artsy" shots too. Luckily the guys I was with are also kind of into photography, so I wasn't offended when I heard, "Come Ansel, let's go!"

These photos are from the Little Round Top and Devil's Den area of the battlefield.


For dinner, we went to the Dobbin House and ate in the Springhouse Tavern in the basement. It's a 1775 building and has great food, great atmosphere, and is pretty reasonably priced.

New photographer

I'm packing to go to training in Maryland for a week, so I thought I better take a break and introduce the new staff photographer. Alison is taking over picture duties this week, and I thought I better show off her portfolio.

She's getting quite good at taking pictures with her pink Little Tikes camera.

Now, for the "Where does she come up with this stuff" story of the day...We're sitting at the counter the other night and Alison knocks over her sippy cup of milk. She turns and says, "Do you know what we say when we knock over our milk? That didn't work so well."

Spoken like a true North Dakotan. Ya sure. Not too good a deal then.

Caught in action

Finally caught Eli doing his army crawl-creep-slug motion. He's going to have some serious upper body strength if he keeps doing this.

Shopping weekend

In between bouts of colds and flu-like symptoms, we actually had a nice weekend. I stayed home Friday with a temperature, but was feeling pretty decent by Friday evening. Saturday, Jennifer started to go downhill. Since we needed to get some grocery shopping done, I brought Alison with me. That almost never happens, since I treat grocery shopping as my alone time. Just me and the produce section. So...peaceful. Decided to give it a shot, but before we could leave, Alison had to make a grocery list.


Alison decided that Daddy's Bean boots were just the ticket for shopping.

Here's Alison's shopping list. It's obvious what she wants. Oranges, bananas, blueberries, peas, strawberries, green beans, and duck. I was with her until the end. She changed her mind when we got to the store and decided that the last item was actually fish. This may be the first and only time that we get EVERYTHING on her list. It worked great, because when she asked to get a balloon, then a ball, then candy, all I had to say was "Sorry, it's not on your list."

Since she did such a great job shopping, we had special pancakes for breakfast. Blueberry eyes and smile, with a sliced strawberry for a nose. Alison has been a great helper for cooking lately.

We played hide and seek tonight, with her in a halloween costume. When it was time to get pajamas on, we didn't quite have the order right. We ended up with a fairy godmonkey.

Chopsticks

Alison went to bed about 20 minutes ago. She just came out and said "Daddy? I don't know how to eat rice with chopsticks."

I have no idea what prompted that, but it was just random enough that I needed to share.