It was a beautiful Christmas. There were tracks in the snow on the ground in the morning that Jack is convinced came from Santa's reindeer. We had many wonderful presents from many generous family, and the boys were grateful and thrilled with all of their wonders.

Ben had a fun little birthday at home.  Special breakfast and presents to start the day.  Friends and games and cake in the afternoon.  What more could you want?

I have to show off my Baked Alaska I made.  Ben has been wanting a Baked Alaska for years.  I followed the Cook's Illustrated method, modified for scooping out ice cream from a 1/2 gallon tub rather than using two pints put together.  Not too difficult!

Happy Birthday Ben!

I've been learning to use our 3D printer.  Ben has been the primary printer, but I wanted to be able to use it for my own projects.  He's graciously led me through the process several times.  I don't understand every aspect of printing - it has many parameters you can customize and many MANY things can go wrong.  But I feel like I have a grasp of the basics.  The first thing I practiced was a Wonder Woman tiara.

It was a basic, medium sized print using PLA in yellow.  I had some trouble with it splitting at the base, and played around with rafts a little.  I also tried various amounts of support material, until I found one I liked.

I ended up making three of them.  One for Amanda and one for me, plus one for Ben's boss to finish and give his wife.

Here is the finished tiara after sanding, priming with leveling goo, and painting.  The tiaras go perfectly with the Wonder Woman shawl (the two together were a gift to Amanda, and I made myself a set too!).

Next I tried working with ABS.  True to Ben's warning, this stuff stinks.  Literally.  Very strong chemical vapors while it printed.  It also is more prone to warping and layers not sticking properly.  I printed a set of Halloween pumpkins to practice.

The other interesting property of ABS is you can smooth the ridges between each layer by immersing it in acetone vapors.  I took advantage of the chemistry set on loan from my mom for our Mad Scientist halloween get-up.  I gently heated pure acetone in a beaker to create thick vapor, floating the pumpkins on a foil sheet and covered loosely with foil.  If the acetone touches the ABS it will get tacky, chalky, and lose definition.  Here's a picture of the set up, btw my fire extinguisher is on the other side of the counter.  I was very nervous about this process.

Here's a side-by-side of two pumpkins, the shiny one on the left had the acetone bath, the rough one on the right is straight off the printer.

3D printing is fun and addicting, but it's good to recognize its limits.  I really wanted a brain for our Mad Scientist Lab.  I scoured thingiverse for a brain file I could manage.  They were all dense - using nearly a whole roll of filament, not to mention would be riddled with supports and need a lot of finished.  After a week of hemming and hawing I had an epiphany.

Clay.

Use cheap, old-fashioned clay I already happened to have in my craft storage.  Duh.

During December I kept busy with knitting full-time.  In the week between Christmas and Ben's birthday I continued the frenzy, knitting him a fair-isle hat. (I still intend to post a knitting round-up soon).  After the hat, I saw on reddit someone had made a dice tower out of wood.  I had never heard of such a thing.  A dice tower would be perfect for Ben!  He loves gaming and we are teaching the boys to play.  Not only would this curb Jack's attempts to control his dice rolls, but it would prevent both his and Sam's tendency to let die scatter onto the floor.

I wondered if I could 3D print that.  A quick search on thingiverse yielded a plethora of files of various designs.  I chose one that looked castle-like, was fairly tall, and had a cool gate.  The gate prints flat in one piece with the tower, printing its own hinge that you can snap up afterward.  This was the first time I printed an object completely by myself.  I only checked in with Ben on the size parameters of our print space and the amount of filament it would take.

I didn't take any pictures of the process, but in hindsight I should have. I printed the file with no supports, as suggested by others who had done it.  It was an 18 hour print job.  I hadn't printed anything in a few months.  Despite all those potential issues, it printed BEAUTIFULLY!  Voila!

(Jack insisted the castle needed a knight.)

It's pretty cool, right?   I used glow-in-the-dark filament because that was the largest spool of PLA I had lying around.  I decided to paint it without sanding or ridge filler. The randomizer is a spiral staircase that runs down the whole tower.  You can see it through the arrowslits.

Here's a close-up where you can see the stairs meet prison bars to the dungeon.  There's a little burn spot on the stairs you can see.  I decided painting the interior would be a huge pain, so that will remain glow-in-the-dark.  Needless to say, the boys (including Ben) all think this is SUPER cool.

After school Thursday the boys put together a magic show for me.

Jack is reading a book he got for Christmas that rekindled his interest in magic.  He even asked the school librarian to help him find a non-fiction magic book during their weekly class library visit.  He has been practicing sleight of hand tricks, and trying to understand the “tricks” behind each act.  Sam will enthusiastically join Jack with whatsoever he is doing.  Together, their quantity and quality of tricks are increasing, and their flourishes improve too.

 

Has everyone tried the Google Arts and Culture app? We didn't get any perfect matches, but it was fun to play with.

This weekend Jack competed in his first Pinewood Derby with the cub scouts.  We are so proud of him - he really made this car by himself!  He made the design, cut it with a jigsaw, sanded, painted, the whole shebang.  We gave advice and supervised closely, of course.  But you can clearly tell at the Derby which kids benefited from their parents handiwork.

Jack's car did really well too!  Here's a video of his first heat, where he smoked the competition!

As you can see, the wheel popped off.  During construction his front end was cut too narrow over the axle; when the tires were installed it broke off a corner of the car.  We fixed it with superglue and let that wheel float, so he only rode on three wheels.  So it was no surprise to us when the car smashed in the gate and lost that corner again.

The leaders let me try to fix it with hot glue between races.  He was able to complete the remaining waves, but never took first again.  I think by the final heat the wheel was dragging instead of floating, with so much glue trying to keep it intact.  Even so, he placed 13th out of 30 cars - in the top half!!

He was also overjoyed that his best friend Dylan won the whole competition.  Most importantly, he had a good time and learned some new skills.

I can't believe I got to see Hamilton today!

Amanda got a special offer to buy two tickets before they went on sale to the public, because she has been a loyal patron of group ticketing.  Score!

THIS IS HAPPENING ! ! ! ! ! !

The show was phenomenal.  Truly lives up to all the hype; it's an intricate piece of art.  Our cast was outstanding.  I actually prefer some of their interpretations over the OBC album - no one can live up to Daveed Diggs but even our Lafayette/Jefferson gave an admirable performance.  The choreography on this show is just insane.  I'm glad Andy Blankenbuehler gets as much billing as Miranda and Lacamoire, his work was genius.  I only went through 3 tissues during the second act.  There's a reason I hardly ever listen past the Cabinet Battle #1 when I put on the album.

I hope this was the first of several viewings over my lifetime.  We will try to get lottery tickets for Ben to get to go, and of course if it tours around here again we will try to get tickets too.  But the show is 3 years old and selling out instantly - our kids might be old enough to attend before we can easily buy tickets.  I also hope they release the recorded video of the show that they did with the OBC in NY before it changed.  Wait for it, right?

 

PS, yeah I know I've been terrible about writing lately.  I'll try to catch up on some things from the last month.  

I had a most wonderful birthday last month. Ben was able to stay home and take over my mom-duties, giving me a proper break from my job. I got up to see them off to school and open presents.

I was spoiled with new appliances this year - an upgraded stand mixer, a griddle/grill press, and an instant pot. The boys have grown old enough to really try to give me things I would like, sometimes in hilarious ways. Jack bought me some flashy gold earrings (that I sort of love) and Sam got me a faux fur pillow and shaggy pink blanket - because we love to cuddle. They make me feel like a glamorous Miss Piggy!

It being a Tuesday, I got enjoy a new Binging with Babish episode while Ben took the kids to school. Then we went on a very indulgent daytime date to brunch!

In the afternoon I had a 90 minute massage scheduled and it was just heavenly. I'd been having more back problems in the weeks prior (probably a pinched sciatica) so I was in dire need of some muscle tissue kneading.

The day ended cozy at home with salted caramel chocolate cake and ice cream. What a wonderful way to start another year.

March has brought on another round of germ passing.  Sam has had a cough and stuffy nose off and on since February.  Jack joined in the sore throat game for a week.  Sam got worse, including a night where he woke up crying 5 times for nightmares, pain, or throwing up.  Then I caught whatever it was, with aches and chills and stuffy sinuses, making me miss the musical and my church lesson.  I'm really upset I had to miss the musical.  Today I thought we were all finally on the mend, when I got a call that Jack had vomited at school and needed to be picked up.  He's still working through whatever new bug this is, and I'm filled with dread for the rest of us.

I got some great new cooking gadgets for my birthday and have been having fun trying them out! Ben got me an instant pot that we have been trying out in all sorts of ways. I made our Irish dinner of corned beef using it:

And last night I made butter chicken, a real Indian dish! It looks almost exactly like takeout! The kids even tried a bite, but they just mostly ate bread. I also made the basmati rice in the instant pot.

In my quest for a good waffle iron, I got new plates for this griddle. Turned out some delicious buttermilk waffles.

No gadget cut required for this: Sam and I made chocolate covered strawberries today-by his request!

It's been a long spring break with hardly anyone in town to visit, and SNOW keeping us from playgrounds almost every day. We went swimming, went to a museum, went to the gym every day, but mostly laid low. Today we are doing some Easter craft, grandparents are stopping by between travels, and then a trip to the library. I'm very much looking forward to tonight: it will mark the end of the break and I have a sitter lined up so Ben and I can see Ready Player One at the Alamo. We go about twice a month and it still feels special every time. Man, I love my kids, but get me away from them!! ;-)

Ben told me this story:

Sam: Dad, are you smarter than Mom or is Mom smarter than you?

Ben: I don't know. I think we're both pretty smart.

Sam: Well. I think mom is smarter. I think Mom is the smartest in the family. I am the fartest in the family.

(If you haven't had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with Sam lately, he is, indeed, very gassy, and gets a lot of ribbing for it.)

The Masons are at Legoland! After a problem-free flight we arrived in sunny San Diego. We popped in on my grandparents for an unexpected visit when we realized we were so on-time that it was too early to check into the hotel.

Legoland hotel is absolutely living up to expectations. We've never been to a hotel so fully immersive and designed for kids. I think they are in heaven.

The boys were up bright and early each day for Legoland.  They seemed to be stuck on Colorado time, waking around 6:30 when the park doesn't open until 9:30.  The hotel provides a buffet breakfast that met most of their requests (no whole strawberries?  Quelle horreur!).

We used our early access as hotel guests both days to sneak onto rides before others.  Day 1 was cold and rainy for a few hours, so some rides were shut down.  I worried that the kids would be dour about the weather, but I think I did the most grumbling.  In fact, the boys had a total of ONE minor tantrum from Sam on the second day.  It was more of a disagreement than a tantrum.  The boys were awesome.

Both days were low attendance - we walked straight onto almost every ride, hardly ever waiting more than a couple minutes to load.  We rode our favorites twice in a row; it doesn't get any better than that!

Tons of pictures here, mostly out of order.

The last leg of our San Diego adventure was with the Waterhouse family in a house on the beach!  The boys were enchanted by this foreign terrain.  Sam went over the sea-wall and planted himself there in the sand.  I had to coax him farther onto the beach.  He was satisfied right there on the edge of the largest sandbox he had ever seen!

Ben and I ambled up the street to order dinner for the rest of the inbound Waterhouse flights.  We found this charming Greek restaurant.  The owner was so happy to make a big "surprise platter" for us and asked for a picture together for himself "because I make this like I make for my family!"

We had a wonderful time catching up with my family over good food.  My folks and Rosina and the Evans all made a delicious barbecue spread for us.  Poor Andy got sick at the end of the visit, but before then my boys had a riot goofing with their uncle.  Jack and Lexi discovered a partially dug pit that they diligently expanded.

I heard nothing for the next three days except "I wish we lived at the Beach House, I wish we were back at the Beach House, I'm going to buy a house on the beach, etc etc."

We came. We saw. It was epic. I wore my infinity stone gauntlet and ate a Hulk burger and clapped with joy when Thor lit up the screen with his sparkles. A good movie with good friends. Commence countdown to May 2019.

The boys got to build porgs at the LEGO store. I brought a friend from home to watch.

Fourth time 3D printing a cookie cutter was successful. My Wookie Cookies were not ready before the boys went to bed. It will be a fun treat for Free Comic Book Day tomorrow.*

*provided no one else gets sick. Ugh. It's been 7 days of one boy or the other having a stomach bug. Fingers crossed the virus is done with our home.

So far it's been a splendid Mother's Day. The boys gave me shiny necklaces from target, three bouquets of flowers, an Alamo gift card, and cooked me a delicious breakfast of bacon, eggs, and chocolate croissants. We roasted marshmallows in the backyard and pretending we were camping.

It's been a tiny weekend-my favorite weather. Sam is matching the sky with a drizzly nose. He's been performing some dramatic nose-blows during church. Motherhood is full of mucus. ;-)

We decided it was time to add a furry friend back into our family.  I searched high and low and finally met this little kitty at a shelter in Littleton.

The boys were overjoyed when we announced we would be getting a cat - apparently they believed our cover story that we had been visiting shelters "just to visit the animals."  Jack started crying actual tears of joy.  He has been wanting a new cat for years (geriatric Molly wasn't the curious and friendly creature he had in mind).  We showed them pictures of the cat I found and gave them the short list of name ideas we had come up with.  Furious discussion with new suggestions ensued.  Once the kitty came home we all decided that she fit the name we all liked: Nimbus.  Like the stormy cloud, and also like the quidditch broom from Harry Potter.

Being a shelter cat, we don't have a full background.  They estimate her birth date as April 27, 2017, so she's about a year old.  She's from the Bahamas.  Apparently there have been a lot of programs shipping stray pets from the hurricane-battered countries to Colorado and other states where the adoption rates are higher.  Her coloring leads us to think she's of the "Russian Blue" variety, but surely not a purebred.  Sam has declared "We have the best cat in the world!" I'm inclined to believe him.  So far she is everything you could want in a cat.  She's bold, curious, gentle, playful, cuddly, patient, and a total purr machine.

This Memorial Day was also Jack's 8th birthday!  To start the day he requested a big breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, strawberries, and donuts.  Opening presents was fun, he got a lot of games and books this year.

Ben took the kids to BigTime jump gym and then to the Toys R Us to scope out the going-out-of-business sales.  They got a great deal on an enormous LEGO robot set that Jack has been eyeing for years.  We had lunch at Red Robin, where he politely declined the birthday hoopla.

In the evening we hosted a Harry Potter themed birthday party.  I had various activities tied into the wizarding world, with lots of magical items for them to collect and take home.

I turned the front door into Platform 9 3/4 to enter the magical world.  The kids were sorted into the different houses and received their wizard cap and a wand.  The snacked on pizza, Huffle-puffs, Raven-claws, Gryffindor Grapes, Slytherin Snakes, Quidditch Brooms, Bertie Bott's Beans, and Prof. Sprout's veggies (ok, mostly the adults snack on that last one).  Then we began classes.  First they had Charms class (float the balloon with "Wingardium Leviosa!").  Then they learned to write with quills.  Then we went to Transfiguration class to turn into owls and race the letters.  Lots of cheating with that one, so I switched to charades, whispering an animal to each child to "transform" into.  During this time Amanda and Ben set up the table for Potions class.  This was the clear winner of the night.  We had a selection of ghastly ingredients and recipes they could mix up and drink.  Next was cupcakes and presents, and we finished with Care of Magical Creatures by coloring their own Basilisk snake.

Everyone seemed to have a blast.  I'm indebted to Amanda for being such a helpful Sister Witch.  She plays a wonderfully stern Potions Master too.  Ben was also great at making sure all the kids were having fun, and managing Sam as he tried to blend in with older kids.  The night capped off with an impromptu sleepover for Jack's best friend.  They were absolutely giddy about getting to play for another few hours, and right back at it in the morning.

I think I struck gold with Nimbus.  She is every kind of cat you could want.

She's great with the kids.

She perches at the window to watch for birds and critters.

She follows us from room to room, always wanting to be where the people are.  She claimed this stool in the kitchen so she can socialize in the kitchen with us.

She cuddles!  She enthusiastically joins me on the couch at my side.  When I laid down the other night, she leapt from her window perch and began some serious spooning.  Every nights she changes up whether she sleeps with me, Jack, or Ben (Sam is not her favorite - we are working on his cat-play skills).

She is so very playful.  The boys are great at giving her mice, laser pointers, and feathers.  The first week she arrived she paraded through the living room with this blue ball of yarn.  I do not know where she found the blue ball - all my yarn is in drawers or high up on a bookshelf.  After rewinding it three times in a day I gave it some extra stitches to hold it's shape, so now I only have to rewind it once a week.  She plays with it endlessly.

She sleeps with it.  She puts it in her food dish.  One time she tried to trade me her precious blue ball to get a good bite of the yellow yarn I was knitting (wiggling yarn is always > than plain yarn).

Ben said Russian Blues are supposed to play fetch - well, half fetch, by chasing after what you throw.  Nimbus certainly loves doing that.  Tonight we were playing and I realized she carried it back to me.  I repeated the game, and we were totally playing fetch!  We played at least 6-8 rounds, and I even caught a few on camera:

 

YOU GUYS.  My cat PLAYS FETCH and CUDDLES.  She is clearly the best of cats.

It wouldn't be summer without a quick trip to visit the double grandparents living in GJ!

June is winding down and we are taking it one day at a time.  Every day is filled with something different: camps of various sorts, playgrounds, errands, play dates, grown-up dates, books and movies and legos.

Oh, did I hear you say you want more cat photos?  No?  Too bad ;-)

Jack was baptized on June 30th at our Stake Center.  Our stake does a wonderful little program.  Sam said "I'll definitely need goggles and a snorkel" as we walked back from the font.  It was great having all the grandparents there for Jack.  We had tacos and pie afterwards at the house.

Earlier this month we got to see two of our friends get married.  We met Shawn way back in the early 2000s, when we were doing Movie Saturday (blast from the past, here Shawn and I are onscreen together).  Becca has become a fast new addition to our movie dates and Oscar nights (and getting my sister her new teaching position!) .

The wedding was totally gorgeous, at a barn in Evergreen.  The night was especially fun as a reunion for many old friends!  We don't get together nearly as often as we should, so it was wonderful to catch up with these wonderful people.

 

Some things we've done. The exciting stuff, Renaissance festival and fishing, were Ben's doing.

I was cleaning out the basement and came across my ticket collection binder.  I found this gem inside:

Ten years later, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has become my favorite pastime.  They jam-packed three great movies into the first half of 2018.  Now I have to wait all the way until May to see the next, Captain Marvel.  They haven't even given us a teaser trailer yet!  Ugh!

Seeing the ticket made me think it would be fun to give a quick rating to the last year of movies we saw.  It's not all inclusive, only my list from the Alamo.  See, the Alamo is my most favorite place to go.  Dark, air conditioned, food, laughter, and enforced rules for good behavior.  They have a membership program.  I've been hovering at Commandant for years.  You only need to go 13 times in a year.  To make the final TOP level you have to attend 50 times over the previous twelve months.  Ben has determined to chase the top level on my behalf, thanks to his MoviePass membership.  He's got us down from 18 visits to 11 visits remaining:

I do my best to contribute, we have been going almost every weekend.  Sometimes we want to see a movie they don't have, or decide to take the kids to the nearer theater, such as earlier this summer for Incredibles 2, and Hotel Transylvania 3.

Ben has the Top Brass in his sites now.  This weekend we'll take the kids to Teen Titans Go, and maybe do Mission Impossible mid-week next week.  If Ben can squeeze in The Equalizer 2, Eighth Grade, and Blindspotting, he'll be in good shape going into August.

Anyway, here's a quick recommendation NOTE: so I wrote this last night without putting a lot of thought into the reviews.  Ben was out seeing Eighth Grade.  This morning I discovered he has added his own reviews in italics, and completely outdid my pathetic reviews in substance and style.  So I rewrote my review.  Apologies if you already read this and didn't get the full post.  

FRI 07/20 MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN - Surprisingly good, especially compared to its terrible predecessor.  The singing was better, the dancing and costumes were fun, and the ending got my emotional feels all worked up.

THU 07/19 UNFRIENDED: DARK WEB - Ben liked it I think. The best depiction of computer usage in a movie I've ever seen.  I thought it had a masterful blend of realism and fantasy to create some excellent horror.  I was SHOCKED to like this - I thought it was going to be garbage.

TUE 07/17 2D SKYSCRAPER - Ben said it was better than expected, but still a Chinese audience pleaser. There were some parts of this that had that Die Hard feel, but they didn't really stick to anything long enough to get a cohesive vision together.  It was fun.

FRI 07/13 SORRY TO BOTHER YOU - Ben loved it.  This movie was incredible - I didn't think movies like this would ever be made today.  Surreal, joyful and terrifying all at once.

WED 07/11 THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS - So much to unpack.  Reviews were glowing, so we were excited for the promised mystery.  But we thought it was so predictable and not nearly as sinister and they want us to believe.  The documentary was very manipulative of its audience and acted like this was a novel investigation they were embarking on.  Quick research when I got home revealed that this is actually the second documentary on the study (but somehow this one had the connections to premiere at Sundance, so it gets the press).  There's also been a couple books.  And for some reason a lead researcher on the original study was never even mentioned.  The more we talked about this movie, the more we hated it.

WED 06/20 HEREDITARY - Ben said it was really good and I should never ever see it.  Delicious slow burn horror with stellar performances.  Rarely have I seen such powerful grief on screen.

TUE 06/19 2D JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM - Laughably bad.

MON 06/18 2D ANT-MAN AND THE WASP - The "dessert" to a trio of MCU films.  Light and very funny, it was an absolute delight.  I wish the Wasp had a more prominent lead role, and I felt the motivations given to Ghost were unrealistic (I know I know, it's all fantasy anyway).  But aside from that I whole-hearted recommend it for a fun time.

WED 06/13 FIRST REFORMED - You'll have to ask Ben, I think he said it was ok.  I still can't decide if I hated or loved this movie.  It was certainly very slow and dour - but that was expected.  It did a really good job of showing the kind of fear and distress that can come from knowing something, yet being unable to do anything about it.  I would love it if that was the movie - but the ending confused me and disappointed me. Basically, I need to discuss this with more people, but I doubt that will ever happen :-)

SUN 06/10 UPGRADE - Ben was surprised how much he enjoyed this.  This was a really fun movie, but it also had some substance that I didn't expect.  It was a great vision of the near future that felt believable for the most part.  The action scenes were also some of the best fight choreography and filming I've ever seen.

SAT 06/09 ADVANCE SCREENING: WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? - And eye-opening look at Fred Rogers' life and mission, I really enjoyed this.  I only wish it talked more about his show (genesis, format, cast-member follow-ups).  He was a remarkable man and everyone came out of the theater smiling with wet eyes.

SAT 06/02 HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES - Ben liked it I think.  I did like this - I don't think it was a particularly well constructed film, but it had a lot of heart.  I feel like it was trying SO HARD to be a classic / cult-classic but the intentional effort kind of put it off target.  

TUE 05/29 OCEAN'S 8 - Super fun throwaway caper movie, great cast and costumes EXCEPT for the Met Gala itself.

WED 05/16 REVENGE - You'll have to ask Ben.  It was more 'foreign' than I expected.  Apparently it was a french production, but it FELT like an 80's Italian horror movie a lot of the time, which was actually pretty awesome.  However - the other half of the time it kind of wandered.  The final 'battle' was too long, and pacing was generally off.

TUE 05/08 YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE - Again, I can't recall.  This was a great movie that was hard to watch.  I think it was largely about the capacity for people who are generally good to become bad given enough stimulus in that direction.  Movies often have bad guys who are likable to some degree, but this felt different.  They were doing bad things to bad people for good reasons, but they still ended up becoming bad/evil because of their actions. 

SAT 05/05 DEADPOOL 2 - Ben enjoyed it, I decided to sit this one out.  Fun as usual, but it suffered heavily from sequel disease.  Too many recycled jokes.

FRI 05/04 2D SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY - Herm, overall fun, Donald Glover was perfection, the rest needed a lot of trimming and showed the scars of creative differences.

WED 05/02 THE ENDLESS - Wow, Ben saw a lot of movies and my memory gets murkier the farther back I go.  This movie started and I thought 'what did I get myself into'.  It felt like a bad home movie.  However, as it got momentum, it really turned around.  Fascinating sci-fi ideas and very solid performances on the back half.

WED 04/11 ISLE OF DOGS - Wes Anderson's stop motion films are a bit too twee for my tastes.  Ben loved it, no surprise, as it hit all his sweet spots for Anderson, dogs, boyhood, and Japan.

FRI 03/23 2D READY PLAYER ONE - Well, they changed it a lot from the book which was both good and bad; my main complaint is the style - the avatars look so dated and everything was gray and blurry you couldn't appreciate the epic-ness we were promised.

FRI 03/16 2D AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR - The rich "entree" of MCU this year.  Loved it, suprising no one.  So sad.  So good.  Can't wait to watch it again at home.

TUE 03/13 2D TOMB RAIDER - A fine popcorn munching flick. Needs more Nick Frost, but that could be said of any movie.

SAT 03/10 2D A WRINKLE IN TIME - Super disappointing, do not recommend.  They took out many of the meaningful parts of the book, while adding in a lot of unnecessary backstory and focused on "beauty" and young girls' obsession with it.

WED 01/10 THE POST - Solid performances design, and direction, but forgettable.

TUE 01/09 2D BLACK PANTHER - The exotic and arousing "appetizer" of MCU this year.  Beautiful and powerful, masterfully made. Worth all the hype, loved it.

THU 12/28 THE GREATEST SHOWMAN - The definition of "guilty pleasure," worth it just to see Hugh Jackman enjoy himself immensely.

FRI 12/22 THE SHAPE OF WATER - This I remember, Ben loved it but it fell short of his expectations.  My expectations were too high and too skewed toward the monster movie angle.  It was NOT a monster movie, it was a love story.  Viewing it as a love story, I think it was wonderful and representative of the various forbidden loves.  The most notable thing to me about this film was the production design.  It was the best I've seen outside of a Carol Spier film.

FRI 12/01 2D JUSTICE LEAGUE - Wow, what a mess.  This movie has been dissected and criticized by many already and I have nothing new to add.  DC just can't figure out what they want to do.

TUE 11/14 MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS - Oh Branaugh, thank you for making a totally unnecessary movie with stellar cast and beauty, but as usual you went too far.

SAT 11/11 CARTOON NETWORK PRESENTS BEN 10: OMNI-TRICKED - The kids loved this.

TUE 10/10 2D STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI - Don't believe the haters, this was a great movie.  Again, there's millions of pages of discussion online that you can read, I have nothing more to add.  Movies with Mikey on youtube has a great discussion of the movie that aligns well with what I feel.

FRI 10/06 2D BLADE RUNNER 2049 - Ben liked it I think.  I liked it, but I didn't love it like some.  It was long - but it felt like the right length.  More than anything it was BEAUTIFUL.

TUE 09/26 BATTLE OF THE SEXES - Pretty good, but I wouldn't recommend anyone go out of their way to see it.   Odd casting that filled out the lesser parts with comedians in dramatic roles.

TUE 09/19 2D THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE - The kids loved it, we thought it was worse than the Batman LEGO movie, and far far worse than the original LEGO MOVIE, which was amazing.

THU 09/07 2D THOR: RAGNAROK - Speaking of amazing, I LOVE THIS MOVIE SO HARD.  I'm deliberately not watching it repeatedly so I can enjoy it longer.

WED 08/16 LOGAN LUCKY - Disappointing.  It had a lot of great character set-up and I always love a caper.  But something about it didn't gel.

SAT 08/12 2D SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING - I love this movie hard.  Somehow they made a worn-out character fresh.  Michael Keaton was terrifying (you know the scene).  A great portrayal of high school students too - they don't over or underestimate them the way a lot of TV and movies do.  I saw it a second time with Jack at the Alamo and he loved it too.

Ben will probably refute most of the reviews I attributed to him.  I only count 37 visits here, I don't know how they do the match exactly (sometimes we saw things twice, or bought separate sets of tickets, or maybe it dropped a couple titles from my history.  Hmm also it seems to be the purchase date, not the movie date).  All I know is when the servers ask if we've been to the Alamo before, we reply "Oh yes, all the time" with a smug smile to each other.

Our family gives Teen Titans Go to the Movies 8 thumbs up! It was laugh-out-loud funny for all of us. The boys have added its soundtrack to their regular rotation of Imagine Dragons, the Ninjago soundtrack, and Harry and the potters.

16 years married today!

Only mild celebrations this year, with it being a normal Thursday and the weekend already booked with scout camp and an Alamo date Saturday night (Mission Impossible, if you're keeping track).

Ben worked from home so we could have a long lunch date. Leisurely we chatted over Which Wich, perused the LEGO store, and got Dole Whips at Menchie's frozen yogurt. 16 years and we still love each other's company. ❤️

It's finally here!!!

Jack is going into third grade. Sam is starting kindergarten!

They have the usual first day jitters. I walked them into class and they both seem eager to be there.

Here's to a great school year!!!

We packed up into a rental car and left Arvada before 9 am, not bad! Ben broke up our journey to Idaho into manageable chunks. Today's destination is Bear Lake. Our first stop was to visit the new Fort Collins temple.

After a quick stop to replace my splintered needles, we made our way into Wyoming.

Ben found an old diner, J's Prairie Rose for lunch.

Then we took a tour of the Ivinson Mansion. What a strange little house! They had some interesting pieces, like this music disk player.

The next stop was Rawlins to see their old penitentiary museum. We just did a quick view of the free exhibits, rather than the full tour. It was a good leg stretch.

In the middle of nothingness, Ben finds a way station. Here at Point of Rocks the boys peeked into the ruins of a stagecoach way station.

Green River offered a playground next to the river, but I preferred eating dinner in an air conditioned restaurant over a picnic. Sam got some wiggles out.

Little America was busy busy. The kids got cones, now up to a whopping 75 cents each ;-)

Just before 9 pm we rammed up the steep driveway of the Cook Cabin. The boys were excited to explore all its eccentricities (Ok, who left a wooden MACE up here??) I might be the first one to climb in bed tonight. Looking forward to some raspberries tomorrow!

We woke up refreshed, ready for the lake. We raided the garage for boogie boards and sand pails.

The lake level was unusually high, so the free spots had no beach! We decided to pay for the sand access at Rendezvous Beach. The kids played happily. The water was pleasantly cool.

Lunch time means one thing at Bear Lake: LaBeau’s!

Sam has really expanded his culinary horizons this trip. In Wyoming he learned to appreciate mozzarella sticks, and in Utah he decided corn dogs and fry sauce are delicious! We’re going to push him in Idaho for their local delicacy: finger steaks.

After lunch we changed and repacked at the cabin. Our destination tonight was Burley, Idaho. Logan was a welcome stop of civilization. We drove around the temple (sam emerging from a Dramamine snooze to see).

We found another local specialty, the dirty soda shop. These are strangely all over Utah. I got a Diet Coke with lime and coconut and it was actually really good. I grabbed some Spudnuts (potato flour doughnuts) and drove on to the apex of our trip.

The Walkers! How we love and miss them! They are building their dream home here and face of us a tour of their hard work. I was happy to see our kids linked with theirs, exploring the farmland.

We had dinner at Taco Bandido, then came back to their place for a marshmallow roast. We attracted the local kitten family who were desperate for attention. I asked Jack and Azalea if they cats were kittypets or warriors, based on the definitions in the Warriors Cats books. They launched into a heated debate (Azalea says kittypets because she feeds them kibble when the neighbors leave, Jack says loners, an inbetweener cat, because they are linked to a home but do not have collars).

We talked, laughed, and meteors dashed overhead.

All of Saturday we played in Burley with our friends.  The boys were delighted to have Cartoon Network in the morning and hotel lobby breakfast.  We drove out to Walcott Lake park to relax and play disc golf. I guess I was too busy talking, enjoying the food, and keeping Opal from inhaling ALL my rations to take many pictures.

We took a giant table at the Wayside Inn to get lunch.  Ben got his finger steaks, but Sam was to tired and distracted to care :-)  I had a delicious country fried steak.  But the best part was all this time to talk to dear Miranda and Nate about life.

We split to let Opal have a nap with Ben and Nate, while Miranda and I took the older kids swimming at the hotel.  Then we stopped at one of Burley's SIX snow cone sellers for an icy treat.

Back at their compound we played with the kittens some more, noshed on pizza, and I tried to stay awake while we played the Mistborn board game.  The kids were all playing Minecraft - we'd been listening to a Minecraft novel narrated by Jack Black so Jack and Sam were obsessed with playing it more.  Luckily, like all kids in the USA, Azalea and Cedar were also Minecraft fans.

Everyone was a little worn out by this point.  Ben had a few side-interest stops, but over and over the vote was to just keep moving.  We did stop for gas and ride a dino :-)

And we made sure to visit some family.  The Martha and Ronnie welcomed us to their home for a rest.  They have a beautiful home right next to the mountain with a grand view of the Salt Lake (sadly mostly obscured by smoke with all these wildfires).  We had a delicious brunch spread and Jack and Sam got to meet all four of their cats.  It was great to see Josh and Jill too, who were headed to university in just a few days.

We blazed past SLC, the boys barely looking up from their tablets to see the temples whenever I pointed them out.  A final stop in American For for drinks, fries, and extra fry sauce, before buckling in for the long haul to Grand Junction.    We saw some actual fire in the mountains as we went through the canyon.  The worker's at the Solider Summit gas stop said they were on stand by for evacuation.  Mom said that they ended up shutting down the high just 1 1/2 hours after we passed through.  Whew!  Glad we made it safely!

A quick stop for melons in Green River, then we rolled into Grand Junction about 8 pm.  Still time to let the kids jump in the pool!

Going through my phone, I didn't seem to take any pictures the rest of the trip.  It was a short but normal visit.  Mom made crepes for breakfast.  Dad had the day off so he got to be abused with water guns all morning.  The kids swam until we dragged them out, then got to play even more with Grandma Betty.

We left in the afternoon for a relatively quick jaunt over the mountains.  Being a Monday we had little traffic.  We listened to Ramona and Beezus stories told by Stockard Channing and Sam napped off and on.  We stopped in Edwards to recover from some car sickness, adventuring down into the rocks.  We made in home to a clean and quiet house in time for their usual bedtime at 8pm.  What a trip!

This evening, after a fit of creative passion, Sam presented us with this tetraptych:

Sam does not respect the seasons, as shown by his Halloween-themed birthday and this work of art.

You may not immediately recognize the subject matter, as he has re-ordered the poem. (Whether this was an accident, I am not sure)  Allow me to translate:

The boys had the sniffles and sore throats. I got it too, with a bonus fever for two days. I spent most of last week in bed. I thought we were all done with being sick, but Sam got a fever yesterday. It seems we actually had two illnesses being passed around.  He woke up fit as a fiddle, I heard him bouncing around at 6:30 AM playing Minecraft.  Then late this morning he started shivering and yawning, his temperature back up to 101.3.

So today had been quiet, just catching up on some cleaning and baking.

Jack has been working hard on a piano piece and doing some homework. This assignment was to draw the setting of a book you are reading.

He's also been working on his Lego robotics kit.

Beware of Amazon when you are sick. You'll do strange things.

Spent an hour this morning cleaning out their toy room closet of costumes. The kids are grateful, yet later that night Sam makes his own set of armor:

I have to admit, it looks formidable.

Sammy is 5 years old today!

He had a great day at home and at school.  We ate all his favorite foods - including dragonfruit, of course!  Dinner was spaghetti and meatballs.  Lots of snacky treats too.  I brought some balloons to school at pick-up time.  At home, Amanda came over and he opened his presents in a whirl of excitement.  Then he played, played, played all evening and did lots of video chatting with family.  He is still looking forward to Grandma Betty visiting this weekend and his party with friends on Saturday.  Now he's in bed with a smile, snuggled with his Godzilla and reading the Scholastic books that were delivered today - bonus presents!

This was Sam's first real birthday party - with friends instead of just family.  He decided back in April that he was going to have a Halloween-themed party and never deviated.  Thank goodness the stores stock Halloween items as early as September 1st, it made shopping much easier.  He was very particular about some things, like a bat pinata and "orange and black triangles that you hang from the ceiling."  I'm so happy that Ben decoded his description to mean flag bunting, I had no idea why we would hang triangles the way he described it!  Betty also came over to help out and make the party special.

The kiddos arrived and played with ghostie balloons until everyone arrived.  Next they decorated their goodie bags to look like jack-o-lanterns.  We had some outside games like Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin and a bat pinata, then cake and presents.  They also enjoyed just running around in the yard like Kindergarteners naturally do.

When asked about his party, Sam gives me a big thumbs up and says it was GREAT!

This week we are all healthy (fingers crossed, knock on wood).  Illnesses over, birthday party over, back to regular school for what feels like the first time.  I'm getting tons done around the house.  Lots of deep cleaning, and more regular cleaning of floors and bathrooms.  I trekked across town for an additional skein of Knerd Yarn in Birthday Suit and completed a shawl that was waiting patiently all summer to be finished.

I bought a replacement microwave for our glitchy one.  It seems like every model I review has some bad lemons, and they all go bad after a year or two anyway.  Grr, nothing is made to last any more.  After much deliberation I decided to just use the exact same model as before.  Our original microwave was purchased from Ikea in December with all the new kitchen materials.  But it wasn't installed until the end of February.  So even though it started breaking after less than a year of use, we were past warranty.  It's one of the cheapest models available and when it worked I loved it.  So we bought the exact same one.  That made installation a snap.  We swapped the units without any measuring or hardware fitting.  That's one giant To Do item marked off my list since early spring!

Now that the birthday cake and candy are almost gone I can bake!  Smitten Kitchen recently shared a recipe for British flapjacks.  What's this??  British baking I haven't heard of?  I found Mary Berry making them on an old program.  With her stamp of approval and my bottle of Lyle's Golden syrup I whipped up a batch and now my kitchen smells heavenly.  I used this recipe from Bon Appetit because their measurements were much simpler than Smitten's fussy weights.  Mary insists that these are a simple, frugal, easy, kid-approved tray bake for when they get home from school.

What's next . . . meal planning and grocery shopping, lunch, work, then enjoy the quiet a little longer before the boys come home.  I like this all very much.

Jack has had three and Sam has had two. I'd say they like them. I think they turned out too hard, but pretty good.

 

Jack's Scout pack held the annual Raingutter Regatta this evening.  He worked hard to make a great boat and brought a strong set of lungs to the game - - and he won!!

He won the races for Bear Den.  Here he is racing against his best friend Dylan for 1st place in the den:

Then he won the races against the whole pack!

Ben said that Jack couldn't believe it, and even seemed confused about whether he won.  Then he showed his usual mix embarrassment and guilt about every situation he encounters.  This kid is so kind-hearted that he doesn't know how to be proud of himself!  Later in the evening he excitedly told me all about the night, having come to terms with his success.  He explained his winning technique: Inhale deeply as soon as the ref starts to count, so your lungs are full and ready to blow when they say go.  Good advice!

He also got to be a member of the Color Guard for the first time ever, including all last year!

The winner!

I take Nimbus to get the kids at school about once or twice a week.  They love seeing her, and the other families at school smile and laugh at the sight of a cat in a backpack.  As long as I know it's not too hot or cold, and we don't have extra errands to run after the pick-up, it's a fun way to expand her horizons.  Over and over, people me ask if she really likes to be in there.

Every day when I stand up at 2:40 she RUNS to the door and meows to come along.  When I get out the backpack and set it on the ground she RUNS over to me, chirping and meowing with excitement.

On the drive she presses up to the porthole to better see the trees and sky.  She waits patiently in the car with me until it's nearly time for the bell.

Today she started purring, so I whipped out my camera to prove that I have a weirdo cat.

 

See?  Perfectly contented, with purring and slow-motion-blinking!  While I wait in the school yard, I can feel her flipping around in the backpack, changing position to look out the porthole or the side mesh, wherever the most exciting action can be seen.  Toddlers are especially delighted to see a kitty in the wild, and I can hear parents pointing her out from across the playground.  Jack and Sam run up to me faster than usual, greeting their cat before their mother, and proudly show off Nimbus to their friends.

Ben has nicknamed Nimbus "Rachel's Shadow." All day she follows me room to room, either tripping me underfoot and glued to my side when I'm resting.  She really is a little shadow.

for HALLOWEEN!!!!!!

It was only a flurry, but the unmistakable cries of elementary students joyfully pronounced our first snow of the season today.

By tradition, I made leige waffles.  Oooh, so good.

This came home from school. Apparently Jack still thinks wood is terrifying. I hope you aren't too scared after reading this!

Double trunk-or-treating this year for us. First we had a scout party, where our Minecraft themed trunk won second place!  Then, tonight was the church party with more early candy.  The kids really enjoy these parties.  It also gives me good motivation to get our costumes done well in advance of the big day itself.

This year Jack wanted to be Spider-Man.  I didn't even considering making this one myself.  He wanted a real jumpsuit with a mask and gloves and foot coverings too.  He also did not want "muscles" or the Iron Spider version worn in Infinity War, and thus on all the store shelves this season.  I found this great suit on amazon.  The mask is too small, but that was the case with every suit we tried.  It works well enough for pictures.

Sam had a lot of ideas this year.  I starting working on a Godzilla plan, when he switched and locked onto this one: Zombie Chicken Jockey.  I thought he was making it up, but Ben assured me that it's a Minecraft character.  His took the most work, but I think I nailed it:

Ben and I couldn't get excited about any couples costume ideas, so we each went with a favorite movie character.  And then no one knew who we were:

It's super obvious if you know them, and you have no chance of guessing if you don't.

Ben is Steve Zissou from The Life Aquatic. I'm Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim vs the World.

The handful of people who recognized us knew it instantly and really enjoyed it. Everyone else was clueless.  I like that we're representing two of our favorite writer/directors, Wes Anderson and Edgar Wright.  Also, I had a surprising number of women tell me they loved my blue hair and I should seriously considering doing it for real. If colored hair wasn't such a pain I would.  But even Ramona had to re-do it every week and a half -what a chore!

Here's more pictures from the two parties. Happy Halloween!

Jack is old enough and strong enough now that he carved his pumpkin entirely by himself!  I only helped him to clean out the interior cavity thoroughly.  Sam was disappointed in how difficult it was to use the knife.  But he did design his pumpkin and oversee every detail of my carving his artwork.

With two young kids, Halloween has shifted from a holiday to be celebrated after dark, to a celebration first thing in the morning!  In my grogginess I served them bagels and banana ghosts (stick mini-chocolate chips in the banana for a face).  Then I hopped off to school 30 minutes early to set up Jack's class party, since I am acting as the room parent for his class this year.

The kids start the school day with a costume parade while an army of parents clutching coffee thermoses take pictures and grin.  It's one of my favorite things, to see what kinds of characters are popular and what creative costumes they have each year.  I think this link will work for you to see Ben's pictures of our kids and some of our favorite costumes.  Here are our boys looking sharp:

At 9:30 am I hauled all the party supplies home, took off my wig and costume, and sat down for the first time.  On days like this I'm reminded how wonderful it is to be a stay-at-home- mom who can help out with her kids' parties at school, and also to have both kids in school, so I can have a few hours peace at home alone.

After school we watched the Curious George's Boo-Fest (a household classic) and Adventures of Ichabod Crane (fast-forwarding through most of it to get to the spooky part).  We had our traditional dinner of mummy hotdogs and jack-o-lantern quesadillas.

Finally, time to trick-or-treat!  Honestly, by this point it, to me it feels like the holiday is already over.  But Ben loves to take the kids out, so I got to chill at home with two bowls, one of candy and one of yarn.

Sam pooped out after about 30 minutes and I retrieved him in the car.  Jack was out at least an hour, maybe 90 minutes.  I think they only came home because his hands were numb.  He counted his haul afterward: 120 pieces of candy.  Geez.  We have candy out of ears, including all the stuff we bought, as we've had less than half our usual number of trick-or-treaters.

Jack cried today when Sam's class won the pumpkin splat contest (class with the most donations gets to have their pumpkins dropped 95 feet from a firetruck, other kids get to throw them off a regular ladder).  Sam cried when Jack gleefully dumped and counted his MUCH larger candy haul.  Emotions are running high and running out today.

The boys are happy bed in the warm jammies, singing the songs from the Nightmare Before Christmas together.  Ben and I are both very tired.  All in all, it was a very good Halloween this year.

Jack and I baked "star bread" this evening. We made the dough from scratch and used brown sugar and cinnamon for the layer filling. Delicious! We ate it with a quick maple icing. The boys were too excited for me to take a "nice" finished photo :-)

We got some large packages. The kids made a cat fortress. Our cat uses it. She's weird. It's super cute and I'm thrilled they played together creatively. Sam even spelled "cat box" on his own. (The extra x is to cross out the extra space, not a double x. He explained this to me.). The kids took a lot of pictures with my phone. Here are a few non-blurry ones:

Jack has been taking piano lessons since late winter of this year.  He was very excited to take part in their fall recital.  He's been practicing his piece for weeks.  He usually practices a couple times daily without a reminder; he genuinely enjoys playing piano!  Without further ado, please enjoy "Jingle Bells."

Wasn't that great?! He occasionally messes up the last two measures, but performed flawlessly in front of a crowd.  He said he was very nervous, just excited and anxious to perform.  Luckily he was only 4th in a program of 20 kids, so he didn't have to wait long.

Snazzy outfit, right?  When he signed up for the recital he asked me if he could get a black vest and bowtie to wear.  I got him some nice dress slacks too and made the bowtie for him.

Batch 2 of 3 :-)

We had a wonderful thanksgiving in Grand Junction: great food and great family time. It seems I neglected to take pictures from the big meal itself, but let the record state that it was delicious and decadent.

While visiting Grand Junction my Dad showed the kids some clips from Home Alone.  Last night they clamored to watch it and were beside themselves with joy.  Even Sam, who, as a rule, does not like non-animated movies.  Kevin McCallister wins over another generation.

Today I had the pleasure of chaperoning a field trip....not with my kids! Amanda needed a spare adult for her drama kids to see A Christmas Carol at the DCTC and I was happy to oblige. I packed myself a PBJ and rode a school bus for the first time in 20+ years. The kids were well behaved and we all got some Christmas spirit brewing.

It's going exactly as we thought it would. Nimbus loves the tree. The kids love Nimbus in the tree.

Our good friends the Walkers came to Denver to see a show and we got to play along! This was a love podcast of the "My brother, my brother, and me" show. I wasn't too familiar with it, but enjoyed the show immensely. It was the weirdest theatrical event I have attended. The audience was a narrow demographic of 25-45 year olds who look like they love a good board game. They were extremely attentive and orderly and laughed and yelled louder than any crowd I have ever experienced. The show itself was hilarious, and I enjoyed that the intro was "Sawbones," a podcast I used to listen to.

Later that weekend we saw an anime film, Mirai. Jack came along for his first subtitled movie in the theater. It was a really touching, beautiful film. Highly recommend it. We also treated the Walkers to good pizza, because their town in Idaho is strangely devoid of such delicacies.

It's always a real treat to see our friends! A wonderful addition to our holiday season.

My little Nissan Sentra hit the big 100k! I had the family in the car with me so Ben kindly documented the milestone.

The MBMBaM live podcast that we saw with the Walkers at the Buell has been released.  If you're curious, check it out here.

My favorite part was the pre-show, Sawbones.  They've also shared that live recording and I definitely recommend it, click here.

(Or, you know, use your podcasting app to search for these things.  I've never understood the podcasting thing.  It makes me so out-of-touch whenever I try to "get into" podcasts.)

December has been a jolly month!  We did all the classics: decorating, advent calendars, Hanukkah, ice skating, caroling, cookies, class parties, Santa Claus, secret presents, visiting family, and other general merriment.  The only thing missing was snow to go sledding or make a snowman.  Oh well :-) My parents came to celebrate the big day itself and it was so fun to have them here!  Here's a smattering of photos to mark the month.