“Les Misérables,” by Victor Hugo

Rachel has been working her way through this 1,100+ page classic and has been making a lot of progress on it lately. It’s mostly been a labor of love; it’s probably her favorite story.

Good book + warm fireplace stones + cozy spot = reading heaven.

Finished: “The Tale of Beatrix Potter” by Margaret Lane

One of my 2015 goals is to read more biographies. I already have a pretty good "to-read" list started, and first on my list was Beatrix Potter's biography. Here is my Goodreads review:

The Tale of Beatrix Potter: A Biography by Margaret Lane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really, really liked this biography! I knew nothing about Beatrix Potter except that she was the author of several childhood favorites. Margaret Lane told her story in a very engaging, conversational way. As soon as I finished the book, I immediately wanted to see her illustrations again, pictures of she and her family, and the places she lived and visited. And now I want to see the movie based on her life. Very well done!

View all my reviews

Christmas at the Zoo

(My girls aren’t going to believe this: my fifth blog post in less than a week! Yes, this is the kind of thing that can happen on Christmas vacation, with no outside activities or school demanding my attention. It’s also the kind of thing that can happen when a certain 4-year-old has a bad dream and ends up in our bed and I can’t fall back to sleep. ;-)

A friend and colleague of Mick’s generously gave our family a $50 Visa gift card for Christmas, so we decided to put it toward a zoo membership. We haven’t been to the zoo in probably 10 years or so and Mick was wanting to do something fun and different on his vacation, so we headed down.

In spite of the chilly evening, we had a good time visiting the exhibits (especially the indoor ones ;-) and seeing how the zoo had changed and grown. Between all the exhibits and the Christmas lights there was so much to see.

The orangutan exhibit was especially impressive (wish I would’ve gotten a picture of it from the outside – too intent on getting inside the warm building!). Not long after we got inside, one of the zoo staffers came up and answered all of our questions and more about orangutans. (Mental note: next time, hit the zoo in the morning. Orangutans tend to sleep from about 5pm – 5am!) We were all fascinated by one orangutan who walked right past us with a big wad of straw in her mouth. She made her way over to a nearby corner where she put the straw down and picked up a blanket, very deliberately smoothed it out, then laid down on it for a nap. You can see the blue blanket in the background of the picture.

After he watched this, Trent said “This is how they walk.” and gave us a demonstration by bending over and putting his fists on the floor. :-)

The dolphins performed to a standing room only crowd where we’d purposely picked a seat pretty far back to get a good view of the jumps (and to stay dry!). We weren’t disappointed!

Zoomed in from the rafters!

Here’s the thing I was thinking about while trying to go back to sleep a little while ago: with all the beauty and discoveries at the zoo, why would anybody want to be staring at a screen? I mean, some of us watched a short video in the snake exhibit, showing how snakes can move through the branches of a tree and a sidewinder moves through the desert (good thing: the live snakes we saw behind the glass weren’t moving much – except for one rattlesnake, who had just been delivered to the zoo and seemed a little skittish. :-O ). I’m talking about the screens of the handheld devices people can’t seem to be without these days. There was one dad who stood back in the shadows of the shark exhibit hunched over his phone while his kids were petting sharks. (Sharks!!) To be fair, it’s possible he had some family emergency or serious issue he was texting someone about. Maybe he was only on it for a minute and the rest of the time, he was right there with his family. I didn’t watch him for very long – too busy taking pictures of our kids petting sharks. (Sharks!!)

But more sad to me was the child I saw being pushed in a stroller holding an iPad. Again, I saw this for just a moment before we passed each other and moved on. Maybe it was just for a minute or two, but does a child really need a screen right in front of him at the zoo? When there’s so much to see, touch, hear and smell (orangutan exhibit)? I’ll bet we could’ve downloaded an “iZoo” app for Mick’s phone that showed the kids all these creatures and more, complete with snippets of audio, animated gifs and even video, but it couldn’t have been the same learning experience. Would the way an orangutan walks be so firmly embedded in Trent’s mind? I’m not calling for a universal ban on these things – I can appreciate their use – but there’s a time and place for things like this. In my opinion, Christmas at the Zoo is not it!

OK, stepping down from my soapbox now. I highly recommend a trip to the zoo, even in chilly weather. It’s good exercise (as you move quickly from building to building) and you’re pretty much guaranteed to learn something new. Trent learned that reindeer are not giraffes. They had a couple of beautiful reindeer in a small pen near the entrance. For being so short, they really have huge antlers! One of the kids’ favorite movies is Frozen, which features a reindeer “Sven” as one of the characters. Trent has seen that movie many times, and yet, while looking at these live reindeer, he asked “is that a giraffe?”  HA!  When I told him what it was and reminded him of Sven, I could tell he had no idea of the connection. Sometimes, entertainment is just, well, entertainment. But seeing and doing – there’s just no substitute for it!

 

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Happy New Year 2015!

One of my school friends and her husband traveled to New York City a few days ago to take part in the famous New Year’s Eve countdown in Times Square. She posted a short video of the countdown and the midnight celebrating, complete with Frank Sinatra crooning “New York, New York” in the background. It gave me a pretty amazing eye-level feel for what it must’ve been like to be there at that moment. She and her husband were having the time of their lives, singing along with everybody else. It was fun to watch!

Lots of crazies in NYC.  Lots of crazies here, too.

(Trivia: One of the balloons popped right before the camera went off for this picture.  :-D )

Things were a little different at the Worley homestead at midnight. Lights dimmed, fire in the fireplace, Christmas tree still up and on (we always leave it up past New Year’s Day), glo-sticks being held and worn, about 40-50  balloons scattered on the kitchen and dining room floor. Yes, very different from my friend’s celebration – but pretty much perfect. Sure, there was a teenager with strep throat, but other than that – perfect. ;-)

We spent much of the afternoon working on the food: Breaded Chicken Fingers, meatballs in barbecue sauce, Twice-Baked Potatoes, my friend Brit’s Mexican Cheese Dip, fruit plate and homemade brownies. I also roasted 2 chickens (and Mick de-boned them) for the White Chicken Chili we planned to have on New Year’s Day. The girls helped with the food and dish-washing, while Erica and Sarah put together a photo album of pictures from 2014. I don’t know why this is, but it’s so nice to be able to hold and look through an actual photo album, rather than just digital images on a screen. It just seems more relaxing.

Late in the afternoon, Sarah blew up nearly all the balloons for the balloon drop by herself. I don’t know how she did it without hyperventilating! She said she felt a “little dizzy” toward the end. HA! Meanwhile, after a phone call to the doctor’s office, Mick had to make a quick run to get some antibiotics for poor Rachel; she spent most of the evening on the couch. :-(

Us looking sad because Rachel was sick.  I love Claire’s pose! 

After we ate dinner, interrupted by toast after toast (I think someone toasted to “toasts” :-D ), we played “Big Boggle” (25 letters instead of 16), the dice game and charades. Always fun to play charades with kids; the ever-helpful Trent told us what he was going to be before he acted it out. Ha!

The countdown, as always, ended up with lots of rushing around at the last minute, trying to get the glo-gear unwrapped and assembled. Some of those things were pretty complicated!! So, we ended up counting down about 10 minutes after we intended to. HA! Oh well – the balloons still dropped and everybody was happy. :-)

 

Happy New Year to all!

		New Year's Eve 2014 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL