Woods-Kimber New Family Experience

Amazing weekend with Dada

2010-11-23T06:07:00.000-06:00

I had the most amazing weekend with Dada. It started Friday evening building Snap Circuits projects for the first time, which delighted and captivated Dada and reminded me how little I understand about electronics.

On Saturday we went to home depot and had fun buying materials for a small PVC greenhouse we needed to build. We worked on building the greenhouse and then switched gears to make Dada a bow and arrow, which we did using bamboo we cut from behind the house, making an arrow out of another bit of bamboo. We watched the last part of Avatar (which had inspired the bow and arrow). We played plants vs zombies on the iPad. All of us drove to P. Terry's for dinner with the top down. We read good stories at bedtime.

On Sunday we finished the greenhouse, for which Dada chose gold spray paint. Julie and Dada helped prepare the PVC parts and put on the plastic skin. We played more PVZ. We helped clean the house. We went on a 3-mile walk with the dog, both of us barefoot. Dada bought something from a convenience store on her own for the first time. We fletched her one arrow and she added Na'vi-style decoration to the bow and spent much time doing a passable Neytiri impersonation (including using a butter knife as her "hunting" knife). We had a great dinner that Julie cooked, watched The Simpsons, and then Dada helped me pack for my trip to Japan. More good bedtime stories and discussion of when I would get to Japan and be able to call home.

It occurred to me as I went to bed at I could have been playing golf or something, but I can't think of any better way to spend a weekend at home.

Dada's Latest Art

2010-02-25T16:00:00.001-06:00

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Dada drew this picture the other night while watching the Olympics. It represents a ballerina doing a hand stand.

I found this drawing to be particularly remarkable:

- The composition seems pretty sophisticated for a six-year-old.

- The detail on the feed and legs.

Dada's pictures are rapidly improving in sophistication. She definitely has both vision and the technical ability to execute it, as well as a unique style. I am eager to see what she does as she learns more about technique.

Christmas 2009

2010-01-07T03:36:00.003-06:00

Christmas 2009

It seems like Christmas came and went in a blur. This year Dada was very much into the wrapping of presents: she wanted to wrap anything she could and have it under the tree, whether it was a gift for her or a gift for someone else or just an empty box. She was also very much about decorating the tree and spent several days helping Julie trim the tree.

It is difficult to capture the present opening activity, but I was able to get this picture of Dada admiring her gift from her grandfather Ba, a globe of the Earth (with its companion moon globe in the background).

Dada's Santa gift was an Easy Bake oven, which she seems to have been the gift trend of the year, as her friend Jane and her cousin Sophia also got one. She also got lots of books, with Roald Dahl being a strong theme.

We have worked pretty hard to try to avoid having Christmas be all about getting piles of toys and so far we seem to have succeeded. Dada seems to be as excited about giving presents and seeing other people get presents as she is about getting her own presents. It probably also helps that her birthday is just 4 days after Christmas, so there is a bit of an extended period of gift getting, helping to take the focus off the one big day.

On Christmas day we opened our gifts in the morning, having had to wait until almost 9:00 a.m. for Dada to wake up, played with our toys for a bit, and then hopped in the car for the trip to Houston to see Dada's grandmother Boo, where there were more gifts to open and Christmas dinner, this year a very modest affair with just immediate family.

We spent several days in Houston. Got to go ice skating outside at Discovery Park in downtown Houston, went to the zoo, and visited the mall just to get Dada some exercise, despite the crushing after-Christmas crowds. We also spent several evenings reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory out loud as it was too compelling to limit to bedtime.

Julie's brother gave us several board games: Life, Scrabble, and Monopoly. We ended up playing a rather epic game of Monopoly, with Boo ultimately crushing Julie, Dada, and I. Dada was fascinated by the money and became rather obsessive about arranging her cash neatly on her side of the board. I was amazed at how much of the game she grasped. We had to help her with making change and provided advice about developing her properties, but by the end of the game she seemed to understand what it was all about. Attention span was an issue, as you might imagine, so we tended to play in short sessions. But we are very pleased to be able to move from Candyland and Chutes and Ladders to games that involve actual strategy and skill.

All-in-all a nice, low-key holiday.

Halloween 2009

2009-11-02T18:53:00.001-06:00

Halloween 2009

Halloween seemed to jump out at us but we did manage to put together a costume for Dada, shown here as a very cute witch.

Julie also put together a witch costume and Dada and Julie did a little trick or treating while I stayed in and handed out candy.

The weather was perfect, clear and just a little bit cool.

We didn't get as many kids as we have in years past, so now we have way too much leftover candy. Oh well.

First Day of School!

2009-08-25T09:41:00.004-05:00

Dada had her first day of school yesterday--she started kindergarten at Dawson Elementary, in Ms. Ramirez's class. Since the school is just a few blocks away, we all walked there together (well, not Humphrey, who isn't allowed inside the building) and had a chance to meet Dada's teacher and see her classroom.

After school, she announced that she'd had a great day and had some lovely artwork to show us. She will probably like it more once she's gotten used to getting up early and knows her fellow students a little better.

Garden Journal: 20 June 2009: Corn is Done

2009-06-20T11:17:00.003-05:00

Corn is done

The corn has provided its harvest and is done. We had planted Silver Queen with an aztec multi-colored corn. The aztec corn appeared to hybridize with the Silver Queen to produce mutant ears with a few very large colored kernels and otherwise stunted Silver Queen kernels. Next year just the aztec corn.

The watermelons and other melons are doing well: we have at least five watermelons and one or two other melons.

The potatoes are ready to harvest: pulled three out of the bin that were right at the surface. Need to go out in the morning so we're not doing it when it's beastly hot.

The peas and soybeans are pretty much done: the peas got outcompeted by the grass and were hampered by bad soil. Not sure about the soybeans--probably planted them too late.

The tomatoes continue to produce pretty heavily. Thinking about setting up some shade to allow them to survive the heat of summer.

The little cherry tomato continues to produce without pause.

We are now into daytime temperatures near or above 100 and probably will have through September.

Not sure what, if anything, we can plant in place of the corn in this heat. Maybe more melons.

Pool time

2009-06-11T18:59:00.001-05:00

Pool time

This is Dada on our first trip of the year to the pool. She is wearing her new nose-covering mask that let's her go under water in comfort.

This looks like the year Dada starts to swim for real.

Gym Show

2009-05-31T06:15:00.001-05:00

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Dada has been doing gymnastics for quite a while now--since she was about 2 years old. For the last year she's been going to Jump Gymnastics, a little studio not too far from our house.

Yesterday was the spring "gym show" where all the kids get to do a quick routine for the assembled parents and they all get a medal at the end.

This is Dada getting her medal after doing her routine.

Then it was back to the house to play Lego Star Wars with dad for way too much of the day.

Garden Journal: 17 May 2009, Peppers and mellons

2009-05-17T16:26:00.001-05:00

Peppers and mellons

The lettuce and spinach finally gave it up, so Julie pulled it up and we replaced it with a variety of peppers. The watermellons Julie planted earlier are starting to come in pretty good, as you can see here.

We're getting a few peas and the tomatoes are heavy with fruit but not yet ripe yet.

Got 1.25" of rain yesterday. Refilled all the rain barrels.

Corn

2009-05-09T19:09:00.002-05:00

We have cute little ears of corn now.

Bat girl

2009-05-06T05:03:00.001-05:00

Bat girl

Dada has learned how to hang upside down on the monkey bars, shown here at the new bars at her school. She is very proud of this skill.

Garden journal: Front yard May 2, 2009

2009-05-06T04:59:00.001-05:00

Front yard May 2, 2009

Peas have started producing a few pods. Beans are plentiful. Corn is getting quite tall and is well tassled. Lettuce and spinach are both bolting but still tasty.

Garden Journal: 25 April 2009: Soybeans and tomatoes

2009-04-25T08:46:00.001-05:00

Soybeans and tomatoes

Tomatoes are setting fruit, soybeans are coming along nicely, watermellon has sprouted, corn is tasselling. Have mulched with leaves--figure weeds from leaves can't be worse than indemic grass.

Lemon tree in self-watering pot is putting out new leaves. Appeared to not like being constantly watered. New strategy is neglect.

Garden Journal: 18 April

2009-04-19T11:25:00.002-05:00

Planted more watermelon seeds: another "Bush Sugar Baby" (Burpee) and a Fordhook Hybrid (also Burpee). We don't have sprouts yet, but should soon after an inch and a half of rain followed by sunny, warm weather. Also set out a gourd plant; we're grateful to Julie's mom for alerting us to the fact that gourd, squash and melon plants can cross-pollinate, resulting in flavorless melons. The gourd is planted well away from the watermelons.

Dada's sunflowers continue to thrive.

Garden Journal: 13 April 2009

2009-04-13T21:27:00.002-05:00

dada-planting-watermellons

Today Julie and Dada planted watermelons in space opened up by ruthless harvesting of lettuce.

On Saturday also moved a tomato from my failed self-watering container (wrong kind of soil, I think) to the tomato bed and replaced the chicken wire enclosures with store-bought tomato cages.

Soybeans are up and growing well.

High winds

2009-04-13T21:21:00.001-05:00

High winds

Dada and I took the first bike ride of the year on Sunday. It was a very pretty day but pretty windy. We stopped at the top of the hill in Town Lake park to have a snack and gaze on downtown.

The wind wasn't really this strong but it was gusting enough to knock the bike over, even after I put the kickstand on the downwind side.

After we left the park to head home we stopped at Sandy's for a couple of ice cream cones. Julie was just done with a meeting she'd been at so she met us there. After our snack we rode home, stopping to chat with our neighbor Sherry, who happened to just pull into her driveway as we were passing her house.

A nice ride, but I am definitely out of shape. Very glad the pollen and weather are now conducive to outdoor exercise.

Growing Up Fast

2009-04-05T21:20:00.002-05:00

Green Playground, 2006

Green Playground, 2009

Dada and I happened to be at the "Green Playground", which is what Dada calls the playground at the Central Market north. I took the second picture, which is essentially the same pose as one I remembered having taken several years earlier. I thought it would be interesting to present the two pictures together.

Garden Journal: 5 April 2009: First sunflower

2009-04-05T21:17:00.001-05:00

First sunflower

Dada's first sunflower burst into bloom a couple of days ago and was able to get this picture on Saturday.

Soybeans have sprouted, as have the squash in the milpa bed.

Mulched around the peas in the pea teepee with leaf-heavy compost from the compost bin. The recent rains have the compost bin working pretty well.

Added a soaker hose to the milpa bed and another to the tomatoes, soybeans, and peas. Total investment about $25.00 for hoses and quick connectors. Also bought another watering can to make hand watering easier, $11.00.

We've decided to leave the potato tower at its current height: we think that will be plenty of potatoes for our needs.

Spring BBQ Trip to Llano

2009-03-31T04:38:00.002-05:00

Bare Naked Family at Cooper's in Llano

We had been talking about going to Llano for BBQ for a couple of weeks but hadn't made any definite plans. Sunday morning Julie said "I want to go get BBQ" so we did. We indicated our intent on Facebook but didn't really expect anyone to join us on such short notice.

Cooper's BBQ in Llano is arguably some of the best BBQ in Texas. It's definitely in the top five along with Kreutz in Lockhart. It's a different style of cooking from Kreutz' no-sauce-just-smoke approach, using a higher-temperature cooking technique and using a vinegary sauce.

The place itself is, like all good BBQ, part of the experience. Llano is about an hour northwest of Austin, a pretty drive through the Hill Country. When the blue bonnets are in bloom it can be spectacular. We were hoping they might be this year, but they were not.

Cooper's is always very popular this time of year and you have to get there relatively early to ensure they have everything you might want, which means leaving Austin around 11:00 to get there around noon or so before the line gets really long. That's a little early for our neighbors the Bare Naked Family, so we didn't really expect them to join us. In fact, their response to our Facebook status was "We are too wiped out to go...but another time maybe!". So off we went.

We got to Cooper's in good time, stood in line planning what varieties of meat we would get, got our food, and ate it with gusto. Dada especially liked the brisket and prime rib. Just as we were finishing our meal we got a call from the Bare Nakeds saying they were just arriving into Llano. They had apparently had a change of heart and hit the road not long after we did. We hung out with them and tried to recover a bit from our own overindulgence.

This was their first time to eat at Cooper's and they really enjoyed it.

After our meat fest we went down to a little park on the Llano river where we enjoyed the river and played on the rocks and generally hung out in the beautiful spring weather. We then decided to go home via a scenic route that would take us by Lake Buchanan, where we stopped for a while to marvel at how low the lake was.

We had pulled into a public boat ramp with a little park with some old-school metal slides (to which Sunny and Dada made a beeline). The lake was about 20 feet below the end of the concrete boat ramp. We wandered around on the exposed lake bed, which is littered with chunks of what I took to be rose quartz and other pretty rocks.

Finally it was time to head back home, which we did, taking more back roads.

A much longer Sunday drive than we had intended but a really nice day, totally blowing off Spring chores to just hang out in the sun and gorge on smoked meat.

Note: Missing from this picture is Sunny, youngest of the Bare Naked's who was off to the side holding Dada when this picture was taken. See our Flickr stream for that picture.

Garden Journal: 29 March 2009: Soybean patch

2009-03-31T04:08:00.001-05:00

Soybean patch

Given the fecundity of the potato tower we decided to pull up the secondary potato patch and plant soybeans instead. Our soybean seeds had been back ordered and finally came.

Dada loves soybeans and so do we so it seemed like something good to plant along with the beans and peas.

We also planted two hills of squash in the milpa in places where the corn either didn't come up or didn't actually get planted.

We've had a good bit of rain and everything is growing quite well.

I started putting cages on the tomatoes--got four out of six done before I ran out of steam. We ended up spending all day Sunday on an outing for BBQ so didn't get a chance to finish that task.

Did mulch the tomatoes with shredded live oak leaves our neighbor Linda had collected for us. Having a hard time finding mulch free mulch material. Tempted to buy a chipper-shredder and put bamboo through it...

Garden Journal: 26 March 2009

2009-03-26T13:57:00.001-05:00

Front yard 26 march 2009

We haven't done much with the garden lately except watch it grow and try to get rid of lettuce.

We've had a good bit of rain the last couple of weeks and everything is growing quite well.

The lettuce has produced much more than we ever expected and we simply can't eat it or give it away fast enough. The spinach is not quite as productive but it's still growing pretty well and provides more than enough for salads certainly. But it's about time to try to cook up a batch.

The peas have sprouted and are starting their climb up the tee-pee. The corn and beans are coming along nicely and I'm falling behind on the potatoes—will need to get out there this weekend and raise it up at least 6 inches. Also need to put up cages for the tomatoes before they start to sprawl.

Dada and Sunny at Maria's Taco Xpress

2009-03-16T08:53:00.001-05:00

Dada and Sunny at Maria's Taco Express

Yesterday Julie, Dada, and I attended our first "Hippie Church" show at Maria's Taco Xpress a South Austin landmark but someplace I'd never eaten and Julie had never listened to music at.

The show this week was by Guy Forsyth, a local musician and close friend of our neighbors the Barenaked Family.

Guy is an amazing musician and songwriter and just a huge amount of fun to see live. For his "gospel" show he augments his regular band (bass and drums) with various horns, woodwinds, and accordions. The place was packed and everyone was having a great time. Since this is South by Southwest week there were all sorts of interesting people there who may or may not have been famous, but certainly lots of dedicated hipsters, in addition to the regular Austin crowd of regular crazies.

This picture is of Dada and Sunny, youngest of the Barenaked clan, hanging out during the show.

Garden Journal: 15 March 2009: Rainy Day Fun

2009-03-15T22:50:00.001-05:00

Milpa stepping stone

It rained approximately 3 inches from Thursday through Saturday by our raingauge.

Filled up all our barrels and then some. Plants all very happy.

Sun came out in the afternoon today and we saw sprouts in the pea mounds at the base of the pea teepee. Three days of rain and we're all like "where is the sun? What did we do?" I know the folks in the Northwest are all "boo freakin' hoo". Of course, it will be back in the 80's by Tuesday.

While it was raining we entertained ourselves making stepping stones from a kit from the hobby store. Pictured is my attempt to honor the milpa. It's kind of fun, although after we bought the second box of cement mix from the hobby store (with a 25% off coupon, at least) we did learn that Quikcrete from Home Depo works just fine for a fraction of the cost. So we'll know for next time.

Julie picked up some interesting bits of broken tail light and road reflector on her walk with Humphrey. Now I'm thinking about other things to use as molds. The next step up would be pulling our own molds and casting into that. When will it end?

Dada and I went on a fruitless quest for pickle buckets (for self-watering containers) Saturday afternoon. Chick-fil-a says they do sometimes have buckets but the recyclers get them at random times. Guess I'll have to try in the mornings or something. Although I'm starting to think it would ultimately be cheaper to just buy the $5.00 buckets at Home Depo. But that just seems wrong.

Garden Journal: Understanding the Dust Bowl

2009-03-09T08:53:00.001-05:00

Grass from front yard

This picture shows two clumps of grass I removed from the yard in order to make holes for soil for the peas for the pea teepee. I have removed the soil, what little there was, but otherwise not done anything too them.

Observe the incredible density of roots--this grass is growing in about two or at most three inches of cedar mulch on top of the caliche that makes up the subsoil in the front yard.

With this view it's easy to see why we have been completely unable to remove this grass from the yard. One also gets an understanding of why removing it turned the prairies of the Midwest to dust.

I don't know what variety of grass this is but I assume that it is some sort of native grass.

Garden Journal: 8 March 2009: Planting peas

2009-03-09T08:46:00.001-05:00

Planting peas

Busy day today.

Julie and Dada planted carrots in amongst the spinach and lettuce.

Julie planted garlic and basil in the tomato bed (basil seeds come from a basil plant off the back porch that had gone to seed).

I built the bean teepee pictured here, although since we only had seeds for bush beans, we are planting peas. I made a doorway on the north side so Dada can go into the teepee. The teepee is made from bamboo and secured with zip ties, which made the whole thing go together pretty quick. The poles are set into holes made with a little augur I picked up when I got the chicken tractors.

I also added another 3-4 inches of soil to the potato tower.