So.

What to write about?

Well, there is plenty to write about. Trying to summarize a year and a half in one blog post is... overwhelming. So I'm not going to try. I'll just get us caught up to the present.

I spent quite a bit of time becoming addicted to Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO), which moved to a "free to play" business model in September 2010. (That might explain the lack of posting.) It's a fun game, but December 2011 saw the arrival of the 800 pound gorilla, also known as Star Wars: The Old Republic. That seems to have tempted away quite a few of the members of our kinship, so I've been playing less LOTRO in the last month or so.

Dawn has been sick. How's that for summarizing 18 months of a person's life? Okay, she wasn't sick the entire time. Still, she's been sick quite a bit. It turns out she's allergic to mold. Which seems to be everywhere. Inside our hourse, for one. And pretty much everywhere outside, for another. She spent much of last winter coming down with a cold which became a sinus infection which became bronchitis which became pneumonia. And she had an enlarged thyroid, which initially they said wasn't a problem, then later said should be removed. Which they did 2 weeks ago. And now she has no energy, because apparently her remaining thyroid didn't get the memo that it was going to need to do double duty.

Orlando is now in first grade. Somehow I managed to go through his entire kindergarten year without posting a single thing. Maybe that also partly explains the lack of posting. I'll try to do better. And there will be pictures. And videos. And amusing anecdotes. And stuff.

P.S. Just before posting this, I discovered that I had a draft post, written on December 31, 2010, still waiting to be finished and published. Well, no way that I'm going to finish it at this point, but I decided to publish it anyway. Oh well.

Home Improvement Repair

Last year it was a new septic system. This year it was a new heat pump to replace our dead/dying air conditioner and furnace.

Back in January, I realized that our furnace just wasn't heating very well. We had someone replace the bit that wasn't working and it worked much better. Crisis averted! Or was it?

Come spring we had someone come out to recharge our air conditioner. A month later, it needed to be recharged again. Obviously it had a leak. Actually, multiple leaks, one of which was in a bit that couldn't really be patched, but would instead need to be replaced, which would be difficult, because they just don't make this style of thingamabob anymore, so even if one could be found it would cost an arm and a leg to fix it, and you're really just better off replacing the whole air conditioner, if you want my opinion. Or something like that.

So we got a heat pump. Which meant replacing the furnace that we had just had repaired a few months earlier. Oh well.

Home Improvement

We've been in this house for 2 years now, and we haven't accomplished nearly as much as I would have expected, but we have done a few things.

• Painted the master bedroom.
• Painted the living room.
• Hung new curtains in the living room.
• Began (but haven't finished) stripping the paint from the garage door.

Yard and Garden Improvement

We've also done some work on the outside.

• Cleaned, sanded, and primed Lando's fort and swing set.
• Added a climbing wall to Lando's fort.
• Expanded the size of the garden by 50%.
• Built a compost bin near the garden.

Travel

OIn June 26 we went to the annual Tebbetts picnic to visit relatives, then the next day went to the City Museum in St. Louis.

Holidays

On October 16 we went to the Jack-o-lantern Spectacular in Washington Park.

On December 11, Lando sang with his kindergarten class in a Christmas concert at Clayville.

On December 17, Lando's kindergarten class had a holiday party.

On December 25, we opened Christmas presents!

On December 31, we celebrated New Year's Eve by staying home.

Parties

On December 4, we went to Sarah and Isabella's birthday party at the Riverside Stables.

On December 12, Orlando had his 6th birthday party at Glow Golf.

On December 18, we went to Kyle's birthday party at the Pizza Machine.

On December 19, we went to Adam's birthday party at Midstate Gymnastics.

I took this photo on the same day as the previous one. It's on the other side of the same bush. Yes, the Japanese beetles are back in the area! Hopefully they won't be overly fruitful and multiply.

Actually, they're very nifty beetles. I had a large insect collection when I was younger, and I really liked these. Of course, I wasn't much concerned with gardening at the time, so my perspective was a little different.

Don't worry; the title of this photo is overly dramatic. It's merely assault and battery, so far.

These very large flowers were planted by the previous owner on either side of the garage door. They're beautiful! And we want to get rid of them! Seriously, the are gorgeous, but the plants are too big for that space, and they droop out over the driveway This will be more of an issue once we finally start parking both cars in the garage.

Our redbud tree is in full bloom. One of many reasons why spring is my favorite season.

My hope was that we could do some yardwork and then spend some time at Lincoln Memorial Gardens. We succeeded in the first, but never got to the second. But that's okay, because we made a new friend!

While I was out in the driveway cleaning all of the trash out of the car (quite an undertaking!), I noticed a woman walking by with a young boy about Lando's age. They paused at the end of our neighbor's driveway, so I called Lando over and pointed them out, asking him whether he wanted to go over and say "hi". Lando always wants to greet anyone who walks by our house. Except for this time. For whatever reason, he suddenly decided that he wasn't interested. Luckily Dawn came out just at that moment, and after she pointed out that the little boy was playing in a puddle, Lando just as quickly decided that saying "hi" was a good idea.

The woman's name is Jessica and her son, Marshall, is 4 years old. He has an older brother, Jack, who is in kindergarten this year. While Lando and Marshall played in the puddle, Dawn and I talked with Jessica about raising kids, the joys of home ownership, and how we came to live in Springfield.

It turns out that Jessica used to live in Colorado, less than 20 miles from Manitou Springs where Dawn lived! And it turns out that her ex-husband grew up in Centralia, the same town where I grew up! Somehow or other, we've all wound up in Springfield, living within walking distance of each other.

Eventually the mini-playdate migrated to the front porch of our house, and we exchanged phone numbers with Jessica. It looks like we managed to actually find Lando a friend he could play with in the neighborhood! For that matter, perhaps a friend for Dawn and I as well.

It's amazing how having a kid can both isolate you from your old friends ("Sorry, too busy, Lando needs to go to bed early") and introduce you to possible new friends at the same time.

Well, Dawn spent time with other adults, playing a game called Apples to Apples. I mainly spent the night downstairs playing pool with Lando.

I've no idea why Lando looks so forlorn here. I doubt it was anything Maddie said!

Notice Lando's shirt? That's right – Super Mario Brothers! Yes, he is a Nintendo child! He wins races in Mario Kart fairly regularly now and has actually made it through the first level (1-1) of Super Mario Bros. Wii. Lando and I spent most of the evening downstairs playing pool. Lando has enhanced the game of pool with his own custom rules, most of them taken from Nintendo games, including obstacles and boss monsters.

Also, notice the cat with the jack-o-lantern body in Lando's hands? That's Pumpkin. Notice the lack of Giraffe in Lando's hands? After 5 years at the top of the totem pole, Giraffe has finally been displaced by Pumpkin as the toy that Lando carries with him everywhere! We're not sure why, but perhaps it's because Lando's hands are now large enough that Giraffe's long-suffering neck was too skinny to be a comfortable fit. Whatever the reason, Pumpkin is now top cat!

Can you say "cute overload"? That's Anna on the left (Ann's daughter) and Maddie on the right (daughter of Donna, who is providing the lap for this meeting of toddler minds).

Aww!

Look! It's Cute Thing 1 and Cute Thing 2!

And that concludes this installment of "Little Kids Being Cute Just by Existing"!

Lando is standing on the fireplace hearth; he's tall, but he's not that tall!

After we took this photo, Lando was sick, so he didn't go to preschool. Then there were 2 days when preschool was closed for a workshop and parent-teacher conferences. So it wasn't until more than a week later that we were finally able to get this photo to his teachers. I haven't seen the result yet.

Speaking of parent-teacher conferences, we met with Lando's teacher, Mrs. House, to find out how Lando is doing. The short version is he's doing great! She did say that he doesn't like to dance, which was no surprise to us. Whenever the kids are asked to perform something like "Itsy Bitsy Spider" or "I'm a Little Teapot" (or whatever it is the kids do these days), he doesn't want to do it. We've noticed the same thing at Funshop, as well as at the preschool holiday shows where the kids put on a performance.

So far, despite his high energy level and friendly nature, he is not interested in being a showman!

Here's Lando demonstrating his artistic talents in the area of painting. (This was actually from 2 weeks ago. I'm a little behind!)

Some of you (perhaps mainly those with a Y chromosome) might be wondering, "What was wrong with the old shoes? They don't look so bad." Others (perhaps mainly those with a matched pair of X chromosomes) might be wondering, "Why did you get a new pair of shoes that are exactly the same as the old pair of shoes?" A few of you are trying to remember what a chromosome is.

If this was a Scratch-n-Sniff photo, I would ask you to scratch the old shoes and take a whiff. (Actually, go ahead; you never know.) Yes, they reeked. Not, I hasten to add, because of my feet! Instead, they were apparently baptized at some point by one of our cats. I've no idea which one or when it happened, but for the last couple of months I had been noticing a slight scent of urine. I mainly noticed it at work. At first I thought it was my clothes. Then I realized that I mainly noticed it when I was sitting at my desk. The reason was that, while sitting down, I'm closer to my shoes!

After I realized what the problem was, we washed my shoes in the clothes washer. That was apparently a mistake, because they smelled much worse after that! I'm guessing that washing them just brought the scent back up to the surface.

So, for those of you wondering the first question, there's your explanation.

As for why I got the exact same type of shoes (New Balance 993's), this is at least the 5th pair that I've owned. Many many years ago, when I first began running, I was introduced to New Balance shoes. At the time, being a basketball player, I wore red Converse All Stars, just like pretty much everyone else. The first pair of New Balance running shoes I put on were a revelation: Shoes didn't have to weigh a ton and have soles with all of the shock absorption abilities of, uh, something that doesn't absorb shocks very well!

I don't recall what model my first New Balance shoes were. I remember they were a royal blue color. Later I began wearing New Balance 990's. Eventually New Balance discontinued the 990's and replaced them with the (nearly identical) 993's.

What can I say? I'm a creature of habit.

Besides, I love my New Balance 993's!

Okay, I'm done. I'm expecting a check from New Balance any day now.

P.S. I did notice one difference between the old 993's and the new ones: The old ones just say "New Balance" on the tongue of the shoe; the new ones also say "Made in USA". I consider that to be a somewhat nice selling point, while at the same time somehow funny. I'm not sure what that says about me.

P.P.S. Incidentally, when you wear size 15A, the Internet is a wonderful way to find shoes that fit!