halloween-y

wow, we had a realllllly busy weekend (starting thursday and going thru today) working on unpacking the last of our boxes and putting up some shelves around the house. the place looks great but we're pretty tired. also, this is the beginning of birthday season around these parts and we celebrated with maria and then tomorrow we'll be celebrating bo's birthday. last night was steve kritzer's and we went to a party up at joe weed's house.

anyway, tonight we had a fun little get together with my parents and r'sparents to show off parker's cute costume that my mom made. she went as ophelia, one of our maine coon kitties. SO cute. (and she even scored us some candy!)

news flash! parker joins 80's band 'flock of seagulls'

more bragging

awesome succotash photos by someone who i assume is a professional photographer. check 'em out!

don't worry faithful readers

i've been busy putting together christmas orders that must be in by halloween at midnight! i'll be back soon.

that's my dad!

lookie here! someone blogged about my dad's old band, succotash! and we were there tonight for the reunion concert. it was fantastic. the picture is circa 1975 - my dad's the one in the middle with the bass. the other members: bruce bowers, steve kritzer, beverly smith, and joe weed. needless to say, they all look a little different now.

and look at this great review!

then, then & now

October 2003- Six months pregnant.


October 2004- Nine months old.


October 2005- Twenty-one months old.

remind me again why we don't eat our young?

okay, back to sicily. we took a daytrip to erice, the only Sicilian town to be inhabited since pre-history. the phoenicians, the carthaginians, the greeks and the romans, the arabs, and the normans have all lived in the cobbled city that sits 800 meters above sea level. there are a couple castles, a bunch of churches and a wall going all the way around the city.

fyi

italy posts will be back tomorrow. i had started a post this afternoon and had gotten about two sentences in, when one of the decorative plates that we hand carried all the way back from fucking sicily jumped off the fucking wall and broke into a million fucking pieces. i was too upset to write anymore and the crash woke parker up from her fucking nap. but i'm not bitter... anyhow, be on the lookout for pics and stories.

*yawn*

wow. parker is going through a really tough stage right now and i'm not sure why. there have been more tantrums, more tears, more whining in the last weeks than in her entire life before. and she's no rookie. she'll lay down on the floor and kick and scream with the best of them. i try to just keep my cool and wait for it to pass. but then, on days like today (when it took me over an hour to put her down for her nap) i feel ready to rip my hair out. thank goodness for naptime when we can both recharge.

*erp*

have you heard of mike and debi pearl? they are to spankers/cry-it-outers what dr. sears is to gentle parenting. in other words NUTS! they wrote the awful book to train up a child. i found the following quote on their website "no greater joy" in the toddler training section.

Q. Please give me a description of the switch or rod of which you so often speak. I wish you could send me one so I could see it.

A. The rod we speak of is a plumbing supply line that can be bought at any hardware store or large department store. It is a slim, flexible, plastic tubing that supplies water to sinks, and toilets. Ask for "¼ inch supply line." They cost less than one dollar. I always give myself one swat before I swat the child to remind myself how much force to exert. It stings the skin without bruising or damaging tissue. It’s a real attention-getter.

thanks debi, i'm sure it is! now, if only someone could tell me how to get parker to stop touching my gun collection. *scratches head thougtfully* huh? you can mike? gee, thanks!

Our first book on child training, To Train Up A Child, contained an illustration of how we trained our children not to touch guns by placing an unloaded and broken gun in the living room where the children could reach it.We carefully watched them. If they touched it, we spanked their hand with a little switch. One to three switchings was sufficient to prevent the little crawlers and toddlers from ever touching a gun.

so, you don't believe in evolution huh?

well friends, you have company! i just stumbled across this hilarious website while reading about the duggar family (the evangelical christians that just had their 16th baby!). i'm quite sure the author of the website is serious when he says things like this:

evolution is not a good theory—it is just a pagan religion masquerading as science.

the so-called "archaic period" artifacts are supposed to be from 10,500 to a couple of thousand years ago. of course, these boneheads [he is referring to evolutionists here]have no way of dating rocks to start with. they will feed us the usual mindless dribble about how they can supposedly date them with so-called carbon 14 dating.

so, how do ya like them apples? and did you know that there is evidence in the bible that suggests that dinosaurs were actually on board noah's ark?!

we're back...again!

whew. this has been one vacation-y summer. poor us, eh? well, kirkwood was beautiful as always (the aspens were changing colors) and the fishing was fantastic. we all caught bunches of fish on the lakes (caples and red lake) but nothing on the rivers. i caught the largest fish, (but unfortunately have no picture) a six pound rainbow trout; r says it was a trophy fish. the weather cooperated the whole time until the last day, when it snowed! crazy.

rico stayed in italy, the bum! 

more vacation.

we decided we needed another vacation so we're off to kirkwood for the weekend to fish! adios amigos!

back in business

well, we've been busy this weekend, being busy. we're really trying to get the house in order for the holidays. we hung our paintings, unpacked the (almost) last boxes, and started to plant our yard (pictures to come!!!). things are feeling downright homey (not to be confused with homie).


we eat. 


we sleep. 


we play in the mud! 

it's official.

parker has entered the "mine" stage. it goes something like this: "minemineminemineminemine." it's persistant and high-pitched. it's hers, all hers! (btw, i'll be back to posting about our trip shortly.)

trouble.

the beaches

ahh, the mediterranean. the water was simply divine everywhere we went. in san vito (where we were most of the time) the beach was white sand and the water was so shallow you could walk out for ages. (the only problem with our beach was the tiny jellyfish that came in after a storm. r was the only one of our little group that got stung thankfully!) in scopello, about 7km up the coast there was the most incredible white marble beach. a whole beach full of the perfect skipping rocks. no joke, the smoothest, flattest stones you've ever seen. when we went to eolian island of salina the beaches were volcanic with perfectly round, multicolored, light rocks. parker made herself at home, especially in san vito. she'd play (and play hard) for three solid hours before eating lunch and napping even harder for three more hours. she was a complete joy to watch splashing in the water and playing in the sand.


coast between san vito and scopello


marble beach at scopello



volcanic rock, salina

big glasses are in style

big glasses and get this...mullets. yes, you read me correctly: mullets. yikes! (<-- a link worth following friends!) you remember, that's the "business in the front, party in the back" hairstyle we are all trying so desperately to forget. anyhow, on with the big glasses pictures...

parker in hats

since i'm still feeling completely discombobulated, writing a linear account of the trip is out of the question. for now, i'll upload some pictures and give short stories in no particular order. fyi, all the hat pictures were taken in amsterdam; it was waaaay warmer in san vito and we never needed to wear jackets, much less winter hats!

amsterdam, part one

we got in to amsterdam about 1pm local time and went back to anita's house (maria's mom) to take a nap and recharge. parker and i slept like logs for about three hours before getting up and going to a nearby park. the park anita took us to has these cool "stork towers" specially designed to attract storks to nest. apparently these birds have gone nearly extinct and the dutch are helping to restore their population.

after strolling in anita's neighborhood, we walked around the red light district (which is everything you've heard it is and more) and went to a nice little indo restaurant on the dam square. considering we'd all gotten about 5 hours sleep total in the past 36 hours we were in good moods and enjoyed the sights immensly. our plane left for rome earlyish the next morning.


no explanation necessary

getting there...

dad, maria, r, parker and i flew klm direct from san francisco to amsterdam. the flight took about 11 hours but went very smoothly. we were a little worried about how parker would do since she'd never flown before but as it turned out, she did great. although it was dark for most of the flight none of us really slept. i think parker only dozed for about an hour and a half. klm provides ever passenger with their own tv and about 100 movies/tv shows. this really helped to pass the time for all of us...thankfully.

*yawn*

tomorrow i will start documenting the trip in words and pictures...i'm still exhausted. here's a pic to hold you until parker's nap tomorrow.