The DIA continued...

I'm not sure what this is anymore--something Native American that is vaguely Pacific Northwest. But I like the colors, and unlike most of the photos I took in this darkened tomb, you can see the image.
Here's a cheeky African mask, artist unknown.

Simon was wowed by this, an entire motorcycle carved out of wood. But the motor didn't work so what good is that?

Here is Simon in some hall or other in the DIA. After a while, it all became one blur.

Here is the ceiling, same hall.

It's finally finished!

My Xmas present from 2008(?) is finally finished!  And what a Thing of beauty it is:

For-Mar Fauna

After our Easter festivities, we (the whole family, for once!) trotted off to For-Mar. Thomas could only be persuaded to come with the promise of wildlife to photograph. He turned out to be amazingly adept at it, as these snaps demonstrate.
Frog:

Nesting goose:
Fearsome serpent:

And wildest of all...

Thomas forces himself to partake

Once upon a time Thomas would FLY out of bed on Easter Sunday at an ungodly hour and RUN around following the clues. This year (which shall be the LAST year of Thomas egg hunts, this Easter Bunny has decreed) he had to be dragged out of bed and trudged around as if on a forced march. Still, he ate all the (Salzburg-purchased, often alchohol-tinged) chocolate...
(Oh, and midway through, we got a call from his Grandma, who asked what we were up to and I said we were doing Thomas's egg hunt. When I rang off, Thomas asked very anxiously who that was. Apparently he was terrified that it was some friend of his who would discover that he STILL searched for eggs...)

Easter, the start

Easter pictures got taken by two cameras, loaded onto two separate flash drives, uploaded onto two computers...it got complicated. So the photos in this and the next blog entry are not in the right order. It really bothers me. ANYWAY, here is Frederick, about mid-way through his Easter Egg Clue Hunt.

Here he is, at the end, finding his Big Prize in the clothes dryer.
And meanwhile, what is Thomas doing to celebrate Easter?

Don't worry, Thomas had a hunt, too--which he suffered through. I think someone has suddenly gotten a bit too old for this sort of thing...

Easter again and more...

Frederick tolerates being photographed at every turn. I love his eyelashes.

Here he is with his eggs with clues in them. He loved racing through the house, collecting the eggs, reading the clues that led him to the next clue egg.

 Clue #4 in the mailbox. (Note the start of another beautiful sunny day. But this idyllic weather would not last...)

Monday night, about 4 a.m., we were hit with one of those Spring thunder storms that you can't believe can happen until you see (and hear and feel) it for yourself. The thunder and lightening explosions hit about every 4 or 5 minutes, spaced widely just enough to let you slip back into a restful sleep so you would be scared wide awake when the next round struck. Amazingly, Frederick slept through it. The next day, the roads around campus were 6 inches under water; I am still surprised my car didn't stall. Here is the backyard, around 10 in the morning. The rain has let up, but it has not really stopped since and it is expected to continue to rain through tomorrow, too.

Simon's Easter YouTube Pick

I remember being disturbed by this as an impressionable youngster:

Thomas' Philharmonia playing Mama Mia

Someone went to all the trouble of posting a piece from Thomas' latest concert onto YouTube so we didn't have to. Although this mysterious parent obviously was interested primarily in one of the violinists, they did sweep wide to include Thomas playing the xylophone (and later bells) at various moments during the medley. I prefered their version of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony but this was the kids' favorite piece.