Running Free

Most girls that are HRH's age are dressing up as some sort of princess for the Halloween.  I actually know this because I got to go to a four year old's birthday party yesterday as a parental chaperone.  As an aside, don't you think that there should be alcohol at a birthday party for anyone of legal age that would like some?  I do too.  Anyway, most young girls want to be a princess on Halloween, but not my daughter, she wants to be one every single day.



Not that she always acts like a princess, far from it really.  Both the kids are good at scaling various bits of playground equipment though.





The biggest adventure that has happened lately though is the big hiking adventure that was undertaken by HRH and the missus.  Below is the photojournal of the event as taken by the ladies.  I would assume that the shots prominently featuring the photographers thumb were taken by HRH, but I'm not entirely sure that is the case with all of them.

Hard Days Work

A quick technical note on some of the photography that is used in the rants on the site.  You may notice that certain pictures of the children are blurry and have ghosting around the image.  Some shots it kind of looks like slow shutter speed, but the one used today was shot in hard, direct sunlight and there is still some blur.  This is because I use the HDR function on my phone because I think the images are slightly better looking as the stock images tend to be a little too contrasty.  The phone actually takes three images and assembles them into a composite to increase the dynamic range of the picture.

All of this leads me to the picture today.  The image has a reported shutter speed of 1/300 of a second.  We now have photographic evidence that Ed cannot sit still for a tiny fraction of a second at the playground, though the dozer he was working with did alright.  However, after pushing the dozer around the wood chip section of the playground for 45 minutes, Ed was rather stationary as the evening wore on.

A Planned Absence and Nightly Rituals

Sometimes I wonder whether certain things can be hereditary, such as dietary habits.  When I was growing up I recall my father eating a bowl of cereal fairly regularly before he went to bed.  This was only odd as the man never ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast in the entire time I've known him; cereal was a bedtime food for him.

HRH is almost exactly the same way, she hardly ever eats cereal for breakfast, but always needs to have some before bed.  Her appetite doesn't seem to be greatly impacted by how much she ate for dinner either.  Tonight, by way of an example, she ate quite a bit for supper, yet still horked down magic starts like they were going out of style.

So, after the weekend lapse in coverage, it seems that we are back on a daily schedule.  That's right, you can now count on in depth coverage of the dietary habits of my kids when I can't come up with anything more interesting to write about.

Now That Was a Speedy Recovery

The life aquatic has continued on around here this week with a day of flat out rain today.  Being the clever person I am, I took off for a bike ride this morning.  All of use need to get out and run around during the day and I don't really mind going out in the rain.



Now a lot of people think that it is cute when siblings get along.  I'm sure that I will hear about how nice they look together and how cute they are, and all kinds of things like that, which is true in this picture.  This picture occurred over 1/200 of a second.  Very shortly after this 1/200 of a second they were fighting over who got to sit in which box with no one really wanting to relinquish control of the box in which they were currently seated.

Shortly after nap time HRH feeling under the weather.  The solution is to pound fluids and relax on the couch which wasn't really that appealing to Ed.  He and I went out to run some errands in town.  I vaguely remember when going out to stop at three stores didn't consume all my energy.  I honestly thought the clock was off when I saw we had only been out for just over two hours.

The weather is supposed to clear up tomorrow and HRH has made an amazing recovery, so things are looking up.

Field Tripping

Today was the makeup data for HRH first field trip with preschool.  Now, I'm not exactly sure what contest I won, but I was chosen to not only attend the festivities, but bring Ed with me.  However, dealing with my kids at the apple orchard really isn't that difficult as it provides everything children need:

1. Dirt
2. Places to Hide From Dad
3. Food Source
4. Rotten Food and/or Poop

As this would be our fourth trip to an orchard this season both kids were stoked to go again, HRH even more so as her co-conspirators would be there as well.  I won't bore anyone with the details, but I will say that there was a wagon ride in which we went through an Okra patch.  I hadn't ever seen an okra plant before and no one else on the wagon seemed to think it was nearly as exciting as I did.

Toward the end of the trip everyone gathered under the towering hay demon to be photographed.  The raven up on the arm appeared to be an actual formerly breathing bird, which I really thought added to the whole appeal.  I think the nature of the hay demon would leave a much longer lasting impression on young children if there was a speaker hidden inside.  As it was the kids weren't really that intimidated.  HRH didn't even stop eating her apple.

Turkeys Inside and Out

Ed learned a new phrase last night to great comic effect.  A few weeks ago the word, "noodle" was just as hilarious to him.  He couldn't eat his dinner from laughing so hard whenever anyone said the word.  Things won't be that funny to him again until college.



As the kids were working on their second or third breakfast this morning, it is hard to keep track, HRH ran into the kitchen yelling, "The turkeys are coming to visit!"  I wandered over to the window to try and figure out exactly what that meant in her world and it was pretty straight forward.  There were two turkeys browsing through the front yard. Of course our crack watchdogs didn't notice the birds for well over twenty minutes, but that is to be expected.



As I'm finishing up chores in the house tonight, I hear HRH milling about in the living room.  I look over to see she had dragged the bear out and was starting to tuck it in to bed on the floor.  She proceded to "read" the book to the pumpkin and bear announcing, "I'm going to sleep here" when she was finished.  I had to talk her in to going upstairs by explaining that Ed was going to get up much earlier than she was in the morning, so she could sleep in if she went to her own room.  I wish that someone would give me that kind of option.

Fall is Settling in Properly

Ed is going to be sadly lacking in pictures again today, though that is largely due to the fact that while HRH and I went out to pick up dinner Ed went for a walk with the missus.  Before I get too far into this post, I would like to mention that I'm writing it from the fire pit, which is pretty awesome.  Like I mention up top, fall is starting in properly right now.  It was chilly last night and we are supposed to be in the 40's and 30's this week at night.  That means we can start looking forward to snow which makes me very happy indeed.

But, as I was saying before I got distracted, HRH and I went to pick up supper tonight and we stopped off at a little roadside trail to kill time while waiting for the pizza.  The leaves have been turning for a couple of weeks now, but the high winds from the last couple of days have knocked a lot onto the ground.  After a couple exciting rounds of Pooh sticks from the bridge we were off to get the pizza.  Unfortunately, the establishment not only sold pizza but also had ice cream which was advertised by a large ice cream cone shaped sign in the parking lot.  If you think that escaped notice, you would be incorrect.



Also not eluding the notice of HRH was the people sitting in front of their fire pit as we were driving home.  The rest of the ride home was constant debate over whether there was going to be a fire tonight.  As soon as I got out of the car the missus asked if we were going to have a fire tonight, which pretty much sealed the deal.  However, everyone else has better things to do, so I'm left keeping an eye on the fire, which is really alright with me.