Science Fair

GP had his 5th grade science fair yesterday. His experiment was to see if increased CO2 helped plants grow. He grew radish seeds in both a lasagna pan and a sealed-up glass jar. Each day he exhaled into the jar for 90 seconds to fill it with CO2. After a few days, he had over a hundred 5" tall seedling in the jar, and only a handful of scraggly ones in the lasagna dish.

I took the afternoon off so that I could see his exhibit. My favorite display was one that examined the "5-second rule". If a piece of food is dropped on the floor and you pick it up within five seconds, it's OK/safe to eat it. The girl dropped pieces of bread onto various floors & surfaces around town and then swabbed them and cultured the bacteria. She proved without a doubt, that the 5-second is a myth. The most frightening surfaces were a computer keyboard and the TV remote. If you drop food on you keyboard, don't eat it.

New Lights

 

Last weekend we finally broke down and replaced the nasty old lights we had on the front of the garage. Menard's helped us out, as usual.

Pizza Night

JP keeps a container of bread dough in the fridge so that fresh bread is only an hour away at any time. Our latest weekly trend is to have pizza on Friday nights. JP makes the crusts, and everyone gets their own custom pizza.

NU B-Ball

GP & I were exploring the UNL campus after his "Saturday Science" event at the new physics building. As we were leaving the bookstore, the girl at the couter asked if we would like some free tickets to that afternoon's mens basketball game. Of course we would like them! One of the highlights of the game was a pack of stunt dogs (all rescued) from KC that performed tricks during halftime.

Snow Geese

This winter has been exceptionally mild. The snow geese are migrating north already and passing over daily. When I took this picture, there was a continuous stream of geese from horizon to horizon, and they kept it up for most of the morning.

Huskercats

There's a program at UNL for managing feral cats called Huskercats. The cats are fixed, vaccinated, and released on campus. It's fun to catch them napping in the sun.

Record Snow

It's only snowed three times this winter. We went six weeks without any, and then made up for it all in one day. IT started raining Friday nite and turned to snow in the morning. It snowed and snowed and snowed all day until we had 14" of it. It was wet and stuck to everything and stayed stuck for two full weeks. Fortunately, it was on a Saturday and no one needed to go anywhere. We cleared off the driveway and then the sun came out WITH NO WIND!

AV Storage

Valentine's favorite place is on top of the wii. It's nice and warm, protected, and she believes we will sit and watch her for hours on end (as we watch the TV immediately above her).

We finished the Danish AV storage cabinet in a nice chocolate brown. As soon as we put it in the basement, CP filled it up with all his games. It's so nice to not have a pile of games on the floor.

Swordfighting

The Nebraska SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) had a training event in town, so I took the boys for the afternoon. There were about a hundred combatants all wailing on each other with homebrew weapons of every shape & size. When we got home, I didn't hear one word about machine guns and grenades - it was all about swords, lances, and shields.

Jalapenos

I got tired of paying $3.00 for a little jar of jalapenos, so when I saw this @ Sam's Club, I nearly wet my pants! Five pounds of spicy goodness for $4.80!!

Rocksmith!

Where did February go?!? Life has been crazy busy lately and I haven't put up a post in 6 weeks. Time to catch up!

For Christmas, we received Rocksmith. It's a video game similar to Guitar Hero, except that instead of using a little plastic guitar, you plug in a real guitar. It's truly incredible. I only get to play it a couple hours each week, but even with that small amount of time, my guitar skills have increased by an order of magnitude.

I'm hoping that the boys will get interested in learning to play. It's never been easier.

Fall projects in January

We've had record high temps for the last month. It's been above freezing every day for the last month. We're running 40 degrees warmer than January 2010. It's too hard to sit inside on days like these; the to-do list becons...

We've been looking for a Danish-design media storage cabinet to go under the big screen in the basement. All that JP has found are several thousand dollars. Ikea has exactly what we're looking for for $400, which is great, but it ships in 14 boxes and will cost an additional $350 to ship. That won't do. The nearest Ikea is up in the twin cities, seven hours away.



We hit The Home Depot last nite and purchased a sheet of 3/4" plywood (the nice sanded birch stuff), two 1/4-sheet pieces of 1/4" pretty plywood, and two 1/4-sheet pieces of 1/8" hardboard. I spent all day in the garage (with the door open!!) and cut, routed, trimmed, drilled, sawed, glued, etc. all day. We now have our Danish-design media cabinet. When the weather warms up enough to paint, we'll finish it up. Until then, we now have a place to stash all the xbox games in the basement.

Christmas 2011

We had the full crew here for Christmas this year, as well as an absolutely gorgeous day outside. Two years ago, we had a blizzard; today it was sunny and 50 degrees. My Hawaiian Tropic was calling out for me...

Christmas Tree

Yesterday was the ultimate Christmas Tree setup day. It snowed all day, and it was Saturday. CP really helped out this year and put 90% of the ornaments on the tree. GP decorated the kids' tree in the kitchen.

As usual, the dog slept, and the cat helped.

Snow!

I know I'll be cursing the stuff within a month, but the first snowfall of the year is always exciting. It snowed all day on and off. Big flakes, small flakes, wet flakes, and slushy flakes. We ended up getting about four inches. It's supposed to remain below freezing for the next week, so it will be sticking around for a while.

The dog likes to run around in it, but the cat prefers to stay inside. She had fun watching the giant flakes swirl around on the deck.

Thanksgiving

On the way back to IL, JP texted her bff, MN, that we were just passing thru Des Moines. MN texted back that she was an hour east of us, heading west. Half an hour later, we stopped for gas in Colfax, and 2 minutes after that, the N's pulled in, too! We couldn't have planned it any better.

Our first nite at Nana's house, we ordered "the Titanic" pizza. The pizza shop's sizes are 14", 16", and then 24". We knew a 16" would cut it for the five of us, so we figured we'd try the 24". GP's eyes popped out when he saw the box. Never in his life had he seen such a pizza.

For Black Friday, we hit the shops of Galena and had a nice lunch at one of the pubs. GP got a Brown Cow, and CP got a Black Cow.

CP's Birthday

CP had all his buddies over for his B-Day party.

Packer's Game

I was able to make it to the Packers vs. Vikings game this year. What a blast! It doesn't get any better than tailgating at Lambeau.

CP's Friend

CP finally got to meet Justin Beeber at the mall. He was so excited!

Fall Color

This year we actually had some fall color on our tiny trees. The maples turned bright orange instead of the dull brown that everything else fades to. We had to run the mower to pick up the leaves! It's starting to look like a real yard, finally.