Pooks Canyon

Click To Play

Sometimes it is nice to be validated.

Goodbye Sol, hello Gliese 581. Some American, Swiss, and Portuguese scientists have discovered a planet orbiting Gliese 581 that could possibly support human life. "We have estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid," explains Stéphane Udry, from the Geneva Observatory (Switzerland) and lead-author of the paper reporting the result. "Moreover, its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth's radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky - like our Earth - or fully covered with oceans," he adds. More Here

I recently sold some stock and wanted to transfer the funds into a regular savings account at US Bank (which I am VERY happy with) . After searching E-Trade's online options for transferring this money and finding none, I gave them a call. I was transferred to multiple layers of customer service from across the Atlantic and back again until finally reaching this creepy guy who says, "E-trade doesn't want you to have this account, we are closing it." WTF? I say, "who says?" He says "they" just don't like this account and want it closed immediately. I ask to speak with "they" but he tells me I cannot. Whatever, why they would like to lose a good customer? This is crazy.

"Axel, we are your advisors and your servants."

Visit Leah's blog, the Rubber Chickenator .

Axel saw the pediatric lung specialist at Children's Hospital in Denver and thinks that Axel has some residual fluid from a viral infection he had a while back. He did a special foreign body x-ray which came back negative and also showed some improvement in the fluid that was there. He does still have the weird hacking cough and the raspy voice so we have a follow-up scheduled for 6 weeks from now. If he is better by then we can just skip the follow-up and assume he's all healed. Thanks everyone for all your support. Calls from Scott and Aunt Muffie last night really helped.

Leah wrote this in her room tonight on a piece of notebook paper and gave it to me: Sunny, You were born in the 1980's. My mom says you were one of the best things to come out of that time. You were so cute when you were a kitten and you were also very soft (even when you were old) and you were named Sunny because you looked like you were sun kissed. You were the best cat I ever had and will meet. You were so gentle and nice. Sometimes you could be annoying but I still did love you no matter what you did. Now you're passed away on 4/18/07. It was sad yet happy... the sad part was you dying, the happy parts are that you saw your sister again and your suffering stopped. So farewell Sunny, I will miss you.

You were a good little kitty... one of the best things to come out of the 1980's. We'll miss you and never forget you.

Today Axel and I went on a nice walk around a lake in North Boulder with Tammy Ruddick and her son, Sawyer. We had a lot of fun and checked out real estate in the area. Sawyer is 9 months older than Axel but by the time they reach kindergarten, they'll be in the same grade.

This is his follow-up chest x-ray after a course of antibiotics (ignore the yard in the background, I held it up to the window). Where the arrows are pointing is a hazy area of fluid in his lungs. This x-ray looks almost identical to the one take before starting antibiotics which means that the fluid is caused by something other than standard infection (possibly a foreign object he inhaled). His regular doctor is out today but I suspect she'll be referring us to the lung specialists at Children's Hospital in Denver.

He did quite well this weekend, with a top 10 place in the circuit race and 16th in the road race. On Sunday, everyone raced in Santa Cruz where Jon and his breakaway of 4 LAPPED THE FIELD. Yes, lapped the Pro Men's field of over 100 racers! Jon got 4th place. Or as Leah would say, Jon won 4th place.

Here is Leah celebrating her team's victory in their first game of the season with an icy cold one (Sprite). The Cubs are the best little group of baseball players I have ever seen in this age group. Leah got a base hit and was looking good.

Leah announced that this was her "Watermelon". A fabulous piece really. They say it's not art unless you walk away changed. I walked around giggling about this for the rest of the day, so I guess it's art!

The cats are earning their keep.

Click To Play

"I like them better with the skin off but I don't know how to peel a kiwi." -Leah

North Boulder Little League celebrated opening day today and all teams were photographed. I just hovered near the photographer to get this pic. Notice that Leah is in the back, middle. This is where they put the tallest person on the team.

Ok, at the risk of alienating the most loyal fan of Pooks Canyon (hi mom) I had to post this. Full story here .

Leah and I made this cake for the Cake Walk at the Little League Opening Day carnival tomorrow. Remember cake walks? I always loved them when I was a kid... a child that owns an entire cake is a rich child. Leah hopes to garner a cake for herself tomorrow. If she does, should I let her keep it in her room?

Since Jon is away in California (first race just moments away) I know he is missing the kitties.

Just a few pics of Leah at baseball practice. Thanks for your spring training camp Grandma and Grandpa! She's looking good :)

After Leah's baseball pratice we went to eat pub fare at the Hungry Toad. Leah had the Fish 'n chips, I had the Shepherd's Pie, and Axel had mashed avocado and a binky.

This torture device is what they use to xray an infant's chest. They straddle their little legs between those white things. Mom gets to stand behind baby holding his arms in the air. Then they clamp down those clear plastic bits which produces a screaming baby sausage. Xray tech said screaming is desired as the lungs will be more full of air. Did I mention that before all this the ENT doctor stuck a scope down his throat? Axel was very genial about the scope thing and then barely cried hard enough to get a good Xray. I wanted to cry, though. All for naught? I wish. Turns out that he does have some gunk in the lower right lobe of his lung. Antibiotics and repeat chest Xray (ugh) will determine if it is pnemonia (in which case the lung would be cleared up) or a small foreign body. If it is a small foreign body then he will go to a child lung specialist to have it plucked out with a scope.

Here we are at the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor's waiting room. Axel is making a funny noise when he talks and coughs, we think he make have inhaled a small item. Yikes!! He is happy and breathing just fine... just the funny noise. More updates soon on our little Human Hoover.

Axel tried to go to California with Dad, I guess he misses the Grandparents! Jon will be racing this week in the Sea Otter Classic (more spectators go to this bike race than any other in the United States).

I want to build a wall in Leah's room that would separate her room from Axel's. After calling around to flaky contractors I decided to open it up to bids on craigslist . That was this morning. Now Devon, Daniel, Zach, John, and Toby all want to build the wall (from $235 - $450 plus materials). Am I crazy?

Click To Play

Aunt Elisabeth: "Emma, is that just a bowl of whipped cream?" Emma: "Yeah, and candy."

He ate mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and avocado. Then he had some milk and passed out on Aunt Elisabeth's bed.

At Easter supper we had a 2005 muscato/arinto wine from the Adega de Pegoes winery in Portugal. Kathy liked it and so did everyone else :)

This is Taylor, our companion for Easter dinner. She had the giblets.

This morning we had Easter festivities with the family (plus one plumber checking a possible gas leak, but he was from "Brother's Plumbing" so I guess he was like family). Tonight we are going to Aunt Elisabeth's for Easter supper and good times with my little cousins, Emma and Arthur. Leah went on a clue hunt to find their baskets while Axel napped. The moment the baskets were found, he woke up. Must be his kid-sense kicking in. Axel got an orange rubbery toy, Leah got a chocolate bunny and some Easter-y themed pencils, pens, stickers, etc. Leah ate this pancake, even though it looked a little bunny. The duckling was actually part of Leah's basket, but Axel commandeered it. His MO? Once he drools on it, it's his!

Shown here is Leah proudly displaying her marbled Easter Eggs (easiest egg coloring we've ever done). In the background, the icy forest where tomorrow's hunt is scheduled to take place. Maybe we'll hide them under the snow.

Yes, that's right, Dutch. We're moving to Belgium for the winter, or haven't you heard? This is a picture of our rental house in Brugge (it's the one in the middle). Can't wait!!!! See more at Casa Brujas . Sometimes when I'm feeling blue I think about Belgium and Austin Powers. For more about Freaky-deaky Dutch watch Goldmember .

Not in Boulder, Colorado, when there is still a small glacier in my backyard! But try telling that to my husband, who I found this evening in creek with a tire in hand. The whole story is we were moving our set of 4 summer tires off the deck to the shed. I thought it would be fun to roll one right down the walkway, down the stairs and toward the shed. It worked quite well, landing at Jon's feet. Then I went inside briefly. I came back out to find only 3 tires and no Jon! Peering over the 25 foot creek embankment, afraid to see Jon dashed upon the rocks, I instead found him wading in the creek, shaking water out of a tire. Apparently all tires do not roll down the stairs at the same trajectory.

Can you believe when my parents got that cat I was just 1 year older than Leah is now. Looking good for an old kitty.

Jon added another win to his resume this weekend at the Lookout Mountain Hillclimb, beating top climber pros such Jason Donald and Blake Caldwell (Slipstream Pro Cycling Team) as well as Stephano Barberi and Justin England (Toyota United Pro Cycling Team) . England, who was second at the Oak Glen stage of the Redlands Cycling Classic this year, was a formidable opponent to beat. What might be even more impressive, though, is that Jon bested Jason Donald. Jason was second only to Levi Leipheimer at a similar uphill time trial at the Tour of California. When asked if that meant he's faster than Leipheimer, Jon said (after he stopped laughing), "Not by a long shot." He added, "A lot of it had to do with experience; difficult conditions, wind, I know how to dose my effort well." The Lookout Mountain Hillclimb was hosted this year by the Colorado School of Mines (seen in the foreground of the photo above). The road they raced on can be seen crisscrossing the mount...

My dad has always taken pictures of Leah and Deseree (my niece) in his Lawn Chair Swing. We have them dating back to when Leah was about 4 years old. In the old pictures they look so happy and sweet; I guess they're getting to be teenagers.