Pooks Canyon

Packing up for (and pondering) the big jump is consuming a lot of time! Luckily my Mom is coming at the end to shower us with loves and hugs while I finish up. Not a lot of time for photographing da childrens and blogging them. Ever check your own blog to read what's new and realize that you have to actually post something new in order for that to work? Probably not, I'm likely the only blogger in the blog-o-sphere that has done that. Leah, Dara, and I went to see The Rock in the new movie "Game Plan." Objective criteria might mark this movie firmly in the pretty lame category. We loved it and laughed at a bunch of things including a beefy football player moved to tears by The Rock's performance in his 8-year-old's ballet recital. A kindergartener exiting the theater was overheard saying, "That was the best movie ever!" Laura (Dara's mom and lovely person) came to get the girls and currently has them off swimming and eating ice creams. Axe

Here are 4 blogs I found that are written by female expats in Belgium. Soon Pooks will be a fifth. V-Grrrl Wingfields in Brussels The Belgian Years This in my REALITY

These guys were a well-oiled playing team at the park. Axel is at the age now where he really wants to do more than his little body will allow. Step in Leah with her playful attitude and capable big-sister skills! They're the cutest kids in the park... just ask me.

We hope you're having fun in Las Vegas and wish you a sensational 'cross Vegas!!!!!

Axel and I stopped for a Cheese and Fruit lunch at the In House coffee shop at Flatirons Crossing. After lunch Axel stood in front of the Regis Salon until every female employee in the shop had gathered to smile at him.

Jon has won this race all 4 times they've put it on.

Click To Play A little video of the happenings in Parker, CO yesterday. By the way, all people with MacBooks become amateur filmmakers.

We're on the dance floor at the Boulder Theater, the lights are low, the DJ is pumping, people are sipping fruity drinks from cute little straws. Did I mention this was "Baby Loves Disco?" Yes, the people on the dance floor are children, mostly 3 and under. There are hula hoops, bubbles, and little shakers (that Axel loved). The bar is stocked up with goldfish crackers, fruit, and juice boxes. This is quite possibly one of the cutest little things I've ever seen. Axel and his hula hoop rock out to "Thriller." He loved the shakers.

Jon's leave of absence from BEA started today. When I congratulated him and asked him how it felt to be unemployed he said, "I don't know but BEA stock went up a dollar today." Ha! Turns out a corporate raider bought 300 million dollars worth of BEA today. The timing is humorous. Jon left his cube completely intact so his place there in February should be pretty secure.

Here is Axel in the courtyard at Jon's office; I brought sandwiches.

Red Delicious (see post below) is fun and we took funky pictures with the built-in cam and "Photo Booth" software .

Last week my IBM Thinkpad did the big crashola (I was expecting it to happen eventually and was reasonably well backed-up). Since I work on Windows apps all day long (Crystal Reports, MS SQL Server, Ambulance Software) I was hesitant to buy a MacBook; but they are just so darn cool... so that is exactly what I did! It turns out Windows emulators work very well and I am running a virtual Windows machine that all my work stuff hums on. At the Boulder Bookstore the guy next to me said, "If my computer looked like that, I wouldn't mind working so much." I call her Red Delicious. Yum.

Leah really likes her new school and they like her, too!

Axel always gets his bath in the sink. Nowadays I fill it about 1/4 full and then he displaces it to nearly overflowing. He is trying to climb out of the sink now so I think it may be time for the big boy bath.

Leah: "Oh no, my hand is slipping down Africa!"

Here are the girls at Borders, drinking samples of the strawberry smoothies with whipped cream. Yum. For more about how Leah met Dara, see 29th St Synergy.

I am just on page 20 but this appears to be the travel book I've been looking for on Belgium. I have always been a big fan of travel writing (as opposed to travel guides) like "A Year in Provence" and "Almost French" but it was hard to find one on Belgium. There is another Belgium travel book called the Great Sorrow of Belgium or something like that but it is about war. Tall Man is about a couple traveling through Belgium for fun. Here is an excerpt in which the hotelier (M. Bonfond) at Botte de Hainaut (in Wallonia) suggests a place to eat lunch: "I would like to make the following proposal for your consideration: we have this place" - he indicated to a point on the map he had begun unfolding and then refolding into a neat and relevant square a few minutes before - "a restaurant of great charm and good quality, yet with reasonable prices. The walk to this restaurant is through woodlands and small valleys of simple attractiveness and"

Here is my toe at the doctor's office waiting to be lidocained and sutured. Yay. I was kicking an ottoman out of the way last night but I accidentally kicked the sharp wooden leg instead of the soft part. Apparently in the Wood vs Toe battle, toe loses.

We all headed down to the lake this evening to walk off some Mexican food. In the playground, Leah found another girl to play with on the tire swing while we tried using an assortment of playground equipment to distract Axel from eating gravel. Axel rides the springy little horsey. Leah (no, that is not an unusually large bat) dangles from a tree. Axel finds a piece of gravel in the tube to eat. Yum. I theorized the beans and rice were not digesting well and he was trying to get rocks into his gullet to speed the process along. We reminded him he was not a turkey, he has no gullet, and rocks will only give him a tummy ache. Doubt he understood.