Another Reason to LOVE Where We Live!

Today, in the mail, we received the 2007 Thanksgiving Point Annual Report.  I was so happy to find out about Thanksgiving Point’s new addition that will open Fall 2010, the Museum of Natural Curiosity!  The three main exibits are the Rainforest Safari, “(children) can travel through the layers of the Rainforest–up to the canopy or down to the roots of a gigantic, three-story Banyan Tree through a network of bridges and platforms.  They can dig in the Excavation Site, climb the Spider Web, crawl through the Ant Hill or sway on the Vine Swing, while discovering the secrets of the jungle along the way.”  the Waterworks Voyage, “Children can experiment with water flow and conservation at the Water Ponds, Pipe Building and Dam Building stations, witness the power of water at the Geyser, Bernoulli Balls, and Laminars and Fountains area.  Visitors can also learn about weather and water cycles at the Fog Bowls and Cloud Formations.” and the Kidopolis Life, “This small, life-like town lets children play “grown-up” and find hidden secrets along the way.  They will sort and count money at the Bank, dress up, and then slide down the fire pole at the Firehouse and Fire Truck, shop at the Hardware Store and get on board at the Train Station.”  There’s also a “Creative Arts Shop featuring an Invisible Harp, Drum Chamber and an Intelligent Guitar” and a Science Playground that will have experiments with simple machines and human perception.

Now, in the two weeks I’ve had the car, I’ve really appreciated Thanksgiving Point for what it already has, but holy cow, this new museum is just going to be awesome!  I’m so excited!  Yay Thanksgiving Point!  We love living ten minutes away from you!

Happy Easter

Easter was super cute for us!  Check out our pictures (Tracy looks SO good!)

Easter

March Madness

Well, since Tiffany has posted TWICE today already, I figured I’d chime in and totally bombard our site with new content.  I’ll be quick, though.  I went ahead and made a group for March Madness brackets over at Yahoo.  I made a silly bracket that I don’t expect to get many points, but figured I’d let anybody else who wants to join in do so.  The nice thing about this kind of “fantasy sport” is that you just have to make your picks once and then not fiddle with it again.

Here’s the link

Group ID: 145822
Password: ncaa

All About Shoes

Have you ever seen that billboard for Fieldstone Builders, I think, that says something like “four daughters, 120 pairs of shoes”?  It utterly depresses me because I think I have about five pairs.  That’s why I went shoe shopping while Brad was away!  We get coupons to Gardner Village every once in awhile and the 40% off one happened to be good for their shoe store, Heels N’Toes, which has some on the cutest shoes I’ve ever seen ever!  So I bought a couple pairs and they have brought me a lot of joy!  I think I’ve been in shoe mode lately because I also saw a pair of baby crocs that I just couldn’t pass up for Kyle!  I really can’t get over how cute they are!…and that’s why I’m posting about shoes.

Edit: As per Tracy’s request, here’s a picture of my new shoes…

Our Garage is Full!

We finally have both of our cars!  Brad made a trip up to Boise on Saturday to meet my dad, who drove from Portland with the car while I had lunch with Trish Leishman, the missionary who taught me the discussions, and went shopping with Kyle.  Brad is loving all the gadgets on the new car and has talked more about how much gas mileage he’s getting according to his fancy display than I ever thought possible!  As much as I would love a gas mileage display, Brad gets to use the new car, a decision we arrived at with no conflict believe it or not!

Home Improvement Project #4

In preparation for our new car that we’re getting NEXT SATURDAY!, we completed home improvement project number #4 which is a new garage door opener!  Now both of our garage doors are set up.  Brad did most of the work but Kyle insisted on helping and went into tantrums if we weren’t outside with daddy!  An extra bonus about our newer model is that we can program both doors onto the garage door openers and the keypad which was a nice surprise.  Check out the pictures from the project and the dinosaur museum on picasa! 

Kyle has also gotten really good at drinking out of normal cups, thankfully he still takes his sippy, but we have a hard time keeping our cups away from him!  I caught it on video!  Check it out!

March 5, Twenty-oh-eight

That’s the date today, right?  What’s that you say?  Most, perhaps all, of you wouldn’t say it like that?  Well, then how would you say it?  Two thousand eight, you say?  That’s weird.  Seems like kind of a mouthful.  Do you always pronounce out the full number representation of years?  How do you say the year 1942? 1706? How about 2345? 

OK, I’ll stop asking you questions and pretending like you’re answering them.  I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, though.  I hate how we’ve all learned to stick “two thousand” at the beginning of years in this century.  I liked the old standard of breaking them up into two distinct parts.  I’m pretty sure that if you’d have asked any random person 15 years ago to pronounce the year 2045, they’d have said “twenty forty-five”.  Today, I’m not so sure. 

I, of course, understand some of the reasons why this has happened.  First of all, there was the year 2000.  While it seems perfectly normal to say “nineteen hundred”, “twenty hundred” just comes out odd for some reason.  So we called it the year two thousand, and got in the habit.  There are also cultural phenomenons at play.  2001: A Space Odyssey is the only one I can think of, but there might be others. 

So, anyway, as I mentioned, I’ve decided that I hate this, and I’m trying to break myself of the habit, and also, I think, I’ll take up the usage of more commas, and run-on sentences.  And I invite you to join with me.  (Not the commas part, the year pronouncing part.)  If you agree at all with the concept that it’s silly to use the mouthful “two thousand” at the beginning of all year references for a CENTURY when a simple “twenty” will suffice, then make this change with me.  It will be a hard road.  People may give you funny looks.  That’s ok.  It’s fun to be different sometimes.  And if things do swing, you can always remember, “I was one of the first”. 

One more thing, a lot of people seem to think that in some year, (2010 is often sited), this transition will naturally occur.  I have strong doubts about this, though.  People are getting so used to saying “two thousand”, that I’m afraid it’s becoming an unbreakable habit.

One more one more thing.  A few people have tried to bring up the fact that “two thousand eight” and “twenty oh eight” both have four syllables.  While this is true, I contend that, first, syllables aren’t everything.  Twenty oh eight is still quicker and easier to say.  Second, this is just a by product of the need to add “oh” before the eight.  The distinction between twenty and two thousand is what is important here.  Using this method now, even if it has the same number of syllables as before will prepare you for the next decade (and beyond) when it will REALLY make a difference.