Randomness...

Greetings and salutations! 

I was going through cameras this morning in an effort to get the memory cards of the boys' cameras cleaned off so they can take them up to Crystal Lake next week with Aunt Molly as they visit Grandma & Grandpa's house.

As usual, I found pictures that I did not know existed.  The reason for that is generally because Caleb will sporadically run around the house with a camera, his own or anybody else's, and "sneak photograph" people.  

So that was some of the pictures.  There were a few photos that mom took this week of the boys prior to going to school because Robby had pajama day.  Some Caleb selfies (of course) and one of Caleb in HIS new chair with a snuggling beast near by.

I really have nothing much to say and I'm procrastinating on writing the last vacation post which is Harpers Ferry Part II.  I have about 15 weeks before we leave on vacation for this year, so what's the rush?  Right?

 

This was Robby on pajama day.  That is an old shirt of mom's, hence the flowers, that he wears to bed sometimes.  He wanted to look crazy so he wore the flower shirt with the plaid pants a'la something his Daddy may (or may not) have done back in the day.  As it turns out, the neck is a little stretched out on it so he wore his jacket at school most of the day.  Can't have that little girl who wants to hold his hand seeing his chest, ya know?!

This is little Calebber McCheese on that same day.  Not sure what his day was as they were celebrating two weeks of Dr. Seuss related schmutz so he was to wear specific things on certain days.  This may have been Daisy Head Maizy day. What does this outfit have to do with her?  Not sure... could be that the clovers represent flowers or that little Maizy really liked Rock n' Roll music and loud guitars...  I think that was in the sequel.

This is RongBo this morning playing with his loom.  He's been going for over an hour now, singing most of the time.  Delightful.

As if I need to label it...  a Calebber selfie.

Caleb in his new chair with a snuggling beast nearby.  I predict that he grows up to be a vet...  I'm just putting that out there.

And another photo that I had not seen from Robby's camera.  This was taken back about Christmas time and I liked it, so here it is.

That's about all for now.  Have a fine weekend and don't do anything that I wouldn't do.

Vacation - Post #13, Harpers Ferry Pt.1

I'll have to break this one into two parts because I was so enamored with the place (Harpers Ferry, that is), and quite frankly, still am.  It may have had to do with the fact that it was about as perfect as a weather day as you could ask for, we're in the mountains/valley with friends, learning about a fascinating part of our Nations history, but it was also a little bitter sweet in that as soon as we get back in the car, we're heading for Iowa.

Wrap all of that into one bundle of emotions and it was a powerful day.

This is part of the railroad that John Brown and his very small army of rebels had intercepted and, according to the history of the events, he probably errored in letting the train/engineer carry on only to inform others down the line that an insurrection was taking place in Harpers Ferry.  Me?  I found the construction of a raised railroad absolutely fascinating, if not beautiful, and contemplated how it would withstand passing trains at various speeds, with different winds and so on, without collapsing.  I'm still intrigued.

Again with the raised rail.

This, the photo below and the two of the train tracks above are all simply from the parking lot where the bus that takes you down into the valley drops you off.  We had not even made it into Harpers Ferry proper yet and I'm amazed by the beauty of it all.

This is looking towards the downtown area where the "John Brown action" took place so many years before.  The church up on the bluff is the St. Peters Catholic Church.

Shot of the downtown area.  Need to tie up your horse?  No problem!

Need to get up to your third story apartment after a night on the town?  A little problem!!

More downtown.

And still more.  They building at the end of the block is the hotel where shots were fired by the locals who were waging their own battle against John Brown and associates who they did not like raiding of their town.

The four cutest varmints in the city that day!!  Possibly ever!

Sadly, too much time has passed for me to remember what this particular site of ruins is/was.  I tried zooming in on the sign posted there but it pixelated before I could read it...

This is the engine house that is commonly known as John Browns Fort.  Probably not a great place to hide but it was probably not a wonderfly thought out mission to begin with. 

This is looking straight up Potomac St. from John Browns Fort.  There was some death that took place at this intersection.  Just behind that telephone pole in the left of the photo, you can see a concrete marker for something... what was it?  I think it marks the site of the actual armory that was raided but I'm not sure.  I've searched for maps and documentation of the crazy thing and I cannot find it. I'm a little stunned at how well Gettysburg and all of the monuments there are documented but that Harpers Ferry does not seem to get the same treatment.  Would Gettysburg have happened the way it did, if not for the raid on Harpers Ferry?  It's some good reading if you care to start digging!

More "downtown", this as we're heading up High St.

One way to get to St. Peters should your legs be feeling strong!

So that's part one of our photos of a fantastic day.  

At this point in our trip, we were just about ready to enjoy lunch at a fine little restuarant.  I do recall that some find food was had and I had a wonderful barley wine to go with my meal!  Should have taken a picture of the bottle as I cannot recall the brewery that produced my tipple of the day.

A Little School Humor

We, as any parents of youngin's will tell you, get PILES of papers home from school nearly every day and surely every week. 

Most of the time you flip thru them, pick out a thing or two that you know you need to work on and then move on with a whole lot of recycling.

This week though, we got not one, but two jems out of Robby's papers.  

 

On the "Anger Meter", the kids were supposed to read thru the list of things and rate how much they bother them.  In the spot for "Other:" at the bottom, was jem #1.  Robby wrote, "My brother messed up my Wii football game and benched Kyle Orton" and proceeded to grade that incident as a 5, for "it made him furious".  Funny?  I certainly think so.  Also somewhat telling is that he graded getting teased for a haircut at a 1.  Seems fitting since he has long hair and gets called a girl quite often.

Then for his math papers.  Robby has a girl that he is EXTREMELY competitive with.  They race thru stuff to try to be the first one done.  They're both smart and usually don't miss more than 1 on anything, if they miss any at all.  However, sometimes due to the racing, you get stuff like the paper above.  Rob missed the three easiest on the paper, I presume due to racing his nemesis, and the teacher wrote, "Skipping the easy ones?".  Golden!!

Now, get back to your day!

Happy Birthday Robby!

It's birthday time at the Schmitz House! 

Robert James Schmitz is, unbelievably, turning 9 years old!!  Daddy and Robby had a slumber party in the basement last night, woke up with some bacon, eggs and coffee and then opened his cards and gifts.

Pretty low key which is likely not what he truly wanted, but sometimes that's just the way it goes.

Here's the lads after Robby opened Caleb's gift.  Calebber wanted to buy his bro some new football gloves and that's exactly what he did.  Robby was quite happy.

This was a gift from mom & dad.  The boys hair is long and so, falls in his eyes when trying to catch balls.  He had been wearing a buff so much that it was causing some irritation behind the ears.  We got him a skull cap that breaths a little more.

And one of those shirts that has a special name that I don't know.  It's a soft material, which Rob is somewhat fanatical for, and he's currently wearing it underneath his Aaron Rodgers jersey.

And from our friends in Washington, D.C., the Gonsalves, he got the "Oh Yuck" encyclopedia.  The subtitle "The Encyclopedia Of Everything Nasty" should give you some idea.  After just briefly thumbing thru it, it looks very science-y and I think will be something that he's telling mom and dad about for a long time.

Robby picked Red Lobster for his birthday dinner so Aunt Molly went along with us and he got her presents then.  Two books, one of which is somewhat similar to the above, titled, "The Klutz Book Of Brilliantly Ridiculous Inventions".  He and his brother were getting some good giggles out of it last night.

What's next?

Caleb has a birthday party from his class today at noon and I think Robby and daddy might use that time to start watching the Star Wars dual Trilogy's together.   I think I was 8 when I saw the first Star Wars movie so his indoctrination into the series is about right on time.

Chef Jeff & Chef Chef

So what do we do on Sunday afternoon's since the football season has ended.  We mope, that's what.

No just kidding.  There are plenty of things to do.

Today though, Momma had a good idea to have the boys make some banana bread from the 'nanna's that went a little past due.

They had a mostly good time doing it and seemed to work well together.  It was a hoot listening to them from the other room as I lay in bed not feeling well.

The bread was great and is just about gone already.  We'll have to have them do it again soon.

He kind of looks like a rebel chef on the t.v. show Top Chef what with the hair and bracelets.

A smiling Rongbo brings over some carefully measured flour.

And just as important as it is to measure, it's just as important on how you put it in the mix.

China boy takes his turn at the bowl to stir.

And so it was.  Oh...  about the title.  When Robby and Daddy started cooking together, Mr. "Role player" Robby, had to name us and he chose Chef Jeff and Chef Chef as our titles.  I should change the title of the post to reflect what Caleb's cooking name is, which is Chef Seth, but I'm feeling lazy...

Vacation - Post #12, A Few Photos From Delaware

There won't be much to this post as we didn't take many pictures.  Truly, we saw a lot of the same kind of country sites that you would see driving thru smaller towns in the Midwest, so reminders to take photos didn't present themselves too often.

We even got stuck in bad traffic due to road construction which made us feel right at home, but we didn't take any photos of that either.  Or any video, thank goodness, of Dear ol' Dad losing his cool!

This is on the Chesapeake Bay bridge which crosses some bay... I can't recall the name of it.  Possibly the Bay Of Fundy...  No telling. :-)

Again, on the bridge over Chesapeake Bay. This bridge is, by guess, about 3 miles long with a roughly 45 degree curve in at one point.

This was after we had done a whole bunch of driving, got caught in construction traffic, bought a pile of beers and probably some other stuff that I've forgotten now.  This is in the parking lot just East of the Chesapeake Bay and you can kind of make out a Marina a little to the left of Momma and the boys in the photo.  This was in the parking lot of the Fishermans Inn restaurant where we consumed a fine lunch.

Some of the gulls (a.k.a. "devil birds") that like to hang around hoping someone tosses them some of the duck food.

Robby and Momma with the bag full of duck food.  You see, here was yet another example of East coast folks who treated us in outstanding ways.  I stayed behind to pay and tip the waitress and quite possibly, to use the facilities before getting back into the car.  Momma, Robby and Calebber walked over to look at the water inlet and the ducks.  A local grandma drove up and saw a mom with two boys and asked if they would like to feed the ducks.  She ended up giving us a plastic grocery bag quite well stocked with food to feed to the ducks on the scene.  Good fun. Good lady.

This is driving back West across the Chesapeake Bay and that beachy/woodsy area that you can see is Sandy Point State Park.  What we did not know, and it was probably better that we didn't, is that quite often in the afternoons, this bridge gets closed due to winds.  If that were the case, instead of crossing this bridge, we would have had to drive North, pretty much to New Jersey and then back South to go up and around the Bay to get back to Gaithersburg, MD.  That would been less than desirable, to say the least, although I'm sure we would have saw some delightful stuff that we did indeed miss.

And that's about all I have to offer of this day.  

Only one more vacation post to go, and it may have been my favorite place of all that we visited, Harpers Ferry. 

Vacation - Post #11, The Washington Zoo

Zoo day on vacation. Otherwise known as taking the monkey's to see the monkey's.

Just kidding, but it's sort of true.  Truly, we like zoos.  We've been to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha probably a half dozen times or more and I will gladly go again next year.  We've taken the boys to the zoo in Guangzhou, China (as nearly all of the families went), the New Zoo up in Green Bay, our own Blank Park Zoo here in Des Moines and probably a few others that I'm forgetting.  Mom and Dad have also been to the Tulsa and Dallas zoos and again, probably more that I'm forgetting.

So we found ourselves at the Smithsonian National Zoo with our friend and tour guide, Marylynn, Liena, Ethan and on this day, their Grandma & Grandpa whom we had also met while in China.  I was excited to see them as they are fantastic people and we enjoyed their company the first time we met and every time since.  This visit was no different.

I was/am somewhat surprised about the location of this zoo.  It is located, roughly speaking of course, about 3 miles due North of the National Mall.  If you were not paying particularly close attention driving down Connecticut Ave, it would be entirely conceivable to drive right on past the entrance.

But alas, we had our trusty tour guide in the vehicle with us so there were no incidents to speak of.

This was orangutang highway.  I was somewhat amazed by it much like I was amazed at some of the wiring on the outsides of buildings in China, albeit, for differing reasons.  This was to keep the orangutangs in and crazy people out.  Looks like it should be discouraging enough for either of those two parties to help them tow the proverbial line during weaker moments.

Robby rocking some shades while showing off the guns.

Liena and Caleb enjoying a short break from the action with some drinks.

Caleb captured during an inquisitive moment!

That's Marylynn up front facing the kids.  She had a teaching moment and obviously was doing well by the crowd she's attracting.  What is she teaching about?  Well, if you look closely to her right, there's what appears to be a large acrylic tube with stones in it.  Only those aren't stones.  They're elephant poops.

Caleb, Robby and Liena on a bird who looks worried enough.  Ethan was taken by Grandpa to attend some important bidness, which is why he is missing from this photo.

This was one of my favorite animals.  It's a maned wolf and while it looks a little more "fox'ish" than say a wolf might, it drew quite the crowd. This was the best picture I got of the thing but there's a better picture here, with cubs.

Robby trying to figure out what it would be like to be eaten by a T-Rex.  I gave him my typical answer for when he's curious about how bad it would hurt, which is, "It'd hurt real bad, but only for a second!"

Towards the end of our day, the kids and Marylynn rode the carousel.  I can only watch for a short time before the rotation of it starts making me ill.  Age, I tells ya. AGE!!

Hippie boy enjoying the same.

Look at little Ethan there!  Grandpa took a break in E's stroller prior to us stopping for Grandpa to buy ice cream for all of the kids.

So that about wraps up that day.  A great day was had and it kind of sucked to say goodbye to G'ma & G'pa after only several hours.

Until next time!