The great suburban adventure

We had a very rare Saturday where there was literally nothing on the calendar. We wanted to do something as a family so Missi and I devised "The Great Suburban Adventure."

Basically the kids were given a list of clues or challenges that led them to locations throughout town. An example of a clue might be "Go to the biblioteca." this allowed us to visit our town's beautiful new library, but also required them to go on the Internet to learn what "biblioteca" meant.

Another clue was "Go to [underground transportation system] and get 2-13-20.". This clue led the kids to one of their favorite restaurants, Subway (i.e., an "underground transportation system") where they ordered a BMT sandwich (the letters BMT can be represented as 2-13-20 by assigning a number to each letter in the alphabet). It was a great day!

Gotta love free speech

Saw this editorial comment on a sign at my local grocery store. If you can't tell what it is, it is a recruitment poster for the National Guard, and someone has taken a pen to add "Fight for Oil!!"

This is a both sad and a little funny

For the second time in about 6 months, the fifth member of our family, Zeke, has had to wear a device we affectionately call the "Cone of Shame." In both instances he has had some medical issue and the vet has required him to wear it to prevent him from licking or biting the affected area.

Poor Zeke looks absolutely defeated when he roams around the house, bumping into walls and furniture with the cone. He gets these really sad, depressed eyes and just skulks around the house like an emo teenager who just listened to Elliot Smith's entire catalogue.

This morning I snapped this pic of Zeke trying to eat with his cone on. Poor guy.

Changing things up a bit...

I'm going to try to fire the blogging machine back up. In the midst of a busy life prioritization is required, and blogging unfortunately (or fortunately?) falls far down the priority list for me. But recent developments have encouraged me to start blogging again.

First, I have been struck with how quickly our kids are growing up. I mean, I'm GOING TO HAVE A TEENAGER ON MY HANDS SOON. And one of the main benefits of blogging is that it provides a snapshot of a particular point in time. I like blogging for its ability to capture thoughts, photos, and memories relating to my rapidly-growing-up kids.

Second, Blogger has finally come out with an iOS app that allows me to post from my iPhone. For so long Blogger lacked a mobile app, and thus I couldn't blog unless I was sitting in front of a computer. In fact, I even thought about switching my blog to Wordpress because it had a mobile app.  But I'm loyal to Blogger - I have almost 500 posts on this blog - and they finally rewarded my loyalty by developing an app. I'm actually typing this post while riding my bus into work.

Because most of my posts will now be generated using the mobile app, expect shorter posts with less text and more photos. In a way, I expect this blog to resemble more of a tumblr site than a blog with 2,000-word posts describing my feelings on the fiscal cliff.

As always, you can take a peak into what's going on in our lives by following me on twitter or finding me or my better half on Facebook.

When did she get so grown up?

This was taken at our annual Daddy Date to Garden D'Lights at Bellevue Botanical Gardens. I love this girl!

P.S. Here is the post from our visit to Garden D'Lights from last year.