The Tale of Princess Ariana.

Julia told me this story during today. I wrote down what she said immediately after while she was eating. The wording is almost all hers.

"Once a upon a time, there was a princess named Ariana. She lived in a VERY village. She had to clean her room. It was too much work, so she left the planet. She went to a being planet like earth. She went to build an Ark, but it was too much work. She asked he father for help. He did very hard work on it. There was a bad storm and they lived in the Ark with her family and the animals. The planet was called Jupiter. Then, she went on a bumpy ride to a farm and picked a pumpkin.

The End.

Just a couple of editorial notes: I did ask her to clean her room today and it was "too much work". Also, we read Noah's Ark last night. I'm sure you can place the pumpkin reference. 

Halloween Week!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

We celebrated for days!

As I walked through crowds of costumed children at the Elementary School Friday morning, it occurred to me what I love about Halloween.

 It was the chance to pretend. The children were contagious with happiness, imagination, and excitement to get be whatever they wanted to be for a day. Little girls got to wear wings, wigs, princess dresses, and lipstick. Little boys got to be tough superheroes, or monsters. They were thrilled to be something or someone else! 

Here are some of the highlights of our week of fun!

• Julia wore a costume everyday-- all day! At preschool she was the Little Mermaid. My favorite part of the Halloween program was when her wig came off during the singing. 
• Julia was "Pinkalicious" Halloween. She told dad that she got to wear "jewelry, lipstick, and curls". I was so glad she chose this costume because the Ariel wig was a pain! 
• Sam and Rebekkah made their own bows and arrows with Gus's help. As you can see, we had a real Medieval theme going. Sam looked very brave and convincing. Rebekkah actually learned achery in P.E., and it is her favorite sport  now.
• Timmy was Percy Jackson at Scouts in addition to being a Vampire on Halloween. Although not pictured, Gus made him an orange "Camp Half-blood" shirt for the Scout party. We enjoy these books and recommend them to you. Surprisingly, lots of people recognized his character!
• Katherine went to the same party 3 times on Halloween night (as she is learning to find directions). She actually made it after coming home finally and seeing a real map. She won second place in the costume contest (thanks to Aunt Jen). She was gorgeous. We were afraid to let her leave the house alone.
• Rebekkah had planned for months to be Susan from Narnia and fit the part. She can now use the curling iron like a Veteran. 
• I was a pumpkin! I got to read Halloween stories to Timmy's class for their party! I read "FrankenFrog" and a story about an Alien who came to visit on Halloween. I read to 5 groups and was pretty hoarse by the end. I sure love to read to the kids though. 
• Gus (not pictured) wore an orange shirt that said "This is my costume!" Where was the camera?
• Sam mummified Julia at his class party. He was great with her.
• We had a wonderful time with the Abbotts while our kids went around the neigborhood on Halloween Eve. We had hot cider, cards, salsa and chips, and watched "Hook" when the kids came home. It was a treat for us! 
• An important "Thank You" note.  Halloween costumes were made possible by the dilligent duo, Aunt Jen and Grandma Lynda, who scoured the thrift stores and their costume closets for these fabulous costumes. Every year the seem to find exactly what the kids have be wanting to be! My contibutions were Tim's black pants, Julia's pink and green undershirts and the wig. Oh yeah!-- and the curls on 2 of the girls and their lipstick.
• Finally, I made tasteless chili on Halloween. This was not a highlight of the week. I think it won the prize for being most flavorless dish I've ever made. I kept wondering if I was sick or losing my sense of taste. It smelled fine, but no matter how much salt, spice, or extra tomatoes I added, it still tasted like nothing. I tried to eat it again this morning and threw in some of the left over Salsa from last night. I was amazed at the difference. If you ever have this problem... try salsa. 

A Balleter! (ballet-er)

She's not having a fit. She's not sick. 

She said, "When I grow up I want to be a Physics, a Teacher in a Class, and a Balleter!"

The other day, I found her in graceful, frozen positions all over the house- on the floor, the couch, in the kitchen, the family room. 

She was showing me how you do ballet.

There is a lion sleeping in my bed

The harp started to play. It soothed the beast and next thing we knew, she was asleep! I've always thought that all baby animals are cute. You just want to take them home and keep them as pets.

Gus's Trip to Germany, South Africa, London Fall 2008

To meet with some collaborators, I visited Erlangen and Stuttgart in Germany, and Cape Town South Africa. On the way home, I stopped to see my brother- and sister-in-law in London.

This is the Rokoko Hotel in Erlangen Germany where I stay sometimes. If you know anything about the history of mathematics (or physics), you'll be interested to know you can walk a few minutes from this spot and see where Emmy Noether grew up. I just happened across it by accident when I was visiting a couple of years ago.

While in Erlangen, I spent an evening at a Spanish restaurant eating tapas. This is Aliyah, my friends' (Daniel and Kathrin) little girl. Fortunately she had Old McDonald's Farm in English.

In Stuttgart, I spent a couple of days at the Max-Planck-Institut for Metals Research to work with my friend Alejandro Diaz-Ortiz (who is from Mexico but whom I met in Montreal but now lives in Germany). We're working on a number of projects together. This is a photo of the guesthouse at the institute.

It's a huge lab with a dedicated guest house with probably 45 rooms for visitors. They pay all my expenses when I come---so I invite myself often ;-). The institute is out in the country side. The village, Busnau, where it is located probably only has 1000 people. There's only one store, one restaurant, and one bar. It's about 20 minutes from downtown Stuttgart. On this trip, I attended church in Stuttgart (usually I go to church in Erlangen). It was an international ward (there's a big US base nearby).

I left Stuttgart for Cape Town. In the Stuttgart airport, hanging in the lobby were several antique airplanes and this really cool "glider". They had a sign up about it...but it was all in German.

I arrived in Cape Town after an overnight flight. My host was excited to get right to work...so I had a shower and went straight to...see penguins.

On the way, a whale waved at me.

I stayed in a really nice bed-and-breakfast near the university.

We had a busy couple of days at the office. On the day I was heading to London, my hosts had to leave before me for a wedding in Zimbabwe. So I spent a couple of hours on the famous Table Mountain in Cape Town. The cable car was really neat. The floor rotated as the cable car moved so that you got a view from every angle. A newly graduated masters student took me around. His name was Osei. He had been a high school teacher for many years and then had come back to school to become a materials scientist.

On my way home I stopped in London to see Cindy's brother and his wife, Micah and Tat. I have lots of cool pictures from that part of the trip, but this blogger interface stinks, frankly, and it's taken me days to try to get the layout decent and I'm just going to give up or this post will never see the light of day. So instead let me just say that in London I squeezed 2 weeks worth of sightseeing into two days. Here's a partial list (without pictures) of the cool things we did or saw.

• Dropped off my luggage at the flat after flying all night from Cape Town. Went to Burroughs Market. Ate some yummy food.
• Saw Southwark Cathedral, walked across the London Bridge.
• Went to St. Paul's Cathedral (lots of really famous people buried here) and climbed all the way to the top of the dome, looked out over London.
• Went to a fancy French pastry shop for pistachio macaroons and hot chocolate.
• Walked to the famous Temple Church which was rude enough to be closed.
• Walked through Covent Garden where Eliza Dolittle meets Henry Higgins outside the opera theater.
• Walked down Drury lane (you know, the muffin man...)
• Saw the outside of the Royal Courts of Justice (UK's supreme court)
• Saw a really big Masonic temple
• Walked down Charings Cross road but (because we are muggles, I guess) couldn't see the Leaky Cauldron.
• Ate at a hip Japanese restaurant called Wagamama (means "spoiled one")
• Saw much of the British museum. Among many other cool things saw the real, live (OK, it's not alive) Rosetta Stone.
• Ate ice cream from a cool shop called Scoop
• Ate Indian food at a place called Masala Zone
• Ate chocolate with Micah and Tat that I brought from Germany.
• Saw General Priesthood meeting at the UK church headquarters...but on Sunday morning because of the time difference.
• Drove past Buckingham Palace in a taxi (taxi drivers in London are amazing...story for another day)
• Went to the Victoria & Albert museum.
• Ate great steak and french fries at a French restaurant (wow, best fries ever)
• Attended evensong services at Westminster Abbey (we sat in the choir seats!). This was incredible. On the way out, Micah noticed that we walked right past Isaac Newton's crypt in the abbey.
• Saw the National Gallery (Monet, da Vinci, Picasso, van Gogh...you name the artist, we saw their work).
• Saw the map that changed the world in person.
• Picadilly Circus, statue of Horatio Nelson, some other famous church, monument to Ghandi...

What Sam and Tim said while playing Civilization.

Civilization is a computer game that is a lot like Risk. There are armies and you build up you own country. Sam and Timmy were playing it on the kitchen computer while I was doing the dishes.

Here's what I remember.

Timmy: "Okay Sam, now we need to do the thing that's like candy."

Sam: "Yeah, all the countries need to make treaties next."

Julia's New Sister

Julia came out of her room the other day. She said, "This is my new little sister. Her name is Julia!"
Now I have two of them.
The smaller one is the easiest, but she is rather floppy and not as enjoyable.