The Curtis Clan - Fall 2007
Fall Equinox to Winter Solstice
Annual Fall Camping Trip
We started our fall off with our annual camping trip to Maramec Springs with Uncle Charlie getting there Thursday afternoon. The extra day of solitude was pleasant and a needed rest after too many reports that had to get done by the end of the government’s fiscal year triggered a lot of overtime for Randy the last couple months of the summer. The strain worked on everyone, as his absence was felt at home as well. We needed some time away and camping was just the ticket. We lunched in Rolla at Alex’s Pizza on Friday to visit with Cousin Erin who’s enjoying her sophomore year and doing very well. Its always interesting to hear how much and how little has changed at one’s school.
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Annual Family portrait at Maramec Springs
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The rest of the gang showed up on Friday and we eventually had 16 adults and 12 kids under 8 years old in our group, which probably exceeded the “more the merrier” point for the introverted types on the trip and made it a tight squeeze around the campfire. The girls had a great time with the 5 slightly older girls and they shrieked, giggled and played with flashlights together much to the chagrin of the boys who were perplexed by these strange creatures and their annoying ways. We made the annual pilgrimage to Heinrichhaus Winery outside of St. James and to the fish hatchery but if you were to ask Jane what her favorite part about camping, her quick reply is “doughnuts and bacon”. Hopefully, the other points will be appreciated eventually.
Cate at 3 ½
Cate loves picking wild flowers and her favorite is the dandelion. She likes them when they’re yellow sunbursts in a green carpet of grass but takes even more pleasure in them when they’ve blossomed into the fragile puffballs and she can blow them to disperse the seeds. When told that many people consider it a weed, it furthered her conviction of their worth and she would love them (yeah we got a little misty on that one).
Cate remains a night owl like her mom. After stories and being tucked in, it’s become a ritual of hers to get out of bed every 10 minutes or so to ask for a drink; go to the bathroom; ask for her music on (or off); demand another kiss and hug goodnight and than ask the same from the other parent 10 minutes later. She’s very creative. On the other end of her sleep, getting her up before she’s ready, especially if napping, is…aaah….unpleasant. She’s generally in a whinny, disagreeable mood for the next half hour-hour.
Taking her to 5 o’clock mass on Saturday came be a scene-in-public waiting to happen.
When she’s awake and in a good mood, she is bursting with energy. When
she’s moving about, she doesn’t walk; it’s an exuberant skip/hop/prance that is
particularly delightful to watch.
Under the category of innocence speaking it’s mind (or possibly a sign of biting wit): “Daddy, did you get your hair cut?” Randy whipped back the old saw “I got ‘em all cut, sweetie bug”. To which she replied: "You look like Kirk.” For the non-Gilmore Girls groupies you really wouldn’t seek to be compared to nebbish Kirk in form or action (BTW – in the real world, he’s a former SLU boy).
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Cate at 3 1/2
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Holiday Road
Randy had 4+ weeks of vacation to use between October and beginning of January and we wasted little time in making use of them. Bethany’s 15th college reunion was happening the first weekend in October so we loaded up the gang for the trek to Pittsburgh and WashPA. The girls have become seasoned travelers in the car and we made the 10+hour trip with nary a melt down but none to few choruses of Bill Croggan’s Goat, Little Bunny Foo-Foo and other camp favorites. We stayed with some of our favorite people in the world Uncle Katie and Uncle Don in Pittsburgh and true to form stayed up way to late each night talking about religion, politics, history, family, and what ever crossed our minds.
On Saturday we attended the Alumni Tailgate rally and the football game between the Washington and Jefferson Presidents and …well does it matter. Bethany was happy to chat with her close college friends Heather and Paula and others their for their 15 year reunion.
The girls happily spent the afternoon with Heather’s 6-year old daughter Maddie. They pestered the balloon animal artists for another creation every half hour or so; played with the pom-poms and megaphones table decorations; and most especially enjoyed the Homecoming parade. The parade only lasted 5-10 minutes and was pretty lame. There were no bands, Shriners, scout troops or even fire trucks. It consisted of 3 floats and a couple clubs walking. However, it started right outside the tailgate party tent and the solitary three young girls were the prime targets of the candy largess from the coeds. The girls each gathered POUNDS of candy in a brief time. We’ll probably end up regifting it to the trick or treaters at Halloween. The caterers had Yuenglings, so Randy too was happy and we all had a lovely time. We didn’t actually make it to the game, figuring the kids wouldn’t enjoy being planted in one place, and the thought of trying to talk on uncomfortable benches in a cheering crowd and paying for the privilege made little sense. We goofed around campus finding multiple places with comfy chairs and hide and seek opportunities.
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Maddie, Jane and Cate with their booty of parade candy
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The W&J alumnae with
their offspring in front of the new "awkward" statue of the college namesakes
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On Sunday, Randy and Don took the girls to the Pittsburgh Zoo while Katie and Bethany had a sedate girls lunch. While there’s not much to recommend food wise at the zoo (it was worse than average), they’ve clearly put a lot of money into it over the last 15 years with a focus on interacting with kids. The breadth of the collection wasn’t particularly broad but it provided interesting and close up viewing experiences of what they had. Afterwards we visited Don’s mom house, and brought her over for a pizza party for dinner with Robert and the surprise guest of his girlfriend Lexy.
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Cate and Jane pose on a brass
tortoise at the Pittsburgh zoo
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We had a free night stay at a upscale Marriott brand hotel that was due to expire in another month, so on Monday, we headed north to Niagara Falls for cooler temperatures (in theory), view the fall colors and let the girls experience a natural wonder they might get at a young age (and its only 2 inches away on the map). Besides it was within keeping with celebrating Discovery Day (Randy’s personal campaign to change the Federal holiday honoring Columbus to a honor the spirit of the day without singling out one person whose accomplishments include the arrival of transcontinental slavery to the Americas ). We got in at the Renaissance Fallsview on the Canadian side, which was an impetus for getting the girls their own passports to cross the border. Although we didn’t realize it until later, it was Thanksgiving Day in Canada, the warmest on record for much of the country. Its unclear if folks taking off was the cause for a truly exceptionally bad meal at Perkins Pancake House that ran $43 for an omelet, soup and salad combo and 1 kids meal pancake but we’d have to think so. Fortunately we had a much better breakfast the next morning at the hotel’s buffet. There were piles of bacon available but Jane would have none of it, choosing to eat only Fruit Loops. Evidently the single piece of turkey bacon while camping a week earlier has ended her desire ever to eat any bacon “ever again”. We were somewhat sad and bemused to see her give up her favorite food so readily (it gave her such joy), we’ll see if it actually sticks.
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Randy and Cate enjoy the Maid of the Mist at
Niagara Falls
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After some debate about how much of the available tours to do, we got up on Tuesday and only took the Maid of the Mist primarily because Bethany had a slight fever and was feeling crappy. It turned out to be a smart move as Jane the brave who rode the Screaming Eagle as we’ve heard about daily for the last 3 ½ months, spent most of her boat ride with her face buried in one of her parents shoulders (she was having a rough day). Cate was cheerful and happier than normal to pose for pictures. This was true for others as well as several Japanese tourists who took pictures of the bow-headed blondes as we waited in the lines. At least twice as a day, we were asked if the girls were twins.
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The Curti are 3 for 4 on the smile circuit at Niagara Falls
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We skirted the hokum / carnival like atmosphere of the Clifton Hill section, while walking back to the car to drive around the lake to Toronto for some additional site seeing. Bethany was feeling better by the end of the day but we decided to scale back our plan to get the multiple attraction City passes and only go see the Casa Loma, which was our big activity for Wednesday. The girls were smitten with the idea of visiting a castle but as expected they had little patience for the audio tour preferring to explore unburdened. They insisted on climbing the extra 4 flights of stairs through the unfinished attic to the tower and revealed in taking the other secret staircases between rooms. Looking back on the trip, visiting the castle was one of their favorite things. The tunnel and the stables area was strewn with cabling, cameras and weird movable lighting that prompted thoughts of Ghost Busters as we toured that turned out to be true as the Ghost Trackers van was outside (a Canadian YTV television show).
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Cate and Jane on the staircases
of the Casa Loma Tower
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Our pace in Toronto was fairly relaxed. We did some light shopping along the Beaches section of Queen Street, which we visited during our honeymoon 6 years earlier. We also made a visit to the Hudson Bay Company’s flag ship store attached to the Eaton Center but once again balked at the prices for one of their iconic blankets we coveted (~$500 for a King size). We don’t know what its like in the suburbs but the downtown Torontians were very fit and fashion conscious, though given it’s the largest city in the country this shouldn’t have surprised us.
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Cate, Randy, Jane and
Bethany enjoy the Casa Loma garden
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The girl’s energy levels were highly erratic with them tired, whiny and barely able to walk (so they claimed) one moment followed by hyper-giggling girls in a confined hotel room. Thank goodness for the pools in most of the hotels to help wear them down again.
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Cate and Jane goofing around under bed at the Toronto Marriott
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On Thursday we returned to the States via Sarnia, Ont/Port Huron, MI just north of Detroit. There wasn’t a bad back up at the border but it still took us nearly 45 minutes to get through. In case you’re curious as to which line to avoid when crossing the board, its the one with the RVs even if there’s third as many vehicles in that line (they inspect the insides of each one, a very time consuming process). That night we stayed at the Dearborn Inn Marriott next door to Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village nestled within the Ford Motor Company complex. We had only a “regular” room in the historic hotel but could have stayed in a room in one of the historic houses moved to the grounds like Edgar Allen Poe’s house.
Upon the recommendation of the Concierge Lounge attendant who had grandchildren, we opted for the Greenfield Village portion of the Henry Ford Museum with the unlimited ride pass, which was a pretty good call. The girls weren’t very interested in looking at the historic buildings that Ford purchased and moved there like the Wright Brother’s shop or Edison’s labs (no castles). They did really enjoy the rides on the oldest continuously operating live steam engine, the Model T rides, horse drawn omnibus and the obligatory spin on the carousel. Bethany particularly appreciated visiting the McGuffey Schoolhouse from Washington, PA, since our trip started in WashPA where she went to school and her family is from there (she’s distantly related to the McGuffey Reader clan too). At the cafeteria for lunch, they had a cute thing for kids called the Hobo lunch consisting of a PBJ, raisins, cheese stick and animal crackers in a neckerchief on the end of stick. Given current sensitivities towards names, this must have been a fixture of the place for decades. At least there weren’t any Happy Meal toys included as well.
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The
Curtis gang gets a ride in a Model T
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After 5 hours of roaming, the girls were fairly worn out and we headed south for our last stop of the trip in Indianapolis to visit Bethany’s brother and his family. Despite all the cool places we visited and things we did, playing with their cousins was the highlight of the trip for Jane and Cate. To their delight we let them all “sleep” in the same room but they didn’t give into sleep until hours after being read a story and they still got up early. We spent a leisurely Saturday just chatting and goofing around the house before heading home at 3 (the Notre Dame game was starting and we know better than to disrupt the Indy Sages at such times).
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The Webster Curti and Indy Sages share lunch
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All in all a great trip, but we won’t mind not taking the girls out to eat in public to eat three meals a day
for a while.
October in Missouri
October is probably our favorite time of the year, particularly since now that it seems that easiest time for Randy to take time off and hang out with the family. Jane took the picture of Cate and Randy at Margaret Park.
By mid-October, the acorn crop was pretty much over but that didn’t end our frustration with the grey tree rats with the bushy tails.
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A squirrel enjoying the pumpkin “treats” we placed on the balcony for him.
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Happiness is a Warm Puppy
Two days before Halloween, we adopted a black and tan Dachshund puppy: Lorelei "Lilly" Curtis born on July 22, 2007. She's very sweet and friendly. The girls have been very excited and consider her the best toy/friend they ever got as they have showered her with love and attention (the giggling frequency has gone up several notches around here). Jane has eagerly accepted responsibilities for helping feed her, monitor when she needs to go out, walking her outside, etc. She’s a playful puppy but will happily sit in your lap and fall asleep while watching TV. Maddie is OK with a new sibling but at 13 isn’t as interested in playing nearly as much as requested by her new housemate. She has been a very helpful role model in the what to do when you first get outside (Lilly needs some work on the waiting to go outside part still).
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Lilly at her new home (as the center of attention)
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We got Lilly from one of Randy’s friends at work (Pam Reed) who breeds champion dachshunds. We’ve been talking to Pam about getting one of her second rate/runt/cross-eyed pups for a few months (“Nothing but the second best for us Curtsies”). She agreed to let us adopt one of her recent litters of smooth hairs even though they all appear eligible for showing at the tender age of three-months. Part of the deal was allowing her to show Lilly in hopes having the whole litter reach Champion status. Time will tell how closely she meets breed standards. We’ve already been told her chest is a little flatter than desired
and noticed that she has an odd number of nipples (insert your own jokes here). Along with her littermates, Lilly’s already had preliminary field trials and has shown great promise as a hunter as well, another trait we weren’t really looking for. Although given our over hyped frustrations with the squirrels outside the side door, having a pooch we could call Squirrel Bane has its merits (or Hasenpfeffer Hell Hound, Opossum Poker, Mole Marauder, Varmint Vigilante, Badger Baiter, etc.). Can’t really say we care how she does on the dog beauty show circuit. Once she’s potty trained, learns a few rudimentary commands and a couple tricks, our aspirations for her “achievements” are negligible. Although we now have a potential entrant into the Soulard Mardis Gras Wiener Dog Races and they give trophies for that. Hmmmh….
PS>We know there are several of you questioning why we didn’t adopt a dog from a shelter having gotten all our previous pets from the Humane Society (in St. Louis or Baton Rouge) and annually supporting their efforts. We understand and agree with your thinking but we were also adamant about getting a small dog (under 25 pounds). We went to the APA and Humane Society but we didn't really want a lab, Rottweiler’s or pit bull mixes, which were the choices for puppies. Actually we were-pretty surprised about the number of pit bulls. I guess it’s a function of what the macho dog du jour is (German Sheppards and Dobermans used to be more fashionable and
prevalent). Based on our visits to these places, small dog puppies don't go wanting for homes. It’s the large dog puppies and the adult dogs that have problems. It was really hard ignoring the kitties though as we’re not as confident about their lot.
PPS>We didn’t make a general announcement but at the end of the summer, we had to put down Bert and Brazil. Both had serious kidney and thyroid issues, were puking up their food on a daily basis and had lost a third to half their weight. Bert was in particular bad shape and we probably waited too long before taking him in. Randy has long quipped that Old Yeller and Of Mice and Men makes the same point that being a man requires you to be able to shoot your own dog. Knowing what you need to do still doesn’t make it easy.
Halloween
It was a good Halloween for us as the girls are both old enough to really appreciate and get excited about it. In the weeks leading up to it, they happily helped decorate the house and make a scarecrow for the yard (following their first viewing of the Wizard of OZ). They relished the idea of being able to scare the slightly older boys up the street (“What if we yell, Oh it’s Spooky!, will that scare him?”). In the costume department, Jane was a ballerina wearing a tutu with her dance clothes. Cate went as Cinderella courtesy of a Disney costume. A neighbor lobbied to close our street from 5-8, which coupled with some very warm weather, a day off for Daddy and a later sunset thanks to the postponed end to day light savings time, it was a bit of a party atmosphere an hour or so before twilight on Tuxedo. Several of the neighbors had tables, or trick or treat kiosks if you will, set up, including us with a bowl of boiled peanuts in addition to the standard candy. The girls were further jazzed by getting to walk and show off the new puppy to the other kids on the block and neighbors in the hour or so before it was dark.
Pumpkin Patch Jane
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Pumpkin Patch Cate
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Waiting to Trick or Treat
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This was Cate’s first year with riddle (“What do you call a dinosaur sleeping? A dinosnore.”), which she told each time without fail. Jane’s was: “What’s a ghost favorite fruit? Boo-berries.” They did require some prompting about the “thank you” part of the script, but Dad’s fake cough and blocking their retreat did the trick.
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Ballerina Jane a la Degas |
Cinderella Cate |
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This year, Jane decided she was going to go to all the houses on our street. Cate agreed initially but pooped out at the ¾ point. They still got scads of candy, having not gone through the satchel of sugar from the W&J Homecoming parade. We wonder if this will be the
quintessential Halloween of our memories when the girls are adults.
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Jane and Cate rush to trick or treat the entire street
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Jane and Cate playing with their favorite Halloween treat, Lilly
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November
More warm weather and a 3 day weekend, allowed us to knock out some home improvements to the outside of the house. We disassembled our raised stoner planter along the brick patio, with the intent of expanding the patio next summer. We used the stones and dirt to build a short retaining wall along slope of our lower playground terrace that turned out rather nicely. While doing so, we uncovered another few wheelbarrows full of limestone that we’ll need to find uses for elsewhere in the yard. We also added a couple elevated flower beds with our previous cache of stones in the side yard. That project had been delayed after some unpleasantness with our neighbor last spring, initiated when she planted a couple of bushes in front of our basement windows in OUR yard. We also added an outdoor electrical outlet to the side door porch to allow for easier Christmas decorating.
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Our new retaining wall for the lower terrace
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Outing at Lauramier Sculpture Park
Nothing particularly note worthy about the trip except a couple of fun pictures of the girls.
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Jane and Cate strike a 1960s Bad Boys of British Rock album cover poise
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Eyeball of the Gods?
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In mid-November, Randy with the help of friends Charlie and Bob filled in a 12 foot long trench in the basement floor created by moving the floor drain into what will be the enclosed storage room (by code the floor drain has to be in the same room as the water heater). Actually that was the easy part, leveling the floor sloped to the no-longer existent drains in the portions of the basement to be finished was the real task. It took 31 sacks of concrete (over a ton with water mixed in) to do that. Not perfect but good enough to be padded and carpeted at some point in the future.
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Framing in the
basement over elevated and
leveled concrete floor
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With the floor level, framing for the walls and ceiling went up fairly quickly (particularly with the help of a pneumatic nailer – it rocks!). Wiring for the lights, smoke alarms and outlets will take a bit longer but hopefully dry walling isn’t in the too distant future.
Schoolwork
s
Several times a week the girls will bring home some art or craft project that only a parent could love, and many that even we have a hard time appreciating. The better ones make it to the
refrigerator until replaced but later creations. We haven’t really bought into the current mantra of saving such things, in part realizing that we have no interest in seeing any of the one’s we created when young and our parents trashed. There was a collage that Jane did depicting her favorite foods that tickle our
fancy.
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Jane's collage of her favorite foods
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Thanksgiving
It was the hundredth anniversary of the Webster-Kirkwood Turkey Day Football rivalry but somehow we weren’t able to squeeze it in, even though there was merchandise aplenty to be had even for the preschool set (insert Charlie Brown “Uggggh!”). Thanksgiving weekend mirrored 2006 pretty well with our hosting of the Curtis tribe on Thursday and than meeting up with Sage Clan on Friday at Bethany’s folks. Saturday brought a potential annual
tradition with the five oldest cousins all gathering to go skating at the out door Steinberg rink in Forest Park. None of them had gone skating before so we were a bit anxious about how it would go. As with most things though, the girls are more daring, less whinny and will try harder amongst their peers (although there was still plenty of crying and whining but certainly not as bad if it was just them). One minor fall while helping Jane convinced Randy that loose sweat pants with his volleyball knee pads underneath would be his attire for the next attempt. Afterwards we all had hot chocolate, naps and a pizza party that night.
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The 5 oldest cousins are all smiles at Steinberg Ice Rink (after they got the painful skates off)
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December
In early December, Cate snuck some scissors upstairs and tired her hand at cosmetology on herself. It ended up looking like a mullet. She tried to be cool and pretend nothing was awry but immediately broke down in tears when Bethany noticed. She was so upset with herself; we really didn’t have the heart to discipline her further, especially after we had to cut it fairly short to even it up. It will probably will be awhile before anyone confuses the girls for twins (And no, of course we haven't taken our family Christmas picture yet...).
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A remorseful sad Tigger
of a Cate after cutting her hair
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Curtis Family Holiday Card Photo Shoot
In preparation for the holiday card, we once again decided to do a family photo shoot using the camera’s self timer and a tripod. Not satisfied with just trying to get 2 kids smiling at the camera we tried a bunch with 2 dogs as well. Here are some of the ones that didn’t make the cut.
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We looked OK in at
least one
(ignoring the loss of a
lower lip for Cate but she's mostly either frowns or mugs for
pictures lately)
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The Curtis Family 2007 Christmas Card collage
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Two weekends before Christmas, St. Louis got a amount of snow over the course of a couple of days. Other plans were shelved and we spent most of our free time playing the in our yard. With snow pants both girls stayed warm and stayed enthused begging to stay out longer, with only the promise of hot chocolate changing their minds.
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Jane leads Lilly out in the snow for her morning comfort constitutional
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The Curtis Girls in the snow
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Which brings us up to the holidays...
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