The Curtis Clan - Fall 2008
Fall Equinox to Summer Solstice
Basement Improvement - Intermittent Progress
After over 6 months of no progress on finishing the basement room, it was time for Plan B, So for the dry walling, we decided to hire our contractor/friend George and his crew to do it, Moving drywall without damaging it, is really a two person job, especially for the 12 foot sheet and they had lots of the specialty gear needed to do it that we would have had to rent or borrow (lift, a truck to transport the 12 foot sheets, the rotary tool to cut out holes for the boxes, the crimper for the corners, etc.), While they were here we had them roof the front of the house as well, which didn’t get a new roof when we added on in 2004 but had begun to leak (Randy got foolishly tight with add-ons at the end of the addition project),
As time permitted, Randy did the taping and mudding of the seams, which once again made clear he shouldn’t quit his day job to switch professions, By Thanksgiving, the walls and ceiling were primed and painted, leaving only the trim and floors outstanding, though this will take some additional time.
Annual Fall Camping Trip
|
Curtis Clan at Annual Merrimac Springs Fall Trip
|
|
We started our fall off with our annual camping trip to Maramec Springs with Uncle Charlie and “Sam”, the Hammond family, the Holmes family and others,
|
Happy Campers
|
|
We got there in stages with Bethany and the girls leaving after Jane’s school and Randy coming 5 hours later having been in Florida through the morning for his Orlando work.
|
Cate and Jane - Queens of the Fish Food?
|
|
As always, the girls had a great time with the other kids, particularly the girls, We made the annual hike around the fish hatchery and visits to the various playgrounds, Both girls took a turn at fishing (holding the pole for maybe 2 minutes) courtesy of the Hammond fishing license.
|
Camping kids on a slide
|
|
Breakfast doughnuts assured the girl’s satisfaction with the trip but the also showed more interest in cooking things over the fire.
|
Cate cooking a biscuit in the fire
|
|
|
Jane at the Springs
|
|
|
Cate and Jane “Fishing”
|
|
Nana’s 70th Birthday
We celebrated Randy’s Mom’s 70th birthday with dinner out at the Sunset 44 in Kirkwood, The girl’s gift was painting the birdhouses and feeders they had given her for Mother’s Day.
|
Curtis Clan Celebrating Nana’s 70th
|
|
Aunt Rhonda was there also with her fiancée of a couple months Doug Hankamer, who has become part of the family.
|
Doug and Rhonda
|
|
100,000 Person Obama Rally at the Arch
On a gorgeous October Saturday Bethany, the girls and I rode Metrolink downtown and were lucky to get seats at the second stop form the beginning, This was the most crowded we’ve ever seen the train even before a Cardinal game, much less on a Saturday morning, We got off at the Laclede’s Landing exit and hurriedly got at the end of the line which at that point was at the floodwall next to Eads Bridge but it kept expanding by a steady stream of people who parked and were getting off the trolley every 5 minutes, This is at 10:15 when the security “gates” were officially suppose to open and our location is ½ mile from there along the rectangle of the National Park (I measured it later using Google Earth), When we got to the actual Arch grounds, the line looped for another .4 mile on the grounds before going back to Memorial Drive, As it turned out we literally started a mile from where the stage was (and line went past that at least a ¼ of a mile before we lost site of it).
|
Bethany Jane and Cate under the Arch for the Obama Rally
|
|
Having talked with a few friends volunteering to help with the event, the first 20,000 people were getting into a “premier” area, which as it turned out was within roughly 250 feet of the stage, These were the folks that had to go through the metal detectors and bag check screening, We missed that by about a 1/3 of a mile of line based on when the line really started moving as they opened up the security choke point and let everyone in (about 1145), We were under the shadow of the Arch about 50 feet behind the security lane of the premier area (the shade was nice on such a beautiful, sunny fall day).
|
Randy Jane and Cate under the Arch for the Obama Rally
|
|
Unexpectedly, the stage wasn’t centered under the Arch like for all the concerts held there for the 4th of July celebrations, etc. but rather just east of the north leg of the Arch, Although no one stated so, if you looked at the location, the Arch mostly blocks a clear “view” of the stage from the numerous hotels and condos north of the old Courthouse, which left the skyscrapers to the south (far fewer in numbers) with a clear view, Still there were numerous elevated vantage points within the range that all Marines rifleman practice at, To be honest the security of the candidate was a real concern about this event.
There was a projection screen centered under the Arch for the masses to watch the event but even than you didn’t see much unless you were 6 feet tall and people leaned the right way, The hillcrest in the distance would have offered a better view if you had binoculars, After 30 minutes or so of the local Democratic Congressmen and Senators speaking, Barrack took the stage and as expected gave another great speech, It may look better in the video clips but our in person vantage point felt better.
|
Our view of Obama under the Arch
|
|
Oddly within the hoard of people, we met up with a neighbor and her daughter on our way out, Instead of fighting our way home, we shopped among the t-shirt and button vendors in the street and hung out at the Landing for a couple hours and had lunch at Morgan Street Brewery before trying to board a train back home, The Landing was packed as was the return train home but it was a beautiful day, The clips we saw of him speaking at dusk in Kansas City at the Liberty Memorial were equally inspiring.
We skipped the opportunity to see Bill Clinton at Kirkwood High School on Monday (too late for the girls), In the spirit of Turkey-day trash talk, I'll mention he visited Webster Groves HS while he was President Clinton.
Innsbruck the last weekend in October
The 15th Annual Hammond Garlic fest at their A-Frame at Innsbruck has become far less about garlic and wine, while still focusing on friends and fall colors amid the pastoral setting, The girls enjoyed paddle boating and playing on the beach with the Hammond boys.
|
Jane at the head of the paddle boat
|
|
|
Cate and Bethany in the paddle boat
|
|
More October
As part of one of Jane’s kindergarten class project, she got Froggy, a stuffed frog mascot, for her turn as Star of the Week (each kid get a week throughout the year), The goal was we ere to take Froggy on an “adventure”, which we choose to be a trip to the Science Center and OmniMax theatre (we snuck the frog in without paying).
|
Jane and Cate with Froggy at Science Center
|
|
Halloween 2008
Jane’s was Dorothy Gale in a dress Bethany made sporting a Rottweiler-esque Toto in her basket, For unclear reasons, Cate insisted on being Tinkerbelle, and we caved into to purchasing a pre-made Disney costume (it did nicely match her pair of green Mary Jane shoes), The week before we had our 4th (and last) WG ECEC Halloween party at Little Bristol giving the girls their first reason for wearing their outfits.
|
Dorothy Gale, Toto and Tinkerbell
|
|
I’ve always wondered about the effectiveness of Scarecrows but given our Dachshund’s Lilly constant uneasy barking at it every time she went to do her morning constitutional in the front yard; I have to acknowledge there is something, A number of neighbors also commented on doing a double take or two at our thoroughly non-realistic figure.
|
Jane with our Scarecrow
|
|
The girls upheld the St. Louis tradition of telling a riddle in order to get their treats.
Jane/Dorothy Gale: Why did Toto go under the tree?
Because he didn’t want to be a hot dog.
|
Jane and Cate telling their jokes for treats
|
|
Cate/Tinkerbelle: Why did the cookie go to the hospital?
Because he felt crummy.
|
Bethany and the girls
|
|
November
The peak fall colors came a couple weeks later than normal but it was worth the wait, The summer’s rains made them particularly vibrant and with the warm weather, not basking amongst their glory seemed a crime.
|
Cate and Jane climbing a redbud at Margaret Park
|
|
Along with the joys of the fall calls, there’s the downside of having to rake leaves every weekend for 3 months, The girls and dog would frequently join Dad, even if you might not call it actual help.
|
Jane, Cate and Lilly raking leaves
|
|
Jane's class celebrated the 50th day of school yesterday with a 50's party that included a sock hop, root beer floats, and fun math games, Bethany made Jane a poodle skirt for the occasion – Maybe she was born in the wrong era.
|
Janes in her Poodle Skirt
|
|
Election Day 2008
Well if you’ve gotten this far in our blog you know who we were supporting, so you’d be forgiven if you suspect there might be some spin to the statement that the sun was shinning, the temperature was wonderful and it was a beautiful day in Mid-America, But it was a wonderful day, Randy was in hanging chad land so he voted absentee a couple weeks early where it took an unusual 1 ½ hours, Bethany took the girls with her and than did some minor support work for volunteers working the polls (Election Day has become a school holiday, since most schools are polling places and it's difficult to maintain our new security levels), She had made some shirts up for herself and the girls to wear for the day (She had been volunteering a couple few hours a week for the Obama database machine for the last few months too).
|
Curtis Girls for Obama
|
|
More November
On a Friday night in mid-November, Randy took the girls for a book signing by Laura Neumeroff of If You Give A Pig a Pancake and other similar titles fame who had written a new one called If You Give A Cat a Cupcake, The event started at 7 pm, which is bedtime in these parts but the girls enjoyed the three readings that started the event, However, there was less enjoyment for the nearly hour wait in line for the signing, We did have fun taking pictures with the camera on Dad’s new Blackberry but it too lost its charm after awhile.
|
Cate and Jane meet the author for a book signing
|
|
Thanksgiving
Preparations for Thanksgiving including making cookies and pies which Cate got to help out with while Jane was at school.
|
Cooking with Cate
|
|
We hosted Thanksgiving with the Curtis clan on Thursday, On Friday, we celebrated T-day with the Sage side of the family at Bethany’s folks place, We took several group shots of Sage-giving including the traditional silly one of everyone pointing at something off sight, Note how everyone is doing this except for Cate who is atypically smiling pleasantly for a posed pictures (as opposed to her normal making a silly face).
|
Sage-giving
|
|
On Saturday morning, we made the second annual Skating with the Cousins outing at Steinberg Rink, Although we hadn’t done any skating since the previous year, there was clear improvement all around, especially after we warmed up and before we got too tired, The setting is terrific but the quality of the ice leaves a bit to be desired, Perhaps, a few outings to a local indoor rink to improve our form are in the offing.
|
Skating with the Cousins
|
|
December
Trout Fishing in America
On a Friday in Mid-December, a dental group sponsored a free concert of our favorite duet performing kid oriented music: Trout Fishing in America, In a happy, subversive irony, the concert with Keith and Ezra singing “Proper Cup of Coffee” amongst screaming kids was held in the County Library.
|
Keith and Ezra on stage in the center of the library
|
|
Nana joined Randy and the girls for the concert (B was unhappily at home sick), The dental group provided a variety of activities to occupy the kids for the hour before the concert started including balloon fish, fishing games, and fish face painting.
|
Fish-faced girls with Dad and Nana
|
|
Up to this point, we have never taken the girls to the mall, etc. for the standard Christmas picture with Santa for reasons which include an uncomfortable ness with the implied materialism involved of asking for stuff, However, one of Santa’s “helpers” was part of the girl’s dance class program, so we now have one.
|
Jane and Cate at ballet with one of Santa's helpers
|
|
And that wraps up our fall, as we prepare for the holidays.
RBJC Curtis Family Front Page