The Curtis Clan - Winter 2014
Winter Solstice to Spring Equinox
Murder at the Rep
Winter 2013 started with us taking the girls to see their first adult theatre show at the Rep: Agatha Christie s The Mousetrap. They were enchanted by the play and with Dame Agatha inspiring us to watch Murder on the Orient Express a couple weeks later.
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Jane and Cate at the Rep
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Christmas 2013
On Christmas Eve, ridding in the car with the girls and the topic of watching the Disney Christmas Parade the next morning came up to which Cate opined: I think my favorite Disney Princesses are (Bethany and I held our breath and hoped for a decent answer) Miranda and Princess Leia. Jane quickly concurred while Cate added her reasoning that they were strong and smart and don t have any of that frou-frou jewelry. Major parental sigh of relief that we got something good through to them.
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Cate, Jane, & Gussie waiting at the top of the stairs
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Christmas morning began in our tradition of the girls waiting until 7 to get us up and than waiting at the top of the stairs before coming down and seeing the bounty that Santa had brought them laid out in piles for each one (Santa doesn t wrap at the Sage households). It is pleasant.
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Bethany, Cate & Jane enjoy their presents
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That evening we had a nice of meal of Joe Bacardi s pizza and pasta and DQ at Manor Grove with Rhonda, Doug and Nancy.
A couple days later the Sage FFF began as the out of town family made it into St. Louis. The Curti tapestry fake-out gift was the most oft stolen gift in the annual the St. Peter Sages Rob-Your-Neighbor Game. Sagemis was lots of fun too.
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Aunt RoRo enjoys "winning" the Curti tapastry
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| Cate |
Jane |
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| Sagemis tribe |
The Sages pointing the way |
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2013 Sagemas Panarama
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Sage Siblings and Julia
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Road Trip to Southwestern Pennsylvania
The second week of the winter break, we made a road trip to southwestern Pennsylvania. The drive out was rather pleasant as we had light snow flurries that didn t stick but only billowed across the road for much of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Very pretty and not a travel hindrance at all.
We stayed at the Fairfield on Neville Island again with a great view of the Ohio River and the I-76 Bridge. On New Year s Eve day, we went to WashPA to visit the girls Great, Great Aunt Sissy, who still looks good at 86 and lives independently though with growing amounts of assistance from neighbors, friends and family (Unfortunately this would prove to be our last visit with her, as she passed away three months later).
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New Year's Eve day with Great Aunt Sissy
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On the drive down it was fun for the family to convince the hearing impaired Bethany that blinkers actually make noises in addition to flashing, which she refused at first to believe despite three people telling her otherwise.
The high point of any trip Washington, PA for Randy is Cappelli's Beer & Pop Warehouse where we can stock up on products we can t get at home: Yuengling Black and Tan, Schaefer Light and Pickled Eggs picking up numerous cases for us and friends. Most states have limits on how much liquor you can bring across the border, so each time we do this, we are technically boot-legging which makes it seem more raucous and dangerous .
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Randy loading up in Wash, PA
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New Year s Eve and Day we spent with Aunt Katie and Uncle Don, enjoying excellent conversation and the company.
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Bethany revels in the warmth of Katie and Don's living room
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The second day of the year we played tourist visiting the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and Art Museum with Randy s college friend Matt Martinez. For lunch, walked the made the short walk in snow flurries to the Primanti Brother s for their signature sandwiches with fires on top (and pitcher of Yuengling Lager) for the full PA experience. We stayed at Matt s remodeled home in Lawrenceville part of Pittsburgh watching a marathon of the Tree House reality TV shows on Discovery before bed.
| Jane and the T-Rex Jane |
Randy goofing with a crocodile skull |
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RJC at the Carnigie with a Stegasoarus
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Our drive home the next day began with shoveling the van out of the snow in the sub-zero weather. The cold froze the mini-van s sliding doors so the girls had to get to their seats from the front. Additionally the windshield wiper squirter was frozen solid so every few dozen miles we had to stop and clean the windows to see out. This continued until it warmed up into the high 20s when we got to Indiana. The light snow flurries were really pretty when the windows were clean though. The trip s snow was foreshadowing of the harshest winters in recent memory.
Snow Dazes
The first good snow in St. Louis came that weekend, allowing for great fun taking the girls to Suicide Hill after shoveling the sidewalks at home and playing with Gussie in the snow. Having a 4WD Suzuki Sidekick totally rocks the couple times a year it snows significantly. Monday, 6 January was a snow day at Randy s work (Admin Leave) allowing him to sleep in and goof off all day with the girls.
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Jane & Cate ready for sledding
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| Look, no hands! |
Bonzai! |
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Another snow day for the school came a month later (Wednesday, February 05) and allowed for additional sledding fun with the girls and Gussie on Suicide Hill. Another month later brought another snow day (Monday, March 03) and led Bethany to observe that the girls had only ONE full week of school since winter break. I'm not kidding.
| Cate, Jane and Gussie |
Jane coming up hill |
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Cate and Gussie
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Warm days were definite a scarcity during the winter of 2014 but we tried to make the most of them when they occurred on the weekends. On the last Sunday in January, Randy took the girls to the zoo and then Nana s to rake another few bins of leaves. The girls complained about leaf raking until after they were done and they had the bounty (i.e. pay) of their labors which they promptly insisted on spending on Legos.
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Jane and Cate on the Zoo RR
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The Sporting Life
Jane continued on the YMCA Sailfish Swim team practicing a couple times a week, with Randy taking off early to take her and making use of the time by exercising himself (unclear if it became a habit). She had her second meet in mid-February at the Meramec Community College pool.
With a good friend doing it, Cate decided to join the YMCA s hoopster s basketball team despite not showing any interest previously. She was on a 3rd / 4th grade team made up primarily of WGCS kids with practices and games taking place as the school s gym which was convenient. Over half of the team, like Cate, had never played before and it showed as they got clobbered the first couple games. Even though they lost, the team show great improvement each game particularly when were told they could steal the ball from the other team, which they hadn t up until that point. We would need a net at the house to shoot hoops regularly if this were to become a thing.
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Cate shooting some baskets before a game
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Jane Cate at WG basketball game
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We watched a lot of the Winter Olympics in Sochi for two weeks with both of the girls entertaining dreams of participating in the future (Jane - swimming and Cate - archery). Unrealistic perhaps but didn t we all have similar fantasies at some point?
Schoolwork
"Remember kids, the only difference between Science and screwing around is writing it down."- Adam Savage Mythbusters. We decided to forgo the Science Fair this year as Randy didn t push it despite a number of ideas of dubious merit which came up through the year. While conducting the experiment was usually fun, the actual writing up the experiment was torture for all involved. It s a shame; we chose to skip this year as our Science Fair nemesises, the McGuires who have taken 1st place to our 2nd each year, also took a pass. Curses!
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A true look at Science Fair
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Homework hasn t been the big deal it was for Cate in 4th grade as it was for Jane with the retirement of the tough but beloved Mrs. Gibson. Cate did have a surprisingly good week or two with the Constitution as her homework questions were either exceptionally advanced for 4th grade or just really poorly thought out (it was really hard to tell actually). Either way it was a nice segment that generated meaningful discussions ever night at dinner on the proper roles of the different department of the government in keeping with the Preamble.
Make Mine Music
The girls continued with piano and strings at the school. Jane participated in the Strings Pops Concert at the High School with the 5th through 12th grades. It was surprisingly entertaining and impressive concert and we came away with a lot of respect for the overall program in the District. Jane didn t have to give much thought as to whether to continue the cello in 6th grade, as opposed to switching to another type of instrument or chorus. Cate on the other hand has struggled with violin as she is very unfound of her instructor.
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Jane with her cello
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Quality of Life Improvement
It may sound shallow and at least a decade behind the rest of the trends but the quality of our life increased the most this quarter with the addition of the DVR. The speed of using the DVR to watch TV without commercial instead of downloading it from the internet was significant, loping about a third of the time involved. We thoroughly enjoyed the fruits of our DVR and see it as a definite improvement to our life style.
Lincoln Day (for Democrats)
In mid-January on the Saturday of the MLK holiday weekend we made the day trip to Springfield, IL before our Group-On for visiting the Lincoln Museum and Library expired. We often wonder what percentage of such coupon deals are used on the last day or two. Still we were glad for the push to go as we ve been meaning to go for awhile now but never got around to it. We started our visit with a tour of the Lincoln Home NHS as a light snow feel making it seem more magical. We than made the trip up town to the relatively new Museum and Library which was very high end and entertaining (albeit pricey at $18/per adult without the half off Group-On). The interactive 3-D movie/theatre experiences were worth it but might the price may have dissuaded us if we didn t know better. Afterwards, we did an outside recy of Frank Lloyd Wright's Dana-Thomas House. It was about to close, so we will have to wait for another trip to take the tour.
| BJC in front of the Lincoln home |
Cate and Jane with Honest Abe Lincoln |
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We had a late lunch/early dinner at the Cozy Dog, Home of the Corndog on a Stick. It was located on the old Route 66 and had a lot of kitschy memorabilia.
| RnB with the Cozy Dog |
RJC eating mounds of fries |
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The next day we took down and burned our Christmas tree on a bright Sunday afternoon. The resulting smoke brought several neighbors to make sure we and our house was OK. It was fun but doesn t need to become a family tradition. It was nice to visit with the neighbors in the street which doesn t happen too often during the winter. With that in mind, we hosted a cocktail party at our house with the neighbors in mid-February that exceeded everyone s expectations, as people lingered until 12:30 (pretty late for the 40 and 50 some things). A few weeks later we hosted another cocktail party for the 5th Grade parents. It had a slow start (only nerds come on time) but it was very pleasant and again lasted later than anyone expected.
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Randy and Cate burn our Christmas tree
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Our Lincoln trip inspired our watching the Spielberg 2012 movie and Randy to finish Team of Rivals. Reportedly the movie was based on the book, but only marginally so. Still the rater lengthy read was definitely worth the effort and time as it really left me with better understanding of why Lincoln is so respected and is the subject of more books than anyone else than Jesus.
Movie Watching
We continued to expand the girl s cinematic horizons by watching older films, typically with them kicking a screaming about it, particularly when it comes to watching westerns with Randy. They watched The Cowboys nearly 32 years to the day after Randy saw it at the Mark Twain Theatre with his Dad when it came out (and crying when one of the boys gets trampled by spooked cattle at night and when John Wayne died. The girls had no such problems but they had been warned it was coming). They liked Dances with Wolves better, with Jane crying when Two Socks died. We had a Cary Grant streak this quarter with Charade, the Philadelphia Story (at the Hi-Pointe), Operation Petticoat and Father Goose. Following our trek to Springfield, IL and seeing the sets for the movie in the old train station there, the girls asked to watch Lincoln, especially when they thought it was an R rate film (it's not). Randy and Jane got to see It Happened One Night at the Hi-Pointe and we watched Shrek, the Musical too. Watching quality PBS such as American Experience: The Poisiner s Handbook or Nova: Zeppelin Terror Attack as brought happiness with girls staying up late on a school night to finish them.
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The Philadelphia Story at the Hi Pointe
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Joseph Benjamin Sage
Our newest nephew came into the world on 13 February 2014 and we tickled to see him that evening, visiting Van and Gwen at Mercy hospital. Bethany was so excited to hold him, in keeping with her reputation of being a baby hog. Joseph was unnamed at first, undoubtedly the result of coming a day late for the moniker Lincoln Darwin Sage (at least that was Randy s thought).
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Bethany with her new nephew Joseph Sage
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California Dreamin'
For six months, Randy hasn t traveled for work but that changed at the end of February with a trip to research at the Seabee Museum in Port Hueneme. So while St. Louis remained gripped in winter, Randy HAD to drive California Highway 1 through Malibu with the lots of sunshine. Randy also forced himself to suffer through the Sunset from the beach at the Ventura Marriott too that Monday. The rest of the week it rained which given the drought in Southern California welcome relief. Randy stayed the weekend and made the drive up 101 to Monterey to visit with his Dad and Gaye. Bad weather in St. Louis delayed a return home until Monday (oh darn the luck!). It was a good and relaxing visit between father and son. Dad shared lots of tales of his youth, his siblings and father.
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Randy at the Ventura Beach
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The last Saturday of spring (and first Saturday of WG spring break), we had a celebratory lunch after Cate s last basketball game in Valley Park. With a break in the weather, we decided to make a quick jaunt to the Wild Bird Sanctuary and Lone Elk Park. Randy had taken the girls to both before but it was Bethany s first time and she was pretty impressed with the birds of prey collection and the herds of elk and bison just outside the car. Always a treat.
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Cate and Jane with the WBS version of the STL 250th B-day cake
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As in the custom at WGCS, the last full day before spring break is the time for showing the age appropriate health movies to the class. It s clear the intent of the timing is to limit the amount of playground sharing of knowledge (or lack thereof) while sparking conversations with the parents in the absence of peers to fill in the blanks. As such, Bethany had The Talk about the Birds and the Bees Talk with Jane having not specifically avoided the topic before but been content to let any innocence linger as long as possible. Bethany was pretty thorough on both biology and the emotional / relationship / maturity / societal aspects without going overboard. Jane thought it was a good talk, but she did look just a *little* shell-shocked and quipped afterwards I can t believe you and Daddy went through that to get me and Cate! We glad she retains her innocence and isn t growing up too fast in that regard. Cate was sick the day her movie showed and changed the topic anytime we attempted to broach the topic.
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