You remind me of the babe

What babe?

 The babe with the power.

 What power?

 The power of voodoo.

 Who do?

 You do.

 Do what?

 Remind me of the babe.

And since I know now you're in the mood, let's relive the moment together, shall we?  


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Is there anyone who didn't  have a crush on David Bowie as the Goblin King?  Stop lying, you know you did.

It's beginning to look a lot like Buffalo

We were scheduled to host pre-school at our house today, but I canceled it.  I figured our friends would have a hard time getting to our house, let alone finding a place to park once they got here.

I admit I was glad to cancel it.  At midnight last night we arrived home from a (wonderful) 10-day trip to Utah.  With suitcases and dirty laundry everywhere, neither the house nor I were ready to facilitate learning.  (We're on the letter K.  For "keep warm.")  But we would have, uh, plowed through, if not for the snow.  

Have I mentioned the snow?  The snow!  The crazy thing about the snow is that it's quite isolated.  All the other moms said there wasn't much of anything on the ground where they were (Amherst, Tonawanda, and Cheektowaga).  Meanwhile, South Buffalo is in the middle of a driving ban. 

There's no ban on playing in the snow, though, and the big kids had a great time climbing Mt. Driveway.¹ 

I don't think Coach had nearly as much fun plowing Mt. Driveway, especially considering that after three hours out there today, he'll need to do it all again tomorrow.

We love Buffalo, but days like this make it just a little easier to face the prospect of moving. ²  




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¹Until they got too cold.  When I found Grace face-down in the snow, crying about her mittens (she kept pulling her thumb out of the thumb socket)  I decided it was time to go in for hot cocoa.  Pictures of the awesome snow fort we made will have to wait until tomorrow.

²We're moving!  Didn't we tell you?  Coach accepted a great job in Ames, Iowa, so we'll be moving there next summer after he finishes his residency.  This announcement deserves much more than a footnote, but at the rate I'm blogging these days, you're lucky to get that.  We love the community and the practice he's joining.  It's a wonderful opportunity, and we have a lot to be grateful for.<sup>3


3</sup>And that includes you.⁴ Thanks for sticking by us through the years, the snow, and the runaway footnotes.

⁴Probably.  Who are you, anyway?

Happy Birthday Miles

Twelve Months

One Singular Sensation

Go ahead, try it

Say no to this girl. I dare you.

Nice Day for a White Wedding

Have you ever seen a bride so beautiful?

A groom so happily endangered?

A mother-of-the-bride so radiant?

Or a father-of-the-bride so devastated to learn that his favorite flavor of ice cream has been discontinued.  Sorry Dad.  Thanks for breaking the news to him gently, Peanut.

And thanks for a beautiful day, Daisy and Adam.  A really really beautiful day.

 More photos here.   But you probably have to be friends or whatever.

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Clarifications and confessions:  I don't know if DBC ice cream has actually been discontinued.  But what else could make Dad's expression so grave?  Also, if you now have Billy Idol's White Wedding in your head for the rest of the day, you're welcome.  I had the same problem Daisy's wedding day.  No worse than the previous week, when I had Beyonce and all her single ladies dancing through my brain during our family sealing session.  Awesome.

You may remember that a certain boy was trained in the art of the jedi...
Well, apparently he turned to the dark side.

He still associates with some pretty good hearted friends though.

... friends who wiped out the death star with their hand-crafted light-sabers.

I think he was bribed back to the light side after all was said and done.

Hey Mom...

I think I got some broccoli in my crevices.

Artsy Homey Stuff

I met Brandon on my AMA trip, another radiation oncology resident from Chicago. He's an incredible artist. For example, look at this cool tree mural he did for his living room! I told him we do a fair amount of art in our house too, but when I flipped through meatychunks, I couldn't find any of my art on there anywhere. So, here's some art from the meatychunks residence. It's not all mine, of course, but I realized as I looked around that most of the art around here isn't!

A strange thing happened...

Just got back from Chicago. It was a beautiful day there with lots of sunshine and urban gardens in full bloom. I shot a few photos to share, but first I have to tell you about a few unusual things that happened while I was there. I go to Chicago two or three times a year, so it feels pretty familiar to me. But I've never been there the day after the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. It was general insanity due to the excitement, but it ended up being even moreso since they had a parade down Michigan Ave that ended at my hotel with the team having a big dinner with boosters. That's definitely a first.

Another first was walking down Wabash Ave back from a nice dinner with the Iowa delegation of the AMA when suddenly thousands of bikers started flying past. They were deliberately making lots of noise and drawing attention to themselves, and it wasn't until a few dozen rode by (they were on the far side of a wide street) that someone said, "Are they... naked?" And indeed they were. Most of them were stark naked. There were thousands of them. It was surreal. Apparently there is an annual ride in Chicago to protest overuse of oil and to support a healthy body image. Riiiiight.

And finally, before I post the photos from this morning, the last thing that was odd was that as I was walking through town taking these pictures I overheard multiple conversations about radiation oncology. One was a breast cancer patient who apparently didn't want radiation, "If it's incurable, then why prolong the inevitable?" I resisted the temptation to point out that life is incurable in general and death is always inevitable, but people generally prolong facing it just the same. A few block later I heard (or thought I heard) a couple guys talking about radiation biology board exams. The same test I'm going to be taking in a few weeks. Crazy, huh?

Well, without further ado, here are some photos. The sunniest, brightest final picture was the view of my kitchen floor after getting home a few minutes ago.

While we weren't blogging

We took a spontaneous trip to NYC.¹

And a planned-for-many-months trip to Disney world.²

Grace turned three.³
And Coach turned 35.⁴

Also, a mysterious organization dropped this giant baby from the sky (along with a pallet-full of other clearly labeled perishables).⁵

And Sam lost two teeth.⁶

And now we're caught up for another six months. Right?


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1. Thanks to Jetblue's recent anniversary sale we got tickets for $10 each way and saved a bundle. And then we spent that bundle on swedish fish to keep the children occupied during our many subway rides around town.

2. And now Sam wants to move to Orlando.

3. You should ask her about it. She loves to hold up two fingers and tell strangers "I used to be two..." (pause for deliberately popping up a third finger) "but now I'm three." Unless you are a princess. If you are a princess, she'll probably be too shy to do anything but stare at you with wide, admiring eyes.

4. Does this look more like a passport photo than a birthday photo? It should. Coach had to renew his passport for an upcoming trip to Amsterdam, where he'll be presenting a paper to a bunch of fellow radiation oncologists. It's just as impressive as it sounds, but you won't hear about it from him because his tootin' horn is broken. Mine's not though. I love that guy.

5. That's the only possible explanation for how this kid got so big.

6. I realize Sam's teeth aren't much of a focal point in this photo. You'll have to zoom in. I tried cropping it down, but I looked at Grace's sweet face and just couldn't. That's the kind of mug you add into photos, not the kind you crop out. You know?