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Where the buffalo roam — and no it isn’t Kansas

ourfamilynews — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 01:37:45 +0000

The Boy Scouts trekked over the weekend to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge near Lawton, Oklahoma. Tommy and John enjoyed hiking with backpacks for several miles, including over the “River of Boulders,” which Tommy said was the best part. They saw buffalo, elk, longhorns and — best of all — prairie dogs. Tommy is to the left of the sign and to the right of the tent.

The dreaded Science Fair, version 2012

ourfamilynews — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 01:26:26 +0000

Sofie joined a team of two other students for her required school science fair project. They choose the infamous Mentos in Soda Pop experiment, which you’ve probably seen at its most phenomenal by EepyBird.com.

Sofie and her friends put together their version of it, and the judges gave their project an “Honorable Mention.” Way to go Sofie and friends! Let us know if you spot the continuity error.

Here’s the EepyBird.com version:

And for the science behind it, check out the MythBusters explanation:

Christmas gingerbread houses

ourfamilynews — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 03:56:49 +0000

Sofie said this was the best part of Christmas … making gingerbread houses! Royal icing does the trick!

Tommy’s haircut

ourfamilynews — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 04:46:54 +0000

Sofie made inventive use of the trimmings from Tommy’s haircut. He started with a ‘fro, and wound up looking like he was ready for Marine boot camp. Thank you John!

Essays: The Greek Gods

ourfamilynews — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 22:10:03 +0000

Tommy makes use of MacDictate software to extemporaneously compose essays about various gods from Greek mythology. He speaks into the microphone on the headset and the software recognizes his speech and turns the sound into text. For our further edification, the stories of Narcissus and Echo, Prometheus, Daedalus and Echo, and Arachne, as told by Tommy.

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If it’s February and it’s snowing, this must be Texas

ourfamilynews — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 21:44:30 +0000

Lucky us — four snow days in one week! One thing I’ve learned from raising two native Texans: Texans don’t expect they should ever have to wear a coat, even when it’s 7 degrees out. Here’s a taste of our snow day, including the first ever icicles I’ve ever seen on our house.

Birthday at the zoo

ourfamilynews — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 21:55:22 +0000

It was a wild day at the zoo! The birthday party started at the carousel and ended up back at the same pesky alligator we saw last fall. Amazingly, it bit Tommy’s head again — and Sofie’s too.

School science fair

ourfamilynews — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:34:43 +0000

Snakes, climbing walls and science experiment posters that took Mom and Da …. I mean … that took the students all night to make.

Christmas in Kansas

ourfamilynews — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 21:22:32 +0000

So we spent Christmas at the farm. It was cold. And that beautiful Kansas “brown” was everywhere. Like the state is a giant furry teddy bear in the winter time. Then the snow comes. In this case, it was very very cold, so everything froze, including the livestock tank, which the kids were then able to stand on. And about that wet pants leg on Tommy toward the end of the slideshow; let’s just say the creek wasn’t as frozen as he would have liked.

HO! HO! WHOA!

ourfamilynews — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 15:50:37 +0000

As most people are aware, the Dallas area has more retail space per capita than any other metro area in the United States. So we were supsrised that an exhaustive search through the clothing stores to buy a red blouse for Sofie for the annual Christmas picture ended in a weary “Uncle” from us.

It seems the colors for this Christmas season are pink and purple. We should all write our Congressperson. This is an outrage.

Then, to add insult to injury, when we arrived at the Santa Village the kids didn’t exactly cooperate as we’d expected and as they have in the past — despite my best efforts at begging and pleading. This year it was all goofing around and making faces and trying to see who could look the whackiest, complete with nerd glasses, as Tommy calls them.

So without further adieu ….