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Boo! Photos From All Hallow’s Eve

chris — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 05:03:01 +0000

Natalie Gets Her Mask On

chris — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 07:25:28 +0000

Natalie’s working on a big class project. It’s a report on African Masks, and the project finishes up with an art project. Not surprisingly she decided to make a mask. From the photo you can see what we came up with. Pretty amazing considering we did the entire thing today. Natalie had a blast coming up with this crazy construction and making it (and running around the house with it on). It’s made out of paper maché with a frame of styrofoam. Googly eyes made out of recycled ice cream sundae cups.
See a more photos on the Mask in action!

Sorry, no “the making of” photos. Maybe next time.

A Photo-a-Day on a Three Day Weekend

chris — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 07:38:40 +0000

This President’s Day weekend we had nothing much planned so we played it by ear day to day. On Saturday we got out the game Risk, which Natalie got for Christmas. After an hour or so or reading through the rules, the game commenced. It actually lasted through Monday. I won’t say who won, and I won’t say who was yellow, defending Europe to the bitter end. But I will say that is was great fun. Natalie had a blast.

On Sunday we headed down to the San Jose Museum of Art to check out the M.C. Escher exhibit. The Escher was pretty cool, with lots of his most important prints. The museum itself was small, compared to some of the San Francisco museums, but all of the exhibits we saw were incredibly engaging. Highly recommended.

Monday we baked up the focaccia that I started preparing late Sunday evening. It was my first focaccia, a recipe taken from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, but it turned out pretty stellar. Edie said it was the best bread she’d ever eaten.

Armchair Wildlife Photographer

chris — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 08:18:46 +0000

I was home sick for the last couple of days and at one point, while unable to do much besides stare out the window I saw Mr. Squirrel running back and forth along the fence. Well, let’s take a picture of Mr. Squirrel I thought. Even better I decided to use some of the acorns Natalie collected a while back as bait to get Mr. Squirrel to come very near the window.

I piled a bunch of acorns on top of a post about five feet from the office window, but unfortunately for Mr. Squirrel, Mr. Jay was paying better attention. Even before I had gotten back in the house and set up the camera Mr. Jay and his friends were fighting over the acorns. So, I took pictures of Mr. Jay instead.

The fight was classic Mr. Jay. The first Mr. Jay would grab an acorn in his bill and then stand there trying to prevent any other Mr. Jays from take the rest of the acorns. I’m not sure what the first Mr. Jay’s endgame was because there was no way he was leaving that post with more than one nut. The result was all the acorns got knocked on the ground, and out of my view lots of squabbling would ensue. In my weakened condition I found this quite entertaining so I tried it two more times, each time with the same result. Fun with nature! Reenacting Aesop fables.

About an hour later, Mr. Squirrel did happen by. He missed out on the acorns, but because the camera was still set up I did manage to get a shot of him looking right at me. He asked me “Where’s my nut?” and I said “Talk to Mr. Jay”.

Natalie’s Glasses

chris — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 07:52:06 +0000

So Natalie’s got glasses now. She’s very excited about the frames she picked out. Next time you see her I hope you tell her how great she looks. She’s a little bit self conscious about them. I have no idea why. I think they look great!

Ok, yes, we’re just jokin’ around. These are some glasses Natalie dug up while rummaging through some old boxes of her grandmother. Amazing things they are.