Happy Birthday Håkan

Happy Birthday Håkan. For those of you who are relatively new to reading this blog, Håkan is a very dear friend of ours whom we met whilst living in Sweden. When we moved to the US, he then moved to Purdue and studies with Lynne for many years, completing his PhD work with her. We saw him virtually every week when he was here; the kids (or rather Anja) referred to him and still do as Uncle Håkan. Wishing you a very good birthday.

Super Bowl XLVI

Most of you will of heard of The Super Bowl, the final championship game of the American Football NFL (or simply football as they call it here). As you can imagine, it’s a big deal in this country. Indeed it’s a big deal worldwide with a TV audience of well over 100 million. It’s a de-facto national holiday.

Well this year it’s being held in Indianapolis, about a quarter of a mile from where I work. The city has been a zoo over the last two weeks. Over a hundred thousand people are expected to celebrate throughout the city each day this week.

This morning a work colleague, Brian Huckabee, and myself took a little photographic tour of the city at 7:30am for about an hour while the light was good and before the crowd got going. It was an interesting tour with many photo opportunities.

The blue fountain picture was actually taken outside my work’s headquarters. This year’s game, Super Bowl XLVI (46), will be held at Lucas Oil Stadium, starting at 6:30pm, between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants. Madonna will play at half time. I took way to many photos, shown below are some of my favorite shots but more can be seen here. My favorite is the first one of the JW Marriott downtown. It's a majestic building that I see almost everyday. I love this photo, obviously I played around with the colors and exposure levels as I processed the photos.

Old Pictures - Zanzibar

I’m going to try to re-start my “Old Picture” series. I did post a series of old photos quite some time ago but have not done so in quite some time. I’ve set myself a new ambitions goal of at least one a week. Let’s see how I do.

This weeks old photo is actually two. One of Lynne and myself from our weeklong honeymoon in Zanzibar. The picture of me was taken right outside of our little cabin. The picture of Lynne was taken on this deserted beach on the northern tip of the Island. We had this entire strip of beach to ourselves, it went on for as far as the eye could see.

Marissa and Steef Visit

Another quiet day here, although Isabel is feeling just a little under the weather with a cough and a sore throat. Sufficient for her to actually agree to take a nap this afternoon which is something to behold. She must be sick.

From yesterdays post, I decided to take a couple of pictures of Connors cars. We also had Marissa and Steef over yesterday afternoon for a visit. Thanks for coming guys. Our discussions ranged from chess moves, photographic equipment, summer plans and crystal growth and engineering. The girls for their part played dress-up and did some coloring.

Have a good week everybody.

Playing Cars and Sarah Bear

Not a great deal to comment on today, it’s about an ordinary Saturday morning as it gets. Connor and myself are hanging out playing games, puzzles and most importantly “Playing Cars”. We sit on the floor and scoot cars back and forth to each other whilst ensuring a few crashes with great applause every now and then.

I wanted to post a couple of pictures of the kids I had taken over the last few weeks that never made it onto the blog.  Of special note is the one with Isabel with “Sarah Bear”. This is and has been her special bear for quite sometime. If she gets to bed not knowing where she is, the house has to be searched high and low until she is found. She was a present from Samim and to this day Isabel will say that, Sarah bear, who came with a little rocking chair, was a present from Samin”. Thanks again Samim.

Snow Family

The weather is almost freaky right now. Over the last two days, this the third week of January, we have experienced well below freezing (15F) to moderate temperatures and six inches of snow to gale force winds and high temperatures in the high 40s. Anybody know of any worldwide climate phenomenon going on?

We took advantage though; all five of us including Daisy were out in the front yard for ages yesterday snowballing, playing chase and building snowmen. We built five in all, a Snow Family, one for each of our family. Everybody enjoyed it, except for one little boy (name withheld) who got a little too cold in the end…

Sledding

There was no blog update this week for good reason. Right after my last update, I started feeling quite ill with the nasty bug that Isabel and Anja had contracted. It was nasty indeed; I was wiped out for most of the week.

We’re all fully back healthy again, to the extent that we all went sledding this morning over on the Purdue golf course. It was a cool 17F (-8C), in hindsight a little too brisk since Connor and Isabel only enjoyed it momentarily. 

More Illness....

OK, I spoke (or blogged) to soon about how quickly Anja bounced back from sickness. She is still vomiting. She got sick on the bus coming home yesterday and is doing so periodically since. Isabel is also sick now too, we were bathing her and stripping bedclothes in the middle of the night last night. She continued to vomit throughout the night.

When I called the doctors office this morning they simply said…it’s going around, most people in the doctors office has it, it’s viral and there is nothing you can do only take tiny sips of water. Oh, and it last about 5 days. Nice…..

Here is a picture of Isabel in the same pose as Anja the other day and I also took a little video…Poor kids. Our only fear now is that Connor is next and we’ll be soon behind him.

Ordinary Week with a Few Illnesses

It’s Friday afternoon and we have emerged from the week relatively well.  Anja was violently vomiting Wednesday night and most of Thursday only to bounce right back today as if nothing had ever happened. Amazing really. Brooke has also been ill and Connor bust his lip pretty badly. Another ordinary week really.

Last night we got our first real snow of this winter, a good 4-5” so the kids had an hour playing in it this morning as a result of their school delay. Lynne is actually on a trip, she left yesterday for a very cold Minnesota, lets hope she manages to get all her connections tonight to be home with us for Saturday morning. I trust all are well, hope you all have a relaxing weekend.

Lucy Owens

Yesterday we added to our wider family. Congratulations to my brother Clive and Tracey who had a beautiful little baby girl, Lucy. I spoke with Clive twice yesterday, everybody is healthy, doing well and obviously very excited indeed. Well done Tracey, you did a great job; nobody ever doubted that you would. We wish them both the warmest of congratulations, well wishes, health and happiness as they start this new journey as a family. Take lots of pictures guys, soak up the moments, these are the happiest times. 

Ballet and Weekend Update

The kids are now all tucked up in bed, really tired and ready for a new week after a relatively eventful weekend. This was largely due to the great weather we have had. We were all out yesterday playing in the garden for well over an hour, this is virtually unprecedented in January. It’s so nice to get some fresh cool air and get a little exercise too.

Today then, the girls and Lynne got all dressed up (well the girls did anyhowJ) for their annual trip to the ballet. Our local ballet company performs The Nutcracker each January and the girls love going. Whilst they were out, Connor and I hit the golf course, figuratively of course. We took a walk with Daisy on our local golf course, which is great for her, she races up and down the fairways like a racehorse. Then to top it all off this evening, Lynne made a great apple crumble and made Birds Custard to go with it, yumee…

We also had a houseguest this weekend, which provided endless entertainment. Marley, Randy and Lorraine’s cat, stayed while they together with Cy visited Chicago for his birthday. Have a great week everybody.

Shown below are various photos, I love the first one of Connor, it looks like Elmo is coming down the slide.