One of the nice things about visiting with Grandma and Grandpa is visiting with Grandma and Grandpa. Here, Grandma shows Anthony some old family photos....



Here, Grandpa writes a story with Anthony...

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From the “Too Much Information!” file...
I'd been a bit under the weather lately because, er, my plumbing had been stopped up (more bluntly: constipation), until Mom thought of something she'd used 40+ years ago: magnesium citrate.
An adult my size takes a dose of one bottle (10 ounces). We picked one up yesterday afternoon for just $0.99 plus tax, but it was worth its weight in gold.
I drank the whole bottle of the sour lemony stuff, then a large glass of water, and waited. Four hours later, it made itself known during a short but entirely effective trip to the bathroom. I'll spare [...]
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The other day, after visiting a farm with Anthony, we stopped by a house where Grandpa was binking. “Binking” is our family's term for using a metal detector. For many years my dad's had the hobby of hunting for old stuff at area parks and old houses (always with the owner's permission, of course).
This part of Ohio was settled as early as the 1790s, so one can often find old coins and jewelry if one knows where (and how) to look.
We arrived just as Grandpa was about to dig on a target....
(IMAGE: Approaching with Caution)
Anyting Dealing with Dirt Raises the [...]
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(IMAGE: Scruffy Cardinal)
I've still got to pay the bills while traveling, so spent the day on some programming projects. We had a nice storm blow through, so I sat on the veranda with my laptop, enjoying the rain, wind, thunder, and lightning while I worked.
Lotsa' Rain
When you sit on the veranda of my folks' place, the birds generally accost you for waxworms and peanuts, which we keep on hand for them. There were more birds than normal, perhaps due to a lack of flying insects during the heavy rain; at times, there were eight or nine at once. Some of the chickadees come [...]
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Mike and Luke Friedl
My brother Mike and his wife Chickee welcomed their second child last night, little Luke Allan Friedl (8 lbs, 21.5 inches; pics). He arrived after a difficult 12+ hour labor. Mommy is exhausted but doing well, as are Mike and Luke. Waiting at home is Luke's big sister, two-year-old Grace.
(Luke's middle name, Allan, is a name from Chickee's side of the family; her Grandpa and Uncle's).
Congrats, Mike and Chickee!
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(IMAGE: Now That's One Wet Bird)
I posted the other day about the wet and scruffy birds that I fed on a stormy day earlier this week. I'd not gotten any pictures until after the storm, when they'd started to dry off, so they didn't look as wet and messy in the pictures as they had during the storm.
Well, yesterday was another storm and another day of working with the laptop on the veranda, but this time I brought out the camera during the storm, and although it was quite dark and gloomy (it was a thunderstorm, after all), I got some scruffy-wet bird [...]
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Anthony is always saying things that are surprising or interesting (to us, at least) for one reason or another, and today he had a couple of gems.
We were doing our God Blesses before bed, and he said that he wanted to do a special God Bless for Mommy in Japan. Our normal pattern is that I say something that he then repeats, so the conversation went like this: Me: A super God bless for Mommy in Japan... Anthony:I don't want to do the one that you say, because I love Mommy more a super lot. Me: Oh, [...]
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Two days ago I posted a review of a new GPS unit, and yesterday I posted some photos of a soaking wet bird that I took during a storm. Little did I know at the time, but those posts were destined to become related.
It seems that the large tree shown at the left in this picture on the GPS-related post was blown down by the storm of the wet-bird post:
(IMAGE: Oops)
The tree was an old, crotchety mulberry tree that had seen better days. When I was a kid, it was glorious, both fun to climb and producing a lot of mulberries that I'd [...]
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(IMAGE: Unbridled Excitement) after shooting off his first model rocket
As one would expect of a four-year-old boy, Anthony has a keen interest in rockets. If it wasn't clear enough the other day when he explained to me in detail how the space shuttle launched (see the middle of this post), it was clear today when we shot off a model rocket.
I was into model rocketry when I was a kid, so I thought to share that experience a bit with him. Yesterday we bought an Estes starter kit and built one of the rockets, and today we went to a park to shoot it [...]
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(IMAGE: First Experience With Freshly Picked Corn)
(IMAGE: Working Under the Watchful Eye) of some non-wet but ever-hungry birds
(IMAGE: Keeping On Task)
(IMAGE: Attention to Detail)
(IMAGE: Fresh Corn Smells Good) If you've never smelled really fresh corn,you have absolutely no idea what you're missing
(IMAGE: Fresh Corn Looks Good) This variety is called “Peaches and Cream,” and is very sweet
(IMAGE: Fresh Corn Tastes Super Good) Really, these were so good, I can't imagine that it's anything but downhill from here
He really liked it, and mostly inhaled the better part of three ears.
He said that he was full while half [...]
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(IMAGE: Watering His Flowers)
Anthony planted some flowers with Grandma yesterday, so today it was time to water them.
(IMAGE: Near the “Anthony's Tree”)
The evergreen (a sequoia redwood) to the right of the flowers (in the center of the picture above) is one that Anthony planted when he turned one year old.
Let's look at a couple of old pictures....
One-Year-Old Anthony Planting His Tree (more pics)
(IMAGE: A Year Ago, with Mommy and Daddy)(and George) from when we were in town last year for my brother Alan's wedding
Now, back to today...
(IMAGE: Today, at Four and a Half Years Old)(with George)