Jeffie was able to get Friday off from work, I was able to find cheapish hotel tickets, and the Puppy dog had all of his shots up to date. It was the perfect storm coming together.

It’s Friday morning, 7 am. Jeffie’s Uncle Greg was in Mobile, AL prepping, and would be wearing his arm out in 12 hours for Mardi Gras. We intended to see that.

(warning… Don’t read anymore if you don’t have high speed. More pictures than any post prior….)

So… Kids up, get dressed, and kindly be civilized about getting into your car seats! Jack, out of the Kennel, into the van! Throw the last bits of packing around the camera and computer gear already loaded into the van, and we are on the way! Oh yeah, sorry Jack, but your trip is considerably shorter than ours. 7:30am, Jack was introduced to the several young ladies that would be his escort for the weekend at the Franklin Kennels.

It’s about 6.5 hours to Mobile from Franklin. We didn’t make it in that. About Cullman, AL, we realized that the dresses for Mommy and Mary were still in the Kitchen. Outside of Montgomery, we did the Lunch stop as well as a bit of shopping to replace the articles that we weren’t going back for. But we did make it down in plenty of time.

I managed to get reservations at the Holiday Inn on Government street. It’s DIRECTLY on the parade route. The parades start on it’s back property, loop past the front of the hotel about half way through the route, and then runs along the side of the property at the end. It’s hard to find a better stop. Additionally, we were on the tenth floor, almost directly looking down on Government street.

Evidence A:

Our aunt Janie was planning on using room to get changed after the Parade, so that she could attend the Ball. We’ll have to do that one year, but this time was a bit rushed, and kids would need attending to. She brought a bag of Mardi Gras beads and treats from Uncle Greg for the Kids – Just in case. I can’t describe how much we appreciated it. It set the mood of the Kids absolutely perfectly, and really energized them for the Parade to come.

William was so excited he was going to crawl straight through the window. Some more of the Family started to appear, including the second newest arrival – Colin. (The newest arrival – Sean, was the second reason we made this trip. His Baptism was on Saturday – That will probably be the next post.)

Everyone was gearing up. It was a great temp outside, but down on the street, the wind knocked that temp right out of the park, so jackets and bundling were the order for the night.

Christian ready to grab anything coming his way!

Mary Vic… Not sure what’s really going on yet, but having a blast none the less.

Jim and the newest member… bundled and ready to go. Kid was undoubtably the warmest person on the street!

Great Grandma, Mary and Jeff – Great grandma was quite displeased that she didn’t know we were coming… telling everyone she did not like that she was ‘always the last one to know’. We responded simply by stating that it was hard for it to be a surprise when you knew what was going on. I don’t think she appreciated that.

No one knows what’s going on…. But we’re waiting and ready for what ever it might be! It’s out first Mardi Gras, first Parade, everything. I marched in a New Orleans Mardi Gras Parade, but had never been on the other side of the barriers, so it was a great night of firsts for our entire family.

We had a bit of an issue during the parade – Mary did her best to get the treats in the only way she knew how. Holding the bag open for them to put the stuff in. Needless to say, that simply didn’t work. There were tears, there was crying. Then, around the 3rd float, some stuff came back her way, Daddy was able to scoop up two roses for her, and the mood improved significantly.

Shortly afterwards, Mommy and Mary worked as a team to get (Mommy gesturing frantically and catching) the prize of the night! One BIG stuffed Dora the Explorer doll. The Conde who threw that doll made my daughters night and our trip was a fantastic success. See below.

We had a few more issues… One VERY large bag of beads (as in the original shipping bag… probably about 5-10 lbs) was hurled at us… And by us, I mean William and Great Grandma. Thankfully, I was able to snag it right before impact, but man that was scary. Brian took a few beads directly in the face, and Aunt Susan has a black eye from a bag of hershey kisses. I had things bouncing off my head, but I’m guessing some were aiming directly at the camera.  You have to be on your toes, and even that isn’t enough sometimes.

Now, there were a large number of great floats, and this post is long enough as it is. I’ll put up a gallery, or another post just about some of that. But, I would be remiss without this:

Uncle Greg’s Pirate Float! It was the last float of the parade, and frankly, that just made it the highlight of parade in our opinion!

Here’s the man himself. The Stuffed animal in front of him was especially for Christian, and it was delivered in style.

Success!

Unfortunately, the Rose for his wife was NOT delivered quite as well…. But we have proof that it was intended to be!

Collecting the aftermath. Uncle Robert grabbed William and they had a great time (William especially) collecting Doubloons that we had scooped to the area, but couldn’t grab until the barriers were removed. MV and Mommy grabbed half a billion Moon pies.

Mary and her loot! Her getting the Dora was absolutely awesome, even though William has attached onto it very much at this point.

I’ll post more, even if they are just captioned photos… We’ll see how well that goes. I took over 2000 pictures and it’s taking quite a time to work through them. There is the story of the after parade Photo shoot – Aunt Janie had the audacity to tell me that she wasn’t Photogenic. Oh, I have soo much proof otherwise. Plus we have the Baptism, and the parades Saturday Night. I sense a series of posts!

Mary woke up in the morning wanting to go back for a Volcano… It’s obviously going to be a challenge to keep this a special treat.

Today has been a good day. A cold day, but good none the less.

You’ve heard of the Dog days of summer?

These are the dog days of Winter. It’s a bit different than yesterday.

It’s off to the dog park in Franklin! Jack having no clue, the kids little more… Oh, and it’s 30 fricking degrees outside.

This is MY ball. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

I want to play with everyone. Socialization is good for Dogs, and Jack is definitely working that one through. We stayed for about an hour, and during that time, Jack attacked, was attacked, and generally made a mess of everyone and everything. Needless to say, he had a blast. Until the Bath.

Look at those Paws! He’s gaining weight all the time, and it’s ALL in the paws and ankles! Oh yeah.. and the ears. Radar dishes.

William was not pleased at the decision to leave BEFORE everyone turned to ice. But leave we did. Things to do, Puppies to bathe. Oh, there will HAVE to be pictures of the puppy being bathed, but not this time. We aren’t exactly pleased at the concept of water being poured all over us when it’s freezing outside. Of course, you have to pull the dog away from the pond continuously, but that’s irrelevant to the bathing thing.

Bath over with, Puppy dried. Kids in quiet time (William asleep, Mary.. yeah, right). But the day is not over. Dad set up the studio stobe upstairs, and it was time to goof off a bit before bed.

I had to try out the new camera body with some controlled (sorta) situations. Lots of light, fast sharp lenses… And a daughter and puppy ready to go after a bit of rest. I’m pretty impressed with the resolving power. Anyone want a 40 inch picture of a Puppy where you can see individual hairs?

The remainder of the album is here:

Laserjack from Greg Nicholson on Vimeo.

In summary, before edit 1 there were nearly 6,000 frames.

With the initial cut, I deleted the frames that weren’t QUITE there. This included strobes that didn’t fire, focus points being wrong, or not seeing anything worthwhile at all.

That left me with over 4,000 frames.

You wondered why nothing was posted. Choosing from that selection isn’t easy. Tagging that many isn’t easy. And then, once you’ve done that, and you think you have your selections, you actually can start to WORK on them.

Historically, I’ve put these up chronologically. This year, we’ll try grouping them by subject.

Sunrise: As I’ve said earlier, it’s a miracle that these even were taken.

Sunset: What’s stranger, in most cases, I have frames from BOTH sunrise and sunset.

McGuires: Chronicled here, some of these you’ve already seen.

Fudpuckers: Fishing for Alligators. Need I say more?

Crabs: Mary still declares this to be one of her favorite activities. I think the idea of pulling a live crab from the ocean, and putting it in a bucket is her idea of heaven. The child IS weird.

Bird Feeding: The idea is to feed to Gulls so they come closer. THEN, you chase them down. One of these days they are going to get one, and then it’s going to get REAL interesting.

Beach: Yeah, we were at the beach. If it’s not in one of the above catagories, chances are, it’s here.

Everything else: Ok, there were some that didn’t fit. The experiment with the REALLY CHEAP and BAD underwater camera. William telling Papa exactly HOW he needed to make the ice cream. These went into the root folder.

That didn’t really happen, but everyone had a good time anyways. Ghouls at Grassmere (The halloween programs) kicked off Friday night, so they were doing all of the setup for that. The kids really enjoyed that, although both of the parents weren’t above holding trick or treat at the zoo ransom for the kid’s good behavior.

We’re going to head back tonight! Updates to follow.

Of course, while the recipe and technique may not have been passed through on this session, the joy certainly was.

Grandma makes a pretty killer Country fried steak, and Mary Vic was EXTREMELY interested in helping. When I came in to the kitchen, I was afraid that Mary’s face was going to split in two from the smile! They even tried to cook a cake for everyone, although that didn’t turn out so well, since there wasn’t actually anything ingredient-wise that was capable. The attempt was made anyways, and thankfully, everyone was smart enough NOT to try to eat it.

From Mary’s standpoint, the Lesson learned this day was simple: Cooking is fun, it’s hard work, and best finished with Ice Cream!

Mary in motion..

And William in motion, but not as fast!

We hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday!  God Bless America!

And unfortunately, much like Star Wars and the Matrix, the third episode isn’t as good as anyone would have wished.

(Or at least the post isn’t… The kids unveiling was just fine)

We loaded the Kids into the vehicle at the Space center, and proceeded up 565 towards Nashville. Since we were leaving ~4:15pm, and the Airshow was ending about the same time, there was definitely some apprehension from me about how much traffic we were going to get into. Turns out, aside from a 5 minute slow period of about 35mph on the interstate, there wasn’t any major issue. That wasn’t bad at all. And both kids were out before we hit 65 North.

Mary slept the whole way, dreaming of the surprise to come. (We had to tell her something to detach her from her grandmother!) William slept most of the way, and then, in a fashion unique to himself, woke and screamed through half of Tennessee. Mary was oblivious.

Mary woke 2 minutes away from the house, perfect timing intact.

Jeff began to get the kids out while I grabbed the Camera bag and ran to the back. The Video camera went on the fort itself, the SLR in my hand, and the rest of the bag everywhere else. You can see the chaos spread since I was trying to make sure I caught their face when they saw it.

Pictures are here.

And the video (technical issues NOT resolved) is here:

Mary And William discover the Playfort from Greg Nicholson on Vimeo.

I’m a bit peeved. It took multiple multi hour sessions to get the video encoded from 1080i to 720p H264 AND under the limit for Vimeo. And then, it turns out that it failed on their end, and (based on the result) it looks like they down-sampled pretty heavily just to get it up. My guess is that the original file exceeded their encode parameters. If you are in the adventurous mode, and you’ve got tons of bandwidth, you can download the original .MOV file, at 485M. It’s probably not worth it though.

I’ll probably re-encode just the initial reactions and upload them on Wed when the counter resets.

The kids loved the fort, and they have played on it every day. William freaked again today when he saw it. It will be interesting to see how long it’s ‘new’ to him.

It is absolutely worth it. Not saying that I want to do it again anytime soon, but it was/is definitely worth it.

Last post, I showed our first look at the Baby Blue jays.

Yesterday, I was able to get a better shot of 1 of them.

Unfortunately, It’s sibling didn’t survive. Jeff and I debated about the nature of Blue Jay’s (we both thought that they were the type to push the sibling out of the nest to maximize the biggest’s chances).

I had thought a feline had taken care of it, but this morning I had to do the duty with a trash bag. Then, this afternoon, we found the remaining sibling. I don’t think there are any left. I don’t know if they left the nest too early, or what happened. I don’t think that a cat got them, they weren’t very disturbed.

Now, the issue… I tried VERY hard to make sure that Mary didn’t know what I was doing. I told her I had to take care of some stuff out in the yard, and get rid of some things that needed to go into the trash. Jeff had obviously mentioned baby bird loud enough that Mary could hear… I didn’t realize that. So, as I brought the bag back in, took care of it, and washed my hands, the inquisition began. I had thought I deflected it well enough, but when I came back in, I heard Jeff explaining that a baby bird had died, and Daddy was taking care of it.

Honestly, that was the last thing I wanted her to hear. Yes, I’m a protective parent. Yes, I have told less than the complete truth to her. I know that she’ll come to age. I want to make sure that she’s emotionally able to handle that when it happens. She still talks about her pet Kosh. I have enough problems in my heart when that comes up. I really don’t want her to make the full connection yet.

I know I can’t protect her from the fact that life includes death. Heck, some of her favorite programming is the Giant squid programs and the Killer (Humboldt) squid from the Discovery channel. She’ll quote facts and figures! from that shows all day long. And yes, it includes death. I think she does know, but it’s a theoretical knowledge.

I don’t want her to realize that it’s a real phenomenon just yet.

I certainly don’t want to field the questions, as even though she does have that incessant ‘why’ that kids have, some of her questions bite a bit, and you can tell that there is a mind behind there, probing, and trying to learn the reality. I want to enjoy the kid in her, and I want her to enjoy it. I don’t want her to grow up too quickly. It seemed that I had grown up quickly because of all of the relocations that my family went through. I feel that I came out stronger because of it and it certainly forged me, but I’d like for my kids to grow up ‘normal’.

I didn’t expect a 4 year old to have to deal with death. I was worried.

She dealt with it much better than I did. I hope it’s done and over with, and my worries were unfounded.

And yes, I’m a bit sad that the ugly UGLY bird above won’t make it to be a prettier adult. I was looking forward to watching them grow.

The day started nicely enough with waffles!

After making a nice mess with the bisquick, scooping from one bowl to the next, we tried to get ready for the day but lost the babies! Where could they have gone?

Here’s one!

and there’s Mary!

After a fun filled Sunday evening of chasing the dachsunds (of which none of the pictures came out), and doggy kisses Tuesday morning, we headed to Trinity hospital, formerly Montclaire. The kids loved the fountains and visited them on the way in and out of the hospital.

Any place with elevators is okay. “I push the buttons!”

MawMaw was okay and glad to see William walking. She had been worried he’d have a horrible limp but that was not the case. He proceeded to run with sister back and forth across the room screeching. Granted his run is much slower than MaryVic’s but you can see the determination to keep up with her. We visited for an hour or longer before heading back to Jasper for lunch then home. Mom’s procedure on Tuesday went fine, polyps removal in her throat. She was home Tuesday evening. MawMaw was home by the end of the week.

We went to the Texas Roadhouse for their family night Monday evening but it doesn’t compare to our favorite place, Chik-fil-A’s family night on Tuesdays. Both places provide free ice cream for kids but the roadhouse doesn’t have Cow and Balloons!

Sean let William try on his hat.

MaryVic was most disappointed on Wednesday night when informed that we were not going to Panchos and would not be eating out every night of the week. She finally got there on Saturday for the required weekly dose of cheese quesadillas.

The children went to daycare Tuesday through Friday. William made it every day for a full day. He was getting tired on Thursday but got a break when Poppa and Grandmomma came up Friday and checked them out of daycare early. He has the required daycare runny nose but otherwise is doing fine. MaryVic will yell ‘C’mon William!’ and he is right there for fun, mayhem and mischief.