Mali is sick. I am sick.

Illness is everywhere. Mali isn't even talking to me, but we're sharing a nasty virus. My symptoms include: Lungs full of junk, fever, sore throat, swollen glands, and a nasty, painful cough.
Mali missed school on Friday.

Another Xtreme Victory

Mali's team won their third game in a row last Saturday, this time only 1-0 from an early free kick from Amanda. Mali played great again - she is really figuring this soccer stuff out.
Here are a pair of pictures showing a very poised Mali delivering a great header.

Catch up

I finally got back in to my Flickr account! So I'm catching up on photos.

Andrew did well at the Metro District Swim Meet, moving from 6th to 5th in the backstroke. He was happy with his time, and also with his green ribbon (though it's hard to tell as he holds it like a dead fish.)


Mali has been playing great soccer, as has her entire team. They are now 3-0. The photo below is from their second game, which the won 2-0.

News: Eagle vs. Traffic

Traffic was unreasonably slow approaching the 520 bridge this morning, unreasonably slow even for 8:30 AM on a weekday, especially without any crazy weather (sunshine. rain. wind.) to blame it on.
I discovered the issue when I finally reached the bridge - there was a bald eagle perched on a lightpole, preening, and everyone was checking him out. His perch was hanging over the East-bound lanes near the sculptures-formerly-fountains. Traffic was backed up pretty far in both directions.

My observation:
The animals will soon figure out how to bring human civilization to a standstill.

My proposed defense against this particular animal tactic:
The DOT could place decoys of unusual birds on top of all the lightpoles, so no one notices when one is real.

That might have been a better use of art project dollars than the overly fascinating, beautiful and interesting-to-an-unfortunate-degree fountains that were there. I loved those fountains: kinetic, exciting. The way they were constantly changing based on the winds and the angle of the sun made them always worth a good long slow-the-car-down look. The replacement sculptures are nice, and nicely static, but they couldn't be too nice or they'd still be slowing traffic. (The DOT says they removed the fountains because of high maintenance costs, but I don't believe it.)

Anyway, I was itching to tell someone this random bit of news, and you all are my victims. I'm sure there will be more bulletins in the future.

Done for now.

Renovation.

I picked up my new (their old) loveseat from Dave and Susan last night, and also visited with Dalton and Rylin. They (kids and parents) loved showing me all the new stuff in the newly remodeled downstairs of their house: new floors, paint, furniture, kitchen (great multicolored small glass tiles, and under-cabinet lights to highlight them, amazingly huge countertop slabs of granite), reconfigured bonus room. The furniture had just arrived a few days before, and the kids were still having a contest over who had sat in the new furniture first, and who was first tickled on the new carpet.

Rylin read me a (long) story she had dictated to Susan and illustrated about picking pumpkins, complete with colorful winds and a tornado. Afterwards she said, "I don't remember what my room looked like the last time you were here." And so we happily raced upstairs to see her new bed and wallflowers, though I'd seen the bed before. She said she didn't know if the new wallflowers would *ever* get put on the wall, since she'd already had them so long.
Seeing the multiple layers of clothes and toys littering the room, I asked her if a tornado had gone through - maybe a Rylin tornado. She said no, she had a friend over.
So I said, "Ah! Two tornados!" She laughed at that (placate the crazy uncle or he'll never stop.) Then she raced to show me the new bonus room layout, explaining they redid it because it was their kitchen while the new downstairs was being built. "See, here's where the table was where we ate!"
She was really animated and fun, very energetic. She was even doing little hops with each homework question she answered when I first arrived, moving around like a hummingbird, or a quick little bunny. Very cute.
Dalton was smiling the whole time (even a timeout didn't phase him.) He had a new haircut, fairly short, a big change from the long hair from the last time I saw him.

When Dave and I came back in from squeezing the loveseat into the van, BOTH kids were sitting in separate corners in timeout, and stayed there until I left, except for goodbye hugs. Susan said she wasn't interested in who started what, if they couldn't be nice to each other they were both getting timeouts. They both seemed okay with that, there was no yelling that I heard, and they were (mostly) quiet little mice in their corners. Well, Dalton tried to explain a couple of things to me, but Susan stopped him quickly each time. I think if he knows something he just cannot help but share it with the world. "Coal is a fossil, not a rock."

The sad tale of the Duke Everyone Loves.

Andrew got sick and stayed home Thursday. Friday he valiantly went to school to take part in the assembly for the Dukes and the Winter Formal, but he threw up and passed out between classes, so there was no way he could stay for the assembly. He is still sick, and missed the Winter Formal last night. His friends texted him throughout the night, so he was kinda-sorta there in slightly more than spirit. His friend Andrew F. posted photos of Allie texting him.