Bye-bye, Rudy

I don't think I have ever heard Dan laugh harder than when we saw Giuliani last night on MSNBC proclaiming, "We ran an uplifting campaign."

"9/11! Islamofascism! They're trying to kill you! Booga booga!"

We are having a nice sunny day. I took the kids and a friend to a park and they ran around playing. Nice to have some outdoor time.

LOLcats

Someone just sent me this link.

It is full of time-wasting cat picture jokes.
Like this one.

And more rain

Blah, blah, rain, etc. I am ready for February when we typically have nicer weather.

Our street appears to have acquired someone's lost bunny. It is a white one with a couple of black spots, very cute. It has been running around in the yards, including ours, for about a week now. I assume it is eating grass or other plants so it probably won't starve to death. I feel sorry for it being so wet, but maybe it can hide under a car or in a shed or something. Twice one neighbor or another has called to ask whether we are the owners of a rabbit. I knew someone a couple of blocks away had a cage in their front yard so I dropped by there today to see if they had lost a rabbit, but it wasn't theirs. Nothing in the classifieds today either, nor on craigslist. It is a mystery.

Everyone in both kids' classes seems to be sick, so I suppose it is only a matter of time.

Rain, rain, rain

It has been raining for several days and it looks like we are in for another week or so of it, maybe more. We need it, but the kids are getting a little tired of only having indoor recess and being cooped up all day.

In Davis news, last night the school board voted down the potential charter school at our old neighborhood school site (Valley Oak), 4-1. Dan was there until close to 1 am. They will likely appeal to the county board of education, so this could drag on for a while longer. The district is short of money and the board felt conflicted by having a fiduciary responsibility to ensure the district is solvent while at the same time not technically being allowed under charter law to reject a petition because the district can't afford it. There were various other technical aspects of the charter that people also weren't happy with, but the money is the big sticking point.

P-T conf

I had a parent-teacher conference with Douglas's teacher this morning. She was nothing but glowing about his language skills, cognitive and math - all 6-12 months ahead of schedule. He is still working on the drawing and cutting. She commented how much more outgoing and talkative he is compared with Owen whom she also taught. He is mostly friends with the older pre-K kids so next year it will be tough when all his friends leave to go to kindergarten and he still has another year to go, since he just turned 4.

All seemed well. She also commented how nice a kid he is and not into all the violent stuff like some kids his age. Clearly he is a totally different child at preschool than he is at home.

Trip to the snow

Today we took a trip to Soda Springs, near the top of Donner Pass, with some friends to hit the snow.

Owen really enjoyed trying out snowboarding. The lessons were all full but he got to try a board anyway.





Here he is cruising down a little hill.








Dan and our friends Meg and Eric enjoying the fine weather.





Douglas and I did some tubing in a section for little kids. It was a very gradual slope so we didn't have to go so fast.










Owen and his friend Andrew making some snowballs.







Douglas enjoying tossing snow at one and all.

Bill Clinton at UCD

Picture from the Sac Bee
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Late on Monday night, UC Davis arranged to have Bill Clinton come speak just 24 hours later, last night. He was scheduled to speak at the ARC Pavilion where the basketball games are held. The doors were supposed to open at 8:15 and his talk was supposed to start at 9.

I went with my friend Anne. We got there around 7:40 last night and saw a line that was probably the longest line in the history of Davis, made up mostly of students. The ARC is right next to some soccer fields and the line stretched from the ARC, around three sides of the fields, and back around the ARC again so that we were actually standing in front of it. We stood in the freezing, windy cold for an hour and a half. Finally just before 9:00 the line started moving, but when we had gotten a little way the police said the auditorium was full and that we should go home.

Aggravating! Apparently 7,800 people got in and they turned away another 3,500 at the door.

Bee article: Bill Clinton Wows UCD

Zeum

We were planning to go to the snow today, but it turned out the snow park had no power so they were closed.

We will probably go next weekend instead.





But we still wanted a day trip so we went to San Francisco to Zeum, an interactive museum where you can do things like make your own stop-animation claymation movies, music videos, and play with Photoshop images of yourself. It was pretty fun, and a beautiful sunny day in the city.

Zeum has a fun playground right outside, across from the Metreon and Yerba Buena Gardens.












Owen came home and continued to work on a plan for his claymation movie. It turned out it was family day at the SF museums, which meant it was free (yay) but super crowded so they let us play with the clay, but did not allow us to make a movie (not yay). So that part still needs to happen.

Hilarious

The Republican debate on Sat. night, as reported by notes taken by the writer's 9 year old.

Storm

We had quite a storm here yesterday. This tree fell down yesterday morning, smashing both cars of the neighbor across the street and completely blocking Tulane. It took the city all day to get it cleaned up. At the other end of the street, a tree fell on a house at the corner of Tulane and Cypress. It's been pretty exciting.



We lost power starting yesterday morning around 9:15 and it came back on today at about 5 am. We know several people who still don't have power though.