Tea for six and a half

Here is Ari, finally liking her bike helmet. You may remember that she used to didn't like it, but now she's super into wearing it. We couldn't hardly get her to put it down.

We've been having a lovely set of spring breaks. I was off, and then Thad was off for my first week of classes, so that was nice. Oh, and I bought a bike again. My last one got stole at the end of fall (more or less) out of our backyard, which I was upset about. I like the new bike, though. It's super light (I think the lightest bike I've ever owned) and it rides really nice. I got it at Once Ridden, which, as far as I can tell, is the only used bike shop in the C-Bus. I approve of good used bikes. It's like recycling. Also, those guys are so the best bike mechanics. When you recondition old bikes, you really know your way around a frikkin' bike, you know?

Saturday, we had a whole road trip with us and R&B and also Kira and Travis. I was just wondering if I'd ever actually mentioned Kira and Travis in this blog, and I see that I haven't. Thad sort of mentioned that Kira wasn't a cat once, and that we game with them. Anyway, they moved here last fall, and we have been hanging out. They like my baby. In fact, because they like my baby, they read this blog, so I feel weird talking about them. However, I suspect they're like to show up here again, so I thought I'd explain who they are and all. Sort of. Yeah. So.

Right! Road trip! We've been wanting to do a little steampunk crafting, but oh noes! We had no appropriately steampunky bits and bobs. So, Rick recommended us to go to this place in Dayton called Mendelson's. It was this crazy enormous warehouse full of weird crap. I giggled like a schoolgirl. Literally, I'm not joking about that. I mean, this place had an entire room just for vacuum tubes. I said, get in my ray guns! and bought seven.

After Mendelson's, we went over to the Der Dutchman and ate us some broasted freakin' chicken. I have gone to the Der Dutchman twice before (and yes, I noticed the double article there, thanks ;) ) and I highly approve of it.

It has a buffet, where you can eat as much broasted chicken and beef and turkey roast as you want. And also, you can have mashed potatoes and corn and green beans and amishy noodles. And they bring you as much rolls as you want. I ate and ate and ate. Ari had pizza, actually. I'm glad Thad was paying attention to her fooding, because I was paying attention to the fine, fine eating I was doing. I think he knew that he was going to have to look after her for the duration of that meal. Because, I mean, broasted chicken.

Then there was pie afterwards.

We always knew you was a whoopsy...

R&B have had the last two days off for spring break, and we've been hanging out. Tuesday, they came over. We had dinner and watched movies and worked on craft projects (Rick's faaabulous leather tophat, the armored collar Brooke and I are working on, and my lab apron). Rick cried at the end of The Iron Giant, but claims to still be a man. (To be fair, we all cried at the end of The Iron Giant. "Superman...")

Anyway, yesterday, we went to Landoll's Mohican Castle and had a look around and some lunch. It's a fantastically expensive B&B, which used to be a retreat which a rich dude built for himself out in the woods. It's all... neo-medieval. Pretty, though, and there's a nice restaurant attached. We had lunch there, and it was tasty. I had tasty crab cakes, and Thad had a pork loin. Ari had french fries. Have I ever mentioned that my child loves french fries seemingly more than any other food? She does. She will only eat other food if the french fries are gone.

Unfortunately, it was raining while we were there. And cold. Then, it got colder. Brooke wanted us to go for a nature walk, but she was crazy. :) We went to this gorge overlook, and that was about good enough for us. Ari had a great time, though. There were puddles! And ice! And Miss Brooke!

Then, on the way home, it got even colder. Then it started to hail. Then, it started to snow. Then, the roads got really horrible. Ech. Anyway, we got home and I made scones (I love scones) and we played 4x4 HoMMV and worked on our craft projects. Apron: done, and also a copper mesh surgical mask. Now I have to make that blouse. I'm a little frightened. Tailoring is hard.

Maine: 2

This is Nancy and Francis's house. Because it wasn't designed to host the invasion that we constituted, Maryanne and Theodore slept on the lawn in tents. On air mattresses, so I'm told they were comfortable. :)

Elsewhere around the property was some beautiful lilacs and roses, and lots of nice lawn for Ari and the Papke clan to sword fight and roll around in. It also had a gravel drive that Ari was fascinated by. She kept running out there, picking up rocks, and transporting the rocks to other parts of the drive.

This is Ari and Francis and Bunny hanging out together. Ari had a great time with Francis- especially when he was showing her his slideshow of cats. She liked it so much that we went ahead and made a cat slideshow here, too (mostly of pictures from this trip!).

And again, there's Bunny, willingly being near that noisy little bundle of chaos that is my Ari.

I was really worried about how Ari would do in a strange house for so long- both in terms of us having to prevent her from destroying things and in terms of her being happy and okay with things. As it turned out, though, she was totally fine with Nancy and Francis's- she totally made herself at home- and not in the pouring flour all over the floor way, either, thank god.

This is us at Cod End, having our first (and I think, the best) lobster rolls of the trip! We're all squinting because it was shockingly bright there. It didn't seem like it was that bright, but by golly, we couldn't see anything.

They had big, open tanks of lobsters on the floor in there. Ari kept wanting to play and splash in the tanks- I'm not sure what she thought of the delicious, delicious doomed crustaceans there.

Maine: 1

We recently went to Maine, to visit Thad's grandparents. They have a lovely (gorgeous, stunning) house in Thomaston, and we spent the week touristing around the area and generally getting to spend time with Thad's extended and immediate family. It was a great trip, and here's some pictures. I picked the ones I liked the very very best, and I figured I'd take the time to write some stuff about what I remember about the trip. It'll probably take a while (a number of entries, anyhow) but if you don't want to, no one is making you read. ;)

This is Ari playing with pots and pans. She very much liked going in the kitchen and playing in the cupboards there- perhaps because she has no cupboards at home? Eventually, we had to tie the cupboard with the bleach and cleaning supplies in it shut- although, all she seemed to want from there was the scrub brush. Go figure.

Also, the liquor was kept in one of the cupboards, and she thought it was great fun to grab the bottles out! Marcus had hopes for getting her to bring them to him, but it didn't work out that way. ;)

This is where we slept on the trip- in the music room. It's one of the few cat-free rooms in the house, which was nice. It was full of windows and beautiful plants.

If you look closer at this picture, you'll notice that Ari and Thad both have pen marks all over them. Thad stayed up with her the night before this, and she apparently got hold of a pen and went to town. I snuck in and took these pictures for posterity.

This is Ari with Bunny, a very tolerant Manx cat (hence her name). Ari loved the cats at Nancy and Francis's, but most of them decided that this loud little creature was too much for them, and they were steering clear. Bunny was most willing to put up with Ari.

Not that she was too bad, as toddlers go. She was generally very gentle and reasonably respectful of the cats- but in that loud, clumsy toddler sort of way. Anyway, Ari liked to lie on the ground with Bunny or pet her or follow her around. This is her pointing at Bunny and saying "dat! dat!"

Fly unzipped

This is Ari, having dinner like a real grown-up, with a fork and a regular cup and her own seat at the table. How about that?

We've been trying to unpack and readjust to a less lobster-filled life. :) Oh, and also catch up on any of the several hundred email and snail mail and phone messages we had waiting for us (so, if you're wondering why you haven't heard from us, that would be why).

I will tell y'all more about the trip (which was lovely), but I think I'll wait until I have the pictures from Marcus, so you can see what I'm talking about. :)

Otherwise, we're trying to work out what the summer will be like. Thad's working a few nights a week at Target (hopefully, getting to be more like 4 or 5 and not 2 or 3 like it is now). I've got to go meet with people tomorrow, and then I'm hoping I can just work a couple days a week, around Thad's schedule. We will see.

Ari's been talking up a storm. She's firmly in the two-word stage, and now she can say medial consonants. So, where she was saying "bay-ee" for baby a month ago, she definitely says "baby" now. Still no proper "f's", though. When we were in Maine, I'd tell we needed to go back to our family, and she'd say "go sammy! go sammy!" all excited-like.

Oh, funny thing- Ari will sit there and go "mm mm Mama. mm mm Mama. mm mm Papa. mm mm Ah-ee." Um, and she's starting to be able to count. She's known the numbers for a while, but now she's aware that they come in a set sequence.

And here she is, fallen asleep over a book she was reading: