Lincoln has turned two, and it’s hard for us to believe. He’s still fairly mild mannered, but seems to have come out of his shell some. He’s in the typical vacuum phase kids go through. He pretends to vacuum with his toys, including his toy razor which he flips over, brushes on the carpet and says, “Vacuum, vacuuuum.” That is a normal phase, right?
4 comments June 21st, 2009
Over the past couple of years I’ve recorded the Singing Youth of Denver (SYD) at various times. Recently I was recording them when the director, Lee Cole, was honored as a “Channel 7 Everyday Hero”. As I set up my audio equipment, they were preparing to film the kids. The segment aired on TV recently and you can see the video here. If you look carefully near the beginning when you see the choir, you’ll see my laptop and the back of my head. No, really, it’s my head. –Mark
Add comment June 21st, 2009
I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile. I tend to make projects too large and then never start them. So, with a fresh commitment to just doing something and no promise on consistency, I introduce to you: Music Monday!
This week I want to share something with you that is free and legal. Too good to be true? Not if you like electronic and/or ambient music. There are more and more artists releasing free or name-your-price music. This selection is, for the most part, gentle electronica. Some “noise as music” done with real artistry.
Add comment May 4th, 2009
Last weekend we made a quick trip to Texas, starting with a flight into Houston to pick up the used car we just bought there, then a drive to Dallas to surprise my brother and his family, meet their 2-month-old twins, help them move into their new house, and then a long road trip home.
It was a great trip, and a good thing we took warm clothes! On the way back, the temperature got progressively warmer, until it was positively balmy here in Colorado. Aside from the chill of the wind, though, family sure did warm us up.
Lincoln had a great time playing with Landon and Liam (and I got some good ideas for birthday gifts for him this summer), Mark did some serious painting and seemed to enjoy the trips to Home Depot in the “new-for-us” car, and I loved holding those beautiful little babies, Kallie and Klaire.
I was doing great with telling them apart, but the day we left, the last time I tried to say who was who, I got it wrong :(. Guess I’d better label the pictures so everybody else has an idea about it too. Overall, it was a great weekend–we have great extended families, Link is a trooper of a traveler, Mark thoroughly enjoys the car, and I still love road trips.
3 comments March 18th, 2009
After Jaldapara we headed from the plains into the mountains, the Himalayas to be precise. We were still in the state of West Bengal, but the terrain was to change significantly. Taking another reserved jeep, we hit the road (and believe me, it hit us back).
We could see the Bhutanese Himalayas to the north of us and we drove on the plains, often crossing rivers with little water, but wide beds of mountain gravel. During monsoon, it would be a different story.
In this picture you can see a tall chimney. These were for brick-making, and dotted the area. If you look carefully on the right side of the picture (you may need to click on it to see it more clearly), there is a dump truck in the stream bed. We commonly saw piles of rocks that people were making from the stones in the river bed. They were then loaded onto trucks which took them to construction projects. At times we saw people smashing rocks by hand to make gravel.
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1 comment January 11th, 2009
We find Ryan, Amanda, and Asher (as well as a friend of theirs and a jeep driver) on a train platform on the other side of the world in New Alipurdaur, India. I have to say it felt great to see someone we knew. We piled in the “reserved jeep” and I told the adventure of getting there. Ryan later said it was one of his favorite parts of our visit; to hear what he knew so well about India from a brother’s new eyes.
A “reserved jeep” is a SUV that is wholly for us. A luxury in India. We drive through country roads, constantly using either side of the road to avoid large potholes, or rather stretches of broken pavement, and we catch up. Somehow we got to the topic of the side-to-side wagging of the head that Indian people do. Though it looks like “no”, it turns out it means an emphatic yes. That had already been the source of quite a bit of confusion on the train.
We went to Jaldapara, where we were dropped off at Jaldapara Lodge. Like most things in India, it looks rundown, but the inside was recently renovated. There were queen beds, a walk-in shower with a small dedicated water heater on the wall, a functioning western toilet, and an A/C unit that was not wired up yet. Lincoln was exhausted from the journey, and fell asleep in the kiddy backpack.
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| From India 2008 |
2 comments January 6th, 2009
This is overdue, but we’re going to attempt to give our India trip some justice. Hopefully we’ll be able to share something interesting. We’ll be putting all the pictures up in Picasa and you could look at a slide show of all of them there, but there will be stories here to go with the pictures, so I’d recommend exploring here. However, click on the pictures if you want to see them larger. This will be in multiple installments which will hopefully take less time than the trip did.
Days 1-3: Getting there.
We left from Denver, with a direct flight to London. This might have been more exciting for Lincoln if it wasn’t his 7th or so round-trip flight this year. Still, he likes planes.
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| From India 2008 |
One thing that can be interesting to track is the H.P.R. (the Happy Picture Ratio). It is usually much higher at the beginning of the trip. (more…)
3 comments December 30th, 2008
Update 1: Missed connection in London… will now be going through Delhi. Only have 1 more minute on this paid internet connection. Adventure begins.
Update 2: Made it to Kolkata. Now, to figure out how to get to the train station. Nicole has used a “squatty potty”. I’m holding off. Delhi’s air was dreadful. Kolkata much better. Definitely an adventure.
Update 3: We are now in Gangtok, the capitol of Sikkim, India. We have been in taxies, an overnight train, jeeps, microvans, more jeeps, on trails, public buses, and a gondola. Lincoln has had (and recovered from) giardia. We’ve had southern Indians meals and those in the style of Nepali cooking. We’ve had to adjust our plans multiple times (Ryan and Amanda escorted a woman with labor issues to a hospital in Kalimpong). We are all doing well and really look forward to sharing pictures and stories!
Update 4: We are now in Varanasi by way of Allahabad (an unintentional 6 hour detour involving a missed train station). Whoah! What a city. We can add cycle-richshaws to our vehicle list and camels to our lists of animals seen. To get to the ghats (steps down to the holy Ganges river), you can’t even take a cycle-rickshaw as the “roads” become alleyways… a maze of corridors usually wide enough for a person and a bicycle (or motorcycle) to get down to the river. Speaking of mazes, you have to carefully negotiate the cow patties and other refuse. Our hotel (which we almost didn’t get to) is nice. The city is overwhelming. There will be plenty to say and I think I may have taken close to 1000 pictures… which would be worth a million words. Tomorrow we will begin the multiday effort toward home.
Update 5: We are home, safe, sound and jet-lagged. We think Nicole and Lincoln have giardia, but that should be overcome soon enough. I look forward to sorting pictures and sharing stories. Like how I almost lost our camera in London. Or the 27-second bus ride. Of any of a thousand things. More hopefully soon!
Update 6: Well, when we returned our computer had died. So I got a new one on Black Friday. And then when it was about ready, I re-painted the floor in the garage (long story), which unfortunately released so much fumage that we had to evacuate our house at 1 am to avoid the carcinogens. So we’re staying at my Mom’s house (almost a week now). When we get back to the house, we’ll try to get some pictures up!
7 comments November 4th, 2008
I have finally uploaded some new pictures of Lincoln. I was appalled when I realized that I’ve been averaging about 5 new pictures per month this summer, and hadn’t included any from September or October on our Picasa site. Sorry Grandparents! Nicole
You can get to the new pictures through the link for “Picasa- our pictures” on the right side of our website.
1 comment October 22nd, 2008
My nephew made a guest appearance today in the studio. He sang some of his kindergarten knowledge “A Cappella.” I recorded it, and may have added a little music to it after the fact.
4 comments October 12th, 2008
One day last week I (Nicole) started running water for Lincoln’s bath, a favorite activity of his. As usual, he quickly came toddling into the bathroom, ready to push all his bath toys off the ledge of the tub into the water, to try to scale the side of the bathtub while I peel his clothes off, and to do his best to catch the water coming out of the tap before it falls into the tub. Then, to my surprise, before he even reached the tub, he wheeled around (in toddler language this is understood to take about 2 feet of space–he doesn’t exactly turn on a dime yet) and walked out of the bathroom. I continued to fill the tub, wondering, waiting. Then, back he came. With a bright green sock in his hand. Straight over to the tub, and without any hesitation, he threw the sock into the water! He then turned around, went and got two more socks out of his bottom drawer, and would have done it again if I had not intervened to save the socks from their undeserved drowning. The day after this occurred, we left for a trip. Now that we are back, this process has happened EVERY time we have given him a bath. Some time soon I should probably quit laughing about this and try to teach him not to do it. 
3 comments September 17th, 2008
(Update: Because of a couple factors, our trip has been postponed till November 3rd through the 23rd.)
Nicole: We’re going to India in two weeks! After playing with the idea for nearly as many years as Ryan and Amanda have been living over there, we finally committed to going. Well, we have our tickets. The plan is for us to leave on September 22, 2008, and return on October 15, 2008. I’ve sent off my passport to be renewed, we got a smorgisbord of shots, and I learned all about what we need to gather to get our Visas. Wow. This seems a bit unreal. I’m expecting that feeling to persist until we’ve been there and returned home.
Mark: I hope to blog about our adventure, to share pictures and stories with you, and hear some of your feedback as well. We’ll see how well we do at that. At any rate, don’t expect us to return calls or emails during those weeks. If you would like to know more about Ryan and Amanda’s work in India, check out www.smoothpath.org.
2 comments September 17th, 2008
Our 13-month-old nephew, Drew, currently living in Calgary, Canada, is extremely sick. He has been so for about 4 months , but is now in critical condition. My sister’s blog about it is at: http://jkpdclark.blogspot.com/ where you can read the most current news. She last updated it on Sunday, Sept. 14th. Please, please, please pray for them. Also, we would appreciate it if you would let them know you are praying. You can comment on their blog, email them, or send them a text message on their cell. Email me (Nicole) for their contact information.
1 comment September 15th, 2008
Thanks to Jenn, I (Nicole) now have an airtight excuse for spending time I should be cleaning or napping on the computer instead! I’ve been tagged to write 6 random things about myself on my blog. So, hold your breath and jump in! (more…)
3 comments September 10th, 2008
We have finally released the CD of the musical “Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch”! Woo-hoo! The play is about some cowboys who sing to their cattle to keep them from stampeding, but aren’t very good at it. At some point, some sweet-singing cowgirls enter the picture as well as a no-good-do-er looking to steal the ranch. It has explosions, cows, and everything else necessary for a good time. CD’s are $12 and help Hyland Christian School. If you would like a CD, email me or leave a comment and I’ll get a hold of you. We can ship CDs for an additonal $2.
Here’s a sampler track with excerpts from some of the songs: Ranch Music Sampler
More info after the break. (more…)
Add comment September 7th, 2008
Now that everybody and their brother’s poodle has a blog, I’m going to attempt the near-impossible. I’m going to try to write a succint post that will explain how to subscribe to these blogs. Subscribing has the benefit of being able to tell you when there is a new post at your favorite blog, be it your son’s, your son’s poodle, your favorite news source, or ICanHasCheezburger. This might (eventually) eliminate the need to send out emails saying, “Hey, go read my blog!” The challenge is, of course, that some of the people coming to our blog (for example), don’t even know what a browser is. Still, I’m hopeful I can be helpful. (For the technologically-challenged, you’ll need to click the word “more” below to continue reading this blog entry.
1 comment September 7th, 2008
I’m in denial. I think I may have to to check Lincoln’s birth certificate before I actually believe that we have a thirteen-month-old son. Before Lincoln was born, I had heard over and over again that time only goes faster as we get older, and especially when kids come along . . . well, now instead of just hearing that, we’re living it. Until Lincoln was about 9 months old, time seemed to be behaving, but since then the fast forward button seems to be stuck down. (more…)
2 comments July 8th, 2008
This weekend was the Erie (Colorado) town fair. This means 3 days of hot-air balloon launches. While the prevailing breeze didn’t blow them into our neighborhood this year, they were still fun to watch. If you watch the time-lapse, you’ll notice that the clouds disappear at the same time as the balloons. I’m sure it was all coordinated.
1 comment May 18th, 2008
I’ve been watching area codes change for years now. In fact, there was a time at work when I had two phone lines in my office and one was 720 and the other was 303. I’ve had to update my address book when family member’s area codes change.
But I don’t remember ever having to change a zipcode before (unless someone moved). Regardless, our zipcode has changed from 80020 to 80023. It actually changed last July and there is a grace period of 1 year. So, if you have our zipcode written down or saved in Outlook or whatever, you will want to update it. I wonder what’s next, changing social security numbers?
Add comment April 2nd, 2008
It’s President Day and we are way overdue for a Lincoln Update.
Lincoln is now 8.5 months and doing great (what else would a proud parent say?). He’s not crawling yet, but is start to experiment. He did just start saying “Mama” and “Da da”. I’m not sure he’s completely figured out what it means, but he does seem to get that when he says “Mama”, he gets something (attention, a smile, etc.). The other day his cousin Asher was over here and a couple of us thought for sure that we heard him say “Asher.” Go figure.
(From the main page, click on the “more” link below for additional pictures. Also, see our Picasa site.)
2 comments February 18th, 2008