Fort Worth

We took our first trip to Fort Worth for President's Day. We started off with a trip to the Kimbell Museum. Not exactly the Louvre or the Chicago Art Institute, but it's free and they did have a Cezane and a Monet.

Not sure who this is a picture of (someone Spanish), but Elsa's doing her best impersenation of him.

Later we went to the Stockyards. This is real Texas. We saw people with hats and boots and missing teeth and everything. Twice a day, they bring the cattle out into the streets. We couldn't believe the size of these horns! Everything's bigger in Texas. (This street, by the way, was full of BBQ joints and smelled fantastic. Wonder if the cows knew how much better they'd be smelling with a little dry rub.)

We ate lunch at Joe T. Garcia's - a restaurant that's been recommended to us ever since we landed last May. The food was good, but Greg and I still think it's pretty tough to be Chuy's. Although Ansel seemed to appreciate the meditation pool.

Elsa turns 7!

Elsa's birthday was on February 19th. She made a pretty good haul. I think Henry's used the pogo stick more than she has. When she finished opening up her presents she said the words no parent who was up until midnight getting a party ready wants to hear: "You know what I really wanted?"

Hesitantly we asked her. "More birthday cards," she said. We explained that birthday cards usually don't come from parents (at least until you're in college), and that she'd be getting some from her friends later that day. That brightened her up. And other that having another confirmation that she's a little nuts, we were very relieved, too.

This year's theme was an Artist's Party. My cousin Brittany, who is an excellent illustrator, came to show the girls how to draw Tinkerbell and unicorns (and the girls' renditions were surprisingly good). While Brittany had the illustrators at one station, girls at another station were painting their canvases.

Just so they weren't at a loss and suffer a humiliating artists block in the middle of the party, we gave them the theme "Your Best Summer Day." We had lots of blue skies and ice cream cones. But only Elsa gave us an ice cream cone floating in the ocean near a pink palm tree. Very Dali.

My artistic contribution was this rainbow cake that I found on the Martha Stewart website. It's a double rainbow all the way!

Oh, you're sick, are you?

A couple weeks ago, Henry said he was sick enough to stay home from school. But this is what he was doing by mid-afternoon.

I'm not saying he wasn't sick - he really was. I guess you're just never too sick to rock.

Henry's introduction to the NBA

Greg took Henry to his first NBA game last night. It was the Mavericks vs. the Cavs. It looks like Henry's gagging at the Tyson Chandler poster, but it was just his eight-year-old brain confusing machismo aggression with excitement.

And you know those t-shirts they catapult into the stands between quarters? What are the chances that at his first game, Henry would catch one? Between this and the free Tyson Chandler bobblehead doll he picked up, the kid's going to think NBA games are a giant swag-fest.

Final score

Mavs: 99

Cavs: 96

Henry: Super happy

(By the way, this was Cleveland's 25th straight loss in a row. Ouch.)

Is that you, Texas?

Last week, we were hit with some crazy snow. Tuesday, the roads were so iced over, newscasters were telling people as early as 6am to stay off the highways. Greg worked from home. And school was closed for the rest of the week.

It's all melted by now. But we sure had a good time hanging out and doing absolutely nothing!

Elsa and Chairman Mao

A few years ago, Greg's mom went to China. She brought back some great art, as well as a copy of Chairman Mao's little red book.

As I've posted before, for some reason, Elsa has since claimed this book as her own. Although she hasn't read it, she has made some interesting contributions to it.