A compostion only her Daddy can appreciate

Alli created this composition completely on her own. This is Alli's cute little stuffed bear hiding inside of an external fixator designed for the lower leg with a grocery sack on top of its head and a variety of imitation bones scattered about. Unless you are a podiatrist or have ever severely broken your ankle requiring you have one of these things attached to your body with rods driven into the bone, you probably can't appreciate the artistic beauty of this layout. However, I am sure that just about anyone can appreciate the nuttiness of having this stuff just laying around for our kid to play with.

Boone's Bed/Alli's Play Pillow

She has yet to take a nap on it, but she looks pretty comfy.

Kids online

I watched a very eye-opening program on PBS last night called Growing Up Online. If you have kids, you should consider watching this. It is available at the PBS website for free and is about 1 hour long. Here's a link. Our kids are growing up in a much different world than you or I did.

Her favorite sweet.

Science Center

We spent an afternoon at the Science Center of Iowa on a darn-near zero degree day to stretch our legs and get out of the house. We were accompanied by some friends who had equally as much fun.

Yes, we are still around.

I sure am glad I didn't go through with one of the new year's resolutions I considered: blogging more. I would have let myself down in a BIG way!!

We have not dropped off the face of the earth, although there are some days that sounds like a nice vacation from the daily stresses and maybe it is warmer there than it is in Iowa right now. We spent a week in Pittsburgh, PA. Barring some unforeseen catastrophe, we will be moving there mid-year. We are excited to embark on the next chapter in our life, but are dreading all the things that have to fall into place prior to actually moving. Things like selling our house, buying a new one, getting a myself a job...the list seems to go on and on.

In the meanwhile, Alli is showing us how NOT to ride a rocking horse.

Stand Up and Be Counted

Unless you are a political junkie, you probably don't get what the caucuses are all about. I didn't until recently. I live in Iowa. Iowa, who has fought to keep its "First in the Nation" status in starting the process of presidential candidate selection, has spoken and the precedent has been set for the 2008 election. Tonight, we residents of this quiet, rural, often overlooked state turned out in record numbers to participate in our neighborhood caucuses.

A caucus is the most basic process I have ever participated in. Literally 200 people, many of whom I recognized as my next door neighbors, showed up at our precinct (a middle school lunch room). We split up into groups based on which candidate we supported and we were counted.OK there was a bit of parliamentary process speak, but it was so simple. With that process being repeated in hundreds of locations across this state, we have made history. And all of America is listening.

I am very proud to be and American and an Iowan and feel good about standing up and being counted.