Who Is That Unmasked Man?

And why are Larkin and Finn kissing him?

Last week, Emile was called down to Irvine for one of his very occasional work trips. Apparently, one of his co-workers was trying to convince him to shave off his beard. When he offered $10 as motivation Emile demured, pointing out that Larkin and Finn had already been asked if they wanted to see what Emile looked like without a beard and declined. So co-worker proposed to give the kids the $10. Emile called us to see what they thought. Larkin and Finn decided that, as long as they could split the reward money, the plan was a go.

Amusingly, when we dropped Emile off at the airport, Larkin had mused that if Emile returned with no beard we might not recognize him.

24 hours after his return, we all still do a bit of a double-take when looking at him (as does he when presented with a reflective surface). The general consensus is that we are all ready for the beard to come back. Here is the 5-second-later follow-up to the above photo:

Not big fans of the stubble.

A Very Harry Halloween

We recently finished our mad dash through the Harry Potter series of books. I think it took about 3 months to read all seven. Phew. We watched the associated movie as we completed each book. The movies would have absolutely been too scary for Finn (and maybe Larkin), but because he knew what was going to happen it was not a problem.

I was not expecting the experience to be a lesson in literary critique and film analysis, but it did seem to work out that way. Every movie was paused and discussed exhaustively, comparing the movie's treatment to the book form and arguing the relative merits of each. I was amazed at the details Larkin and Finn remembered as we watched the movies... there were countless times that I was thinking, "wow, they really followed the book exactly in this section" and one of them would point out a subtle difference in the phrasing of a particular piece of dialogue.

Naturally, when Halloween rolled around, Finn decided to dress up as Harry Potter and Larkin as Hermione. I attempted to dress as the strict professor McGonagall, but Larkin informed me that even with a bun and cloak I failed in the stern department.

Emile figured he was already a pretty hairy potter so he didn't need to dress up at all.

In related news, our local co-op carried Flying Cauldron Butterscotch Beer this summer (very similar to cream soda). Pretty much as close as you can get to the Harry Potter Butterbeer without infringing on copyright issues. Finn, who normally doesn't like carbonated beverages, drank a whole bottle rather quickly, although he decided halfway through that it was actually the other Harry Potter beverage: Fire Whiskey.

Finn had been talking about wanting to pierce his ears for several months, so just before Halloween we took him to the good ol' Piercing Pagoda at the mall. He chose dolphins jumping over sparkly stones. After getting the first one done, he decided that one earring would be enough for now. A few hours later he was ready to turn around and get the other one done, but we haven't actually gone back yet. He had a brief moment of panic when he realized that Harry Potter didn't have a pierced ear, but we convinced him that since earrings were never mentioned in the books in any capacity it was entirely possible that he did. Otherwise, he has been *thrilled* with his new accessory. So now, in the spirit of '80s punk:

Larkin was super excited to design and carve a jack-o-lantern All By Herself this year. She was nervous about carving any curves, so she created an all-straight lines design. Finn designed his own and drew the lines on the pumpkin, but wanted me to make the actual cuts. Larkin's is on the left, Finn's on the right:

Their costumes were a success, although they heard a lot of things like "Hey! It's Harry Potter! And... that girl one!" One house had a party of teenage girls who were big Harry Potter fans and they all had to come out and hug Finn and Larkin. We left to pointed fingers and shouts of "Expelliarmus!" and "Avada Kedavra!"

All that, AND I got to stick my head in their bags of candy and inhale the scent of Halloweens past. Aaaaah, bliss.

Wyoming

This is a long overdue post on our trip to Wyoming this August, courtesy of the last of Jim's frequent flier miles. The trip was inspired by one of the best Dinosaur museums in North America, but Larkin and Finn were at least as excited about their first plane trip. With three flights on the way there and two on the way home, I'd say that cup was pretty well filled.

Day one was all about dinosaurs. Here is Finn, reverently stroking *real* dinosaur eggs:

I was quite impressed by how many species Larkin and Finn could accurately identify based on skeletons. We divided to conquer the museum so unfortunately I have more pictures of Finn. Another favorite of his was the nest of baby Maiasauras:

We had a bit of a disappointment when we discovered that we would not be able to participate in a dig (especially since I had called to make sure our timing would correspond with one of their dig programs!), but we were able to go on a tour of one of their active dig sites. We got to see half exposed bones and some footprints. Here are Emile and the kids at the dig site, up close and personal with a bone that we were allowed to paw because it had been compromised somehow.

The town we stayed in was called Thermopolis. Yes, there were hot springs. Day two was mainly hot springs, water slides and ice cream, plus a short decompression period for Finn and I in our cabin. After dinner, we took a half hour drive through the high prairie sagebrush that is most of Wyoming to a site with petroglyphs. It turned out we arrived after hours but the kind staff let us in for a low donation of $10 and we locked the gate behind us when we left. The petroglyphs were super cool. We made up some of our own names. Man walking a stone:

Surprised dog:

Upside-down demonic gnome:

Sledding rabbits:

Ancient ancestor of Mr. Peanut, and possibly Spongebob:

On our drive back to the highway from the petroglyph site, we counted 79 antelope.

Day three was a leisurely drive back to the airport, stopping for a long swim at a high desert reservoir.

We also stopped to see "Hell's Half Acre," Wyoming's self-proclaimed answer to the Grand Canyon. While I thought that claim was a little too grand, there were some pretty interesting rock formations and colors.

I think Larkin and Finn were most impressed by eating out for Every Meal and the most anticipated Plane Rides, but we all definitely learned a lot and were exposed to some new and interesting country. Fun stuff.

Bead Bug Larkin's Grand Opening

Larkin's Etsy shop is now active at:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/BeadBugLarkin

She's always making more creatures, so I'm sure the listings will change regularly. She's excited to create a listing for custom critters which will allow customers to choose their own combination of bead colors.

Entrepreneurial Drive

One day last year, I innocently brought home a book from the Book Exchange on how to make tiny animals out of very fine gauge wire and seed beads. Larkin was all over it. She has also been very interested in the idea of making her own money (it's clearly a hardship to be dependent on such unreliable adults).

Talent has an outdoor market every Friday over the summer at which kids are allowed to peddle their goods without paying the usual vendor fee. We didn't have it together until the last market of the summer, but she set out that evening with these beauties and some serious determination to make sales.

In a few short hours she returned home a very satisfying $54 richer after having sold most of them. Here she is chatting with one of her first potential customers:

Apparently, sales picked up considerably once she abandoned her stationary location and instead prowled the crowd on foot, trolling for hapless jewelry-less marks.

While we are not yet planning Emile's retirement, we are setting up an Etsy storefront for Larkin which she is very excited about. Should her enthusiasm wane, it will be easy to take down listings, but I think as long as the money rolls in there will be quite a few bead creatures in our future.

After her initial success, Larkin took her wares to one other local crafty event and once again depleted her stores. On the agenda for this week is a trip to the bank to open a bank account... this is necessary for opening an Etsy account, but Larkin also now has more cash than she is comfortable carrying around in her money purse.

More photos of Larkin's creations are on her Picasa Web site.

Grammar Police

Emile just got me in trouble for correcting Finn's grammar. Finn and I were playing Uno and he said, "I ain't have anything." I explained that the proper construction was, "I ain't got nothin'."

Defending The Perimeter

Larkin and Finn recently watched some math lessons, cleverly disguised as the PBS cartoon CyberChase. They were *really* fascinated by the distinction between perimeter and area and were immediately inspired to break out the ol' blocks.

They counted out 9 square blocks to play with and it didn't take long for them to figure out that the optimum configuration for minimum perimeter with their fixed number of blocks was a square:

They quickly made the leap to maximum perimeter being a straight line:

I then totally blew their math-addled minds by claiming that the perimeter of a stair-case was the same as the line:

They both predicted, quite definitively, that the staircase would have a perimeter somewhere between the minimum and maximum and were shocked (shocked, I tell you!) when they counted the edges to reveal that my claim was true. I was declared a Math Fiend when I convinced them that perimeter was determined solely by the number of shared sides so they could make any crazy pattern as long as they kept that constant. This was proven, rather exhaustively, by construction.