Oklahoma City

We didn't do a whole lot -- swam in the pool, went to the temple, bummed around OKC (as the natives call it). We saw a whole bunch of stuff, though. More pictures are over at Flickr.


With Russell's old friend Scott, and his wife, Katherine, and daughter, Lizzie.


We tired them out, though.

Exploration Movies

Just for fun.

The Titanic

There was an exhibit at the Exploration Place, and it was leaving on the 23rd, so we figured we'd better go see it. We went with the Kitchens, and had a good time. We all got to "be" people from the ship, and from the lot of us (11 of us total), only one "survived". I think the things that struck us most were: 1) how cold the water was (they had a demonstration area, and challenged you to leave your hand there for as long as possible; I think one of us made it 15 seconds) and 2) the extreme selfishness of the first class passengers. 12 people on a raft made for 40? No wonder so many died.


Anyway, we also stayed and played for a good long time. It was fun.

The girls on the castle stairs.

A Tisket, A Tasket

It's Kristen in the basket!

Money Well Spent

I took Megan and Caitlyn to see this last night. We had bought tickets for four of us, but decided that Kristen wouldn't do well with a sitter, so Russell stayed home with her and Alison. Alison wanted to go, but we decided not to take her. I'm glad we did; it would have been a bit long and boring for her. For it's not your usual Cirque du Soleil fare. It's one part rock concert/light/multimedia show, one part dance recital and one part Cirque fantastic circus stuff. Predictably, the girls were bored with the dancing and the music, but loved the circus stuff. We did skip out on the finale, mostly because it was already 10:00, and we wanted to beat the crowds. But the rest of the show was pretty fantastic.

This guy was pretty amazing, up on his tent/cone thingy. He was doing all sorts of handstands and contortions up there balanced on one or two little metal stands. Amazing.

This was pretty cool. There's a singer up there on the top (by the red balloon), and the rest is her dress. Caitlyn was thrilled by this.

And these guys were just awesome. At one point, two of them were doing handstands, a third was balancing on their upper backs, and a fourth was doing a handstand on the third guy's HEAD. Too cool.

They didn't have pictures of our favorite things: the flying people; the "underwater" (one of the cooler multimedia effects; they gave the illusion that everything was underwater) girls that were doing tricks in silk cocoons, for lack of a better word; and our favorite: the girl who did tricks with hula hoops. The best one was when she had one around her knees and then two in each hand. That was cool.

Ah, I'm glad we got a chance to see Cirque du Soleil, even if it wasn't one of their big shows.

Don't Look Now

Another year older...7!

Caitlyn had a good birthday. She got up, got to choose waffles for breakfast, opened the now-obligatory morning present...

It was this:

and went to school. She took brownies and chocolate milk for snack, and said she was pummeled with hugs when she got through the door. I had even sent extra brownies, so she shared with two other teachers and the principal.

We had our little party early, because Russell works Tuesday nights. So, after he picked her up from school (Megan stayed home; we have this throw-up bug going around, still), we opened presents and blew out the candle on her cake.

But no one was in the mood for cake. So, instead, we had an early dinner (so Russell could eat with us) of chicken, rice and sauce (aka Anne's Chicken). Eventually, the cake got nibbled on. Caitlyn said that really liked her cake, but asked if next year she could have chocolate cake, but no frosting. :)

Spring String Concert

You can't see her (she was sitting in one chair when we came in, and we sat where we could see her, but then she moved. Maybe just to get away from the camera? :). But she's there, playing. The song is a part of one she's been talking about for weeks -- Dragon Slayer. But I lost my big CF card, and only have my little one, so I only got a bit of it.

A Room Full of Furniture

We got furniture for the living room! A friend's mother was selling a sofa set (sofa, loveseat, chair, ottoman) for an incredibly reasonable price, and so we bought it. Yay!

Alison's already figured out how to use the sofa and loveseat:
(Look Mom, it's a bridge!)

Caitlyn's curled up in the chair:


And even Kristen's climbing on and off the loveseat (well, more off than on):


But I think Megan will appreciate it most. This used to be her reading "space":


Now she can read here:


It's good to have furniture in that room!