Wings Over Houston

We last went to the air show two years ago and I was excited to return this year for another great show, especially since I just got a new zoom lens. Amber had stake primary training that morning, so I took the kids by myself to tour the stationary exhibits. It was abnormally cold, so they mostly just complained about how cold they were, but I enjoyed seeing the planes up close.

They eventually started to warm up and got to sit in a helicopter and touch lots of airplanes. We didn't get too far, however, before they started the flying. I knew where to go from last time to get the good seats so we hurried and set up our chairs. The trick planes went first, which I always enjoy.

Amber met up with us while we were watching the model planes, parachuters, trick planes, and one of my favorite demonstrations of the day, the Osprey.

Another fun one is the reenactment of a WWII battle, complete with explosions.

By this time, we were glad that we came prepared with ear muffs for everyone. The kids enjoyed it much more this way than they did last time when it got loud.

Towards the end we got a very cool demonstration of what the F-22 can do (the answer is "a lot of cool stuff"), then it flew in formation with a few older generations of fighters.

By this time it was late in the day and the kids were wearing out. Most of the time they were ignoring the actual show, and Carmen was out completely, but I was enjoying myself.

The final act was the Navy's Blue Angels. I was excited for this one because I had gotten some amazing pictures of the Air Force Thunderbirds two years ago, so my heart just sank when after I took this picture of them taking off, my camera battery ran out.

My camera battery lasts so long I rarely have to charge it, but after regular use plus the Renaissance festival the week before it gave up the ghost. The performance was great, but it was hard to enjoy when I knew I was missing so many great shots.

But the story doesn't end there! The traffic getting out of the airfield is pretty bad, so Amber walked to the car and got some leftover muffins she had taken to her primary training and we chilled in the van for a while waiting for the line of cars to start moving. Once we started moving, Amber took the car and I took the kids in the van.

Right as we entered some stop-and-go traffic in the middle lane of the highway I heard Carmen's little voice from the back say, "I feel like I'm going to throw up." Knowing I'd never make it to the side of the road and get her out of the van in time, I started searching for a puke vessel of some kind, then I remembered -- the muffins! Reaching behind I grabbed the muffin tupperware and dumped out the muffins, but how to get it to the back seat? I couldn't quite reach and I didn't want to throw it because I was certain Olivia wouldn't catch it and it would fall on the floor and the traffic wouldn't stop long enough for me to get out of my seat. Finally I realized I could move my seat back just far enough for Olivia to reach it.

Carmen did indeed throw up, kept it all in the tupperware, and managed not to spill a drop the whole way home. Parents: 1  -  Pukey kids: 0.

Before and now

What a difference three years makes! Some before and now pictures from the renaissance festival:

And here's the comparison I made last time.

Texas Renaissance Festival

We went to the rennaisance festival yesterday for the first time since 2009. We didn't dress up this time, but we still had a lot of fun. Since the kids have grown up so much since last time, we headed straight for the kids area first.

We played with juggling sticks, watched a spinning wheel, and rode on the "dragon swing". Carmen loved the swing, Olivia not so much. One thing they could both agree on, however, was ponies. They were both very excited to ride ponies.

We followed that up with a few old-tyme carnival games, then camel and elephant rides.

We stopped at lots of shops along the way, but Olivia knew what souvenir she wanted and made sure we went back to the fairy wings booth to pick up these.

We stopped by a Polish place for lunch. I got the kielbasa, which came with wonderful zelí (sauerkraut) that brought back some good memories. The renaissance festival is always a great place for people watching, and we met lots of characters.

We caught several shows throughout the day. I got lots of good pictures at the bird show (I'll probably put a couple on my photo blog) and we enjoyed the comic/juggler guy. Olivia and Carmen got invited up on stage for the "Steele Sisters", which they both thought was pretty cool (though Carmen was lost most of the time).

And of course, we had to go cheer on our knight at my favorite show, the jousting tournament.

And no visit to texrenfest would be complete without a visit to the gardens for a little photoshoot.

Adakadakadakada

Damon has always been very talkative. He isn't always interested in communicating, so much, just talking. His favorite phrase (word?) is adakadakadakadaaaaaah, which he says all the time. I wasn't sure if I'd gotten it on video so I was glad I got this a few days ago.

 

As cute as his babbling is, we're happy that he's recently started showing an interest in saying real words. He's no Olivia, who was basically speaking in full sentences at this age, but his vocabulary includes daddy, mommy, hi, bye-bye, touch, and various animal sounds.

In other news, he's still a dynamo. Today I heard him crying and found him stuck on top of the piano. Amber said this is not the first time this has happened. He also tipped over on a tricycle and bonked his head, twice. The only thing that will keep him occupied for more than a minute is something that he can put other things into: stacking cups, doll clothes in the doll dresser, credit cards in their holder, crayons in a box, etc. Over and over and over.

Sent from my iPad

Ever since I got my iPad, much to my initial surprise, it's pretty much been my main home computer. It's really convenient for most of what I need a computer to do at home, like browsing the internet, reading news, watching videos, playing games, etc. One glaring exception has been blogging, until now.

There are lots of reasons why blogging was a big hassle on iPad. Blogger doesn't really work on a mobile device, I didn't want to change the way I uploaded and linked to pictures, I didn't know how I'd get the pictures on the iPad in the first place, I edit my pictures before uploading, etc. Yesterday I finally got around to researching this again and was pleasantly surprised to find a solution.

I will still use the desktop to get the pictures off the camera and put them on an external hard drive. (I could technically do this on the iPad, but it's not known for its files management prowess.) I use an app called FileBrowser* to get the pictures off the network-connected external hard drive. Then I open the picture in Photogene**, which is a really awesome full-featured photo editor that can one-touch upload to the same Picasa web album Blogger uses. From there I use Blogsy*** to write the post, which allows me to just drag pictures from the Picasa album (and videos from youtube) into my post and publish directly to Blogger. Now I'm ready to blog!

That is, of course, if I can get my iPad away from the kids...

 

*There are probably better apps out there for this, but I already paid for this one and it works pretty well.
**I am really impressed by this app so far, it does nearly everything I do in Photoshop to get pics ready for blogging and I'm no slouch with Photoshop.
***With a few improvements, this could be a really good app.

End of summer

I think summer is finally on its way out. As always, by the time summer is over here I'm very excited for some cool fall weather.

Just to show how cruel summer can be, here are my much-used flip-flops. For some reason Amber bought me a new pair the other day and told me to toss these ones.

Seems like a shame to waste perfectly good flip-flops. They weren't even broken in half like the last pair!

On the dangers of having a beard

I've kept a beard for nearly a year now, and while it is wonderful in many respects, such as not having to shave and not having to shave, there are hidden dangers in looking so distinguished.

Pictured is a close-up of my right index finger, in which is embedded a piece of one of my beard hairs. Yes, embedded, as in, under my skin like a splinter. I'm not sure exactly how this happens, but this is at least the third time I've been thusly afflicted.

For those of you considering facial hair, do so with caution. It's not for the faint of heart.