This is what happens when you've lived in Richfield your whole life

even if you are only 2 years old.

This afternoon after work/daycare, Back Seat Girl and I went outside to play a game of hide and seek (which included her laying down on the sidewalk on her stomach and counting, for reasons unknown to me). After finding me behind the tree she was running around yelling "I found you, I found you!" when suddenly she looked over my head and stopped in her tracks. "What's that?", she asked, obviously completely puzzled. I looked up, and there was an airplane. However, it was pretty far up in the sky. Not so far that it was a speck with a vapor trail, but far enough up where you could still see the vapor trail and kind of make out the plane. Not how we're used to seeing them. You know, where you can tell which airline it is and how many passengers are on board. (OK, it may not be that bad.)

That could be the end of my story, but since this blog was created to let grandparents in on all of the cute things BSG says/does, I'll continue with the conversation we had after the plane disappeared from our view.

BSG: "I want to get in it!"
Me: "I think it's too high."
BSG: "I get in it after it comes down."
Me: "OK"
BSG: "Where did it go?"
Me: "I think it's too far away for us to see anymore."
BSG: "Maybe it's in the garage. I go look in the garage for it."
Me: "Can I come with you?"
BSG: "You have to push the buttons." (the code for the garage)

I followed her down the hill through the backyard to the garage and opened the door for her.

BSG: (peering inside) "It not in here."
Me: (relieved)
BSG: (going around the other side of the car) "It not over here, either."
Me: "Nope."
BSG: "Maybe we not high enough to see it."
Me: (?!!?!)
BSG: "You have to climb on my back and look for it."
Me: "You want mommy to get on your back and look for the plane?"
BSG: "Yea"
Me: (behind her with my hands on her shoulders so I can 'get on her back') "I don't see it. Do you want to get on mommy's back and see if you can find it?"
BSG: "Yea"
Me: (lifts her up and realized I can no longer get her over my head onto my shoulders, so I just hold her in front of me and hope she doesn't notice) "Do you see it?"
BSG: "We have to look in the alley."
Me: (walking to alley) "Do you see it now?"
BSG: "No" "Look, birdies flying up there!!"
Me: (guess we're done looking for the plane)

In a couple of days I'll have pictures posted of Halloween and our jack-o'-lanterns which have been eaten by squirrels and are unrecognizable now. Have I mentioned before that I really do not like squirrels? Because I really. do. not. At all.

An indication on how potty training is going

Today as we were walking back to the car after a stop at the park on the way home from the grocery store, Back Seat Girl announced she needed her diaper changed. I informed her she would have to wait until we got home for mommy to change her. As I was trying to put her in her car seat, she arched up her back so she wouldn't have to sit on the turd and said, "no, poopy!".
ME: That's why some people poop in the potty.
BSG: No, that's why some people change my diaper.

Funbags, Get Your Funbags Here

So I was in Brookings, South Dakota for work last week. I end up going there about once a month and every time I seem to come back with a story. In the past I’ve met a guy cycling from Boston to Seattle, took part in an in depth discussion on cattle ranching, and listened to the entire life story of the breakfast attendant at the Holiday Inn Express. This time around was no disappointment.
I was pretty excited last Tuesday night. I was about to eat a restaurant in town that I had never eaten at before. We got there and to my great disappointment, they were closed. We walked across the shopping center to the Pizza Ranch. There at the cash register was a stack of cards from a local business with an unfortunate name. Check it out…
…
…
…
…
…
…

Does Prince Use NetFlix?

No, he does not. But Silas, how can you make such a grand statement regarding the purple one? You see, I live in Minneapolis and we don’t have many celebrities here. But when we get one, you’re gonna know it. Bob Dylan is from here, but I don’t think he lives here anymore. Josh Hartnet is seen around town quite a bit, and when there’s a movie being filmed, the stars are tracked like tagged grizzly bears. And then there’s Prince. He live here and spends quite a bit of time around his home in the Southwest Suburbs. I’ve seen him driving a purple prowler around and everyone seems to have a story of a rock show where he just played with some obscure band in the back of a club. But what does all this have to do with his purpleness’s choice in DVD rental options?

We were at Ma and Pa Wonder’s house this weekend along with someone who works at a video store in the southwest metro. Turns out that Prince regularly come in after the store is closed to rent some movies. Very interesting, I would have expected Prince to dispatch some minions to do his video renting but, it seems that’s not the case. He and a few choice minions showed up at around midnight and rented, “something foreign”. Now what does one wear for a mignight video run? Sweats? old jeans? something comfortable? Nope, Prince wore a gold suit with high heals. The man is a rockstar through and through.

Bonus:
You know me
I know the video store clerk, he knows prince,
prince worked with Kevin Smith to film a documentary ( I have the MP3 file about it and it is hilarious, any advice on how to post it would be helpful)
Kevin Smith, unfortunately worked with Ben Affleck in Dogma
Affleck to Jon Voight in Pearl Harbor
Voight to Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible
Cruise to Bacon in A Few Good Men

Now you too know are Six Degrees From Kevin Bacon. Wait a second… fine… I guess it’s seven degrees but it’s still interesting.

Update: Fixed
Kevin Smith==>Matt Damon(Dogma)===>Tom Hanks(Saving Private Ryan)===>Kevin Bacon(Apollo 13)

That should be Six Degrees.

Riddle me this...

Does anything scream "I'M 8 AND A HALF MONTHS PREGNANT!" more than eating olives and drinking hot apple cider at the same time?

I'm, um, not actually doing that with my feet up on the ottoman watching TiVo'd Desperate Housewives or anything, I'm just wondering.

(A big thanks to Boy Wonder who brought over some olives with his mom this evening.)

Boots & Squirrels

I bought Back Seat Girl snow boots on Monday from Land's End. I was excited to find a pair of decent boots in her size. I didn't know how they'd go over with her, but she loves them. In fact, she wore them to the mall with Driver and I last night, and when we had to take him to work this morning, she insisted on wearing them again. It worked out all right, because we ended up going to buy her a winter coat, too, so it made the matching thing much easier.

She also proved to have a lot of foresight, too, because when we left this morning it was sunny. When we came back from taking Driver to work and buying a new coat this is what the table (that is still out on our deck) looked like:
***********************************************************************************
How you know there are too many squirrels in your neighborhood: You look out the window as you're pulling down the shades in your daughter's room so she can take a nap, and see a squirrel eating a bag of peanuts in your backyard. This is almost as bad as the time this summer when we were all out in the backyard and a hotdog bun fell out of our oak tree.

Is shooting a BB gun illegal in the city?

Mitten?

It's cold here today. There are white flakes falling from the sky. Not that they are sticking or anything, but that just proves how cold it really is.

I had a Dr's appt this afternoon, and mercifully my pea coat still manages to button. I searched out Back Seat Girl's hat, and told her I would look for her mittens, too. I couldn't find them (she refused to wear them last year, so I really have no idea where they are now), but no worries, because BSG found one of my ankle socks on the steps and put it on. And called it a mitten. And wore it to my Dr's office. Only one, though, because when I told her I couldn't find her real mittens, she looked at the sock on her hand and announced,"This is the only mitten I have!". That made me feel like a good parent. My daughter has to wear a sock on her hand because we don't have mittens. And it can only be one sock because we don't even have a pair of socks for her.

Doctor update: The baby has dropped a bit, and I am a finger dilated. A few jokes about labor flashbacks were made, none of which I thought were the least bit funny. Still should be a few weeks, though, so no one get too excited. Although we are so finishing his room this weekend.

From the mouth of babes

Back Seat Girl has had a few good quotes lately. Here are the ones I remember:

We were driving home from her daycare yesterday. She looked up at the roof of the car and said :
"It sure is clean up there"
me: "yep, it is"
BSG: "Exactly"

We arrived at home, and BSG decided we had to take turns to walk to the door. So, she went to the path that leads from our driveway to the basement door and said,"Stay right here. It not your turn." I thought that meant I could follow her, so when she started walking I started after her. She quickly turned around. "No, no, no. You stay right here (pushing me back). It not your turn." So, after I got off the path and back onto the driveway, she started walking again. She kept turning around to make sure I was not following her. When she got to the door she turned around and said, "OK, it your turn now!".

I decided that I didn't want to carry all of my stuff up the stairs, so I told BSG we were going to walk up the hill and go to the front door. After a thoughtful pause, she replied,
"That sounds like a great idea!", and took off up the hill.

Also, her new word lately is 'cool'. As in ,"BSG, we're having fish and rice for supper tonight." BSG: "Oh, cool". She says it all the time, and in the correct context.

4 Years ago...

We looked at this house, and we saw this color in one of the downstairs bedrooms, and we thought to ourselves,"We must paint this room immediately after purchasing it".














So, four years and almost two kids later, we decided to do this:
















And we ended up with this:
I have to say that none of these pictures do the colors justice. The original color was a bright turquoise and much more hideous than it looks. Our color is way better than it looks. It really is a beautiful blue. I promise. And when you all see it, you will tell us so. 

Pumpkin Patch

This afternoon we went to Berry Hill Farm in
Anoka to get pumpkins and go on a wagon ride.
Gramma came along.






See--we have a Mommy, Daddy, Back Seat Girl, and Baby Brother pumpkins.




Back Seat Girl, stand still so we can take your picture!!








Since she obviously was not going to be standing still or posing for any pictures I took these while she was staring over the fence at the bunnies.

Free Food Is Not Always Good Food

While you might look at the above statement and say, “well, duh”. It’s a new way of thinking for me. I’m a free food whore. If you give me a free lunch, I’ll be there! In fact I just went to a useless meeting today because there would be a free lunch. Anyway my whole free food is good food philosophy was shattered this morning when I say these nasty little buggers in the break room at 9 A.M.

Green Tomatoes

Here are just a few pictures from this morning. We decided to pick all of the green tomatoes left on the plants and put them in the wagon and then drag the wagon around the yard. It was a good time. Afterwards we had to pretend the big maple tree in the front yard was our island. I still haven't figured out what we do at the island or why we're there. I'm just a pawn in Back Seat Girl's little game.
 

More Internet Goodies

A friend sent me this link and, it is, in a wordÂ… awesome. Check out yacht rock and see the dark side of smooth rock. You have to start at the first episode and work your way through. I've only seen 1-5 and I canÂ’t wait to see the other 5. Any concept that has Kenny Loggins as a trouble protagonist struggling with his identity and Hall and Oats as his nemesis canÂ’t be bad.

Check out this video of James Earl Jones as Darth Vader. It made me laugh out loud.




Shotgun has commented on the fact that my latest postings expose my nerdy tendencies. So far this post hasn't done anything to change that opinion. Although, in college I told her that I liked Star Trek the Next Generation and Star Wars. She should have known then what was to come. Back then she was probably just blinded by my rugged handsomeness and witty sense of humor. Who could blame her? In order to combat this geeky trend, here are a few pictures that only cool people will like.






In other cool guy news. Right now Minneapolis is a great place to be sports fan (just forget about the Vikes). Twins are ready to kick some AL/MLB butt in the playoffs, Wild are starting their season, and the T-Wolves season tickets have arrived.

Out of the blue

Back Seat Girl to Driver while playing in the basement last night:

"What are you doing buddy? Huh? Huh? You want a piece of me?"

Yea, I'm pretty sure she watched "Nemo" at the Wonder's house Saturday night. (It's a Dory quote) To clarify, she didn't actually say it TO Driver as much as she kind of said it while playing and talking to herself, though Driver said he was kind of invading her personal space.

Oh, and how can I not post something about this?

GO TWINS!!!
Can you believe it, Twins win the central division!! Plus, just to put the cherry on top, Joe Mauer gets the American League batting title. How awesome is that? Now hopefully our pitching can hold up in the postseason. Santana can't do it ALL himself.

A Movie Recommendation from us here at Station Wagon Tales

Last night our good friends Mama and Papa Wonder were kind enough to allow Back Seat Girl to spend the night at their house. Driver and I took advantage and did something we NEVER do together--we saw a movie. Specifically, "Little Miss Sunshine". It was a really good movie.

The basic plotline is this: A dysfunctional family, made up of an uncle, mom and dad, grandfather, and two kids drive from New Mexico to California in an aging VW bus so their daughter can be in a beauty pageant. The movie manages to be hilarious and very touching all at the same time. It doesn't completely rely on the same old tired gags that most road trip movies use, and when it does use them, they seem fresh and new somehow.

All of the characters are very well developed and all of them have their own issues to work out during the trip. You will fall in love with Olive, the little girl. She is the most normal of all of them, though she does have a penchant for wearing kind of strange clothing. (Red cowboy boots, pink shorts, and a red T-shirt is the outfit she's wearing in one great scene.) The teen-aged boy does a great job playing an angst-riddled 15 year old, and Steve Carell (yep-he's the boss on "The Office") is very impressive as the depressed uncle who can't be left alone because he may committ suicide. Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette play the mother and father, and Alan Arkin (father of Adam Arkin who played the character of "Adam" on Northern Exposure), plays the crazy grandpa who teaches Olive her dance routine for the competition and also has a bad habit of snorting cocaine.

I recommend seeing it at the theater or with a group of friends when it comes out on DVD, because you know how things are just funnier when everyone else is laughing out loud, too? That was the case last night. The whole theater was laughing. Driver almost embarrassed me with his rocking back and forth, knee-slapping, tears in eyes performance.

And that, my friends, is the first movie review from us here at "Station Wagon Tales". It may very well be the last, too, since before this the last movie Driver and I saw together at the theater was "The Bourne Identity". Back Seat Girl was born the next day.