Christmas Book Review

Per Kathie's request, here is a book review.

The book was "The Towers of Trebizond" by Rose Macaulay.  It was a decent book, but if you want that sort of thing, read Graham Greene's "Travels with my Aunt" because then you will also get a laugh.  "Towers" was rather humorless and I had trouble staying interested.  There was very little dialogue and the characters were not as interesting as they were meant to be.  I think there was meant to be a moral, or at least a point, but I didn't really get it.

I do understand why Kathie may have thought it a good book for me from reviews she might have read, but I'm glad it was a library book!

Gilly

Here is Sally's review.

The book was "Among Others" by Jo Walton.  Sally didn't have time to read it, but I did skim through it.  It was not badly written, but the narrator made numerous references to plots and characters of other books.  This was fine for the books I had read, but annoying when the references were to books I have not read.  Again, a bit derivetive.  (The spellcheck doesn't like that spelling, but I can't figure out how to get it to tell me the proper spelling.)  At any rate, this was another one that was fine to have read, but I'm glad it was a library book.

Thanks, Kathie!  It turned out to be a great idea - we'll just have to start earlier next year.

ADVENT tree

Thanks for the posts Gill and Danny - great pictures!
I was going to get some pix but that'll have to wait til I come back here again with the camera to download, aieee! just now I needed to reconnect this computer! Wireless is not my friend!
We've put together Grampa's tree - set-up took 45 minutes last Sunday, fluffing had to wait until today and took me more than an hour!
Sure is nice to set it up knowing I won't have to take it down, right Karen??? I am right...aren't I?
In order to take it home you'll either need to create a new box - this one has water damage and barely made it up from the basement - or else bring a goodly supply of duct tape!
Anyway, it is an ADVENT tree, since Mama had just chided Geoff for setting up a tree and here Rubén and I are dragging it up from the basement...
Our plan is to cover it with home-made ornaments using up all the crafty junk we were just cleaning out of the basement when Mama broke her hip - we were going to give it all to the kidney foundation (they take everything!) but now it'll serve another purpose. No spending money on new supplies, just use up what we've got!
We aren't decorating our house but when we go home at Christmas break (when you all come!) we'll make a Christmas celebration for Pleasantown in the basement.
Photos to follow,
love;
Agelaius

The Saga of the Christmas Trees or Do the Wilsaks really need three trees?

Once upon a time, the Wilsak clan went out and hunted for trees at Christmas time, just like everyone else.  Then they discovered allergies.  So off they went to K-Mart to bag an artificial tree.  It lived happily in their basement, venturing out once a year, suffering itself to be smothered in tchotckes and festooned with lights.  Somewhere along the way, it acquired a mini-me.  Even when the house grew bigger, the two trees continued to appear once a year; one in the front of the house, one in the back.  Then one day at Christmastide, when the Wilsaks came home from church and the topic was how annoying it was to squeeze past the fat tree in the narthex to get to the bathrooms, they saw another tree out on the curb across the street from their grownup house.  This tree was skinny and had a sign saying Take Me I'm Yours (My Lights Work); so they did (but they didn't).  This new tree languished in the basement until Yuletide rolled around again.  The Wilsaks wanted to bring it to church, but needed first to remove its lights.  What! Twelve strings of lights for such a tiny tree!  Each one was rolled around individual branches about five times.  Yikes! 

Now the skinny tree graces the narthex of St. John's, the old and venerable K-Mart tree shines out of the front window of the Wilsak house and the little tree - well, the little tree was pushed out of the sunroom by a LARGE sofa, so it waits patiently in the spare oom for a good home.  Any takers?

Turkeys! In SPACE!!

Happy Turkey Day family!!

Well it is a bit late, but in my defense, I was required to work on Black Friday and beyond, so this is the first chance I have gotten to post stories. I was planning on writing to Grandma on Thanksgiving and have my mother add a bit, but never got to it. SO. I shall do that in the near future.

Anyway I guess I should explain that my mother and father decided to visit me for Thanksgiving. They flew in on Tuesday and we hung out. Wednesday we went to the Kennedy Space Center. Mainly because I have never been, my father hasn't been there in a long long time, and I don't know about my mother. I meant to take my camera, but forgot, so you get pictures from my phone.

 This is the Crawler outside of the assembly building. This is the thing that picks up the launch pad and carries it to the launch pad. We were not able to see the launch pad because there is a launch in a few days and they were prepping for it.

 This is the Assembly Building. If you look really closely there is a pickup truck next to the open door. Just to give you scale. Even from the bus it is a very impressive building.

 Here is the business end of a Saturn V rocket. This is one of the ones that took us to the moon. I never realized how absolutely enormous this this is. The support cradle that hold it is made out of about 2 inch thick steel plates. Being the way I am, that impressed me. The scale isn't quite as clear as standing under it and being shocked, but from what I can figure, each of those engines are about as wide and your average car is long.

 This is the important end. Where the three dude chill out until they arrive at the moon. As you can see, it is hard to see the other end because it is so long.

 One cool thing we learned was that long thin thing off of the top is an emergency escape rocket. In case of an emergency they could fire it and it would pull the command capsule off of the rocket and save the astronauts lives.

 Outside there in the Rocket Garden they had a number of rockets just hanging out. The biggest was the Saturn I rocket they had laying down. It is impressively big as well, but not as much as the Saturn V.

 And here is the business end of this one. These engines are not as big as the F-1 engines on the Saturn V. But they are still rather large.

 Instead of taking a good picture of the family, I took one with the windows at the back. But you get the idea. Food, talking, and usual stuff.

And just because I like things like this, here is a hot rod. Every year on Thanksgiving, at the Daytona International Speedway they have the Turkey Rod Run. Basically its a classic car show and swap meet. This guy who met up with an ex employee of Sears came over to let a potential buyer take a look at this car on one of our lifts. So I took a picture. It made me happy.

Anyway, I think that is all I wanted to say. I shall see y'all at Christmas!

Pip pip, cheerio and all that.
~Dan

Daddy's Birthday

Dear family:

I was thinking all day about this being Daddy's birthday.  I meant to do this sooner but I do procrastinate so.  Anyway, I thought I'd contribute a couple of Daddy memories to share.  They are both quite random; just came to mind as I was walking to work.  The first is when I was about 14 or 15.  Daddy got free tickets to the Zefferelli movie of Romeo and Juliet so he decided to take me to see it.  He told me it was so I could learn how to behave on a date.  Frankly, he was much politer than most of the dates I had afterward!  I don't remember much about it except that he said he would cover my eyes if there was anything I shouldn't see, but evidently there wasn't.  (Although I seem to remember a bare backside or two.)  The other memory I can't date.  I know Mama wasn't with us but I can't remember if Geoff was or not.  Anyway, we all went to the dentist.  On the way home, Daddy suddenly said, "My teeth feel too clean."  And he parked the car and we went to the Mavrakos store and he bought us chocolate.

Any other memories?

Love,
Gilly

Lucie's Birthday and pics from the fair

So here's Lucie opening her birthday present from Granma:Here we are in Blackwater at a museum that is a western saloon:
Here's the MOOna Lisa butter cow:
And here's our favorite old truck:

(It's in reverse order but I made this post in about 5 minutes.)
Love, agelaius

Dear Family:

The wine train dessert car

The wine train lunch car

Napa Valley

The Neal Family Winery Oak Grove Picnic

Rick's rental car!

Silverado Winery

The view from the wine train

I apologize for taking up so much room.  I'm astonished I managed to get them on, let alone arrange them.  Aargh!

Flying birds

Ahoy there from down south! I emerge from the bushes and actually post here for once. Basically thats because I actually have something to share that isn't "Today I went to class. Yesterday I worked" because that is pretty much all I do these days.

The big fun news I have is that I flew an airplane. Yes, you guessed it, your pilot nephew/cousin/grandson/son (for which ever relation you are to me) actually flew an airplane.

Well, its more important than that. I flew an awesome airplane. Today I flew a North American T-6 Texan. For those of you who know nothing about this airplane here is the link to wikipedia.

And now for the first installment of things you want to see. pictures. I have a video of me flying (its almost an hour and a half long....) but its on VHS. (crazy isnt it? but the airplane has been flying since the 1940s. so its understandable.) as soon as I can get the video into a digital format I will share that as well. but I dont have time for that tonight. On to pictures!

Here is Alex ice skating for the first time:










Alex likes to experiment with food color. Notice his green uvula!








Kathie- I don't know how I get more pics to a page than you do.

More of the Same

I thought you all might like to see what I was knitting over Christmas break:



It was lovely to see all of you! After I got back to California, I found out my laptop was dying. My wonderful boyfriend decided to help me build a nice desktop computer to replace it. Here's a picture of Jupiter "helping":


I feel like I should add a caption so that he can be a lolcat. If you think of a good one, let me know!

I have been spending a lot of time at dance classes. Jupiter helped me find a good use for old pointe shoes -- cat toys! Of course, when I tried to take a picture, he stopped playing with them. It's a little hard to type this because Jupiter decided to sit in my lap and bite my arm. It is about equal parts adorable and annoying.

I went back to UIUC last week on a recruiting trip. It was nice to see some of my friends again. On the way back, my plane got delayed (in Champaign) because it was too foggy to take off. I would have expected fog in San Francisco, but not so much in Champaign!

Well that is all the exciting news from me. Hope you are all doing well!

From Hamlin Avenue...

Some photos of Jackson's 3D art project (you will have to tip your head to the side, I guess, since I can't get the photos to flip sideways...) and a video of Gigi on the piano. Perhaps Kathie you can help mama watch this video? or is her computer too ancient to see videos? (ours is... )
xxx
Karen

A few photos...

I haven't been very diligent aboutdocumenting the holidays, so this is all I've got.

This one is called "Despedida/Goodbye"

And here we have "Geometry"

Grandparents' Mass at the Cathedral, and then at our house, Christmas Eve.

I don't know why I can't do the layout as nicely as you did, Sue - how do you get it so it can be a slide show?

Anyway, love to you all,

Agelaius