Thanksgiving in Racine

Thank you Dan for hosting the Hoyer / Gage / Wilsak gathering for Thanksgiving. We had a great time. Not many photos but here they are:

The famous Turkey Hat as we head out for our post dinner walk...

In front of Dan's house, which is really the Back of Dan's house...

Grey and gloomy but not too cold..

Best part about your after dinner walk is that the Wilsak cousins tackled the dishes...

Jill and Granny Jo.

The Host with some other guys...

I think just Matthieu and I were the only ones who didn't make it into these photos.

xxx Karen

New house! Kind of....

As most of you know, I am now a homeowner. And when I say now, and new house, I am stretching the truth a bit. I closed on the house in August, and haven't gotten around to posting pictures. Ooops!!

Anyway here are a few pictures for those of you who haven't visited yet.

This is what is now the front of the house. (and also back when I bought it and it was pretty outside)

This is the back of the house. And you can see Uncle Ted coming around from the front of the house (Monty Python joke...)

This is the gloomy fall front of the house picture.

This is a little closer, and you can see the piles of rock in my yard for the path and stairs that I am building.

This is the living room looking out at the back of the house. You can see the "three seasons" room where I have my hot tub.

As you go in the back (front) door you enter the foyer and a set of stairs down to the basement.

This is another view of the living room, you can see the dining room and the fireplace.

This is the dining room and the entrance to the kitchen.

This is the kitchen, where I sneakily took the picture so you don't see my dirty dishes.

In the kitchen is this nice little breakfast nook, and the bird feeder outside. I see a lot of birds and therefore go through a lot of bird seed.

Back to the living room. I guess I did not order these pictures well. Anyway this is looking out onto the porch that is over the garage. (Front of the house)

This is my bedroom. It is in the back of the house and has a wonderful view of the backyard.

Both my bathrooms are very ugly and out dated. This one is worse. And very pink.

The guest bedroom is nicely furnished, even if it is out dated. For now.

The other bed room serves as an office, or as I pronounce it "place to store junk and projects"

This is the rec room in the basement. The couch is very old, rather ugly, and very uncomfortable.

But the important part is there is a bar, and a fireplace down here as well.

One of the other rooms in the basement is also rather hidious and will be fixed eventually. It will soon become my home theater, complete with projector and surround sound. (What bachelor pad is complete with out one??)

This is my second favorite room (after the garage). The work room. All sorts of tools and toys. The boxes are junk I need to go through.

This is the back of the house from the end of the back driveway. The road my house is on used to be on this side, so the house is actually backwards.

So that was the quick overview of my new house. If you want a more in depth view you are just going to have to come and visit!

Man I didn't think I was going to make it through that. I kept thinking of the Spanish Inquisition sketch and thought they were going to come and get me and put me in the comfy chair. Maybe thats why I didn't get nabbed, I was expecting the Spanish Inquisition......

~Dan

HALLOWEEN AT 4920

I hope you all had a festive Halloween... It was pretty low key here. Gigi wasn't even sure she'd go out, she had so much homework. But her friend Emma came to rescue her and even provided a pink skeleton costume for her to wear. Sammy is a pirate and Emma is Wednesday from the Adams Family. Maniac is just about to jump in this photo!

On Friday we did a special Halloween show for the in patient kids. It was kind of a re- make of a gag Michael & I did for Vaudeville At Six Corners last year. He's there putting on a shoe and I'm his grandma who " taught him everything" about show biz.  So grandma keeps interrupting with lame song and dance and Magic schtick. Here's a photo of grandma - in profile so you can see her big butt (the big trick she does is spinning a ball on her butt - true talent!)

We decorated the house with a mask Jackson made back in 5 th or 6 th grade.  Those little pumpkins were the only ones left at the store, pie pumpkins so I'm going to try baking them tonight.

We're looking forward to Thanksgiving at Danny's again!

Xxx Karen

New Job and Cat Pictures

I got a new job a couple of weeks ago. It's with Bloomberg, which is headquartered in New York. They flew me out to New York for the orientation. It was pretty cool. Here's a crummy, blurry picture of the Bloomberg building in New York:

I only spent a couple of days there. I did manage to go to the top of the Rockefeller building one day (it's actually near Bloomberg's secondary New York office, which I had a meeting in). I didn't take a whole lot of pictures (and they did not turn out very well either), but here's one of Rockefeller plaza:

There's a pretty Gothic cathedral nearby, but then down the street I saw an Episcopal church so I took a picture of that one instead:

I think it's kind of cool when the church architecture gets integrated into the surrounding sky scrapers like this.

Somewhere around that time, I was trying to get my plants cleaned up for winter. However, to my surprise, the dead-looking tomato plant had managed to send out some more green shoots:

I was impressed with its tenacity, so I figured I'd keep it around until it either dies completely or it's spring time and I want to plant another tomato in that pot. All the information I found on the internet for overwintering plants assumes that you have a hard frost. I don't think the Bay Area usually goes below freezing even, so I guess I can just leave the plants during the winter.

And here's some cat pictures. A few days ago, Jupiter decided that my breakfast was actually meant for him:

And then here's a picture of the cats stacked on one of the cat trees. They don't do this very often; usually they just fight over the top perch.

Two weeks ago...

...we said goodbye to Lucie for her first night at Webster University!

Lucie - 19 years old

They made it a smooth(er) transition by being very organized about the process of moving-in to the dormitories on Thursday morning, with lots of student volunteers to unload the cars and take everything upstairs. We met her roommate, Maggie, and her parents who were very busy setting up the loft bed and a refrigerator and a printer and a safe (?) as well as putting away school supplies, toiletries and clothes and making the bed, just as we were doing - it was quite close quarters! We stopped by the bookstore for an attempt at getting her books, and got our schedules and signed up for our meals for the weekend. But we were done in time to get home for lunch and just hang out until after supper when we took Lucie back for her dorm floor meeting with her R.A. and the other students. She was a little trepidatious ("I don't want to go back") but pushed through that, and she was all moved in and so now a full-fledged, on-campus student!

Just moved in to the Minion's Floor #4

There were  lots of events set up for Friday and Saturday to let us know what Webster is all about - speeches and videos and little funny (and some serious) skits about school life...and on the whole, they seem very tough but caring, challenging but supportive - and at least our impression was that they are small enough to attempt to know all the students and keep up with where they are and what they are into. Some of it was contradictory "be independent but find friends to help...work hard but have fun...play a lot but don't forget to study..." Lucie encountered her R-K school-mates and a friend from New Art in the Neighborhood (the Contemporary Museum) and we also met some other students during lunch and dinner. We got a chance to walk around the campus and see where Lucie's classes would be and heard lots more speeches about the different departments. It was kind of exhausting!

Some doubts but pushing through that...

We were sort of kicked out after Saturday lunch because they had "student only" events after that. We did go back on Sunday for the welcome barbecue from her department (Arts and Sciences) which was mostly alumnae and a few administrators - didn't meet any faculty! - but we had a great conversation with 4 students who had just come from China to be in the School of International Studies - only 3 days before! so they told us lots of stories about trying to get around St. Louis - they are juniors but wanted Lucie to come round to their apartment anytime.

So then we heard very little from our Lucie - her classes started that Monday and we only got a few accidental phone calls from her backpack. No news being good news, but I also saw her happily pinning away so I knew she was her same old self...looking forward to seeing her tomorrow though, for a few updates after Mass. Here's what I made her for her birthday, to take along to her dorm room:

love, Agelaius

Hoyer Latest

Alex getting his book signed by the pop-up book genius Robert Sabuda

Hi All- We've been late to post here. Here are some photos of what we've been up to lately:

annual trillium walk in May

Standing by walls

Camping with friends mid- June

Peony garden at U of M (Alex was bored...)

Geoff's 50th birthday gifts---hmm, I see a theme here

On the naming of cars - an essay

Here is a picture of our new car!  It's a Corolla - back to the small size - and green (more on that later).  Our dear Beatrice (Camry - the larger size) was 15 years old and starting to have issues.  We decided to buy a new one before Rick retires, and so Tuesday was the day.  It turned out to be the day after Beatrice's 15th birthday.  How about that?

Charlotte the Carlet

Now about the name.  When we first shopped for a car (BK: Before Kids) I told Rick how Daddy named the first car I remembered.  It was a Rambler, so he named it Abraham.  The subsequent cars were easy; Isaac, Jacob and then Reuben.  So, since we were buying a Corolla, and Rick thought that was a cigar name (Corona, actually; close, but no cigar!) and our favorite comic was Pogo and Albert liked a good 10 cent cigar, it seemed obvious to name the car Albert.

Dear Albert lasted 13 years.  When we shopped for a new one, we had children in tow, and they were allowed to help in the choosing.  Sally really wanted a green car, but we wanted to buy off the lot and they didn't have any green cars.  So, silver metallic it was, and Sally's consolation prize was naming the car.  She decided to continue with the alphabet and named the car Beatrice.

In shopping for this new one, I told Rick, no more boring silver or beige; I was hoping for blue.  Once again, wanting to buy off the lot, my choices were red or green (avoiding all the black, white, beige, beige, and beige) so I chose green.  English racing green in my mind, but probably  not.   At any rate, we decided to continue with the alphabet and I said that would be an easy choice: Car.  Rick said, isn't the new princess named Charlotte?  Indeed, so we went with Charlotte the Car, a.k.a. Char the Car and/or Charlotte the Carlet (because, after all, she is smaller).

Finally, it occurred to me that we are following the British Royals.  Albert was, of course, a beloved Prince.  Beatrice, too, is a Princess.  So, now we have baby Charlotte!

Love,
Gilly

Our New Gorlok (this is the first and last time I will ever call her that!)

Admitted Freshman Day

Hey look at this - she finally agreed to pose for a portrait!
Last Friday we went to Admitted Freshman Day at Webster and it was informative and interesting - and a relief!
Somehow I was worried lightning would strike and Lucie would back out at the last minute - but the very next day she went on her own to register and "got signed up" for her first semester classes. I put it that way because all the preparation we did ahead of time reading about the courses and requirements etc. was all for naught since the guidance counselor sort of railroaded her into taking MATH and EARTH SCIENCE (gasp!) "it's alright, mom, it's going to be okay, I'm over it, it's done, I don't want to think about it..."
Well, those are required so she'll be doing the right thing - but she also has Playwriting and First Year Seminar in Disney Cartoons...

a small gorlok with cupcake

We had a nice dinner and talked with a few other parents but mostly we just cruised through with a sigh of relief and I was so tired by Saturday that I dreamed all night about falling asleep! love Agelaius

Nice to be welcomed!