Christmas Train

Every  year, Grandpa H puts up a Christmas holiday train.  This year he got a new passenger car.  I believe the interior lights up and it has passenger seating and everything.




 A and Grandpa unpacked the rest of the train.  It's a Bachman, G scale.






 There are various figures who come with the train.  There's an engineer, a Santa, and three Elves. 







 The Engineer shoves coal into the engine.  He had a little mis-hap the trial run and fell out of the coal tender.








 The train has a gondola car--filled with giant gifts--and a caboose.
 The caboose has a tendency to become uncoupled with the rest of the train.  I think the couplings have to do a kind of back-and-forth engagement before the caboose will stay attached.






















Once the train and track are set up, Grandpa will put in a smallish tree, a mirror (for the frozen pond) and various English Village buildings he modeled after a real English Village that is the Ancestral Origin of the Family (and which they visited about twenty years ago).

Last Days of Summer

The mid-September life guard knew all about this one...








"What?"

August Camping Trip

We went to the Redwoods.








The trees were huge.







  There were many photo opportunities.








We're not sure, but we think the thing A liked most about the Oregon Caves was the Chateau.

Opera Birthday

This year was the "Night at the Opera" Birthday.















 

The Duke Manchua greated visitors with song.

The cake.

Turned into a Victrola cake.

 There were many props.  The boat sailed between two banks of waves.

 Grandpa (and Grandma) came dressed as the audience.

 

 Meet me by the Ducal Palace of Manchua.

We Went to Seattle in November...

... to see King Tutankhamen, 

and got wet.

If you look closely, the small figure under a jet of water in red is A.  The figure to the left is M taking a video (we'll have to see if we can find that...), and the figure standing close, but-not-too-close, is J.

Many Faces in Seattle

I was going through some old unpublished posts and re-discovered these photos from November 2012, taken in Seattle, when we went to see the King Tut Exhibit.

Life is hard on the frontier.

New Airplane

A has been reading about, um, airplanes.






He really wanted an airplane that would shoot missiles. We didn't get him one.




The plane didn't have any controls, so it made random turns.








Also, it was powered by an electric motor, so it could fly far distances. Really.

The Ancient West....

A decided that he wanted to go as a lawman from the Wild West.








Then he decided that he wanted to put an ancient world twist onto the costume idea.








And went as a Cowboy Mummy.

Gearing up for Halloween

I came home from work and found A had given himself a nap with his new favorite decoration.

Sept 2011 Harvest

We went to visit Grandma J and Grandpa H at their house.







They asked us to help them harvest fruit.








Grandma had baskets.








Grandpa had tea.








We picked a lot of apples. And grapes








The dog helped. She thought the apples made good balls.








M discovered the Single Miracle Kiwi.








Then we had to cut the apples.








And peel them.








And boild and smoosh them. And somewhere along the line a Little Too Much Cinnemon was added.








Grandma did a lot of cutting.







And peeling.








Luckily, there was one of those mechanical peelers.








There was some talk of adding grapes to the sauce, but I don't think we did.








Then A wanted to play Battleship.



 But all Grandpa could find was the old Sub Search game.






We had to download the rules, as J couldn't remember them all after thirty-something years.








Obligatory tired dog picture.