The Holidays

More holidays... I hope everyone had a chance to have a relaxing, mellow couple of days. Anna came out from Boston and Irene came down from Shutebury for a couple of very enjoyable days. The weather remained mild for this time of year (global warming/climate change... believe it!) so we were able to get out alot. Christmas eve was packed with a slammin hike to a resevoir just south of here. Irene and Anna arrived later that evening and we had a wonderful meal ala Ericka followed by games and a video. Today, we woke up and followed the Ericka family christmas tradition of stockings, breakfast then exchanging and opening gifts... wow... lots of paper noise, oooooos and aaaahhhhs and silliness, letting the coffee/tea do its thing and enjoying every moment but exhausted at the end of it all. We got it together later on enough to have a little romp on campus where Aman had the most bizarre accident, burned his hand pretty badly on a jet of steam coming from a manhole cover... but we made it through to the most amazing dinner. I put the boys down and then came down to two scrumptious pies and listened to the rest of the gang playing Wizard while I uploaded pictures and vids. The pics are classic and to understand the silliness of some of the vids you have to google "russian climber" and watch this 10 min clip of a guy doing this sport call freerunning where folks use anything and everything to climb and jump etc. Anyway, we are heading into a week of chill time. I hope Aman's hand feels better tomorrow so we can romp (we had it on ice all night... vamos a ver). We will probably go to Beacon, NY to visit Dad and Janet and all the Ruhes down there towards the end of the week.... Old_man’s_freerunning#3 Old_man’s_freerunning#2 Old_mans_freerunning#1 Old_man’s_freerunning#4

Rodando

Still moving and grooving. "El tiempo pasa. Nos vamos poniendo viejo"... but not really. It is the spark in the eye that counts. Everything else fades, strenghtens, weakens and then we are gone... to the next realm, the next stage in our flow towards God. I have also been thinking and wanting to write about the concept that we as humans have three basic "powers" from which all the rest of our "powers" are derived. These are: Knowledge, Love and Will. Another topic I have been exploring that I want to share at a later date to see if I can get any help from any of you who read this blog is what I call "the silliness of moral pluralism"... I will elaborate later.

Meanwhile, we have been cruising along. It is still pretty tough with the boys, especially Aman who is being plagued by terrible bouts of uncontrollable anger which he can't control. Britt and I have been forced to "control" it for him and it has been taking its toll on us. Other than this difficult item we are rolling. The boys are doing well in school, Isaiah writing and reading really well now and Aman on the verge of reading. Aman seems to like school alot more than Zai but we think it is because Isaiah doesn't have a pal yet he can get in trouble with... but we are working on that setting up play dates and getting more involved with the class. Britt's work is going really well and the program she sttarted continues to take off. My work has gotten really interesting with some new design-from-scratch jobs that I am flying solo on. Anyway. That was a quick update. I will fill you all in with more later. Here are some recent pics and vid of Gooey_Experiments .

Recovery

Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?... Sunday was recovery day. We decided to split the boys up and have separate romps. Aman wanted to go volunteer his time to help pet the kittys at the animal shelter in Leveret. Isaiah and I donned some gloves and coats and went for a bike ride. 17.75 miles later we met the Britt and Aman at the movies to watch Flushed Away. (map of trip included) We then had a mellow rest of the afternoon just the four of us... recovering... There were a total of 26 people eating, laughing and singing in the house for turkey day. We started out the holidays by reminding ourselves that stressed is just desserts backwards so we spared not a single moment to have a slice of one of the many pies brought for the ocassion (among other tasty things). The Alschuler-Ruhes have all agreed that it was definitely a successful first venture in our still unfinished home. Claude and Zoe came down from Ottowa, Elena from NYC, Anna from Boston, the Puge, Jamal, Heidi, Doug, Great-granma, Dad, and Janet from upstate NY (we are so sorry we missed you Shamsi!), Elena's friend Emily from Bard College, Irene, Irene's friend Rachel, and us... nice. Next day Larry, Zoe and Danny came down from Shelburne falls and then in the evening Jen Welborne her son Jesse and daughter Kelsey along with David Diehl and Amy (formerly Diehl) came over for a bit. Success... and the food... man we ate... I include some art that came out of these days. Notice Isaiah's description of me and the perfect representation (bald) in the 3D spread of the family.

Thanksgiving

Loud, raucous and fun... Turkey_Day_Music Rompage

I killed the Computer

Yes it's true. It's dead. It still powers up but XP is hosed. I just took the cover off of it to see about taking the HD out and trying to save some data off of it... popped it off and found it full (packed) of CR spider webs and dust... lots of dust... ok... so here are a recent few of a romp the boys and I took yesterday across the Umass campus. Will keep you posted about the puter and life.

The Song

Just in case you wanted to hear "the song" here we are with earsplitting precision. The_Bday_Song

The Loud and Raucous One

So today was the loud version of the kid's party. ~20 kids or so and a very successful hour in the colder-than-usual water. Some friends from their old school in Shutebury, some from Wildwood, some from Baha'i school and other special folks. Then it was downstairs to a very cramped hallway for another hour of pizza, cake and sorted fizzy drinks. We thought that it was going to be a disaster all cramped down there but it turned out to be alot of fun and defeaningly loud (what?). The boys appeared to have a great time and came back to the house happy. Short but sweet and to the point. Spent the rest of the afternoon with the Brandons chillin here at the crib. Again loud but pleasing. The video shows the energy level witnessed this morning before the party. Pre-Party