Merry Christmas

Happy Birthday Alice and let Christmas Vacation Begin

Alice turned 4 this year and there was nothing that I could say to talk her out of a "flat chocolate cake." Not that I tried really hard, I'm a big fan of Texas sheet cake.

She was so excited to be the center of attention all day beginning with Helen shouting "Happy Birthday Alice!" when the alarm clock goes off. Jane even gave her the sticker she got from Kindergarten to celebrate. Here she is with a set of gears that are a gift that keep giving.

On the first day of winter break I decided it was time to start scraping the wallpaper off the walls of the second bedroom. The kids were delighted, ecstatic, excited beyond words to get to help. Helen is my most diligent helper and able to pull the biggest sheets of wallpaper off the wall to date.

Jane calls herself "the wallpaper scraping machine" and Alice was always willing to lend a hand with the squirt bottle.

I thought we could try the pressure sprayer to get more water on the wallpaper. Here is Carl using all his muscles and his forehead to pump it up.

I've since decided not to use said sprayer because of the number of falls we've had in puddles on the floor. When questioned the kids all blamed Carl for the water on the floor. Not that I didn't see some real casual spraying from other quarters with all sorts of swinging arms punctuating the excitement of scraping wallpaper. I'm happy to report that with recent my recent policy changes OSHA has not shut our production down. 

La Repulica Dominicana

This fall I went to the Dominican Republic for a Nutrition Conference, clearly a serious sacrifice.

It was so much fun to catch up with all my colleges and learn what has been going on in the last 7 years in the world of nutrition. One of my co-authors from years ago said, "look at what has happened based on all the work you did, it's amazing." Another woman from Venezuela said, "Michelle Hackett, I know you, I cited your work in a paper I just wrote." It's good to know that something has come from all my blood, sweat and tears. I was asked multiple times if I was ready to come back and start working. I assured them all that our two year old had just been potty trained and this was no time bail out. 

The second day I was there, none of the topics were in my area of research so I played tourist and went up in the mountains to visit a farm.

Not only was this house pink on the outside, the inside was exactly the same color. The girls think we should move there. 

Can you see the vanilla vine in the background? It was so exciting to be that close to such a lucrative crop especially after reading Vanilla: Travels in Search of the Ice Cream Orchid. 

Here I am making sugar cane juice on a large scale and roasting chocolate beans on a smaller scale.

Home Repairs

I tried to capture our front room at it's worse to make the final pictures look better. Sadly I didn't think of taking the "before" picture until after Alice and I had taken the old wallpaper off the wall. It was surprisingly easy to peel the wallpaper off, in fact, Alice helped me tear it off in long sheets. She thought it was great fun (and so did I). It is a little suspicious that little pockets of wallpaper all over our house have mysteriously started "falling off the wall" since we started.

Ryan, very hesitantly, let me talk him into putting new wallpaper up. This was against his better judgment and extended family pressure (Craig and Emily). Maybe I've lived in too many rentals, but I've never lived in a house with a good paint job. Nor has said paint ever hid even a hint of fingerprints. 

Here is the final product complete with a Mt. Fuji valence. Oh, and you can see the new windows too. It's so nice to be able to open windows now. Only 5 out of 36 windows in our home opened before due to paint jobs gone bad (mmm, hmm) and broken pulley ropes. Although it's cold now, I'm excited for spring and throwing all the windows open wide.

The Johnson's came for a visit at Thanksgiving, and Craig was all about discovering nooks, crannies, and hidden spaces. We pretty much let him have free reign as documented by the picture below. Can you find him? He also helped Ryan and Spencer put a ventilation fan in our bathroom amidst his wanderings. It was no small task considering the size of the attic access and we are grateful for the help.