A Day with the ducks (and geese and swans)

Christmas Day at the Knights.....

We decided to do a family picture of those of us that were there. Even Beebs was smiling in this one, or maybe she's just thinking "Ah, yes, I shall burn out the camera lens with my killer stare"...:-)
We went to bro Milo and Barb's for our annual Christmas Day chili cook-off
The chili was delicious!!!
Then there was lots of catching up to do, and some laughs too. Bill looks like somebody said something funny....he has that twinkle in his eye, or maybe he just has indigestion...it's hard to tell....
Kent was playing with my camera....but they did have some killer coffee there too.
Me giving my boy a hug, no he's not a dwarf, he's just sitting down.....
Mom and Barb having an intellectual conversation.
Darren and Bill having an intellectual conversation.


Rick, thanks for joining us and taking our family pictures.....we enjoyed your company..

Caleb on Christmas Morning

Preston sent me this picture from his iphone of Caleb playing in his firetruck.....how cute, he looks like he is ready to go.....

Kenosha, Wisconsin from Preston's iphone

Preston, Amanda and family on their way to Amanda's parents, stopped by the Culver's ice cream shop............................and took a picture.....wow, lots of snow there...they had a safe trip and made it safely.

Klaatu Barada Nikto ??? A movie review and it ain't pretty

I am not difficult to please when it comes to movies, I try to find the good parts even when they are not the best productions, so it's not like I am negative about these things, however......

The Day the Earth Stood Still is one of my favorite Sci-Fi movies, filmed in 1951 and has been
a cult favorite for over 50 years. The famous phrase, quoted by millions, used by sci-fi fans far and wide "Klattu Barada Nikto"....would instantly transport one back to this wonderful and
fascinating movie, with it's robot Gort and main alien character, Klattu. In fact, my brother, Kim and I have for years put this phrase at the end of our letters, cards and emails.

So, fast forward to 2008 when, imagine my excitement, the movie was remade, with Keanu Reeves as Klattu, and Kathy Bates, as secretary of state, and a number of other well known actors were in the movie too. Gort was much the same, which made me happy, and felt
comfortable. It started out well, and I had high hopes, however, I was really disappointed
when the world was being destroyed by teeny, tiny robotic insects , Klattu decided the human
race was worth saving, and made them stop, sacrificing himself and THEN the earth stood still,
for a brief few seconds....hello?....I thought that was the TITLE??? not an afterthought.

Keanu, as Klattu, was so dead pan when he spoke, that it made me laugh. I realize he was an "alien", trying to get used to his "human" body, but, come on.....it was uncomfortable to watch.
He sounded just like he did in "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure", and he wasn't an alien there was he???, although, I guess he did meet with the "reaper"..so maybe that balances thing out.

Jennifer Connelly acted her little heart out, but had totally blood shot eyes through the entire movie, what was she smokin? Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith, was excellent as her step-son, and did a fine acting job as well.

The problem was........

The story line was way too different and should have had a different name like "Earth dies by alien bugs"...and it ended so suddenly, I was expecting some kind of closure at the end, but none came....the credits started rolling and I said "What the heck, is that it?? They could have really added about 10 more minutes and brought it to an acceptable end.

My big question is though, why was there not the famous quote by Klattu to Gort? What happened to the famous "Klaatu Barada Nikto"?...I guess Gort couldn't save the world, because he was what turned into the killing insects....have I lost you yet????

I was disappointed, even with the great special effects and one of my favorite actors, Keanu Reeves, the story line sucked and there was no ending, seriously.

The best part of the movie was the huge bag of buttered popcorn Bill and I ate and the giant sodas that came with the "combo", $11.00,,,,......yes, $11.00.....and finally, as we were leaving the
theatre, one of our friends was walking in front of us, he is a huge Sci-fi fan, and is the brother of Tony Smith, Gail Smith. Bill said, "Hey, Gail, how are ya?" at which point Gail said..."Well, that blew!!"

That about says it all...

Ramblin' Roses join the Chicadees for Christmas party

Merry Christmas from Caleb....how cute is this picture?

Annual "Girls of '67" Christmas Party

Ah, the memories.....

This super cell was slowly rotating and passed right over us, it was deadly quiet.
Super cell showing beaver tail, where the tornado would emerge

Hail from same storm, as we were driving.
Mammantus clouds, showing the cold air was punching through the warm air.

Bill and I were watching the storm chasers on a Storm Chasers -athon this weekend. We started talking about our days of storm chasing back in the early 90's. One time we were in Nebraska, where these pictures were taken, and we had taken our Directv satellite dish with us, bolted to a stable piece of wood, we would hook it up to an electric converter we had plugged in to the cigarette lighter in the car and then to a small tv set we had in the back seat. That way
we could check the radar on the weather channel and chase our storms. It was very efficient, except people would stare at us at the rest stops when we would hook it up. ( I wonder why?) We found a lot of great storms that time, with only a map and our directv. This was before most people did not have laptops with wireless access to the internet. People probably thought, we were crazy, but we didn't care. While we were on this same vacation, the final episode of "Third Rock from the Sun" was showing, it was in 3-D. We drove into a rest stop while it was storming, and put on our 3-D glasses and watched the show....what fun!
So,that's why I scanned these photos, which is why they are not very clear, and usually we were using the video camera to get the actual tornadoes. I think through our years of storm chasing we only actually saw two real tornadoes, but after all, the fun was in the chase.

Christmas shopping with Garret

First we all had Mexican food for lunch....very tasty.
Garret grabbed my camera and said "Smile, mommy"....that was just so adorable. He took this picture, with grandma's help.. At first he had the camera backwards with the lens against his mouth.....it was a little smeary until I cleaned it.

Then off we went to find the Christmas toys and some clothes. Here is Garret trying to decide if he wanted this toy....it turns out he did. If he didn't want something when I showed it to him, he would say "put it back"....lol.
We finally had our quota of toys (grandma had reached her financial quota, anyway).
You can see by his little face, it was getting close to nap time....he was so good though. Just a sweet heart, except earlier in the day before mom and I got to Decatur Shelley and Cary had tried to have the family pictures taken and Garret would not cooperate, he cried the whole time. There were a couple of pictures that were good, so at least they got them. I guess he just wasn't in the mood that day...he was good for us though. Cary wasn't feeling well, so he stayed home and missed all the fun.

So, as always the time flew by and we enjoyed our day with Shelley and Garret so much and we got home around 6:00.