Mike & Jill's visit

My friend Mike (from Duke) and his wife, Jill, and their 2 kids (Kate is Reese's age and Alex is 18 months) came to visit last weekend and we had a great time.  Luckily it was a beautiful weekend so we got to spend some time at the park in addition to watching the ACC tournament and another fun afternoon at Exploration Works here in Helena.  The kids had a lot of fun playing with each other and Reese has been talking about visiting Kate in Texas ever since.

 Reese checking herself out in the funny mirrors at Exploration Works

 Mike getting his upper body workout in

 Kate and Reese showing us their tongues

 The engineer showing the kids how it's really done

 It's always more fun to slide in a bumblebee costume

rough flight

After 8 years of flying virtually every week, I finally got a bit of scare on my 2nd flight of the day today.  At about 18000 feet, there was a brief pop and the oxygen masks came down.  At first, we all looked at each other like "What are we supposed to do now?"  The flight attendants honestly weren't even paying attention and didn't realize it had happened.  I thought maybe it was just the first class cabin where I was sitting (upgrades are so nice sometimes) but when I turned around I saw the entire plane's masks had come down. For about a minute before they told us anything it was a bit scary, just not knowing.  Then the pilot came on and said they missed an indicator in the cockpit that told them something was wrong with the heating and pressurization system and because they missed the blinking light, they weren't able to descend quickly enough to prevent the masks from coming down.  So they descended quickly when they realized the issue, the masks came down and we got to put them on for the next 20 minutes while we turned around and headed back to MSP (where we came from, I was on my way to LGA).  People were actually pretty calm, most put on their masks and went back to working, reading or sleeping.  Kinda funny.  When we got there, because they had declared an emergency landing, we were stopped on the tarmac and surrounded by fire trucks and police cars.  Fun times.  Turns out by policy they have to do their "drill" anytime an emergency is called, so they circled us, apparently checked out the plane from the outside and then went on their way and we drove to the gate as usual.

The masks are more annoying than they look.  It was a bit suffocating despite the oxygen flowing (the bags really don't inflate like they tell you :) I certainly felt for the family that was a few rows behind me with a toddler.  I kept imaging having to keep that mask on Reese or Asher (impossible no doubt). They were also unable to control the cabin temperature so it was HOT.    Anyway, all is fine, we returned to MSP and they got us a new plane and took us on to LGA a few hours late with nothing but a bit of turbulence on that flight.  I took some pictures to commemorate the occasion.  Here's to hoping it never happens again.

We have color! (house update, finally)

Drywall is done and CK has been busy painting.  After MUCH negotiating on paint colors (CK tends to pick from the top of the color gradient and I usually tend toward the bottom so it was a whole lot of fun) here's the result:

dining room 

 Playroom 

 Master (it's tough to see in the picture but it's a very light green)

 Asher's room (same as playroom)

 main color in the halls, great room, mudroom and laundry room (somewhere between grey and beige)

 looking up at the loft from the great room

 standing at the windows in the great room looking back at the dining room and soon to be kitchen

 Reese showing off her purple room which she loves.  When I asked her how she felt about the dining room color, she told me she didn't like it and that I needed to paint it pink or purple.

 Reese admiring my new teal office

 Asher just liked playing with the front door

 Guest room (a light blue, very calming so start planning your visit).  This room also has the best views in the house and will eventually have a private deck.

 another look at my office

Nana's visit

These pictures are a few weeks old but Nana came to visit in February and we had a great time.  She was only here for the weekend (from Arizona) but we managed to keep her pretty busy.

Reese showing off her funny faces

 Nana, Asher, Reese, Daddy playing a mean game of memory on the iPad

 Asher practicing for his Duke scholarship

 Nana brought Reese a fairy costume that she hasn't taken off since

 We took a trip to Exploration Works in Helena, a fun science-themed place for kids.  I was worried it might be a bit too old for Reese and Asher but they had a lot of things that were great for pre-school age.

 CK's demonstration