We've been a little snuggly lately, part II

Just because we need to make dinner does not excuse anyone from snuggle time.



"You want me?! You'll have to come in here and get me."

We've been a little snuggly lately.

M has been learning all kinds of new ways to get what she wants. First it was the "oh, look at me hug my baby sweetly." Then came the "oh, let me snuggle against you and totally disarm you until I can find something within reach to throw". Exhibit A:
You might not be able to tell, but secretly she is planning my undoing right there.

Then came the final blow of "you don't like what I am doing?! Let me kiss you! In fact, let me kiss the dog, and my baby, then you again...". Folks, we are in for some rough, although be it very cute roads.

Dinneyland!

I have been instructed to update the blog more. Understood.
This last weekend was the long awaited trip to Disneyland. Handygram arranged a trip down to Anaheim to meet Alex and Gloria and for the adults of the house to go to disneyland! It seems a little wrong not to have taken little miss sassypants (aka Miss M) to disneyland, but we had all kinds of justifications (available upon request).

On Friday we drove down, stopping often for Miss M to run off some steam. We arranged to meet some friends from LA for dinner and had some great chinese food. We did stop along the way to pick up some late morning pea soup, and to take a picture.














On Sat morning, M went off with Handygram while the cousins, BZ, and I went into the park.
We had a great day, the lines were short and the weather was nice. Oh. Well except for the ash raining from the sky most of the day. The fires in SoCal provided a great cloud cover which kept the day from getting too hot, but also covered us in ash a couple times and made us all water-eyed.
It totally didn't keep us from riding all the good rides about a million times.
Our only difficulty was deciding the seating order on Splash mountain. Here is a diagram to illustrate the importance of seat placement in relation to how much you want to look like you peed your pants. (click to enlarge)

Now. Let's just say we went on this ride enough that there were some "discussions" and we all took turns being in the front. Let's also say that we tried some different poses for the pictures. This was the final ride of the day, we call this pose "bear":

Let me point out a few key things:
Again, let's also say that this was one of the less ridiculous poses we tried. The others were not exactly fit to print.....
Besides Splash Mountain, we also went on everything else....including the tea cups. We made the mistake of making it a competition, where the winning cup got a churro. The Busch girls prepared themselves:















And in the heat of the competition, Mr. Zimny gave himself this:

So he was awarded the churro.
















At this time I would like to use this space to now show off the photogenic nature of the Busch family.











All in all, it was a great trip with great family! It makes us look forward to the holidays!

Speaking of Out of Control.......

Um.
So "they" never mentioned the fact
that when your dough finally starts to go sour,
there is a lot more gas produced...... a lot.
Go figure.
At least now we'll have sour dough bread at the apocalypse.

She got my hair part II (an update)

So... I'm not sure what is funnier. The flock of seagulls hairdo, or the vest that is right out of the 80's.
Maybe it's the hairdo and the vest is like the icing?
Yeah- something like that, but it has only progressed a little from last time.
Either way, it's been confirmed - she got my hair.
She was good enough to pose for the side view, where the curly crazy back yet oddly straight front is clearly visible:
Oy. She looks so pleased. I'm not sure this bodes well for us.

The best weeks ever, part II.

Oh yeah. So there was something else that happened last week too.

I turned in this:

Pssst.... it's my dissertation.
You know, that 150 page THING.
The last THING that was standing between me and my Ph.D.
Yeah, that.
It's a pretty boring read unless you are into structural dynamics of metal centered species. With my data analysis skillz, I've come up with a summary for you:

Although that graph was not included in the actual paper, I think it sums up things pretty well.
It is also directly related to this graph:

All in all it comes down to a simple exchange. I traded these three signatures:

for this one:

I don't mean to get all mathematical with proportions and junk, but when you think about it, what does it say about those three people?!
They spent years in their education, then more years doing research, getting grants, trying to save the world and whatever, and all three of their signatures combined are only worth one signature by a counselor.
A woman in an office with a little rubber finger-y thing who makes sure all my pages are numbered.
Don't get me wrong. She is a great woman.
A woman who rang a bell and announced to the entire (non interested) office that I was officially Dr. Porter and then shook my hand.
But still. It's three scientist to one her.
I think that's odd, yet totally makes sense in a way.
Maybe that is what my next paper will be about.....

Not even sure what to post first.

Ok. So it's been a couple weeks. A LOT HAS HAPPENED IN THOSE COUPLE OF WEEKS.

I'll start with the most amazing....

This was 2 weeks ago.....


And now this week:



We are a little ecstatic about the new developments, especially because they come with all kinds of fun new things. Like skinned knees, playing chasing games, the ability to wear dresses, and the realization that if you carry the ball, the dogs will come. It's been a good couple weeks.

Here is Miss M and her daddy: