The Big Four Oh

Mike celebrated a "big" birthday this year: 4-0. Our spring had been incredibly busy with early mornings, late nights, and some travel, so the birthday boy decided he just wanted a low key weekend at home. As a special treat, he asked for a new (to us) lemon dessert. Anders and I delivered with a lemon custard pie.

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In honor of the landmark birthday, Aunt Anita and Uncle Lewie sent a stack of Washington State lottery tickets - quite a feat considering that they live in New Jersey. Anders joined in on the scratch action.

Unfortunately, the tickets only yielded a $5 payout. We were hoping for more of a return from those tickets, which we could then put toward the big birthday gift: a new TV and home theater receiver. We hadn't yet upgraded to the flat panel scene, and the receiver was Mike's original that he bought in 1995(?) at the MIT Coop Bookstore. Are we really that old? Well, according to this birthday, we are.

Happy Birthday, Mike!

- Corinne and Anders

Jumping in Mud Puddles

Today was a beautiful day, and seemed even more so because it came right after several weeks of nonstop rain and snow. In the late afternoon, we decided to take a walk to enjoy the last bit of the day's sunshine.

Sometimes on these walks, Anders will walk between us and hold our hands. He then wants us to "jump" him, which is basically lifting him into the air by his hands as he jumps. We did this several times on this walk. But as we were "jumping" him over a big mud puddle, his right mitten - through which I was holding on to his right hand - slipped off. So instead of jumping over the puddle, he landed right in the middle.

Since he was already dirty at that point, he had fun jumping, running, and walking through the puddles for the next 15 minutes.

Thank goodness for bright lighting that enabled high enough shutter speeds to freeze the action! These remind me a bit of Doc Edgerton's famous stop motion photography. Of course, he was doing it 60 years ago and a lot more scientifically than we did.

At the end of it all, Anders just stopped and said simply: "Now we need to get me some dry pants." Indeed.

- Mike, Corinne and Anders