Elser Family Blog

Well, we did Halloween today. (Most of SC did Halloween yesterday)

There really were not that many places with their lights on, but what they lacked in quantity of doors to knock on, they made up in amount of candy per household.. Criminy, they were giving out candy.

Saturday was the Jackolantern Jubilee party downtown ourtown. Our house is pretty much right behind the steeple to the right.

There was a costume contest.. Here are H,M, and R in the contest.

Oh, I almost forgot… H and I saw a really nice butterfly in the yard today.

H wanted to talk to mommy, so we called Switzerland around 5pm, but it was 10pm there, I think. (im pretty sure they are 0 Greenwich mean time, and I know we are +5 GMT.)

Anyway, K was asleep, because she is leaving around 4am tomorrow (11p today for you and me, are you confused yet?) So I had the honor of talking to Teri and Jeurg (sp) Anyway. During the conversation, H said “DAADD there is a spider in the living room! So I told her to catch it. Of course she was up to the task. Teri wanted to see it, so, here it is:

And, In the spirit of Halloween, here is a great coloring page generated from that image.

We went to the “park near H’s soccer field” We took the tricycle and H rode the hilly path around the playground. This picture was far away and slightly out of focus.. Sorry H. You’ve been getting the short end of the pictures lately.

While H was playing on top of the equipment, M,R and a friend were playing store underneath. Here M is selling “sandwiches and yogurt”.

Is this not the cutest 3 year old you know? 🙂 I do not take responsibility for the ensemble… M changes clothes more times a day than Hollywood star.

Perhaps this is not the best time to mention this, but my wife is traveling overseas 24 hours after the conservative religious nutcase binladen spoke to his minions. If the terrorists blindly follow their leader half as much as some conserves blindly follow Bush, I’m concerned about terrorism for the first time. For two reasons: concern for K, (Although I’d be shocked if they resorted to messing with planes again) And concern that binladen is trying to get Bush elected. If we see terrorism between now and Tuesday, the vote will surely go for Bush, Ironically exactly what binladen would want.

M and R had their Halloween parade today. It was fun. R was a pumpkin, and M was a princess.

M’s class… Too funny. EVERY LAST GIRL in the class was a princess this year. They halls were lousy with princesses from many classes.

They went for a parade, they even had the police stop traffic so everyone could cross the street and go through the administrative building… (On a side note: Boy, those Baptists sure know how to raise money.) here is R, passing the fountain.

Then they all went back to their classes. I managed to get a cute one in R’s class.. Got Milk?

M wanted to show off another project to mommy…

I tried to get H up to see the lunar eclipse tonight, going so far as carrying her outside. Jeez, she sleeps like a rock. Sorry H, you will have to wait until 2007.

But here is a unspectacular photo to commemorate the occasion. It was a 8 second exposure, and I bent the gamma a bit. It would have been better had I used a tripod..:)

Here is an update from K (Hot off the presses, It just came in a few minutes ago):

Bonjour, I miss everyone, sheiba too. Leaving my children for the week was possibly the most difficult thing I have ever done. Today we went to a small ski village , Chininoix in the French alps and then to the other side of the mountain thru a very long tunnel to a small town in Italy, Aousta. An ok day at first, eventually turned into a cold and rainy day but still had a very nice time. It was a long day, we just arrived home to teri and juergs this evening at 10:00 pm. We are all very tired, especially the baby, he is very thrown off his schedule this week, please forgive me Lars.

Love and miss everyone very much, K

We have been busy today! After H got to school, I got ready for M to go to pre-school. I found out the hard way that M did not have pre-school today.

M made a project (yesterday) that she wanted to show mommy:

After that misadventure, we went to the library for a children’s book reading. We saw R and M’s friend William there with his mom Chalice.

After lunch at home (hotdogs, mac&cheese, and yogurt) we went and picked H up from school. Here is M helping.

There is a strange sight on the way to the school. There are woods we pass that have stairs to nowhere.. There is no trail, or houses or any sign there ever was anything down the hill in the woods. I really wonder what these were for.

We are going to meet our friend Arthur SnoCap for dinner. I’m sorta’ copping out on eating… I have food at home ,but by 5pm its really easy to talk yourself into having someone else clean up after you… 🙂

Alright, so this watching the kids thing is a full time job with overtime.

Mind you, if I was independently wealthy, or had a wife that was, I’d do it in a heart beat… It’s pretty cool being with your kids all day. (review that attitude on Friday) But man.. It never ends! You can’t relax for a second. But at the same time, their your kids… I just can’t imagine someone else raising them. Especially now, that I have a couple 24’s under my belt. How on EARTH does a single parent do it? OMG. (excuse me God)

R is a chick magnet. Everyone is like, “aw such a cute little boy!” He even gets perfect strangers to act silly to try and get a smile out of him. (Its not always that easy, people must take it as a challenge)

OK, so, I have fallen back on eating out today. For the last couple days, I tried proving my “we don’t need to use every single plate in the house” theory that K was using dishes just to make them dirty so I had to clean them. (I didn’t really think that was why she was using them) But Jeez, All you do all day is feed and water the kids, and clean up after them, including dishes. THAT is going to end just as soon as they get a little older. Oh man, I gotta feed the fish. Be right back.

I’m Back. I just gave Shieba some luv too.

K, I just splurged and bought a 500Mb SD card for the camera. I gotta tell everyone about this camera. It’s pretty cool. It’s a 5.1 Mpixle Kodak. Now that I have that huge SD card, I can record 30 minutes of VHS quality .MOV’s before I have to download it off the camera, or take 200 high quality pictures. Who needs a camcorder? 😉

And with the docking station, all you do is set the camera in, hit the button, and it automatically loads all of the pictures into the computer, deletes them off of the camera, and then charges the camera for you. Cant get a whole lot easier than that.

Anyway, I have to go, I need to start a load of laundry.

Here is a status report from K:

Hi everyone, missing you terribly. It was avery long flight but no mishaps. We went to France yesterday and wandered around a bit. Today we wandered around Geneva on the buses and trains. Have a great time but really really miss everyone. H would love it here. Maybe she can come stay with aunt Teri for a summer when she’s a little older. Love you all kiss kiss kiss kiss hug hug hug. K

Maybe K can look for a job while she is there… If georgy boy wins next Tuesday, I’d be willing to bail this place and live in a hovel in Switzerland. The kids would still probably get a great education. That’s all I really care about at this moment.

[warning: parental boasting ahead]

Talking about that, I had a parent-teacher conference today with H’s teacher. H is doing great. She has advanced to doing 2nd grade work in Reading and Math in the computer lab, and the teacher says H loves to read so much, she wanted us to pursue the accelerated reading program where they focus on comprehension.

Be aware, we are not pushing H at all. All we have done is read to her every night. Now, she is starting to read to us, at her insistence. I love seeing that… It just what I hoped for. All I want us to do is keep an atmosphere where she really enjoys learning.

Learning is fun! I feel sorry for the kids that are taught to look forward to Friday, instead of Monday… It is taught, isn’t it?

I’m taking up a lot of space on the server with these .mov files, but they are so worth it.

M refuses to sing in Church, but she will sing on her own all the time. She seems to have excellent tone, from what I can tell.

Click on the picture for a quicktime movie of M singing… warning, it’s 5Mb.

Here is a message for K from H.

Click Here

The kids are just entertaining themselves right now, I sort of feel like I’m supposed to be doing something with them, but you cant be doing something with them the majority of the day… We are going to go to a park after lunch, and I think We will visit the library tomorrow afternoon.

Does anyone have any ideas for activities the rest of the week?

Yes, K, I’m locking the doors and Shieba got some chicken scraps and water yesterday and today. Everything is fine.

Well, first day, and all is OK. We even got to church on time!

The Youth Encounter Group New Dawn Played today. It was a good show. They are fresh on the trail. We wish then well over the next months!

Here is a picture of us on the way to church (Click on the picture for a little QuickTime action MOVie of us heading out the door. It’s sorta big, ~1.3Mb)

To Mommy: we miss you! Click here for a special message just for you.