Friday, November 25, 2011

Underwood Thanksgiving 2011

We have not had a Christmas Tree for what we think is 7 years. This year the night before Thanksgiving we got a tree that was pre lit, came in three parts and took 15 mintues and no mess to put up. All we had to do is the fun part of putting on the deocrations. Great invention!
On Thanksgiving morning we all crawled out of bed and did the Turkey Trot (3rd year). This year we all participated. Hunter was the big winner in 4th place for his age group for the 2 mile with 16:30. Dave and Blake tied both getting 5th place in their age group. Dave did the 2 mile in 14:56 and Blake did the 5 mile is 46:00. Amy didn't place but did finish the 2 mile in 26 min. Good place to start. Next year will surely be better.
After the run we came home and had a big feast with the Underwoods. We ordered a turkey, greenbean casserole and green salad from the club. The best part was the home made cranberry sauce that came with the turkey. The green beans were also fresh and the chef made a perfect turkey. Good tradition to start there. The other Underwoods brought mashed potatoes, corn (also fresh), dressing, noodles, fresh fruit, deviled eggs, homemade oatmeal rolls and for dessert homemade pumpkin and peach pie with Missouri peaches. It was quite a feast!!
There were many after dinner activities ranging from napping in the fireplace room and skimming Black Friday advertisements in front of the tree, watching football and finishing the keg in the theater room in the basement, sitting in the hot tub, playing Madden 12 on the Wii, air hockey, nerf gun battle outside (it was 65 degrees) and playing Risk on the new game table in the game room. Something for everyone.
Everyone went home happy and we drifted off into bed watching TV, until Hunter crept into our room with his silver box of money at 4 am begging to go to the mall. Somehow mom, Blake and Hunter drug our sore and over fed bodies out of bed and went to the mall.
Hunter and Blake have spent the last three months working odd jobs, getting good grades for dollars and saving everything they could scrape up to buy an ipad2. They even sold Halloween candy on the bus and tickets they earned at school for good behavior. Finally, they had reached their goal with their early Christmas presents from their grandma and aunts. So we made our way to the Apple store.
The line was at least 100 people long when we got there. We were told we could take a number and "hang out" while we waited our turn. Screw that. Walmart matches any price. We quickly made our way to the mall door. Walmart had been cleared out long before as the shoppers had all moved on to Kohl's and Scheels. We were able to pick up new ipad2 from Phil who did not try to sell us a bunch of stuff with it or ask us to hang out. We were home in about 20 minutes with our new ipad2.
It was a good Thanksgiving!

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

just like my dad

photo by Adam 'n Kim

Landon skypes now, too.
He showed us a lot of his toys the other day.


Sunday, November 6, 2011

Sarasota Chalk Festival

Hi everyone,
This is a little postcard from Sarasota.

Today we perused the chalk paintings on the street between Orange and Pineapple Streets.
 The Chalk Festival has been going on for a week and will finish tomorrow.
Artists from all over the globe participate in this strange and funky venue
 that resembles mural art, cartooning, and mastering the Masters.

They've been working on their paintings in the hot sun for six days.
We're so happy that it hasn't rained on their parade of paintings!

We stopped to photograph this artist at work on something that might please Adam and Hunter...who is this character? Allen says "Anima"? Japanese cartooning...


You can tell the huge scale of these images by the chalk tray nearby.

These artists do get DOWN & DIRTY...
note the grubby pants and knee pads.

And check this out, Blake!!!
A 3-dimensional Lego scene...huge
 (those guys in the grubby clothes
are the ones who chalked this panorama.)
Look at the crowd to see how big the picture is...
I couldn't get it all in my camera viewer.
 It was a full lane plus a parking lane wide (right up to the curb)
 and twice that measurement in height.

Awesome dimensionality!

And here are some sorta-like lions for Landon.
Their tongues aren't hanging out...:)
Looks like they might grow up to be cheetahs.

One section of the Festival showed artists
who chalked up the work of the Masters...Vermeers, Michelangelos, Van Dykes, etc.
Here's a sampling:

Lady With an Ermine...


...copied from the original by Leonardo da Vinci.


Bacchus by Carravagio.

A mix of Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, Munch's The Scream, and a  Self Portrait of Van Gogh...
in the middle of the scene, a manhole cover :)

I would have loved to have seen Lee Jones' street reproduction
of Vermeer's Girl With the Pearl Earring
but I enjoyed his album of street paintings he left out for us to look at.

Oops! It's raining here in Venice.
I wonder if it's raining on the chalkwork in Sarasota
only 20 miles away...


Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Dancin' Landon

A couple fun videos of Landon Dancing this past summer. Just getting them up on the web now. Landon really loses himself in the music and gets into it.


Thanksgiving Guests At Our Table