Ross, Rachel, Helen, and Arthur

Arthur has been a big fan of the animals on his placemat for a while, and has managed to build up an animal sound repertoire for most of them.

We had a Merry Christmas this morning, and my parents joined us via Skype.

Helen and Arthur also performed this rendition of Feliz Navidad. Enjoy!

YouTube link

We received the following from Helen's kindergarten teacher:

We are extremely happy to inform you that your child, Helen, has been selected to receive an award for the trait of Caring. You are cordially invited to attend the Cherry Chase Awards Ceremony on Friday, December 18, 2009, at 8:25 am. We have not told your child that he/she is receiving an award and hope that we can keep it a surprise until the award ceremony. We hope that you will be able to attend this assembly to acknowledge your child’s positive presence at Cherry Chase. Your child’s behavior serves as a model for other students and helps make Cherry Chase the best school in America.

Well, how about that. Upon asking Helen, afterwards, what particular 'caring' she was given the award for, she indicated that it was because she was caring towards Arthur.

So we had a little family party on Helen's actual birthday, but then also a party with some of her friends the following week in the park. Fortunately this year, the weather cooperated with us. We probably had too much food, but everyone seemed to have a good time. For her cake this year, Helen decided that she wanted a blank cake that her friends could draw on (we have no idea where this came from, but it sounded like an awesome idea to us). So the bakery wrapped the cake in fondant to give a good writing surface, and we got some food-color pens. Sadly, the food-color pens weren't really up to the art needs of five-year-olds and so the cake ended up getting stabbed a bit, but it also got decorated—and eaten—just fine.

My Mom and Dad came out for a week that covered Halloween and Helen's fifth birthday. They had a great time playing with the kids, and vice-versa.

Halloween this year was a three-part extravaganza, and thankfully it was spread over a couple of days. Friday saw a Costume Parade and Fall Festival at Helen's school and essentially the same thing at Arthur's Day Care. Then Saturday was Jack'O'Lantern carving and Trick-or-Treating itself. Helen decided that they would be Tinker Bell and Peter Pan (fortunately costumes were not required of Mom and Dad this year).

There was a big storm here right after we got back from Puerto Rico. Helen and I were eating lunch in front of the television when I heard a crack. I looked outside just as a major branch cracked away and fell. It was at this time that much of the electrical appliances in the house blinked off. As the branch came down its tip brushed against the power line enough to cause one of the strands to pop off at the utility pole (the power cable is a braided affair), but not the others, and thankfully there wasn't a downed cable in our backyard. Since there was still a strand or two connected, we still had some power in some parts of the house, but not others. Fortunately, our fridge and our DSL router stayed up, as it took about two days for PG&E to come out and hook us back up. Here's Helen playing on her impromptu and temporary jungle-gym.

The Division for Planetary Sciences meeting was in Puerto Rico this year, and so we took advantage of the location to spend some time with Rachel's Dad at his farm in the nearby rain forest. Rachel's brother, Gus, came with us to help out with the kids while we were at the meeting.

Well, this may just turn into a tradition. This marks the second year in a row that we've hosted BratWest. Jason and Gwen really threw the first one in 2007. We had one last year, but it didn't appear to rate any photos and may have just been us and the Fortneys hanging out eating brats. This year, though, we did it right. There were about 30 or so folks that came over, brats were eaten, beer was consumed, cheesecakes (and other delectables) were eaten.

Arthur has had a rather large lump under the skin on the inside of his right elbow for some time. It was not showing any evidence of being dangerous, so there was no rush to have it removed. However, he is growing quickly and we thought it was about time to get it taken out. The following is my version of events from this morning.