Willie
and Teddy's Excellent Adventure
Well, you already know it's vacation time, and you already know our basic aim has been to stay in our pajamas as much as humanly possible and play with Legos most of each day. So far, we've been pretty successful. We've also made up several new games, some of which involve stunt-flying our vehicles made of K'nex, and some of which involve one of us climbing on top of the other and getting dragged down the hallway.
One day, it snowed enough to make snowballs and get completely soaked and cold and then get bored and done with that and warm up by the fireplace -- not enough to shut us in (would we have noticed?) and of course it didn't stop school or anything useful like that, since it was VACATION already! But one fun thing did happen -- Teddy had put on extra layers of everything, to be ready for the snow, and he slid down the stairs at record speed because he was wearing slippery plastic pants!! Mommy thought he had FALLEN all the way down the stairs, but when she got there he was laughing hysterically and almost ready to do it again.
We've been watching more Star Trek episodes. Mommy falls asleep in lots of them and misses all the good parts and then says they were boring. Mommy maybe if you stayed awake you wouldn't say that! Tonight's episode had Joan Collins in it -- it said so at the end -- and Mommy and Papa were like, wow, Joan Collins!! And to that we say: so what's the big deal? (That's similar to what we say when we read a lot of comics from, like, the 80s or something, and we don't know why it's funny. We have just discovered Bloom County and it's really really funny. But we only have one of the books, so we kind of squabble over it a little bit. Mommy doesn't really understand why we squabble, since it seems to her that we've already memorized all the parts.)
You may not have known that Teddy's half-birthday is December 25, and this year, it was practically a national holiday. We had a half-cake, actually it was more like 2/3 of a cake, but it'll make sense when you see the pictures, and we sang "happy half birthday". Teddy says he got very little respect that day, but other than that it was fun.
Teddy made up a three-letter acronym (TLA) called "TPC" which I think he meant to be "tender parent care" but which we had a lot of fun making up other names for, most of which I can't repeat here.
Cynthia is home from New York for a few days and stopped by to see us! And our tantes came by to see us as well, and bring fun things.
We have been staying up soooo late -- I wonder if it's kind of a training period for new year's eve? We want to drink wine and stay up late on new year's eve, isn't that our right as Americans?
Happy new year everyone!
It may look like we were playing piano together, and we were, sort of. We both kind of played independent stuff, together. Mostly it was noise, but it was fun til it wasn't anymore.
When we said 2/3 of a cake, we meant 2/3 of a tri color mousse cake. No white chocolate, but yes dark chocolate marquisse and milk chocolate whipped cream mousse. Also yes to the squirt frosting for the island for holding the umbrella, and darkening me tongue.
Me want cake!
Then Willie tried to send me to Alaska, during the winter, in my pajamas.
Willie got as far as closing the box and affixing the proper postage.
While he was going for tape, I busted out.
That's okay. I want to go to Alaska. In I go. Seal it Teddy.
Sealed it is. Bye bye Willie!
Clubby likes to read Bloom County too. We especially like the parts where Cutter John and Opus and Milo and Bill the cat play Star Trek. Also the part about the Hairy Fishnuts is funny.
I laughed, says Clubby.
Now for some activity. WRESTLE! Hey, look, there on the chair--it's mommy's new shower curtain, in a sneak preview.
Speaking of sneak previews, what the heck is that sink doing in there--it's not supposed to be in for another week. Get it out of there. Oh, papa was just trying to see what he needed to tile, and what he didn't. Sure.
And here is what he needed to tile. And tile, and tile. Until...
Here it is folks, THE LAST TILE!! Under the toe kick and out of sight.
Whew, free at last. Well, not quite, but no more tiling.
Grouting and caulking are done. Just sealing and the sink.
Oh ya, and the trim and doors for the cabinet. A guys work is never done.
Yes, I know, and the medicine cabinet. And paint.
And handles. I didn't forget the handles. Well, I did, but I'm sure Wendy wouldn't let me forget the handles.
What? There can't possibly be something else I forgot that is showing (or not) in this picture. Is there?
Drum roll....SHOWER CURTAIN! We turned on the shower for the first time today, and tomorrow (monday, 12/31/07) we'll take showers in the thing! I better go turn on the floor! Hey! Where are all the coke cans?
Copyright © 1997-2007 The Berman Brothers--Willie and Teddy. All rights reserved.
Hey, click the pears picture above to check out our friend Leslie's Watercolors, and BUY THEM!!!
Away with you, camera guy. I'm up to top secret monkey business. Hmmm, he doesn't believe me. Fine. Here's what I'm up to. Ready? Prepare to be amazed!
I've been pressing the equal button on the calculator for the past, well, a long time and I started with 9+9 and I've pressing the equal sign and so the number goes up by nine. Papa showed me how to figure out how many times I pressed the equal sign on this piece of paper with what he called 'long division' but he asked me all the questions of things like 'how many times does nine go into 10' and 'what is 10 minus 9' and before you know it, he told be I had pressed that equal sign 11,225 times. I had to alternate fingers because my fingers would start to hurt after awhile. Darn my parents and their weak hands and stuff.
Get used to this--Willie--pajamas--legos--next two weeks. The end.
Oh ya, Teddy--pajamas--legos--next two weeks. Also the end.
We had a party for Baby Miller, who still inside my teacher, Mrs. Miller. We got to give Baby Miller a favorite book and some of us gave Baby Miller other stuff too--I gave Baby Miller one of those great polar fleece blankets with the satin edge. I hope he likes it.
Bathroom lights! Now maybe Papa can see his way to finishing the counter top already.
The shower is now, officially, completely, 100% finished. The safety bars are in. The caulk is dry. The shower head is on. Papa accidentally bumped the faucet handle when he was installing the grab bar, and he got soaked.
The faucets are in.
The curb is on, and cemented down, and caulked. Tomorrow morning, the shower curtain goes up and the water is getting turned on. FINALLY!
LATKES!!!! We got to have them three times, and Sty Fries once. Sty Fries are when papa makes latke batter and deep fries them in puffy oval shapes. He says they're like potato fritters but we just call them sty fries.
One of the problems with Chanukah is that it is long enough that you get used to doing it every night, and then you just want it to go on and on and on.
And on and on and on and on...
And never end. Did we mention go on and on? 
Okay, they get the point. Lots of candles. On and on. Now get to the important part!
More presents! If you haven't gotten your thank you notes yet, they're on the way, maybe.
Like my new hat? I wish I had a 3 foot high pointy head so I could fill it up right.
Hey, my new balaclava is defective! Send it back.
More like send my brother back. Hee hee. [I heard you, you little rascal]
One of the nights the parental units gave us this bin FULL of lego parts. All kinds of random stuff. So far we've pulled 150 lego guys out of it, and all kinds of cool specialized parts.
This is the lego battle crusier and crew. It is commanded by a captain, who is a droid! You can kind of see him up high on the right with the blue captain hat.
This is a Wetu (wee-too) which is a kind of winter house for the Wampanoag people, where they can tell stories and stuff in the winter to entertain themselves and keep warm. We (teddy's class) just learned all about the Wampanoags this past fall, and even had a visit in our class from Squanto.
Here you see the Wampanoag grandfather (with his hand raised) telling a story to his family around the fire.
Do you like my pencil thin mustache? I wanted to keep it but that papa guy wiped it off during tooth brushing. Bad papa, no donut.
More of those specialized parts we were talking about. They really have kept us busy for the better part of the past four days, with no end in sight.
BEHOLD! A pot to _ _ _ _ in!
And a shower to shower in? Sorry about the contrast, or lack thereof. It's all that white tile and white grout. The sealer went on today so that means in 72 hours it's SHOWER TIME! Whoops, no--the floor hasn't been sealed yet so 72 hours from tomorrow, or whenever it gets sealed, oy, I give up.
Here's the detail of the shower curb where it meets the wall and transitions to the floor and stuff. 
Theoretically when the window is completely obscured the bathroom better be done because there won't be any more room for coke cans. The last of the lights went in today so that means we're ready for the electrical inspection. Now if papa would ever finish cleaning those little tiles, we could do the plumbing inspection and be done with this project already!